Category Archives: South and Central Asia

Iran and Russia move to fill diplomatic vacuum in Afghanistan

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Iranian foreign minister meets Taliban negotiators in Tehran, while Turkey offers troops to protect Kabul airport

Iran, Turkey, Pakistan and Russia have moved to fill the military and diplomatic vacuum opening up in Afghanistan as a result of the departure of US forces and military advances by the Taliban.

In Tehran the Iranian foreign minister, Javad Zarif, met Taliban negotiators to discuss their intentions towards the country, and secured a joint statement saying the Taliban do not support attacks on civilians, schools, mosques and hospitals and want a negotiated settlement on Afghanistan’s future.

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Biden says no ‘mission accomplished moment’ as US troops withdraw from Afghanistan – video

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Joe Biden has said the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan after 20 years of war will conclude on 31 August and added there will be no ‘mission accomplished’ moment to celebrate. ‘We did not go to Afghanistan to nation-build,’ the US president said. ’It is the right and the responsibility of the Afghan people alone to decide their future and how they want to run their country.’

His remarks come as the Taliban makes advances in the country, which some senior Afghan officials have blamed on the abrupt departure of US troops

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Biden says ‘I will not send another generation of Americans to war in Afghanistan’ – live

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Michael Avenatti, the former lawyer to Stormy Daniels who repeatedly clashed with Donald Trump during his presidency, has been sentenced to two and a half years in prison for trying to extort Nike.

Reuters reports:

U.S. District Judge Paul Gardephe in Manhattan said Avenatti, 50, ‘had become drunk on the power of his platform’ in betraying his client, a youth basketball coach, in order to obtain riches for himself.

The sentencing caps a precipitous downfall for a once-obscure lawyer who in 2018 became a cable news fixture, disparaging then-President Trump and even flirting with a White House run himself.

Joe Biden rejected comparisons between the end of the Vietnam War and the conclusion of the war in Afghanistan, insisting the two events are nothing alike.

However, some American veterans have said they feel the US military is leaving a job undone in Afghanistan, just as it did in Vietnam. Some also fear that Kabul will soon fall to the Taliban, as Saigon fell after US troops departed Vietnam.

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Taliban close in on Helmand capital as UK Afghan mission ends

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Lashkar Gah still under control of government forces but local activist says city is under siege

As Boris Johnson announced the end of Britain’s military mission in Afghanistan, Taliban fighters pressed in on the capital of Helmand province, once the centre of the UK’s presence there.

Militants are less than a mile from Lashkar Gah, now also home to tens of thousands of people who have fled the fighting or Taliban rule across the rest of the province, local officials said.

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Boris Johnson announces end to UK military mission in Afghanistan – video

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Boris Johnson has announced the end of Britain’s military mission in Afghanistan, following a hasty and secretive exit of the last remaining troops 20 years after the post-9/11 invasion that started the 'war on terror'. Speaking in the Commons, the prime minister confirmed to MPs that the intervention, which claimed the lives of 457 British soldiers, would end even as the insurgent Taliban have been rapidly gaining territory in rural areas as UK and other forces withdraw

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Armed Afghan women take to streets in show of defiance against Taliban

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Women in north and central regions of country stage demonstrations as militants make sweeping gains nationwide

Women have taken up guns in northern and central Afghanistan, marching in the streets in their hundreds and sharing pictures of themselves with assault rifles on social media, in a show of defiance as the Taliban make sweeping gains nationwide.

One of the biggest demonstrations was in central Ghor province, where hundreds of women turned out at the weekend, waving guns and chanting anti-Taliban slogans.

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Dilip Kumar, Bollywood legend and ‘tragedy king’ of Indian cinema, dies aged 98

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The star was a defining figure in post-independence Indian cinema and was one of the country’s first method actors

Bollywood legend Dilip Kumar, who was a defining figure in post-independence Indian cinema, has died aged 98.

Kumar had been taken to hospital in Mumbai last week suffering breathlessness, but died early Wednesday morning. “He passed away due to prolonged illness at 7.30am,” Dr Jalil Parkar of Mumbai’s Hinduja hospital said.

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Afghan anger over US’s sudden, silent Bagram departure

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Military officials say troops turned off power and slipped away without notifying new commander

US forces plunged their main operating base in Afghanistan into darkness and abandoned it to looters when they slipped away in the middle of the night after two decades at the site without notifying their Afghan allies.

The furtive departure from Bagram airbase, which is vital to the security of Kabul and holds about 5,000 mostly Taliban prisoners, infuriated the Afghans. Many saw it as emblematic of a withdrawal they say is being carried out entirely to fit an American political schedule, with no heed for the collapsing security situation on the ground.

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Hundreds of Afghan security forces flee as districts fall to Taliban

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Militants’ advance continues as Britain nears end of its two-decade deployment to country

The Taliban’s rapid advance through northern Afghanistan continued on Sunday with more than a dozen districts falling to the militants, as Britain entered the final days of its two-decade deployment to Afghanistan.

More than 300 members of the Afghan security forces fled across the border into Tajikistan to escape the militants, and Badakhshan and Takhar provinces are now largely under Taliban control, beyond the respective regional capitals.

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Afghanistan: America’s ‘longest war’ ends amid accusations of betrayal

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Analysis: Washington did not learn the lessons of Vietnam and more death and suffering are inevitable

The US war in Afghanistan was not supposed to be another Vietnam. “I don’t do quagmires,” said Donald Rumsfeld, the architect of the original US invasion, who died last week. In the end the former US defence secretary did two quagmires, airily assuming Afghanistan was “won” in the spring of 2003 when he sent American troops to fight in Iraq.

