Category Archives: South and Central Asia

Myanmar airstrike on detention camp kills dozens, armed opposition group says

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Those killed in attack on camp for relatives of junta soldiers in Rakhine state were women and children, Arakan Army says

A Myanmar junta airstrike has killed 28 people, including children, and wounded 25 at a temporary detention area in western Rakhine state, an ethnic minority armed group has said.

The Arakan Army (AA) is engaged in a fierce fight with the military for control of Rakhine, where it has seized swaths of territory in the past year, all but cutting off the state capital Sittwe.

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Indian court finds police volunteer guilty of rape and murder of trainee doctor

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Case was fast-tracked after crime in Kolkata sparked protests across India amid concern for women’s safety

A police volunteer has been found guilty of the rape and murder of a trainee doctor who was on duty in Kolkata, a crime that sparked protests across India amid concern about violence against women and girls.

The outcry over the killing of the 31-year-old physician in August led to the trial being fast-tracked through the legal system.

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Pakistan ex-PM Imran Khan sentenced to 14 years in prison in corruption case

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Former leader and wife found guilty of illegally obtaining lucrative plots of land in deal with property tycoon

Pakistan’s former prime minister Imran Khan has been sentenced to 14 years in prison for corruption, another setback for the beleaguered leader who has already spent over 18 months in jail and is facing more than 100 cases.

Khan and his wife, Bushra Bibi, were found guilty of illegally obtaining lucrative plots of land, worth billions of rupees, through a corrupt deal with a Pakistani property tycoon. Khan was given a 14-year sentence while his wife was given seven years, and Khan was fined 1m Pakistan rupees (£2,900).

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Knife removed from Bollywood star Saif Ali Khan’s spine after intruder attack

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Actor repeatedly stabbed during 2am attack at Mumbai flat he shares with Kareena Kapoor and their two children

Saif Ali Khan, one of Bollywood’s most popular actors, is recovering in hospital after a knife became lodged in his spine during an attack by an intruder in his Mumbai home.

Medical officials said Khan sustained six stab wounds in the attack, which took place during a 2am altercation with an intruder who had entered the family home he shares with his wife, the Bollywood superstar Kareena Kapoor, and their two children.

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Pakistan PM orders inquiry after national airline ad accused of evoking 9/11 imagery

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Online advertisement by PIA is called ‘stupidity’ by finance minister, who said PM Shehbaz Sharif had ordered an investigation

Pakistan’s prime minister has ordered an investigation after the country’s national airline released an advert that drew accusations that it evoked imagery of the 9/11 attacks.

The advert was released by Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) last week to celebrate the resumption of flights to Paris, which had been suspended for four years over safety concerns about its pilots.

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Afghans evacuated by US in chaos of withdrawal are languishing in foreign camps, documents reveal

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Exclusive: records show evacuees with pending applications to enter US ‘forced to remain in limbo’ in at least 36 countries, some in ‘untenable conditions’

Afghan citizens who fled the country with American assistance after the US’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan remain stranded in third countries, new documents shared exclusively with the Guardian suggest, some at prison-like facilities and many with no clarity about their prospects for resettlement.

US officials won’t say exactly how many Afghans remain at such sites, where they were taken after the withdrawal that involved hundreds of thousands fleeing for their lives during the Taliban’s lightning takeover in 2021. Some advocates estimate that “hundreds” remain stranded in temporary facilities in up to three dozen countries.

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Bangladesh files criminal case against UK minister Tulip Siddiq

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MP accused of misusing her position to gain influence and illegally acquire land with her aunt Sheikh Hasina

Authorities in Bangladesh have filed a criminal case against the UK Treasury minister Tulip Siddiq, accusing her of misusing her position as an MP to gain influence and illegally acquire land with her aunt the ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina.

Siddiq has faced mounting calls to resign over her links to Hasina, who was toppled in August after mass protests across Bangladesh and is facing charges of corruption and crimes against humanity.

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Biden insists US is ‘winning’ on world stage – what would losing look like?

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The president defended his record on Ukraine, Gaza and Afghanistan but foreign policy successes have been few

On paper, few US presidents could boast the foreign policy bona fides of Joe Biden, a veteran statesman with nearly a half-century of experience before he even stepped into office.

But as his term comes to an end, critics have said that the president will leave a legacy of cautious and underpowered diplomacy, as even allies have conceded that the administration is still grasping for a cornerstone foreign policy success.

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India’s Maha Kumbh Mela festival gets under way for first time in 144 years

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The grand version of the 12-yearly Hindu pilgrimage is expected to draw more than 400 million devotees

The world’s largest religious gathering kicked off on Monday as millions of Hindu devotees gathered on the banks of Ganges in India to mark the beginning of the Maha Kumbh Mela.

The Kumbh Mela pilgrimage takes place every 12 years and is widely seen as the “festival of festivals” in the Hindu religious calendar in India, attended by a vibrant mix of sadhus or holy men, ascetics, pilgrims and tourists. This year’s celebration is particularly significant as the Maha or grand Kumbh Mela only takes places every 144 years, marking the 12th Kumbh Mela and a special celestial alignment of the sun, moon and Jupiter.

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Lisa Nandy rejects calls for England to boycott Afghanistan cricket match

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Culture secretary says it should go ahead despite pressure for it to be cancelled over Taliban’s treatment of women

England should be allowed to play next month’s cricket match against Afghanistan, the culture and sport secretary has said, despite calls for a boycott over the Taliban government’s treatment of women.

