Thousands join demonstrations in Almaty, the largest city, and Mangystau province sparked by rising fuel prices
Kazakhstan’s president has declared a state of emergency in large parts of the country, as authorities struggled to respond to a rare outbreak of unrest.
Sparked by rising fuel prices, protests began in the west of the country over the weekend and have spread quickly.
Continue reading...Half a million people have sunk into poverty since the pandemic struck, with rising costs forcing many to cut back on food
Sri Lanka is facing a deepening financial and humanitarian crisis with fears it could go bankrupt in 2022 as inflation rises to record levels, food prices rocket and its coffers run dry.
The meltdown faced by the government, led by the strongman president Gotabaya Rajapaksa, is in part caused by the immediate impact of the Covid crisis and the loss of tourism but is compounded by high government spending and tax cuts eroding state revenues, vast debt repayments to China and foreign exchange reserves at their lowest levels in a decade. Inflation has meanwhile been spurred by the government printing money to pay off domestic loans and foreign bonds.
Continue reading...Night-time tragedy at revered site in Indian-administered Kashmir happened as thousands of pilgrims massed to offer prayers
At least 12 people have died and 13 were injured in a stampede at a religious shrine in Indian-administered Kashmir as thousands of pilgrims massed to offer prayers.
The disaster happened around 3am on New Year’s Day while it was still dark on the route to the Vaishno Devi shrine, one of the area’s most revered Hindu sites.
Continue reading...Local politician says statue is meant to inspire young people, but critics say it is inappropriate
He is idolised as one of the greatest footballers on earth, with his number seven shirt treasured by millions of youngsters dreaming of superstardom. But Cristiano Ronaldo’s astonishing success has not been matched by those seeking to immortalise his image.
A statue of Ronaldo in action unveiled this week in Goa has triggered protests by some locals who say Indian players should be honoured ahead of one from the country that was Goa’s colonial ruler until 60 years ago.
Continue reading...In first interview since fleeing Kabul in August, former president says US ‘erased’ Afghans in years of peace talks with militants
The former Afghan president Ashraf Ghani has broken his silence with his first interview since fleeing Kabul four months ago, in effect blaming the international community and in particular the Americans for the fall of the republic.
Ghani told the BBC he was rushed into fleeing Kabul on a helicopter by his “terrified” national security adviser, Hamdullah Mohib, and the commander of the collapsing presidential security detail.
Continue reading...Aid collapse after Taliban took control means just 2% of people have enough to eat, UN says
In his seven decades, Mehrajuddin has been a police commander, a fighter for the mujahideen, a district governor and a prosecutor, and even briefly worked in Europe. Until this year, he has never struggled to feed his family.
Now they have just one meal a day, hard discs of stale bread soaked in water until they soften to mush. “All the family are starving,” he says bluntly as he waits at a food distribution centre in Kabul for a handout of lentils, rice, flour and oil. “I even worry about dying, because if it happens tomorrow, how will my family pay for my funeral?”
Continue reading...Coastal communities in Mexico, Bangladesh and Somalia are struggling to adapt to the climate crisis. Many people have already lost livelihoods and homes to rising waters
Continue reading...Ex-PM warns poverty and starvation mean country is at risk of world’s biggest humanitarian crisis
The west is “sleepwalking into the biggest humanitarian crisis of our times” in Afghanistan, Gordon Brown has warned, as he called for a support package to save the country from economic and social collapse after the Taliban’s takeover.
Four months after the western-backed government was overthrown following a mass military withdrawal, the former UK prime minister said the case for action was not based only on morals but also “in our self-interest”.
Continue reading...Charity says the two men, both new fathers, were killed in massacre of more than 30 people blamed on junta troops
Save the Children has confirmed that two of its staff were killed in a Christmas Eve massacre blamed on junta troops that left the charred remains of dozens of people on a highway in eastern Myanmar.
Anti-junta fighters said they found more than 30 bodies, including women and children, on a highway in Kayah state where pro-democracy rebels have been fighting the military.
Continue reading...Laali and Meenakshi’s unborn daughters are among the country’s 46 million ‘missing’ women and girls over the past 50 years
Laali was alone at home when she realised her legs were drenched in blood. The bleeding did not stop for eight hours. As she fell unconscious, the 25-year-old thought she would die alongside the foetus she was losing.
She had been three months pregnant when she was taken for prenatal sex determination. “When I learned it was a girl, I started feeling as though I was suffocating,” she says.