US combat troops were in Vietnam for eight years, but they have been in Afghanistan for 20. It has been America’s longest war by far.

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After the retreat: what now for Afghanistan?

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As the west departs, the Taliban are resurgent. They say they have changed – but misogyny and brutality still mark their rule

The public flogging in Obe district, captured on video that quickly went viral this spring, was a mistake, a local Taliban judge admitted. Commanders were angry.

As the footage spread between urban Afghans, who shared it on their smartphones, it revived memories of darker times when the militants ruled the country, and an outpouring of revulsion.

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‘Wage theft’ in Primark, Nike and H&M supply chain – report

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No laws were broken but brands failed to ensure workers were paid properly during the pandemic, says Clean Clothes Campaign

Campaigners claim to have found evidence of “wage theft” in the supply chains of Primark, Nike and H&M in a report that outlines the devastating consequences of the pandemic on garment workers in Indonesia, Cambodia and Bangladesh.

Research by the Clean Clothes Campaign found that, while none of the brands had broken any laws, they had failed to ensure that their workers were properly paid throughout the pandemic.

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‘It feels good’: Kashmir folk singer’s rise from dusty street to music star

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Noor Mohammad Shah has given traditional Sufi music a new lease of life after a chance encounter

Noor Mohammad Shah had always happily lived a life of obscurity. Born in a small village in the conflict-ridden state of Kashmir in India, Shah had been introduced to the mystical world of Sufi music as a child and for decades since had made a meagre but fulfilling living singing traditional songs and performing on his rabab, a lute-like music instrument, at weddings and village festivals.

Yet it was a chance encounter between Shah and a group of young men, who happened to pass by as the god-fearing musician was playing his instrument on a dusty street corner, that would propel him into becoming one of Kashmir’s most famous modern rabab musicians.

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Afghan civilians forced to fight Taliban as foreign troops depart

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Violence is spiralling with militants seizing at least 50 of county’s nearly 400 districts since May

Haji Ghoulam Farouq Siawshani watched the Taliban rampage across northern Afghanistan this month, weighing up the threat from militants on his doorstep. Then, 10 days ago, the former oil trader turned militia commander issued a call to arms.

“Where the Taliban go, they bring destruction, and they are one kilometre away from my village,” he told the Guardian. “We decided to respond.”

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Five Asian countries account for 80% of new coal power investment

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China, India, Indonesia, Japan and Vietnam plan to build more than 600 coal power units

Five Asian countries are jeopardising global climate ambitions by investing in 80% of the world’s planned new coal plants, according to a report.

Carbon Tracker, a financial thinktank, has found that China, India, Indonesia, Japan and Vietnam plan to build more than 600 coal power units, even though renewable energy is cheaper than most new coal plants.

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India’s Covid gender gap: women left behind in vaccination drive

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Misinformation and access issues combined with patriarchal social norms fuelling disparity in distribution across most states

Deep-rooted structural inequalities and patriarchal values are to blame for India’s worrying Covid vaccine gender gap, campaigners and academics have warned.

As of 25 June, of the 309m Covid vaccine doses delivered since January 2021, 143m were administered to women compared with nearly 167m to men, according to CoWin, India’s national statistics site – a ratio of 856 doses given to women for every 1,000 given to men. The difference is not accounted for by India’s gender imbalance of 924 women to 1,000 men.

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Global report: rise in Delta variant cases forces tougher restrictions

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Moscow has reported the highest death toll of any Russian city, while the Delta variant is forcing tighter restrictions in the Asia-Pacific region

Moscow has recorded the highest Covid-19 daily death toll of any Russian city so far, as the highly contagious Delta variant forced tougher restrictions on countries across the Asia-Pacific region and fuelled mounting concern over holiday travel in Europe.

Vaccinations have brought infection numbers down in many wealthy countries, and curbs on daily life continue to ease in much of the EU and US, but experts warn the fast-spreading strain means the pandemic – while slowing globally – is far from over.

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‘Drag is political’: the pioneering Indian event uniting art and activism

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Artists from traditional communities and new wave performers to come together online for the country’s first drag conference

Two years ago, in early June 2019, a young man stepped on stage at a small cafe in the south Indian city of Hyderabad to sing Lady Gaga’s hit song Born This Way. He had chosen that song for the line “don’t be a drag, just be a queen” because this would be his first public performance as a drag artist. He had expected no more than a handful of people to turn up for this show with two other drag artists, but as the evening progressed, the cafe filled with more than 500 people. In a conservative city like Hyderabad, that was a huge surprise.

It has been a long journey for Patruni Chidananda Sastry, who began to learn classical Indian dance at the age of five. Now 29 and working as a business analyst, he performs Tranimal – a postmodern drag concept born in Los Angeles in the mid-2000s – and more conventional drag using the avatar of SAS (Suffocated Art Specimen – how he describes himself). On 25 June he is organising the first drag conference in India, as part of Dragvanti , his online initiative to bring together drag artists from across the country.

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Outrage after Pakistan PM Imran Khan blames rape crisis on women

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Khan accused of being a ‘rape apologist’ after saying rise in attacks is down to women wearing ‘very few clothes’

Pakistan’s prime minister, Imran Khan, is facing backlash after he blamed victims of rape for wearing “very few clothes”.

The former cricket captain was questioned by the Axios journalist Jonathan Swan about the ongoing “rape epidemic” in Pakistan and responded by saying: “If a woman is wearing very few clothes it will have an impact on the man unless they are robots. It’s common sense.”

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