Category Archives: South and Central Asia

‘We live and die by it’: climate crisis threatens Bangladesh’s Sundarbans

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Villagers rely more on the forest’s resources, threatening its ecosystem – and leaving them more vulnerable to cyclones

As he steps out of the mosque on the banks of the Kholpetua River, Mohammed Sabud Ali looks out at a view he has seen several times a day for most of his life. But never before has the sprawling Sundarbans mangrove forest felt so important to him.

The vast Sundarbans has always protected Bangladeshi coastal communities from the violent cyclones that regularly crash in from the Bay of Bengal, and they have always harvested its resources. But now, as the climate crisis encroaches, people are becoming even more dependent on the forest.

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‘It’s a total disaster’: Omicron lays waste to India’s huge wedding season

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Distraught couples face prospect of cutting guest lists from more than 600 people down to just 20 after coronavirus variant took hold

Until 28 December, Heena Vashisht was a happy bride-to-be. The 28-year-old was pleased her family had put in place early all the arrangements for her wedding on 10 February, right down to the last candle. But her plans have been shredded by India’s Omicron surge. The nuptials can go ahead in New Delhi as planned, but only if she cuts her guest list down from 650 to 20.

“My own immediate family is 80. How can I reduce the guests to 20? The tension in my family is unbearable right now. No one knows what to do and my mother’s blood pressure has shot up with all the tension,” says Vashisht.

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‘My nightmares came true’: ex-prosecutor of Afghan women’s abusers

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Negin overcame significant disadvantages to obtain her role but now fears those seeking revenge

The Taliban blighted *Negin’s childhood with their ban on girls’ education, but she overcame the late start to her schooling to become a senior prosecutor. Afghanistan’s legal system was slow and often corrupt, but it offered women some hope of escaping abusers and seeing their tormentors jailed. Now she fears that some of those men, freed in a Taliban-orchestrated mass jailbreak last summer, want revenge.

My life was already affected by the Taliban long before they took over Afghanistan this summer. I only started school at 14, because they were in power in the 90s and did not allow girls to study. Once I could go to school, I graduated and went to university.

In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org.

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‘She chopped her hair off’: Pakistani women’s struggle to play cricket

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In such a conservative country, young women often have to fight their own families first just to play the sport they love

Bisma Amjad plays cricket. She aspires to play internationally and was picked for Pakistan’s under-19 World Cup squad.

But when the pandemic came, because she was a woman, there was nowhere for her to practise, so she dressed as a man to play alongside male cricketers at “gully cricket” – the street game.

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Taliban forces pepper-spray women’s rights protesters in Kabul

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One woman reportedly taken to hospital after protest calling for right to work and education is stopped

Taliban forces have fired pepper spray at a group of women protesting in Afghanistan’s capital to demand rights to work and education.

Since seizing control of the country by force in August, the Taliban authorities have imposed creeping restrictions on Afghans, especially on women.

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‘We are struggling’: two former officials at Afghan women’s affairs ministry

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Gul Bano and Karima’s former offices are in the hands of the Taliban – and they fear for their lives

Gul Bano* and Karima* are activists who ran provincial branches of the ministry of women’s affairs in two different parts of Afghanistan. Their former offices have been taken over by the Taliban’s feared enforcers, the ministry for the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice. They are now in hiding, afraid of the men they helped put in prison for domestic violence and other abuses, many of them in the Taliban or with family links to the militants.

In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 and the domestic abuse helpline is 0808 2000 247. In the US, the suicide prevention lifeline is 1-800-273-8255 and the domestic violence hotline is 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14 and the national family violence counselling service is on 1800 737 732. Other international helplines can be found via www.befrienders.org

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Where is Kazakhstan’s former longtime leader Nursultan Nazarbayev?

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Analysis: All-encompassing status that took 30 years to build appears to have crumbled in just of a few days

It is a question being asked with increasing urgency by intelligence services, multinational companies and most citizens of Kazakhstan: where is Nursultan Nazarbayev?

Kazakhstan’s leader from 1991 until 2019, Nazarbayev has long been the arbiter of all business and political decisions in the central Asian nation, and the purveyor of an all-encompassing personality cult. In 2019, he handpicked a successor, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, while retaining power behind the scenes. The capital city, along with its airport and main university were all renamed after him.

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Kazakhstan authorities raise death toll from unrest to 225

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Prosecutor says dead include security forces and ‘armed bandits’, with toll dramatically increased from previous figures

The violent unrest in Kazakhstan that began with peaceful protests in early January has left 225 people dead, authorities have said in a dramatic increase on previous tolls.

“During the state of emergency, the bodies of 225 people were delivered to morgues, of which 19 were law enforcement officers and military personnel,” Serik Shalabayev, the head of criminal prosecution at the prosecutor’s office, told a briefing on Saturday.

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Covid created 20 new ‘pandemic billionaires’ in Asia, says Oxfam

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While wealthiest got richer, 140m people fell into poverty as jobs were lost, wiping out years of gains for poorest, report finds

Twenty new “pandemic billionaires” have been created in Asia thanks to the international response to Covid-19, while 140 million people across the continent were plunged into poverty as jobs were lost during the pandemic, according to Oxfam.

A report by the aid organisation says that by March 2021, profits from the pharmaceuticals, medical equipment and services needed for the Covid response had made 20 people new billionaires as lockdowns and economic stagnation destroyed the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of others.

