The death toll in Nepal from flash floods and landslides in the past three days rose to 47 on Sunday, with dozens more injured or missing. Incessant monsoon rains have pounded many areas in the mountainous country, submerging large portions of land, inundating homes, and destroying bridges and roads across the country
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Should we build cities from scratch?
With another 2.5 billion urban dwellers predicted within the next 30 years, should we expand existing cities? Or is there a case for starting afresh?
People have been building new cities from scratch for millennia. From the foundation myths surrounding Athens and Rome, to the clearance of virgin forests in western New York state to create the “garden city” of Buffalo, to scores of purpose-built capitals – Brasília, Canberra, Astana, Washington DC – building new cities is just something that humans do.
When countries rise up, when markets emerge, people build new cities. Today, though, we are taking it to unheard-of levels. We have never before built so many new cities in so many places at such great expense as we are right now.
Continue reading...India’s ‘dosa king’ to begin life sentence for murder of love rival
Restaurant tycoon P Rajagopal turns himself in after losing last-ditch attempt to avoid jail
The trailblazing Indian founder of a global restaurant chain has surrendered to a court after losing a last-ditch attempt to avoid a life sentence for murdering a love rival.
P Rajagopal rose from rags to riches to create the Saravana Bhavan chain, which has more than 80 restaurants in India and around the world, including London, New York, Singapore, Sydney and Stockholm.
Continue reading...Nepal jails Canadian former UN official for sexually abusing boys
Aid worker Peter Dalglish, 62, sentenced for abusing two boys, aged 12 and 14
A former United Nations official has been jailed for sexually abusing children in Nepal after a trial that underscored the country’s growing appeal for foreign paedophiles.
Peter John Dalglish, 62, a high-profile humanitarian worker from Canada, was sentenced on Monday to two separate terms of nine years and seven years after being convicted last month.
Continue reading...Social stock exchange idea highlights India’s move away from foreign aid
Proposal could provide cheaper funding for charities, says finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, but critics warn against greater government control of welfare projects
India’s finance minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, has called for the creation of a “social stock exchange”, allowing ethically minded investors to buy stakes in social enterprises, volunteer groups and welfare organisations.
The proposal would be a radical experiment in a country characterised by stark inequality and rapid economic growth.
Continue reading...British Museum to return Buddhist heads looted in Afghan war
Stolen artefacts likely removed by Taliban will go on display before being sent to Kabul
Fourth-century Buddhist terracotta heads probably hacked off by the Taliban and found stuffed in poorly made wooden crates at Heathrow are to be returned to Afghanistan where they will be star museum exhibits.
The British Museum gave details on Monday of one of the most significant repatriation cases it has dealt with relating to the illegal looting of artefacts from Afghanistan and Iraq.
Continue reading...‘Inspired by Central Park’: the new city for a million outside Karachi
Bahria Town promises Pakistan’s middle classes respite from traffic, terror attacks and blackouts – local villagers are fighting to be heard by developers
Fronted by a dramatic gated arch, its roads fringed with neatly trimmed hedges, palm trees and lush grass, Bahria Town bears little resemblance to the urban chaos of nearby Karachi.
The economic heart of Pakistan is an overcrowded and often violent megacity with an official population of 15 million (closer to 20 million if the urban sprawl beyond the city perimeter is included). Infrastructure has not kept pace with its rapid expansion, and basic amenities such as water have become a commodity for criminal gangs. The city is also an organisational centre for the Pakistani Taliban, who attacked the airport in 2014.
Continue reading...‘It’s ripped families apart’: the border wall no one is talking about
Construction of a fence along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, one of the world’s most dangerous crossings, is splintering families while failing to halt the flow of smugglers and terrorists
Keramat used to visit her sons all the time, crossing the border between her home in Afghanistan’s Kunar province into Pakistan, where they live and work.
But a fence built to mark a border between the two countries, which has not been recognised by the Afghan government, has made the 55-year-old’s journey much longer, and more bureaucratic.
Continue reading...Real sole: recycling project providing shoes for India’s children
Two Mumbai athletes are converting old footwear into flip-flops for unshod schoolchildren
In the vast Indian interior, it is not unusual to see shoeless infants – whether walking barefoot to school or hopping around on makeshift sports pitches. Injuries are common and lead to infections such as hookworm and elephantiasis.
More than 250 million Indians live below the poverty line and footwear is usually a luxury. Tens of millions of children have no shoes. (By contrast, roughly 300m pairs of shoes are discarded in the US every year).
Continue reading...Canada: trial of Taliban hostage accused of abusing wife resumes after delay
- Joshua Boyle faces 19 charges including sexual assault
- Boyle and wife Caitlan Coleman spent five years in captivity
The trial of Joshua Boyle, the former hostage of a Taliban-linked group in Afghanistan who was accused of violence against his wife, has resumed after the court ruled it would hear testimony about the couple’s sexual history.
Boyle was arrested at the couple’s former Ottawa apartment on New Year’s Eve 2017, just two months after he and Caitlan Coleman were released from five years of Taliban captivity.
