Key coalition partner has switched allegiance ahead of a parliamentary no-confidence vote this weekend
Imran Khan’s future as prime minister of Pakistan is looking increasingly in doubt after a key coalition partner switched allegiance ahead of a parliamentary no-confidence vote this weekend.
The former cricketer was expected to address the country in the evening, as weeks of political turmoil come to a head – including allegations of foreign interference.
Continue reading...Taliban’s increasingly repressive rule could lead to donor backlash at UN pledging conference on Thursday
Western officials fear a UN pledging conference this Thursday aimed at raising more than $4.4bn (£3.34bn) aid for Afghanistan is likely to fall well short of its target. One UN official admitted he feared the Taliban’s increasingly repressive rule would lead to a donor backlash.
The new UN appeal, on top of the flash appeal for $600m in the immediate wake of the Taliban takeover in August, is hoping to raise the biggest sum ever for a single country at a pledging conference.
Continue reading...Unions say strike over ‘anti-worker’ government policies a success despite limited impact, with far fewer than predicted taking part
An estimated 50 million people joined India’s two-day national strike this week, a fraction of the number expected to protest.
Bank, factory and public transport workers disrupted services in six states on Monday and Tuesday, but the strike had limited impact across the rest of the country.
Continue reading...Six Pakistanis, a Russian and a Serb victims of fatal reconnaissance mission, officials say
Eight UN peacekeepers – six Pakistanis, a Russian and a Serb – were killed on Tuesday when a Puma helicopter crashed in the troubled eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), UN and Pakistani officials said.
“While undertaking a reconnaissance mission in Congo, 1 Puma Helicopter crashed. Exact cause of crash is yet to be ascertained,” the Pakistani military’s media wing said. It added that six Pakistani troops were among those killed.
Continue reading...Blaze at 65-metre high ‘mountain of shame’ in Ghazipur still not completely put out
Parts of a fire that broke out on Monday at a gigantic landfill site on the outskirts of Delhi known as the “mountain of shame” were still smouldering 24 hours later, choking local residents who have complained of breathing in toxic fumes.
Dozens of firefighters struggled to douse the flames at the landfill site in Ghazipur, due to its height and a lack of access roads.
Continue reading...Min Aung Hlaing also urges ethnic minorities not to support militias opposed to army rule
Myanmar’s top general has vowed to intensify action against homegrown militia groups fighting the military-run government, saying the armed forces would “annihilate” them.
Gen Min Aung Hlaing, speaking at a military parade marking Armed Forces Day on Sunday, also urged ethnic minorities not to support groups opposed to army rule and ruled out negotiations with them.
Continue reading...Joint event had been planned ahead of Doha Forum that would have set process in motion to grant group diplomatic recognition
The US was poised to set the Taliban on the path to diplomatic recognition before the plan was derailed by the Afghan rulers’ sudden U-turn on a promise to allow girls’ education, the Guardian understands.
The group prompted international outrage and confusion on Wednesday when it reneged on a deal to allow teenage girls to go to secondary school, just a week after the education ministry announced that schools would open for all students.
Continue reading...While street-level opinion is even-handed, commentators from right and left are converging on the war
At the bustling tea stands and roadside eateries of Delhi, European politics is not a regular topic of conversation. But with wall-to-wall coverage of the war in Ukraine on television and in the newspapers, petrol prices rising and pressure growing on the prime minister, Narendra Modi, to denounce Russia, Indians are starting to grapple with the consequences of the conflict 2,800 miles away.
Ram Agarwal, a shopkeeper, does not condone the loss of civilian life but nor can he bring himself to criticise Russia. He grew up in the 1950s and 60s when India and the Soviet Union were such close allies that Nikita Khrushchev coined the slogan “Hindi Rusi bhai bhai” (Indians and Russians are brothers).
Continue reading...The threat of a bullet in the leg or having his fingernails ripped off was the ordeal faced by one man
The sun had barely risen the morning that the military turned up for Vijay*. Grabbing him from his home in a village in the Northern Province of Sri Lanka while his pregnant wife and baby lay asleep next to him, they blindfolded him and drove him deep into a jungle.
For the next 12 hours, in a small dark shack away from prying eyes, they interrogated Vijay. Pliers were repeatedly brandished, with threats that his finger nails would be removed if he did not give the army officers the information they wanted.
Continue reading...Ukraine crisis is uniting democracies in Europe and Pacific but complicating relationships with China, India and Gulf states
“Decide who you are with” Volodymyr Zelenskiy told the European council, pointing to a choice that is becoming increasingly hard to avoid, as the sheer violence of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine crystallises the division of the world into two camps.
The camp that stands with Russians is becoming easier to define with every passing day of the war. The colour-coded scoreboard at the UN general assembly in recent weeks, recording the votes on resolutions deploring the attack and calling for a ceasefire, could not have been clearer.
