About half of the 20m tonnes of rubbish produced by Pakistan each year is burned or thrown into rivers, causing pollution, disease and flooding. A recycling hub in Islamabad is trying to tackle the problem
Photographs by Hazel Thompson/Tearfund
Continue reading...Exclusive: Inquiry follows claims it ignored warning signs before alleged Rohingya genocide
The UN has launched an inquiry into its conduct in Myanmar over the past decade, where it has been accused of ignoring warning signs of escalating violence prior to an alleged genocide of the Rohingya minority.
UN sources have confirmed to the Guardian that the initially hesitant UN secretary general, António Guterres, decided to proceed with the investigation after a “build-up in pressure” within the organisation.
Continue reading...Neither Narendra Modi nor Imran Khan can afford a full-scale India-Pakistan conflict
India’s limited airstrikes across the “line of control” in Kashmir, and Pakistan’s warning that it is preparing for “all eventualities”, appear to be more political posturing than a prelude to all-out war. At least, that is what the international community hopes as the nuclear-armed neighbours square off once again.
Rationally speaking, neither country’s prime minister can afford another full-scale conflict – Pakistan’s Imran Khan because he is still getting started after winning power for the first time last July, India’s Narendra Modi because he is seeking a second chance in national polls this spring.
Continue reading...India’s first attack across ceasefire line since 1971 did not result in casualties or damage, Pakistan says
India has carried out aerial bombing over the disputed border in Kashmir for the first time since it went to war with Pakistan in 1971, escalating tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbours.
The country’s foreign secretary, Vijay Gokhale, said in a briefing that Delhi had received credible intelligence that the militant group Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), which killed 40 Indian security personnel in a suicide bombing this month, was training fighters for similar attacks at the site.
Continue reading...A controversial new gemstone law fails to address the hazards of an industry in which scores of workers die each year
At one of the jade mining pits that scar the mountains of northern Myanmar’s Kachin state, a miner recalls how five of his friends died during a landslide two years ago. “I was so scared,” he says. While working in areas where there have been previous landslides, he says he has discovered dead bodies and buried them.
Testimonies heard by the Guardian reveal a deadly environment where lethal landslides and equipment failures strike regularly, in an industry with a history of human rights abuses, corruption and environmental destruction. “At first it was so scary for me,” says another worker. “But it’s becoming natural … We started accepting that we could die in any situation.”
Continue reading...Hundreds more are sick, with many of them critical, says Assam health minister
Eighty-five people have died on tea estates in Assam, north-east India, after drinking poisonous hooch.
Assam’s health minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma, confirmed on WhatsApp that 85 people had died but the final death toll may be higher as that figure relates only to hospital deaths and not any victims that may have died elsewhere.
Continue reading...Entrepreneurs aiming to set up Nepal’s first ski resort are undeterred by difficult terrain and lack of state support
Along the single icy road leading through the village of Kuri, high in the hills of eastern Nepal, tourists stop to stare at a pair of skis. “Is it a skateboard?” asks one. “Maybe they are ice skates,” suggests another. “No idea,” they agree, before walking off gingerly along the slippery track.
Nepal may have the highest mountains in the world, but you are about as likely to see a skier here as you are a yeti. Nepal sent no athletes to the Winter Olympics last year, and there is not a single ski resort in the country.
Continue reading...Critics say supreme court ruling constitutes ‘mass eviction in name of conservation’
Millions of Indians face eviction after the country’s supreme court ruled that indigenous people illegally living on forest land should move.
Campaigners for the rights of tribal and forest-dwelling people have called the court’s decision on Wednesday “an unprecedented disaster” and “the biggest mass eviction in the name of conservation, ever”.
Continue reading...Police warn death toll may rise in ‘highly combustable’ blaze in old part of Bangladesh capital
At least 69 people have died in a huge fire that tore through apartment buildings also used as chemical warehouses in an old part of the Bangladeshi capita.
Dozens of people were trapped in the buildings, unable to escape onto narrow streets clogged with traffic, as the highly-combustible stores of chemicals, body sprays and plastic granules erupted in flames.
Continue reading...Campaigners say resurgence of deadly virus threatens despite huge successes of vaccination drive
The unmonitored movement of people across the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan threatens efforts to eradicate polio from the two countries, as the year’s first cases of the virus are recorded in the volatile region.
The Global Polio Eradication Initiative said people travelling through unchecked crossings is believed to be one of the main causes of the spread of the disease in the area.