Continue reading...‘People think we’re from another planet’: meet Karachi’s female cyclists
Teams of women and girls are among numerous cycle groups increasingly to be seen on the streets of the frenetic Pakistan megacity
Early on Sunday morning in Karachi, a group of girls are riding loops around an empty stretch of road outside the colonial-era Custom House. At 6am they left the narrow alleys of the old neighbourhood of Lyari, branded a war zone by national and international media after a lengthy and brutal gang conflict. Two hours later they are still happily pedalling away, in ballet slippers and with headscarves tucked under helmets.
“I used to cycle alone,” says Gullu Badar, 15. “It’s nice to cycle here because there’s no danger, no cars. It feels good that there are other girls cycling with me too.”
Continue reading...Bangladeshi migrants in Tunisia forced to return home, aid groups claim
Relatives say more than 30 people stuck at sea told to go home or lose food and water
More than 30 migrants from Bangladesh who were trapped on a merchant ship off Tunisia for three weeks have been sent back to their home country against their will, according to relatives.
They were among 75 migrants rescued on 31 May by the Maridive 601, an Egyptian tugboat that services offshore oil platforms, only to spend the next 20 days at sea near the Tunisian coast.
Continue reading...Home Office finally allows stranded mother and baby home from Pakistan
Visa decision overturned for British resident Nina Saleh, 48 hours after Guardian and others published her story
A woman who was refused a visa to return to London after travelling to Pakistan to adopt a baby has been told she can come home.
Nina Saleh has a Norwegian passport but full UK residency rights after living in London for 20 years. She was refused a visa to return home with baby Sofia three times, despite going through a stringent and lengthy adoption process in the UK with British authorities’ involvement.
Continue reading...‘It’s stifling at home’: why free metro travel offers a lifeline for Delhi’s women
City authorities say positive discrimination will make journeys safer and help low-income families
As a politics student, Sonakshi Dogra has given the bold new plan by the Delhi government to let all women ride free on the metro and buses a thorough going-over. “It’s ridiculous. Why favour women this way? What about male students and working men? Women can’t ask for gender equality and then support inequality on public transport,” she said firmly.
Dogra was about to enter Ashram metro station with three male friends, also students at the same university. They spend about 4,000 rupees (£45) each a month on transport.
Continue reading...India bus crash: more than 40 die as vehicle plunges into gorge
Women and children among dead in mountainous Himalayan state of Himachal Pradesh
At least 44 people were killed when a bus in India’s mountainous state of Himachal Pradesh plunged into a gorge on Thursday, officials said.
Another 28 were undergoing treatment, many of them for critical injuries, after the private vehicle veered off the road and fell into a 150-metre (500-foot) gorge near Banjar in Kullu district of the northern Himalayan state.
Continue reading...Snapshot of hope: child refugees share their dreams through Polaroids – in pictures
To mark World Refugee Day, Save the Children invited children living in settlements in Jordan, Bangladesh and Uganda to draw their hopes and memories on a portrait of themselves
Continue reading...Pakistan to create 1,000 courts to tackle violence against women
Chief justice says in televised speech that abuse survivors will be able to ‘speak their heart without any fear’
Pakistan is to set up more than 1,000 courts dedicated to tackling violence against women, the country’s top judge has announced, seeking to tackle a problem activists say the criminal justice system has long neglected.
Chief justice Asif Saeed Khosa said the special courts would allow victims to speak out without fear of retaliation in the conservative Muslim country, where domestic violence is often seen as taboo.
Continue reading...Himalayan glacier melting doubled since 2000, spy satellites show
Ice losses indicate ‘devastating’ future for region and 1 billion people who depend on it for water
The melting of Himalayan glaciers has doubled since the turn of the century, with more than a quarter of all ice lost over the last four decades, scientists have revealed. The accelerating losses indicate a “devastating” future for the region, upon which a billion people depend for regular water.
The scientists combined declassified US spy satellite images from the mid-1970s with modern satellite data to create the first detailed, four-decade record of ice along the 2,000km (1,200-mile) mountain chain.
Continue reading...Mother and baby stranded in Pakistan: claims of Home Office ‘negligence’
British resident Nina Saleh unable to return home with adopted baby after being refused visa three times
A Norwegian woman who has lived in Britain for 20 years says she has been left stranded in Pakistan after travelling there to adopt a baby.
The UK Home Office has refused Nina Saleh a visa to return home with baby Sofia three times, despite Saleh going through a stringent and lengthy adoption process in the UK with British authorities’ involvement.
Continue reading...Chennai in crisis as authorities blamed for dire water shortage
Four reservoirs supplying India’s sixth largest city dry up as state accused of inaction
Authorities in Chennai have been criticised for failing to deal with a crippling water shortage that has brought the Indian city to crisis point, leaving taps dry in homes and forcing schools, offices and restaurants to close as temperatures soar.
The four reservoirs supplying the bulk of the city’s drinking water have completely dried up, leading the Chennai Metro Water to cut the water it provides by about 40%.
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