Trump claims US-Taliban talks are back on but it is unclear if key disputes have been settled
Donald Trump says talks with the Taliban are back on but it is unclear if the disputes that hobbled the last attempt to reach a peace deal – cancelled by a presidential tweet in September – have been resolved.
The insurgent group responded to Trump by telling Agence France-Presse it was “way too early” to discuss resuming direct talks.
Continue reading...Donald Trump made an unannounced visit to US troops in Afghanistan on Thursday, his first visit to the country where the US has been at war since late 2001.
Related: Fired navy secretary blasts Trump over 'shocking' handling of Navy seal case
Continue reading...Organ nearly 45cm-long was cut from 56-year-old suffering from autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease
Indian surgeons have cut a kidney weighing the same as a bowling ball out of a man with a life-threatening genetic condition, a surgeon has said.
The 7.4kg kidney is one of the biggest ever removed in an operation.
Continue reading...Judges give state governments six weeks to explain why they should not be held accountable for pollution failures
The Indian supreme court has declared that state governments will have to pay their citizens compensation if they fail to provide clean air and water.
The judges, who have been vocal in their condemnation of state governments who have repeatedly failed to address the issue, said people had the constitutional right to live free of pollution.
Continue reading...Human rights defenders alleged that teachers and social workers were involved in abuse of more than 500 boys
Two people have been detained by Afghanistan’s intelligence services after they exposed a paedophile ring operating in some of the country’s schools.
Human rights organisations and the former president Hamid Karzai have called for the immediate release of Mohammed Mussa and Ehsanullah Hamidi, both well-known human rights defenders from Logar province, who were picked up by the National Directorate of Security last week when they were on their way to meet with the EU ambassador in Kabul.
Continue reading...For 40 years, stories about India’s most mysterious and reclusive royal family persisted among foreign correspondents in New Delhi. Few were granted an audience with them or were able to report on the tragic downfall of a dynasty said to have ruled a kingdom of five provinces in northern India until 1856.
The widowed Begum Wilayat and her children, Princess Sakina and Prince Ali Raza, also known as Cyrus, claimed to be the heirs of the Nawab of Oudh, descendants of Persian nobility. They reportedly regarded the Mughals, India’s imperial rulers from the 16th to the 19th century, as “common as dirt” and considered “ordinariness not just a crime [but] a sin!”.
Continue reading...Feroz Khan in hiding after nationalist group protested he ‘cannot teach us our religion’
A Muslim scholar of Sanskrit has gone into hiding after protests from some rightwing Hindu students claiming that, as a Muslim, he cannot teach Sanskrit, the ancient classical language of Hinduism.
Feroz Khan, 29, was the unanimous choice of a selection committee at Banaras Hindu University in Varanasi for the post of assistant professor of Sanskrit literature. The committee members were impressed with his erudition, which stems from a childhood passion for the language that continued into further education.
Continue reading...Burmese leader will lead delegation to international court of justice next month
Aung San Suu Kyi will travel to The Hague to defend Myanmar against allegations of genocide, her office has announced.
The Burmese leader, once an icon of democracy but now tainted by her association with what UN investigators have described as crimes against humanity, will lead a delegation to the international court of justice (ICJ) next month.
Continue reading...A team of volunteer paralegals are fighting to stop Indians without proof of citizenship being sent to detention camps
When she was one, Suro Devi was rescued by a sewer cleaner from a rubbish dump in Assam, northeast India. When the state of Assam started a massive exercise to register its citizens in 2015, Suro Devi did not have a birth certificate, information about her parents, a voter list with her name on it, or anything to prove that she had lived in Assam before 25 March 1971. She seemed destined to be left off the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and become stateless, and perhaps spend the rest of her days in a detention camp.
But Zamser Ali, a citizenship rights activist based in Assam’s capital, Guwahati, heard about Devi’s case. He knew that documents were not the only thing that could prove your origins. He managed to track down five eyewitnesses to her rescue from the dump. And in August, when the draft NRC was published, Devi’s name appeared on it.
Continue reading...Even the prime minister has chopped the vegetable out of her official menu after monsoon caused Indian crop failure
Bangladesh has been forced to import planeloads of onions as the price of the cooking staple soared to record highs, an official said, with even the prime minister chopping the bulb from her menu.