Continue reading...Two dozen girls and women react to Taliban’s decision to shut secondary schools to girls across Afghanistan
Women and girls staged a protest near the Taliban’s ministry of education in Kabul on Saturday, calling on the group to reopen girls’ secondary schools in Afghanistan.
The protesters chanted: “Education is our right – open the doors of girls’ schools!” as armed Taliban members looked on. They held banners that said: “Education is our fundamental right, not a political plan” as they marched for a short distance. They dispersed when Taliban fighters arrived at the scene later.
Continue reading...A lack of teachers and school uniform issues blamed for school closures but confusion is a sign of differences in vision for Afghanistan’s future
Earlier this week, girls across Afghanistan arrived for lessons on the day secondary schools were due to open for them for the first time since the Taliban seized power. They were told to go home, and informed schools would remain shut indefinitely.
As international outrage grew at the U-turn, the official Taliban response was confused and contradictory. The group blamed a lack of teachers on the closures and said they first needed to create an appropriate environment for girls to study, and decide on appropriate uniforms.
Continue reading...Report from Shoal on 2021’s newly described species shows ‘there are still hundreds and hundreds more freshwater fish scientists don’t know about yet’
Scientists are celebrating 212 “new” freshwater fish species, including a blind eel found in the grounds of a school for blind children and a fish named Wolverine that is armed with a hidden weapons system.
The New Species 2021 report, released by the conservation organisation Shoal, shows just how diverse and remarkable the world’s often undervalued freshwater species are, and suggests there is plenty more life still to be discovered in the world’s lakes, rivers and wetlands.
Continue reading...Maharashtra government criticised over prop for health workers to demonstrate how to put on a condom
A rubber penis that health workers are using as part of a family planning kit to demonstrate how to put on a condom has sparked anger in rural India, where sex remains a taboo subject.
Some members of the ruling Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) have demanded that the kits be withdrawn and an apology offered to the health workers. One BJP state legislator, Chitra Kishor Wagh, said the Maharashtra government, which introduced the kit, “has lost its mind”. His colleague, Akash Bhundkar, wanted the government to apologise to the health workers for the “embarrassment” it had caused them.
Continue reading...Whereabouts of children taken by the military since the 2021 coup are mostly unknown, according to Naw Susanna Hla Hla Soe
Hundreds of children have been detained by the Myanmar military since it seized power more than one year ago, with many held ransom by soldiers and police who are seeking to arrest their relatives, according to a minister of the country’s National Unity Government.
Naw Susanna Hla Hla Soe, minister of Women, Youths and Children Affairs Ministry in the NUG, which was formed last year by elected lawmakers to challenge the junta, said 287 children under the age of 18 had been detained since 1 February 2021. Most had been held in police station detention centres, and some in prisons.
Continue reading...Refugees ‘very happy’ with declaration, while experts say ‘concrete steps’ must follow
Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh have welcomed the announcement by the US that it considers the violent repression of their largely Muslim ethnic group in Myanmar a genocide.
“We are very happy on the declaration of the genocide; many many thanks,” said 60-year-old Sala Uddin, who lives at Kutupalong camp, one of the many in Cox’s Bazar district that are now home to about 1 million Rohingya.
Continue reading...Imran Khan cajoles and threatens his own and opposition lawmakers on eve of vote
With a vote of no-confidence looming over his government, Pakistan’s prime minister, Imran Khan, warned those planning to vote against him that they risk social disgrace, and that “no one will marry your children”.
The no-confidence vote is expected to be tabled on Friday 25 March, backed by a coalition of politicians who accuse Khan of bad governance and economic incompetence. In January inflation reached 13% and the cost of fuel and food rocketed.
Continue reading...Second whistleblower suggests to committee that top civil servants lied to cover up episode
A second whistleblower has gone public to say it was “widespread knowledge” in government that Boris Johnson ordered the prioritisation of an animal charity based in Afghanistan for evacuation during the Taliban takeover last summer.
Josie Stewart, who worked in the Foreign Office for seven years, including a stint in the Kabul embassy, suggested senior civil servants in the department had lied to cover up the embarrassing episode.
Continue reading...Hamro’s leader promises new start for Indian hill station after years of strikes and insurgencies
India’s romantic hill station Darjeeling has evoked images of beautiful tea-growing gardens but also, for those who follow its politics, of industrial strikes and violent insurgencies.
No more, says the leader of a new political party that swept to power in recent municipal polls, vowing to end years of agitation that have blighted the region’s main sources of income: tea and tourism.
Continue reading...Designation could put global pressure on military-led government, which faces accusations at international court of justice
The US has declared Myanmar’s mass killing of the Rohingya Muslim population to be a “genocide”.
The secretary of state, Antony Blinken, made the announcement at the Holocaust Memorial Museum.
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