Gunfire heard at Pearl Continental hotel in Gwadar, in restive Balochistan province
At least three armed militants have stormed a luxury hotel in Pakistan and exchanged fire with government forces.
Local media said the fighters stormed the Pearl Continental hotel in Gwadar just before 5pm local time on Saturday. Firing was still ongoing at 8pm, the assistant superintendent of police in the city told the Guardian. Security personnel cordoned off the area around the hotel.
Continue reading...Former TV presenter was a cultural adviser for lower house of parliament
An Afghan journalist and adviser to the country’s parliament has been shot dead in Kabul.
Mena Mangal, a cultural adviser for the lower house of parliament and former TV presenter, was on her way to work at the time of the attack.
Continue reading...Dr Lotay Tshering was a highly regarded doctor before he entered politics and has refused to give up his passion
For most prime ministers, the task of running the country is enough.
But not so for the multitasking prime minister of Bhutan, who spends his weekends at an operating table and tending to patients.
Continue reading...Azeem Wazir left Pakistan in 2015 over involvement in protest against blasphemy laws
A Christian man who has been living in Bristol for four years says he is at risk of being killed if he is deported to Pakistan after protesting against the country’s draconian blasphemy laws.
Azeem Wazir is being held in Colnbrook immigration removal centre near London, and may be deported as soon as Friday following his arrest last week.
Continue reading...Islamic extremists vow to pursue Christian acquitted of blasphemy in Pakistan
Asia Bibi has arrived in Canada hoping to start a new life after her years on death row. But although there is huge relief among campaigners for religious freedom that she is out of Pakistan, her ordeal may not be over.
Islamic extremists have pledged to pursue the Christian woman and kill her for the act of blasphemy of which she was accused and later acquitted. Bibi may spend the rest of her days looking over her shoulder in fear of an international assassin.
Continue reading...Christian woman freed last year after spending eight years on death row for blasphemy
Asia Bibi, a Christian woman who spent eight years on death row in Pakistan for blasphemy before she was freed last year, has flown to Canada where she has reunited with her family, her lawyer has said.
“It is a big day,” Saiful Malook told the Guardian. “Asia Bibi has left Pakistan and reached Canada. She has reunited with her family. Justice has been dispensed.”
Continue reading...Explosion reportedly targeted van carrying elite police officers as hundreds of pilgrims gathered at 11th century site
At least eight people have been killed in a blast near Lahore’s Data Darbar, the largest Sufi shrine in south Asia, police in the Pakistani city said.
The explosion was reported around 8.45am local time (4.15am GMT) on Wednesday morning. City police chief Ghazanfar Ali told Associated Press that police officers were the apparent target.
Continue reading...Reading groups are springing up across Kabul, broadening youthful horizons in a country where books are often censored
In a dimly lit room in west Kabul, stacked with shelves full of books, a small crowd gathers around the warmth of a gas heater. Books clamped under their arms, they are eager to share the stories they’ve read over the course of the week.
Members of Afghanistan’s youngest reading club, the Book Cottage, range in age from four to 13. The club is just one of many reading circles that are springing up across the capital and reviving a book culture that, once lost, is now vibrant, liberal and expanding once again.
Continue reading...Family lawyer says chances of Begum being sent to country are ‘vanishingly remote’
Shamima Begum could face the death penalty for involvement in terrorism if she goes to Bangladesh, the country’s foreign minister has said.
However, her family’s lawyer said the chances of her being sent to her parents’ country of origin were “vanishingly remote”.
Continue reading...More than two million people in at-risk areas in two countries were moved into shelters
The strongest cyclone to hit India in five years killed at least 15 people in the eastern state of Odisha, before swinging north-eastwards into Bangladesh on Saturday, where more than a million people have been moved to safety.
After hitting land, Cyclone Fani lost some of its power and was downgraded to a deep depression by the India Meteorological Department.
Continue reading...Cyclone Fani, the most severe storm to hit the Indian subcontinent in two decades, has made landfall on the coast of the eastern state of Odisha, where officials were trying to evacuate the homes of one million people in its path.