Continue reading...Two members of international humanitarian group unaccounted for after killings in Kayah state
Two people working for Save the Children have gone missing after a massacre in eastern Myanmar that left more than 30 people dead, the international aid group has said.
Photos of the aftermath of the Christmas Eve killings in Mo So village, just outside Hpruso township in Kayah state, spread on social media in the country, fuelling outrage against the military that took power in February after ousting the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi.
Continue reading...Human rights group says burnt bodies of dozens killed by the military found near Hpruso town
More than 30 people, including children, have been killed and their bodies burned in Myanmar’s conflict-torn Kayah state, according to a local resident, media reports and a local human rights group.
The Karen Human Rights Group said it found the bodies of internally displaced people killed by the military that rules Myanmar near the village of Moso, Hpruso town, on Saturday.
Continue reading...From a Somali love story to a deep dive into Congolese rumba, Guardian writers pick their favourite recent world cinema releases
The Great Indian Kitchen
Continue reading...At least 39 people have been killed and 70 injured after a fire ripped through a crowded river ferry in Bangladesh.
The blaze began in the engine room of the ferry in the early hours of Friday morning, officials said, but the cause was not immediately clear. It took 15 fire engines two hours to get it under control.
People were forced to jump from the vessel, which was carrying about 800 passengers, into the freezing river water to escape
Continue reading...Grant Bailey was working as security consultant in Kabul where he liaised with US state department
A British man is missing in Afghanistan after a report he has been detained by the Taliban. Grant Bailey was arrested in the Afghan capital, Kabul, where he has been working as a security consultant.
The arrest came during a Taliban security clampdown, according to the Daily Mirror.
Continue reading...Passengers jumped off vessel carrying 800 passengers and tried to swim ashore, officials say
A massive fire has swept through a crowded river ferry in Bangladesh, leaving at least 39 people dead and 70 injured, officials have said.
Many passengers leaped from the vessel into cold waters to escape the fire. It took 15 fire engines two hours to control the blaze and another eight to cool down the vessel, according to Kamal Uddin Bhuiyan, the fire officer who led the rescue operation.
Continue reading...Founder Aryan Pasha wants La Beauté & Style to be an inclusive and comfortable space, as well as tackle prejudice and provide employment
The beauty treatments listed at the new La Beauté & Style salon are much the same as those offered by the dozen or so other parlours that dot the traffic-heavy Dilshad Extension area of Ghaziabad, 17 miles (28km) east of Delhi. But that is where the similarity ends.
The wall behind the reception desk is painted in rainbow colours; a mural of a trans man with flowing multicoloured locks decorates another wall; a woman wearing a sari is having her eyebrows plucked next to a trans man who is telling a stylist how he would like his hair cut.
Continue reading...Psychologist Ratnaboli Ray’s recovery from a mental health crisis inspired her to fight for women suffering in ‘abysmal’ conditions in West Bengal’s state institutions
Ratnaboli Ray regards one of the lowest points of her life as a breakthrough. After years in an arranged marriage in which she felt stifled and trapped, her mental health took a catastrophic turn in 1997, when she was in her mid-30s.
“I was feeling very caged, I was not able to express myself,” she says, from her home in West Bengal, India. She describes the psychological symptoms as like a pressure cooker bursting. “I used to get angry, have weeping spells. I was neglectful of my young son.”
Continue reading...Activists lament that a safe, legal way into Britain has closed with Brexit, when stranded children need it as much as ever
‘When I was a child in Afghanistan I loved to watch my uncle play chess. Now I have joined the local club here.” Samir is grinning as he talks about settling into life on England’s south coast. “I’m very happy here, just being with my family, going for walks to look at the Christmas lights. It’s really beautiful.”
After arriving in Greece alone two years ago, when he was just 16, and spending many months homeless and terrified in the port city of Patras, Samir recently made a journey that most refugees can only dream about. He said goodbye to the friends he had made in a camp for unaccompanied minors – other teenagers from Somalia, Iraq and Palestine – and travelled safely and legally to join his father and sister in the UK.
Continue reading...Crowds brave sub-zero temperatues after Taliban announces it will resume issuing travel documents
Hundreds of people have braved sub-zero temperatures in Afghanistan’s capital to queue outside the passport office, a day after the Taliban government announced it would resume issuing travel documents.
Many began their wait the previous night and most stood patiently in single file – some desperate to leave the country for medical treatment, others to escape the Islamists’ renewed rule. Tense Taliban personnel periodically charged crowds that formed at the front of the queue and at a nearby roadblock.
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