As sea levels rise, growers are employing innovative methods to adapt to saline soils
Like millions of people across Bangladesh, Anita Bala, 45, relies on a small plot of land to feed her family.
But for years nothing would grow. Her husband farmed shrimp in the salty ponds on their land, but the surrounding ground was barren. Bala’s efforts to cultivate beans and pulses failed repeatedly. Eventually she gave up.
Continue reading...Female taekwondo and karate trainers are forced to practise in secret since the Taliban takeover and fear they may never compete again
On the morning of 15 August, when the Taliban were at the gates of Kabul, Soraya, a martial arts trainer in the Afghan capital, woke up with a sense of dread. “It was as though the sun had lost its colour,” she says. That day she taught what would be her last karate class at the gym she had started to teach women self-defence skills. “By 11am we had to say our goodbyes to our students. We didn’t know when we would see each other again,” she says.
Soraya is passionate about martial arts and its potential to transform women’s minds and bodies. “Sport has no gender; it is about good health. I haven’t read anywhere in Qur’an that prevents women from participating in sports to stay healthy,” she says.
Continue reading...Special rapporteur says children as young as 20 weeks old are being seized by military in bid to force suspects to hand themselves in
Myanmar’s military junta is systematically abducting the relatives of people it is seeking to arrest, including children as young as 20 weeks old, according the UN special rapporteur for the country.
Tom Andrews told the UN Human Rights Council on Wednesday that conditions in the country have continued to deteriorate and that “current efforts by the international community to stop the downward spiral of events in Myanmar are simply not working”.
Continue reading...Refusal to recognise vaccines given across Latin America, Africa and south Asia has been denounced as ‘discriminatory’
England’s Covid travel rules and refusal to recognise vaccines administered across huge swaths of the world have sparked outrage and bewilderment across Latin America, Africa and south Asia, with critics denouncing what they called an illogical and discriminatory policy.
The transport secretary, Grant Shapps, described England’s rules, unveiled last Friday, as “a new simplified system for international travel”. “The purpose is to make it easier for people to travel,” Shapps said.
Continue reading...As a child in Afghanistan, she pretended to be a boy in order to get an education, before starting her own women’s news agency. Now living in Britain, her fight continues
Just over a month ago, Zahra Joya left her house in Kabul to walk to her office, as she had been doing every day. From this small office, Joya, a journalist, ran Rukhshana Media, the news agency she founded last year to report on the stories of women and girls across Afghanistan. By the time she returned home in the afternoon, however, men with guns were on street corners and her sisters were shut inside their house, shaking with fear. In just a few hours, normal life had been obliterated.
“Right to the end, on that afternoon of 15 August, I couldn’t believe what was happening,” she says. “It was like a bad dream. Even on that day, it just seemed impossible that the Taliban could come to power so quickly, wipe away 20 years and drag us all back to the past.”
Continue reading...After years caught in the crossfire between the Taliban and security forces, farmers in Kandahar face a new threat, as water sources dry up
The war in Afghanistan might be over but farmers in Kandahar’s Arghandab valley face a new enemy: drought.
It has hardly rained for two years, a drought so severe that some farmers are questioning how much longer they can live off the land.
Continue reading...Gay and trans people in Afghanistan already faced stigma, but now even a call from an unknown number sparks fear
Laila, a transgender woman in Afghanistan, rubs her eyes to wipe tears away. “I am terrified. It’s like a nightmare. I don’t feel safe even in my room. I’m scared of the Taliban. When I see them I feel they will know who I am and they will come to beat me, kick me or send me to prison.”
After the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan in August, Laila is far from an isolated case. Rehmat, a gay man, said: “Our lives are in danger. We are afraid of having mobile phones. I get afraid when I receive calls from unknown numbers, worried that it might be the Taliban.”
Continue reading...The US photographer’s image of Sharbat Gula captured the story of a country, its people and refugees across the world. Thirty six years on, another picture tells a similar tale – but also one of hope
On 1 September, a young Afghan girl stood in line with her family at a US base in Sicily waiting to board a flight to Philadelphia. She is about nine years old and is one of more than 100,000 people evacuated from Kabul by allied forces after the Taliban took control of the country in August.
Her photo, taken for the Guardian by Italian photojournalist Alessio Mamo and featured on the front page of the UK print edition, resembles the Afghan Girl by American photographer Steve McCurry. McCurry’s portrait, of a Pashtun child, Sharbat Gula, which appeared on the June 1985 cover of National Geographic, became the symbol, not only of Afghanistan, but of displaced refugees across the world.
Continue reading...Photojournalist Stefanie Glinski reports from Kabul on the events of the past four weeks and the capital’s new rulers
Above its tightly clustered houses and peaks of the Hindu Kush mountains, Kabul’s blue skies were once dotted with countless colourful kites, flown by children from the hilltops or their rooftops. Since the Taliban took the Afghan capital a month ago, they have disappeared.
Continue reading...Only those who cannot be replaced by men may remain, in further sign of Taliban’s hardline rule over Afghans
Female employees in the Kabul city government have been told to stay home, with work only allowed for those who cannot be replaced by men, the interim mayor of Afghanistan’s capital said on Sunday, detailing the latest restrictions on women by the new Taliban rulers.