Continue reading...One million people evacuated as huge storm hits small city of Puri on east coast
Cyclone Fani, the most severe storm to hit the Indian subcontinent in two decades, has made landfall on the coast of the eastern state of Odisha, where officials were trying to evacuate the homes of 1 million people in its path.
The “extremely severe” storm bearing winds of up to 185km/h barrelled into the small city of Puri, home to about 200,000 people, at aabout 8am local time on Friday, according to Indian meteorological officials.
Continue reading...A category 5 storm has torn through the Bay of Bengal, lashing beaches with rain and winds of up to 205km/h, affecting weather as far away as Mount Everest
Continue reading...Emergency crews deployed to Odisha state with 127mph winds predicted to hit east coast
India has begun the evacuation of 800,000 people and deployed emergency personnel as the country’s east coast braces for a severe cyclonic storm.
Tropical Cyclone Fani, located in the Bay of Bengal and packing wind speeds up to 205 km (127 miles) per hour, is expected to make landfall on the coast of Odisha state on Friday.
Continue reading...Plans to relocate Rohingya people in Myanmar’s Rakhine state promise to dash their dreams of returning to traditional life
For the past seven years, Mohammad has been able to see the beach on the outskirts of Sittwe, and the Indian Ocean beyond, only through a barbed wire fence.
“The only difference between a prison and the Rakhine camps is that in prison at least they know how long their sentence is,” says the 23-year-old, shaking his head.
Continue reading...Deaths follow wave of rumours and a hoax video intended to derail final push to eradicate the disease
A federal government campaign to vaccinate more than 40 million children under five against polio in Pakistan has been suspended following a series of attacks on workers and police over the past week.
On 23 April a police officer responsible for protecting polio workers was gunned down in Bannu. The same day, a polio worker was injured with a knife in Lahore by a man refusing to allow his child to be vaccinated, citing a recent hoax video that claimed children were becoming ill after the immunisations.
Continue reading...From violence and harassment to the pursuit of simple pleasures like playing football or riding a bicycle, women in Bangladesh encounter innumerable obstacles. Here, those on the frontline of that struggle discuss the challenges they have faced and the hurdles that remain
Girls in Bangladesh talk their way out of forced marriage
All photographs by Muhammad Murtada/British Council
Continue reading...Ban on face coverings in public introduced as 10,000 soldiers deployed to hunt for more suspects
Sri Lankan police have raided the headquarters of a hardline Islamist group founded by the suspected ringleader behind the Easter suicide bombings of churches and hotels. It comes as a ban on face coverings is due to come into force on Monday.
Armed police in the town of Kattankudy searched the headquarters of the National Thawheed Jammath (NTJ) and detained one man at the premises, a Reuters reporter at the scene said. Police did not comment.
Continue reading...A project in Bangladesh’s Narsingdi district is one of several making inroads on women’s rights, despite a wider conservative backlash that has proved deadly
When Modina Begum heard that a 13-year-old girl in her village in central Bangladesh was about to be married off, she went straight to the girl’s parents and persuaded them to cancel the wedding, rescuing the teenager from a fate Begum herself had escaped.
“I convinced my parents to call off my own marriage, let me finish my studies and become self-reliant before getting married,” says Begum, now 19, as she leads a group of girls in English and digital skills at the Edge club in Narsingdi district, 50 kilometres north-east of the capital, Dhaka. “Now my parents have faith in me and I have the confidence to speak out for others.”
Continue reading...As a security precaution, Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith delivers televised sermon one week after Easter Sunday bombings
Sri Lanka’s Catholics awoke to celebrate Sunday mass in their homes by a televised broadcast as churches across the island nation shut over fears of militant attacks.
A week after Easter suicide bombings at three churches and three hotels killed at least 253 people, Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, the archbishop of Colombo, delivered a homily before members of the clergy and the country’s leaders in a small chapel at his Colombo residence – an extraordinary measure underlining the fear still gripping this nation of 21 million people.
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