Karen State, Myanmar – Thaw Hti was a tiny speck amid a march of hundreds of thousands that snaked its way through the streets of Yangon in 2021, demanding a return to democracy after the Myanmar military seized power. “We had signboards and they had guns,” she said, recounting with bitterness the events of March…
McKenzie urges his country’s cricket governing body not to honour the Champions Trophy fixture against Afghanistan on February 21. South Africa’s Sports Minister Gayton McKenzie has given his support to calls for a boycott of Afghanistan at the ICC Champions Trophy in Pakistan, adding his voice to those of British politicians who have called on…
Islamabad, Pakistan – Pakistan entered a new year in a state of relative calm after tumultuous 30 months, marked by volatile politics, a controversial election, and an economy teetering on the verge of collapse. As domestic politics stabilises and economy hopes for a turnaround in South Asia’s second-most populous nation, foreign policy and security challenges are…
Amnesty International welcomed the transfer but said Guantanamo would remain a ‘glaring, longstanding stain’ on human rights in the US. The United States has transferred 11 Yemeni detainees from its notorious Guantanamo Bay detention centre to Oman after holding them for more than two decades without charge as part of Washington’s so-called “war on terror”….
Dhaka, Bangladesh – Khadiza Khatun’s life took a devastating turn in September when doctors at Dhaka Medical College Hospital informed her that her 37-year-old husband, Mohammad Nuri Alam, urgently needed a liver transplant – a procedure unavailable in Bangladesh. After careful research, they decided to go to India’s Asian Institute of Gastroenterology in Hyderabad, a…
Odisha, India – Ajay Rout is an Indigenous farmer in a remote village in a southern district of India’s Odisha state. The village is surrounded by forest and hills with the nearest market 10km (6.2 miles) away. The 34-year-old grows sweetcorn and vegetables on his 0.2 hectares (0.5 acres) for both his family to eat and…
Seven-year-old Mariam was excited. Her mother had dressed her up in her favourite powder pink frock, with her hair in two pigtails held with butterfly clips, and had told her she would be going to a surprise birthday party for her cousin. Instead, her aunt took Mariam, holding hands, to a worn-down building with layers…
Afghanistan hits several targets in Pakistan in retaliation for air strikes last week. The Afghan Ministry of Defence says it has carried out several strikes in Pakistan in retaliation for an attack last week. It is the latest act in growing cross-border violence between the neighbours. Pakistan says it was targeting armed groups along its…
The attacks come days after the Taliban pledged retaliation for Pakistani air strikes inside Afghanistan. Afghan Taliban forces targeted “several points” in neighbouring Pakistan, Afghanistan’s Ministry of Defense has said, days after Pakistani aircraft carried out aerial bombardments inside the country. The statement from the defence ministry on Saturday did not directly specify that Pakistan…
BREAKINGBREAKING, Singh served as prime minister from 2004 to 2014 and was the architect of India’s economic liberalisation in the 1990s. Former Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who governed the South Asian country for two terms and liberalised its economy in an earlier stint as finance minister, has died. He was 92. Singh, an economist-turned-politician…