Continue reading...Elin Ersson received a £250 fine for refusing to take her seat on a plane in Sweden last year
A Swedish student who livestreamed her protest against the deportation of an Afghan asylum seeker last year has been found guilty of violating Sweden’s aviation laws and fined £250.
Elin Ersson, 22, avoided a prison sentence at the Gothenburg district court, where she was sentenced to a fine of 3,000 Swedish krona.
Continue reading...Indian soldiers and militants killed in hunt for perpetrators of paramilitary convoy attack
Four Indian soldiers and two militants have been killed in clashes in disputed Kashmir as security personnel hunt for members of an insurgent group that killed at least 40 paramilitaries last week.
Police said they were fired on by militants as they searched a village in Kashmir’s southern Pulwama district, close to where a car laden with explosives rammed a paramilitary convoy on Thursday.
Continue reading...Government places tariff on imports while revenge attacks against Kashmiris have been reported
India has announced reprisals against Pakistan for a suicide bombing that killed at least 40 paramilitaries in the disputed region of Kashmir.
India’s finance minister, Arun Jaitley, has placed a 200% tariff on Pakistani imports and the home ministry announced on Sunday it was withdrawing the security details of a several Kashmiri separatist leaders.
Continue reading...Campaigners demand external investigation after human rights organisation dismisses their claims
Prominent Indian rights activists have withdrawn their support for Amnesty India amid allegations of caste discrimination and harassment within the organisation, the Guardian has learned.
The allegations include claims that staff were humiliated, ill-treated and discriminated against because of their caste, a system of social hierarchy among Hindus.
Continue reading...Sanjoy Sachdev helped scores of Indian couples marry across cultural lines, and against family wishes – but police are asking if he was a fraud
It was a world-famous charity dedicated to rescuing star-crossed Indian lovers. For the past nine years, using a network of secret safe-houses across India, Love Commandos sheltered thousands of young people seeking to marry outside their caste, religion or clan – and who feared their families might kill them for it.
Sanjoy Sachdev, the organisation’s chairman, became one of India’s most celebrated activists. Bollywood star Aamir Khan interviewed him on television. International clothing brand Bjorn Borg raised money for his group. Filmmakers and journalists found the craggy, chain-smoking activist who could quote Robert Frost irresistible.
Continue reading...First suicide car bombing in disputed region in nearly 20 years leaves more than 30 dead
Dozens of Indian paramilitaries have been killed in the first suicide car bombing in the disputed region of Kashmir in nearly two decades.
A lone militant is believed to have driven a vehicle laden with explosives close to a central reserve police force (CRPF) convoy and detonated it just after 3pm on Thursday on a busy highway outside the state capital of Srinagar.
Continue reading...Death penalties to resume as part of Philippines-inspired campaign to be tough on drug crime
Sri Lankan prison authorities are recruiting two hangmen after the president pledged to end a 43-year moratorium on capital punishment and execute condemned drug traffickers amid alarm over drug-related crime.
Interviews of the candidates will be conducted next month and two will be hired, prison department spokesman Thushara Upuldeniya said Wednesday.
Continue reading...Judges have moved to ensure that women driven by revenge and self-interest will no longer be able to make spurious allegations when relationships end
Their romance began at work. She asked him out for coffee with her friends. He took her out for lunch. Dinners and walks in New Delhi’s Lodhi Gardens followed. Then, for 18 months, they were in a sexual relationship.
But last year, when Pavan Gupta* turned 24, his parents began pressuring him to marry. When they introduced him to a girl he liked, Gupta ended his relationship with his girlfriend, Geeta Jain, telling her he could not disappoint his parents. “I liked her but I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life with her. I always told her I was an only child and would have to go along with my parents’ choice,” says Gupta.
Continue reading...Labourer whose blasphemy death sentence was overturned has been transferred to Karachi
Pakistani authorities have moved Asia Bibi, a Christian woman recently acquitted of blasphemy charges, to a new “secure area” and are barring her from leaving the country, a close friend and rights campaigner has claimed.
Bibi, who spent eight years on death row, was transferred from a location near the capital to a house in the southern port city of Karachi, her friend Aman Ullah told the Associated Press. She and her husband are locked in a single room in a house where the door opens only “at food times”, he added.
Continue reading...Police arrest eight suspected bootleggers after victims in poor Indian villages drank alcohol containing toxic methanol
Thirty-nine people have died in northern India and more than two dozen others have fallen sick after drinking bootleg liquor containing toxic methanol .
Related: India: eleven die after eating 'toxic' rice at temple
Continue reading...