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Burmese flee bombardment as junta ‘makes example’ of city of Loikaw

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Up to 170,000 people are thought to have left homes in Myanmar’s Kayah state due to intensified fighting

Nan and her family had just one hour to gather their belongings and prepare to flee their home. A charity had offered to drive them away from Loikaw, the capital of eastern Myanmar’s Kayah state, to relative safety. She considered staying behind, with the plants, dogs and pigs that she had raised, but knew she had to leave.

Since last week, Loikaw has seen intense fighting between groups opposed to last year’s military coup and the armed forces, which have launched airstrikes and fired artillery. An artillery shell had dropped near Nan’s fence, terrifying her cousin’s children, who ran to hide under their bed. “It was so loud,” she said. “My grandma was shocked and sweating, we had to give her medication to calm her down.” Other homes in Nan’s neighbourhood have been hit.

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Increased repression and violence a sign of weakness, says Human Rights Watch

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Watchdog’s latest report argues autocrats around the world are getting desperate as opponents form coalitions to challenge them

Increasingly repressive and violent acts against civilian protests by autocratic leaders and military regimes around the world are signs of their desperation and weakening grip on power, Human Rights Watch says in its annual assessment of human rights across the globe.

In its world report 2022, the human rights organisation said autocratic leaders faced a significant backlash in 2021, with millions of people risking their lives to take to the streets to challenge regimes’ authority and demand democracy.

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Kazakhstan: Russian-led military bloc to start withdrawing troops, says president

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Withdrawal to start in two days, says Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, as new PM appointed and detentions rise to nearly 10,000

A Russian-led military bloc will start withdrawing its troops from Kazakhstan in two days’ time, Kazakh president Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has told the country’s parliament.

Troops from the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) will depart the central Asian nation completely over a period of 10 days, he said on Tuesday.

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Calls for release of Kabul University professor detained by Taliban

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Prof Faizullah Jalal, an outspoken critic of Afghanistan’s ruling group, was arrested for alleged remarks on social media

Supporters of a prominent university professor, and one of Afghanistan’s most vocal critics of the Taliban, are calling for his release after he was arrested on Saturday.

Faizullah Jalal, a professor at Kabul University, was detained by the Taliban after the group claimed he was responsible for a series of messages on social media attacking them.

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Joy as baby given to US soldier during Afghan withdrawal is reunited with relatives

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Sohail Ahmadi, who was being raised by a local Kabul taxi driver, will hopefully now travel to the US to live with his parents

An infant boy handed in desperation to a US soldier across an airport wall in the chaos of the American evacuation of Afghanistan has been found and reunited with his relatives.

The baby, Sohail Ahmadi, was just two months old when he went missing on 19 August as thousands of people rushed to leave Afghanistan as it fell to the Taliban.

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Sri Lanka appeals to China to ease debt burden amid economic crisis

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President urges rescheduling of payments amid food and electricity rationing after pandemic hit tourism sector

Cash-strapped Sri Lanka has sought to reschedule its huge Chinese debt burden in talks with visiting foreign minister Wang Yi, the president’s office said.

“The president pointed out that it would be a great relief if debt payments could be rescheduled in view of the economic crisis following the pandemic,” President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s office said in a statement on Sunday.

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Fire sweeps through Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh – video

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A fire swept through a Rohingya refugee camp in south-eastern Bangladesh on Sunday, destroying hundreds of homes, according to officials and witnesses, though there were no immediate reports of casualties.

The blaze hit Camp 16 in Cox’s Bazar, a border district home to more than a million Rohingya refugees, most of whom fled a military-led crackdown in Myanmar in 2017.

Mohammed Shamsud Douza, a Bangladeshi government official in charge of refugees, said emergency workers had brought the fire under control. The cause of the blaze has not been established, he added

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Fire sweeps through Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh, leaving thousands homeless

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About 1,200 homes destroyed by blaze in area that is home to nearly a million people who fled military crackdown in Myanmar

Thousands of people have been left homeless after a fire gutted parts of a Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh, police say.

About 850,000 of the persecuted Muslim minority – many of whom escaped a 2017 military crackdown in Myanmar that UN investigators concluded was executed with “genocidal intent” – live in a network of camps in Bangladesh’s border district of Cox’s Bazar.

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As order is restored in Kazakhstan, its future remains murky

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The tragic events of last week, in which dozens lost their lives, have exposed hidden political tensions

For many Kazakhs, the full story behind the unrest of the past week remains as murky as the mist that enveloped Almaty, the country’s largest city and the centre of violence, at the same time.

People were unable to access accurate information, as an internet blackout froze almost all access to the outside world during a tragic few days of violence in which military vehicles rolled through the streets, government buildings burned and state television carried rolling threats that “bandits and terrorists” would be eliminated without mercy.

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Desmond Tutu’s funeral and Kazakhstan clashes: human rights this fortnight – in pictures

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A roundup of the coverage of the struggle for human rights and freedoms, from Mexico to Hong Kong

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Kazakhstan detains former national security chief on suspicion of treason

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Karim Masimov was fired this week as unrest raged across the country, with dozens killed and public buildings ransacked

The former head of Kazakhstan’s domestic intelligence agency has been detained on suspicion of high treason, the agency said, after he was fired amid violent protests.

The National Security Committee, or KNB, said in a statement on Saturday that its former chief Karim Masimov had been detained on Thursday after it launched an investigation into charges of high treason.

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