Lisa Nandy backed a decision by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) to allow the game to go ahead, saying on Friday that cancelling it would “deny sports fans the opportunity that they love”.

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Investigators receive black box data from plane that crashed in Kazakhstan

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Authorities now have access to cockpit dialogue from Azerbaijan Airlines plane that went down on Christmas Day

Brazil’s air force has extracted the data from two black box recorders belonging to a crashed Azerbaijan Airlines plane that Baku claims was downed by Russia on Christmas Day, killing 38 of the 67 people on board.

The Brazilian-made Embraer 190 crash-landed in Kazakhstan after being diverted from a scheduled landing in the Chechen capital, Grozny, in southern Russia. Azerbaijan believes the plane was shot down by Russian air defences, which Moscow says were operational in the area at the time.

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Indian press groups call for investigation after journalist’s body found in septic tank

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Mukesh Chandrakar had reported on alleged corruption in the construction industry and had a popular YouTube channel

Indian media rights groups have called for an investigation after the body of a missing journalist was found hidden in a septic tank.

Mukesh Chandrakar, 32, was a well-known freelance journalist in the Indian state of Chhattisgarh who contributed to some of the country’s biggest news channels. He had also widely reported on alleged corruption in the construction industry on his popular YouTube channel.

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Removal of waste from site of 1984 Bhopal disaster dismissed as ‘farce’

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Indian government accused of PR stunt after moving 337 tonnes of toxic waste that had been held in containers

Forty years after one of world’s deadliest industrial disasters struck the Indian city of Bhopal, a cleanup operation has finally begun to remove hundreds of tonnes of toxic waste from the site.

However, local campaigners have accused the Indian government of greenwashing, arguing that the 337 tonnes of waste removed this week represents less than 1% of the more than 1m tonnes of hazardous materials left after the disaster and that the cleanup has done nothing to tackle chemical contamination of the area.

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Kung fu nuns show off martial art skills at monastery reopening in Nepal

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Nuns mark opening of Druk Amitabha nunnery with performance, five years after Covid closure

About a dozen nuns performed hand chops and high kicks, some of them wielding swords, as they showed off their martial art skills to hundreds of cheering wellwishers at the reopening of their nunnery in Nepal.

The nuns of the hilltop Druk Amitabha monastery put on the show of strength to mark the institution’s reopening five years after Covid forced it to close its doors to the public.

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Azerbaijan president blames Russia for shooting down plane on Christmas Day

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President Aliyev says Moscow must ‘admit its guilt’ after downing plane, albeit unintentionally, with loss of 38 lives

Azerbaijan’s president Ilham Aliyev said the Azerbaijani airliner that crashed last week was shot down by Russia, albeit unintentionally, and criticised Moscow for trying to “hush up” the issue for days.

“We can say with complete clarity that the plane was shot down by Russia … we are not saying that it was done intentionally, but it was done,” he told Azerbaijani state television.

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India mourns former PM Manmohan Singh with Delhi state funeral

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Coffin flanked by honour guard and carried to Congress party headquarters in capital as Modi hails one of country’s ‘most distinguished leaders’

Mourners in India’s capital gathered on Saturday to pay their respects to former prime minister Manmohan Singh ahead of a state funeral for a leader who was key to the country’s economic liberalisation.

Singh, who held office from 2004 to 2014, died at the age of 92 on Thursday, after which seven days of state mourning were declared.

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Azerbaijan Airlines says there was ‘external interference’ before crash

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Carrier suspends flights to five Russian airports after early findings of investigation into crash on Christmas Day

The aircraft that crashed in Kazakhstan on Christmas Day, killing 38 people, experienced “external physical and technical interference”, according to preliminary results of an investigation, Azerbaijan Airlines said on Friday.

The early findings led the carrier to suspend flights to five Russian airports, citing “potential risks to flight safety”, adding to the two routes that were suspended immediately after the crash.

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Former Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh dies aged 92

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The ex-politician was admitted to hospital on Thursday after his health deteriorated

India’s former prime minister, Manmohan Singh, widely regarded as the architect of India’s economic reform program and a landmark nuclear deal with the US, has died aged 92.

Singh was admitted to New Delhi’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences late Thursday after his health deteriorated due to “sudden loss of consciousness at home”, the hospital said in a statement, adding that he was “being treated for age-related medical conditions”.

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Ceremonies held across Asia to mark 20 years since Boxing Day tsunami

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Waves towering up to 30 metres killed more than 220,000 people in 15 countries in deadliest tsunami in history

Ceremonies have been held in countries across Asia to remember the more than 220,000 people who were killed two decades ago in the Indian Ocean tsunami, the most deadly tsunami in history.

On 26 December 2004, a 9.1-magnitude earthquake struck Indonesia’s Sumatra island, triggering huge waves that slammed into coastal communities across the Indian Ocean. The waves, which towered as high as 30 metres, killed 227,899 people across 15 countries.

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Officials report 29 survivors and 38 killed as plane crashes in Kazakhstan

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Aircraft carrying 62 passengers and five crew was en route from Baku to Grozny in Chechnya

Twenty-nine people have survived after a passenger plane operated by Azerbaijan Airlines burst into flames as it crashed near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan after veering hundreds of miles off its planned route.

The flight was carrying 62 passengers and five crew members with 38 killed in the crash, according to Kazakhstan’s deputy prime minister, Kanat Bozumbayev.

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