Monthly Archives: June 2018

Eight killed in bomb attack on cricket match in Afghanistan

Eight people have been killed and dozens more wounded by multiple explosions at a cricket match in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad, officials said. The blasts occurred after evening prayers on Friday at a football stadium that was hosting a cricket match at the start of the holy month of Ramadan, Sohrab Qaderi, a member of the provincial council,… Read more »

Police in south India accused of mass murder after shooting dead protesters

Another person has been shot dead during violent protests in south Indiaagainst a copper plant operated by a British mining giant residents say is polluting the local environment. Opposition politicians in the state of Tamil Nadu have accused the police of committing mass murder against protesters opposed to the expansion of a copper smelting facility in the port city of… Read more »

Bangladesh’s Philippines-style drugs war creating ‘atmosphere of terror’

Bangladeshi police have shot dead more than 50 accused drug traffickers in the past week as part of anti-narcotics crackdown that activists fear could escalate into a Philippines-style campaign of mass extrajudicial killings. Questions are already being raised about some of those killed in the campaign against the “drug menace”, with one family telling the Guardian their relative was an… Read more »

Hopes for rare peaceful handover as Pakistan election date announced

Pakistan will hold a general election on 25 July in what could be only the second democratic transfer of power in the nuclear-armed country’s history. The election is expected to pit the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party against former cricket star Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party. Khan’s party vowed Sunday to oust the country’s “corrupt” rulers. “The Pakistani… Read more »

Taliban commander orders closure of opium labs in towns and cities

A Taliban commander in the Afghan province of Helmand has ordered all drug labs to be moved out of the urban areas the insurgency controls as US airstrikes targeting the facilities are killing a rising number of civilians, according to a recorded conversation obtained by the Guardian. In a walkie-talkie conversation with his secretary shared on a Taliban WhatsApp group,… Read more »

Tourists told to stay away from Indian city of Shimla due to water crisis

Residents of the picturesque Indian hill station Shimla are begging tourists to stay away amid a severe drinking water shortage that is being compared to Cape Town’s water crisis. The Himalayan city was the former summer capital of the British Raj and continues to be popular with Indians fleeing scorching summers on the Gangetic plain. Water supplies have been critically… Read more »

‘The martyrs did it’: bloody end to Indian copper plant saga

David and Goliath are familiar characters in Tuticorin. The south Indian city, home to one of the country’s oldest Christian communities, has been fighting a giant. Days after 13 protesters were fatally gunned down by police, including a teenage girl, activists won a key victory over one of the world’s largest mining companies. For more than two decades, Sterlite, a… Read more »

Myanmar and UN announce deal for return of Rohingya

Myanmar’s government has announced an agreement with two UN agencies for the return of refugees who fled violence in Rakhine state, but Rohingyahave expressed concerns that it does not do enough to guarantee their safety. Over 700,000 ethnic Rohingya Muslims have fled to squalid camps in neighbouring Bangladesh since last August, when Myanmar’s army led a brutal crackdown, which saw… Read more »