Category Archives: South and Central Asia

India bars Pulitzer-winning Kashmiri photojournalist from flying to France

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Sanna Irshad Mattoo says she was stopped by immigration officials at Delhi airport despite holding valid visa

Indian authorities have blocked a Pulitzer prize-winning Kashmiri photojournalist from taking a flight to Paris where she was to take part in a book launch and photography exhibition displaying her photos from Kashmir.

Sanna Irshad Mattoo, who works with Reuters as a multimedia journalist from Indian-administered Kashmir, was stopped at the Delhi airport by immigration officials on Saturday, despite holding a valid French visa.

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India tailor murder: police arrest two alleged ‘masterminds’

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Authorities say total of four men in custody after Kanhaiya Lal Teli was killed amid Hindu-Muslim tensions

Indian police have made fresh arrests over the murder of a Hindu tailor in Rajasthan, which sparked tensions between the Hindu majority and Muslim minority and a clampdown on protests and the internet to prevent them from escalating.

Three senior police officials said on Saturday that two Muslim men based in Rajasthan were being held for planning Teli’s murder in his shop in Udaipur, a popular tourist destination. Two other Muslim men were already under arrest.

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Dfat bungle delayed visas for former Afghan embassy employees at risk from Taliban

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Exclusive: Freedom-of-information investigation reveals error in urgent submission to then minister Marise Payne

A file number bungle by an Australian government department caused a four-week delay in helping some Afghan citizens at risk of retribution from the Taliban as the militant group swept to power in Afghanistan, Guardian Australia can reveal.

A freedom-of-information investigation reveals the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade prepared an urgent submission for the then minister Marise Payne asking for a decision about a group of former embassy employees within three days.

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Afghan embassy staff remain in hiding despite being eligible for UK relocation

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UK government accused of leaving former employees and their families ‘in limbo’ in Afghanistan, where they are targets for the Taliban

More than 170 people who worked for the British embassy in Kabul remain in hiding in Afghanistan in fear for their lives, almost a year after the Taliban retook the country.

A list of Afghans currently in hiding, seen by the Guardian, shows almost 200 former interpreters, security guards and local staff waiting for a response from the Ministry of Defence and the Home Office, the departments responsible for relocating people at risk. All of those on the list are eligible for transfer to the UK under the Afghan relocations and assistance policy (Arap), intended to bring those formerly employed by the UK government, and their family members, to safety in Britain.

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Delhi police arrest Muslim journalist Mohammed Zubair over tweet from 2018

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Journalists demand release of co-founder of Alt News after he was accused of insulting Hindus

The co-founder of a factchecking website has been arrested by police in Delhi weeks after he highlighted derogatory comments made by a spokesperson for Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) about the prophet Muhammad.

Mohammed Zubair, who set up the Alt News website, flagged the remarks made during a television debate at the end of May on Twitter, bringing them attention they may not otherwise have had.

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Sri Lanka suspends fuel sales for two weeks as economic crisis worsens

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Ban on sales to everything except essential services comes as nation tries to conserve fuel supplies that are barely enough to last a single day

Cash-strapped Sri Lanka has announced a two-week halt to all fuel sales except for essential services and called for a partial shutdown as its unprecedented economic crisis deepened.

The south Asian nation is facing its worst economic meltdown since gaining independence from Britain in 1948, and has been unable to finance even the imports of essentials since late last year.

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Sri Lanka almost out of fuel, with no fresh supplies in sight

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Bankrupt nation’s energy minister apologises to motorists but unable to say when petrol and diesel imports will be restored

Sri Lanka has increased the price of fuel by up to 22%% after the energy minister warned it had virtually run out of petrol and diesel after several expected shipments were delayed.

Kanchana Wijesekera apologised to motorists as he said on Saturday that oil cargoes that were due last week did not turn up, while those scheduled to arrive next week will also not reach Sri Lanka due to “banking” reasons.

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Taliban say they will not interfere with Afghanistan earthquake aid

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Aid organisations complain the group in the past has tried to divert aid to supporters of their insurgency

Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers have pledged not to interfere with international efforts to distribute aid to tens of thousands of people affected by this week’s deadly earthquake.

Even before Wednesday’s quake the country was in the grip of a humanitarian crisis, with aid flows and financial assistance severely curtailed since the Taliban’s return to power.

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‘Too much suffering’: survivors talk of quake’s deadly toll in Afghanistan

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5.9-magnitude earthquake leaves children buried under rubble and villages destroyed in already impoverished country

Sitting on a hill overlooking the remote Gayan district, Abdullah Abed pointed towards several freshly dug graves. “They screamed for help,” he said of his son Farhadullah, 10, and daughter Basrina, 18. “We tried to save them but by the time we pulled them out of the rubble, their voices had gone quiet.”

Today they lie buried beside 10 other family members lost in the 5.9-magnitude earthquake that struck eastern Afghanistan in the early hours of Wednesday. An estimated 250 people have died in the hard-hit district, many of them now buried next to Abed’s children, among the more than 1,150 people feared dead and 1,500 injured across Afghanistan’s eastern Paktika and Khost provinces. It was Afghanistan’s deadliest quake in two decades.

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Fears grow for Afghanistan earthquake survivors left without shelter

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First shipments of international aid arrive in country as officials say death toll has risen to 1,150

There are growing fears for the health and wellbeing of survivors of Wednesday’s earthquake in Afghanistan, as the death toll rose to 1,150 and the first shipments of international aid arrived in the impoverished country.