The price of onions – a sensitive subject in south Asia where shortages can trigger widespread discontent with political ramifications – has climbed to eye-watering levels in Bangladesh since neighbouring India banned exports in late September after heavy monsoon rains reduced the crop.
Continue reading...Alleged evidence implicates UK troops in murder of children in Afghanistan and Iraq
The UK government and the British army have been accused of covering up the killing of children in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Leaked documents allegedly contain evidence implicating troops in killing children and the torture of civilians.
Continue reading...Former defence minister Gotabaya Rajapaksa claims victory in tightly fought contest
Sri Lanka’s former wartime defence minister Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who is part of the country’s most powerful political dynasty, has been elected president, raising fears about the future of human rights and religious harmony in the region.
On Sunday, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the candidate for the SLPP, the Sinhalese-Buddhist nationalist party, claimed an easy victory in the presidential election held Saturday, which had been fought against the backdrop of some of the worst political instability and violence the country has seen since the end of the civil war a decade ago.
Continue reading...Separated from her family after an attempt to flee failed, Tahira is among a growing number of women left struggling and vulnerable in a country where lone mothers are harshly judged
On a bitterly cold day, Tahira* sits in her rented room in Kabul. She has a husband and three young children, but the last time the family were all together was in 2018 – the day they tried to escape Afghanistan.
Insecurity in their town in Maidan Wardak province led Tahira, 27, to try to flee to Turkey, via Iran, with her family. But when the time came, only her husband, son and seven-year-old daughter made it.
Continue reading...Social workers claim teachers and local officials are implicated, and believe thousands more children may have been targeted
A paedophile ring involved in the abuse of at least 546 boys from six schools has been discovered in Afghanistan’s Logar province.
Some of the victims of the abuse have since been murdered according to the campaigners who first discovered videos of abuse posted to a Facebook page.
Continue reading...Europe is in talks with Myanmar to increase seafood imports. It cannot ignore the widespread slavery within the industry
While forced labour and slavery in the fishing industry in Thailand and other parts of the world have been brought to light in recent years, the fishing industry in Myanmar has received less attention.
This is because fish caught there is mostly sold to local markets, but this may be about to change. Myanmar’s seafood businesses are increasingly seeking export markets, including the EU. And unless the EU responds to the clear evidence of widespread slavery and brutal conditions in Myanmar’s fishing industry, Europe could face another slavery scandal.
Continue reading...Afghan president Ghani hopes move will help secure release of American and Australian
Afghanistan’s president says he has ordered the release of three Taliban fighters in an effort to persuade the insurgent group to free a kidnapped American and Australian professor.
Timothy Weekes, an English teacher from Wagga Wagga in New South Wales, and Kevin King, from Pennsylvania, were abducted three years ago from outside American University of Afghanistan in Kabul by fighters in military uniform.
Continue reading...India’s supreme court has ruled that a Hindu temple can be built on the country’s most hotly contested religious site, ending a legal dispute that has run for decades between Hindus and Muslims.
The restoration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya was a key pledge of Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) government. The ruling, which came just six months after his landslide election win, is another huge victory for India’s prime minister
Continue reading...Supreme court says site where mosque was torn down in 1992 should become Hindu temple
The Indian supreme court has ruled that India’s most hotly contested piece of religious land rightfully belongs to Hindus, and has granted permission for a temple to be built on the site in Ayodhya.
The five supreme court judges based their unanimous and historic judgment on Hindus’ claim that the site is the birthplace of the god Ram.
Continue reading...Supreme court due to decide fate of Ayodhya, where mosque was torn down by Hindu hardliners in 1992
India’s supreme court is expected to make a historic ruling on Saturday over the highly disputed religious site of Ayodhya, which is claimed by Hindus and Muslims.
The site has been one of the country’s most controversial religious grounds since the Babri mosque, which had been standing since the 16th century, was reduced to rubble by Hindu fundamentalists during a 1992 riot in which more than 2,000 people died.
Continue reading...British Indian Aatish Taseer believes move is intended as a warning to other writers
A British Indian author and journalist has been stripped of his Indian citizenship after he wrote an article criticising the regime of the country’s prime minister, Narendra Modi.
Aatish Taseer, who was born in the UK but raised in India and spent a further decade living there from the age of 25, was stripped of his overseas citizenship of India (OCI) status on Thursday.
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