Afghan female judge fleeing Taliban appeals after Home Office refuses UK entry

Lawyers say the woman, who is in hiding in Pakistan with her son, will be killed if sent back to Afghanistan

A female former senior judge from Afghanistan who is in hiding from the Taliban with her son has filed an appeal to the Home Office after her application to enter the UK was denied.

Lawyers for the woman – who is named as “Y” – said on Saturday they had submitted an appeal on behalf of their client and her son at the Immigration Tribunal, saying she had been left in a “gravely vulnerable position” by the withdrawal of British and other western troops.

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Putin and Xi ‘could meet in September’ at summit in Samarkand

Wall Street Journal suggests Russian and Chinese leaders could hold discussions in Uzbek city

Xi Jinping could meet Vladimir Putin in mid-September at a regional summit in the Uzbek city of Samarkand, it has been reported.

According to the Wall Street Journal, preparations are being made for the Chinese president to travel to Samarkand on 15 September for a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).

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Salman Rushdie attack was unjustifiable, says Pakistan’s Imran Khan

In a wide-ranging Guardian interview, the former prime minister says he understands anger The Satanic Verses created ‘but you can’t justify what happened’

Pakistan’s former prime minister Imran Khan has condemned the attack on Salman Rushdie, describing it as “terrible” and “sad”, and saying that while the anger of the Islamic world at Rushdie’s book The Satanic Verses was understandable, it could not justify the assault.

Khan also said he expected Afghan women to “assert their rights” in the face of Taliban restrictions in a Guardian interview in which he sought to moderate his reputation as a firebrand. He is fighting for his political survival after being ousted from office in April. Khan says his staff and followers are being persecuted and intimidated and he is battling eight-year-old charges of illicit campaign financing that could lead to him being banned from politics.

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Sri Lanka ruling party seeks assurances to let Gotabaya Rajapaksa back into country

New president has been approached to provide security for predecessor who fled country amid economic crisis

Sri Lanka’s ruling party has asked the country’s new president to provide security and other assistance for his predecessor, who fled to south-east Asia last month after protests flared amid a crippling economic crisis.

Gotabaya Rajapaksa flew to Singapore last month and quit as Sri Lanka’s president, making way for veteran politician Ranil Wickremesinghe to win a vote in parliament and take the top job.

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Indian gang ran fake police station out of hotel for eight months

Six arrested but ringleader still at large after fraudsters in Bihar charged money to locals and paid others to work there

An Indian gang operated a fake police station from a hotel for eight months where they dressed up as officers and are believed to have extorted money from hundreds of people, an official has said.

Incidents of fraudsters pretending to be police or soldiers are common in India, where there is widespread fear of and respect for those in uniform, but setting up a bogus police station takes the scams up a level.

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Kabul mosque blast during evening prayers kills 21, say police

UN expresses concern over rising number of civilian casualties from explosions

A blast that tore through a Kabul mosque during evening prayers on Wednesday killed 21 people, police said, as the United Nations expressed concern over a growing number of civilian casualties from explosions.

The police spokesperson Khalid Zadran said another 33 people had been injured in the blast, which witnesses said shattered the windows of buildings near the mosque in a northern Kabul neighbourhood.

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Boy, six, dies in India after throat cut by glass-coated kite string

Daksh Giri was wedged on father’s scooter when stray razor-sharp kite string wrapped around his neck

A six-year-old boy has died after his throat was cut by a stray glass-coated kite string as he rode on a scooter with his father in Ludhiana, north India.

Daksh Giri was standing on the scooter on Tuesday, wedged between the steering unit and his father, when they drove into a plastic kite string coated with powdered glass. The string became wrapped around his neck, cutting his throat. Daksh died later in hospital.

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Muslim woman raped by Hindu mob shocked by release of 11 jailed men

Gujarat frees men serving life sentences for rape, and for murder of three-year-old daughter and other relatives

A Muslim woman who was gang-raped by a Hindu mob, which also murdered her three-year-old daughter and 13 other members of her family, has spoken of her incredulity at the release of the 11 men jailed for the crimes.

The men were released on Monday by the Gujarat government after serving 14 years of their life sentences. Under Indian law, after 14 years some prisoners can be released on remission provided they fulfil certain criteria relating to their age and conduct.

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At least 10 dead after huge bomb rips through Kabul mosque

Police report multiple casualties after powerful explosion during evening prayers

A huge bomb attack at a mosque in Kabul during evening prayers has killed at least 10 people, including a prominent cleric, and wounded at least 27 others.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack on Wednesday, the latest to strike Afghanistan in the year since the Taliban seized power.

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Pakistan floods kill 580 and bring misery to millions

Government accused of inaction as downpours leave schools destroyed, homes ruined, crops failing and cholera on the rise

More than 580 people have died and thousands have lost their homes across Pakistan as torrential rains batter the country.

An estimated 1 million have been affected by heavy rainfall, flash floods and landslides since July as Pakistan endured more than 60% of its normal total monsoon rainfall in three weeks.