“There are no blankets, tents, there’s no shelter. Our entire water distribution system is destroyed. There is literally nothing to eat,” Zaitullah Ghurziwal, 21, told an AFP team that reached his village in Paktika province.

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Afghan earthquake survivors dig by hand as rescuers struggle to reach area

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Disaster has killed more than 1,000 people and officials say toll could rise

Organised rescue efforts were struggling to reach the site of an earthquake in Afghanistan that killed more than 1,000 people, as survivors dig through the rubble by hand to find those still missing.

In Paktika province’s Gayan district, villagers stood atop mud bricks that were once a home. Others carefully walked through dirt alleyways, gripping on to damaged walls with exposed timber beams to make their way.

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Afghanistan earthquake: Taliban appeal for more aid as death toll set to mount

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The hardline Islamist leadership says help needs to be ‘scaled up’ after the quake devastated towns and villages in the country’s mountainous east

Afghanistan’s Taliban-led government has appealed for more international aid as it struggles to cope with the devastating earthquake in a mountainous eastern region that has left more than 1,000 people dead and many more injured.

With the war-ravaged country already stricken by an economic crisis, the hardline Islamist leadership said sanctions imposed by western countries after the withdrawal of US-led coalition forces last year meant it was handicapped in its ability to deal with Wednesday’s disaster in Khost and Paktika provinces.

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Aung San Suu Kyi moved to solitary confinement, says Myanmar junta

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Ousted leader, held at secret location for past year, charged with at least 20 offences and could spend rest of life in jail

Aung San Suu Kyi has been moved to solitary confinement inside a prison compound in Myanmar’s capital, Naypyidaw, according to the junta.

The former leader, who is 77, has been held by the military since 1 February last year, when it ousted her democratically elected government, plunging Myanmar into chaos.

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Sri Lanka’s prime minister says economy has ‘completely collapsed’

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Ranil Wickremesinghe’s comments come as island faces its worst crisis in recent memory, though PM didn’t cite any new developments

Sri Lanka’s debt-laden economy has “collapsed” after months of shortages of food, fuel and electricity, the prime minister told lawmakers in comments that underscored the country’s dire situation as it seeks help from international lenders.

Ranil Wickremesinghe told parliament the South Asian nation faces “a far more serious situation” than the shortages alone, and he warned of “a possible fall to rock bottom.”

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Isolated Afghanistan may face struggle for aid after earthquake

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Analysis: humanitarian appeals for Taliban-ruled country have had poor responses and there are sanctions complications

As Afghanistan reels from a powerful earthquake and starts to bury its more than 1,000 dead, the Taliban leadership in Kabul have appealed to the international community to clear any barriers created by sanctions and come to their aid.

“The government is working within its capabilities,” tweeted Anas Haqqani, a senior Taliban official. “We hope that the International Community & aid agencies will also help our people in this dire situation.”

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Afghan quake: at least 1,000 people killed after 5.9 magnitude tremor

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Toll expected to rise after deadliest quake in two decades strikes during night near Khost, 95 miles south of Kabul

A powerful earthquake in a remote area of Afghanistan’s Paktika province has killed at least 1,000 people and injured at least 1,500, with the toll expected to rise in the impoverished country.

According to Taliban officials, hundreds more were injured in what appears to have been the deadliest quake in two decades, striking during the night with heavy rain hampering rescue efforts.

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‘We want justice, not fuel’: Sri Lanka’s Tamils on north-south divide

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In the middle of a crippling economic crisis, demonstrating is a luxury the country’s Tamil minority cannot afford

For months now, the sounds of protest and anger have rung out across Colombo, Sri Lanka’s largest city. Every day, along the city’s seafront promenade of Galle Face, people have gathered in their tens of thousands to rage against the government for plunging the country into its worst financial crisis in modern history.

But 200 miles north, in the district of Mullaitivu, the streets are silent. The economic crisis has hit Sri Lanka’s Tamil minority, who are concentrated in the north and eastern provinces, as hard as those in the south; the fishermen here say they are already starving. But they will also tell you that protesting is a privilege in Sri Lanka – one they have never been afforded.

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‘Like a scene from Titanic’: floods in Assam submerge entire villages

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India’s monsoon season has been worse than usual, sweeping away possessions and leaving people huddling on raised ground

People living in Assam, in north-east India, are usually stoical about the flooding that occurs to a greater or lesser extent every monsoon season. But this year they say the situation is dramatically worse. “It was like a scene from Titanic,” one man told local media of the rising waters that have flooded all but two of the state’s districts.

In some places entire villages are under water, while across the state 114,000 hectares of crops have been submerged and 5,000 livestock have been washed away. For those that remain, fodder is running out.

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Indian police: grenade launcher seized from suspects in rapper’s murder

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Hip-hop star Sidhu Moose Wala was shot dead in his car in Punjab last month

Indian police say have arrested three men accused of murdering hip-hop star Sidhu Moose Wala and that they have seized a cache of weaponry including a grenade launcher from the suspects.

Moose Wala – also known by his birth name Shubhdeep Singh Sidhu – was shot dead in his car in the northern state of Punjab last month.

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Visa delays leave UK families with adopted babies stranded in Pakistan

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Home Office accused of leaving mothers and traumatised children stranded for months while priority is given to Ukraine refugees

British couples who travelled to Pakistan to adopt children have been left stranded after the Home Office told them to expect months of delays in processing visas because of the Ukraine refugee crisis.

The delays are part of wider failings in visa processing that have left families around the world stuck waiting to return to the UK.

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