The decision to prevent most female city workers from returning to their jobs is another sign that the Taliban, who overran Kabul last month, are enforcing their harsh interpretation of Islam despite initial promises by some that they would be tolerant and inclusive. Under their previous rule in the 1990s, the Taliban barred girls and women from schools, jobs and public life.
Continue reading...Initial reports suggest a Taliban convoy may have been targeted in the ISKP’s stronghold region
At least three people have been killed and more than 18 people injured in three explosions in Jalalabad in Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar province.
It is reported that the intended target may have been a passing convoy of the Taliban in the provincial capital. It is the first attack in the province since the Taliban came into power in mid-August.
Continue reading...Civilian deaths in US drone strike deal blow to credibility of chairman of the joint chiefs of staff when he needs it most
Three days after a US drone obliterated a car in a Kabul street, General Mark Milley, shrugged off reports of civilian casualties, insisting it was a “righteous strike”.
On Friday that word came back to haunt America’s top general when the Pentagon was forced to admit that all 10 dead had been civilians, seven of them children. The drone had hit the wrong white Toyota Corolla.
Continue reading...Everyone here has tales of lost loved ones, but many want foreigners back – with aid not weapons
A parade of white Taliban flags lines Musa Qala bazaar right up to the central monument where two kidnappers were hanged in a public execution earlier this year. The flags flutter from almost every shop in celebration, some rough and handmade, others printed and lined with tinsel.
The dusty town, an opium trading centre reached most of the year by driving up the gravel bed of a seasonal river, was the Taliban’s southern capital from 2015 until the militant group took over the national capital. Before that it was the site of intense fighting by British and US forces for more than a decade, including a bitter 2006 British siege in which 88 men were holed up for two months, leading to the first – albeit hyperlocal – international ceasefire negotiations with the Taliban.
Continue reading...Government announces re-opening of high schools for boys but makes no mention of girls
The Taliban have effectively banned girls from secondary education in Afghanistan, by ordering high schools to re-open only for boys.
Girls were not mentioned in Friday’s announcement, which means boys will be back at their desks next week after a one-month hiatus, while their sisters will still be stuck at home.
Continue reading...Evacuation of employees, not contractors, ‘splitting hairs’, says HRW, warning of days left to save lives
Afghan employees who worked as contractors on UK aid projects fear for their lives after not being granted resettlement in Britain.
The Guardian has been in contact with four families who said they had been targeted by the Taliban because they worked for the UK government, and have now been forced into hiding.
Continue reading...One was a young footballer, another a dentist. Their shocking deaths haunt the families who could not stop their desperate bids to escape
When Zaki Anwari scaled the fence of Kabul airport, he was determined to escape. The 17-year-old footballer with the Afghan national youth team had taken a break from studying maths for his exams to accompany his brother as he tried to catch a flight. Zaki had always told his family he was not interested in going abroad, unless he could return to Afghanistan.
But the Taliban takeover had changed things. Zaki did not have a passport but, as night fell on Kabul after the Taliban took control of the city, he told his brother Zakir that he wanted to leave. Zakir did his best to talk him out of it, but he would not let go of the idea.
Continue reading...Government has prioritised rescue of current scholars but estimated 70 alumni are still in country
A group of former Chevening scholars have accused the British government of abandoning them in Afghanistan, where they say their lives are at grave risk from the Taliban.
The UK government has prioritised the rescue of 35 current Chevening scholars who were due to embark on their studies in the UK before the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, but an estimated 70 former scholars are also thought to still be in the country.
Continue reading...Women around the world are sharing pictures of themselves in traditional colourful clothes in a campaign against the new strict dress code for female students
After street demonstrations across major cities in Afghanistan, women have now taken to social media to protest against the Taliban’s hardline policies towards them.
An online campaign has seen Afghan women around the world share photos of themselves wearing traditional colourful clothes, using the hashtag #DoNotTouchMyClothes.
Continue reading...National cases are at record lows, yet in state that excelled in handling first wave rates have stayed high since May
As Covid-19 swept through India last year, there was one state that was always seen to stand out in its handling of the pandemic.
The “Kerala model” became a byword for success in containing the virus, named after a series of measures introduced early on by the south Indian state, including rigorous and focused testing, containment, community support and contact tracing. The state boasted the lowest death toll from the virus and Kerala’s now-ousted health minister, KK Shailaja, became known as the “Covid slayer” and was named Vogue India’s woman of the year.
Continue reading...Rossella Pagliuchi-Lor tells MPs proposed legislation could end up punishing those fleeing Taliban if travelling by illegal routes
The UN’s refugee chief in London has said the introduction of the new nationality and borders bill could criminalise Afghan people who manage to escape the Taliban.
Rossella Pagliuchi-Lor, the UNHCR’S representative in the UK, told MPs that the government could find itself in a situation where it is jailing Afghans who seek refuge in the UK because they travelled by illegal routes.
Continue reading...