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Chinese navy vessel arrives at Sri Lanka port to security concerns from India

Yuan Wang 5 is officially described as a ‘scientific research ship’ but India suspects it has military functions

A Chinese navy vessel has arrived at a southern Sri Lankan port that Beijing leases from the government, prompting renewed security fears from India.

On Tuesday morning, the Yuan Wang 5 sailed into the Hambantota port, which was built by Beijing, and was welcomed by senior Sri Lankan and Chinese officials in a traditional ceremony that involved red carpet and a massive banner that read: “Hello Sri Lanka, Long Live Sri Lanka-China Friendship.”

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Delhi drinkers left dry after government’s alcohol policy U-turn

Aam Aadmi party’s decision to scrap plan to privatise sale of alcohol comes after pressure from rival BJP

All over the Indian capital, the sound of metal shutters being pulled down at off-licences has left drinkers high and dry.

The dry spell, expected to last until 1 September, is the result of Delhi’s government scrapping a new alcohol policy that would have allowed private companies to operate off-licences.

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UK treatment of Afghan refugees ‘continues to be source of shame’

MoD sources accuse other parts of Whitehall of failing to do enough to help Afghans who worked with British forces

Two RAF flights carrying as many as 500 Afghans who worked with British forces and their relatives are landing in the UK each month from Pakistan but there is deep frustration within the Ministry of Defence about how the rest of government is struggling to accommodate arrivals.

It comes as the Taliban and western allies mark the first anniversary of Nato’s withdrawal from Afghanistan.

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Aung San Suu Kyi given six extra years in prison on corruption charges

Ousted leader of Myanmar will appeal against new conviction added to earlier 11-year sentence

A court in military-ruled Myanmar convicted the country’s ousted leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, on more corruption charges on Monday, adding six years to her earlier 11-year prison sentence, a legal official said.

The trial was held behind closed doors, with no access for media or the public, and her lawyers were forbidden by a gag order from revealing information about the proceedings.

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‘A hotel is not home’: Afghan families still wait for a place of their own in UK

Families who fled Taliban rule say they are grateful for the help they have received but long for a home where they can settle

The west London hotel where Fawzia Amini, a senior Afghan judge, her husband and their four daughters have lived for the last nine months has comfortable sofas in the foyer, a restaurant serving tasty meals on the first floor, and friendly reception staff – but it isn’t home.

After the turmoil and danger of fleeing their spacious home in Kabul when the Taliban seized control of the Afghan capital, the family say that while they are grateful for everything the UK government has done for them, they long to be in a place of their own where they can cook their own food, work, study, and entertain relatives and friends.

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Uprooted by partition: ‘I feel I don’t belong in England. I’m a very proud Punjabi’

Impact of ‘traumatic period’ still lingers with those now based in UK – and their families – 75 years on

After living in Britain for nearly half a century, Pabitra Ghosh is still gripped by a rootlessness borne after being displaced from modern-day Bangladesh as a child.

When a communal riot broke out in 1950, Ghosh, then five, fled with his family across the newly carved Indian border from East Pakistan. The train journey was both “bedlam” and “traumatic” as they abandoned their home to start afresh in Kolkata.

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‘I daren’t go far’: Taliban rules trap Afghan women with no male guardian

Those without a male relative to act as a mahram are in legal limbo and unable to travel long distances

Hasina* cannot send her two daughters to school, because they are teenagers and high school is banned for girls in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.

But she cannot take them out of the country to finish their education because she is a divorced single mother, and women are barred from long-distance travel without a male “guardian” to escort them.

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Afghanistan: NGOs call for assets to be unfrozen to end ‘near universal poverty’

One year since the Taliban regained power, charities say urgent action needed to address economic crisis

One year on from the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, a group of 32 Afghan and international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are urging the international community not to abandon the country’s people, but instead address the root causes of the its economic crisis, stand up for human rights and increase humanitarian aid.

Reflecting a concern that the deep ideological deadlock between the Taliban and the international community is consigning millions of Afghans to destitution, they call for a clear roadmap that will lead to the restoration of the basic functions of the Afghan central bank and the release of Afghanistan’s assets frozen abroad, mainly in the US. The NGOs call for the disbursement of badly needed Afghan banknotes that have been printed but are impounded in Poland.

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‘We must forget about divisions’: one woman’s journey home 75 years after India’s partition

Chance encounter on Facebook led Reena Varma, 90, to visit family home she was forced to abandon in 1947

For decades, Reena Varma would return to her home in Rawalpindi in her dreams. She would wander down the narrow lane to the three-storey house and walk through the rooms where she had lived with her five siblings, parents and an aunt for the first 15 years of her life.

But for 75 years, this was a home located across a seemingly impenetrable national border, one Varma could only visit as a painful memory. That was, until July this year. Now 90 years old but still sprightly, a chance encounter on a Facebook group helped her find and visit the family home she was forced to abandon 75 years ago, located in what is now Pakistan.

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