South Asia

The United Nations made an urgent appeal Monday for $110.3 million to provide livesaving assistance to more than 360,000 Afghans who were affected last week by a magnitude 5.9 earthquake that killed about 1,000 people, including 150 children. The funding is required in the next three months to meet pressing …

Taliban authorities in Afghanistan are being accused of carrying out extrajudicial killings and other human rights abuses as they attempt to quell an armed rebellion in a northern region. The United Nations and rights watchdogs on Monday called reports of abuses in the turbulent Balkhab district in northern Sar-e Pol …

Protesters in India’s financial capital Mumbai on Monday demanded the release of a critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi who was arrested over the weekend on suspicion of faking documents about anti-Muslim riots in 2002. Teesta Setalvad is accused of tutoring witnesses, forging the documents and fabricating evidence in cases …

In 1918, Soviet revolutionary Leon Trotsky told Western creditors aghast at the Bolsheviks’ repudiation of Russia’s external debt: “Gentlemen, you were warned.”  He reminded them that the dismissal of Tsarist-era debt had been a key manifesto of the failed uprising in 1905. More than a century later, Russia stands on …

Sri Lanka has run out of fuel, according to a report Monday in the country’s Daily Mirror newspaper.  The 1,100 tons of petrol and 7,500 tons of diesel the country has would not last a day, the newspaper reported, citing anonymous sources in the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation Trade Union. According …

When the ground heaved from last week’s earthquake in Afghanistan, Nahim Gul’s stone-and-mud house collapsed on top of him. He clawed through the rubble in the pre-dawn darkness, choking on dust as he searched for his father and two sisters. He doesn’t know how many hours of digging passed before …

The World Health Organization said Sunday it was stepping up surveillance of infectious diseases in earthquake-hit areas of Afghanistan following warnings by local authorities that thousands of survivors are at risk of disease. Afghan officials reported at least 1,150 people were killed, many more were injured, and thousands of homes …

From cover stories to burner phones, Myanmar’s journalists are resorting to unconventional methods to report on life under military rule. The space for media has shrunk drastically since Myanmar’s military seized power in 2021. More than 120 journalists have been detained, the junta revoked licenses at about a dozen outlets, …

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has inaugurated the country’s longest bridge, which took eight years to build and was plagued by delays, political conflict, high costs and graft allegations.  The opening of the bridge over the turbulent Padma River caps a key infrastructure goal by Hasina and has been billed …

The Taliban renewed their call Saturday for the United States to unfreeze Afghanistan’s foreign funds and lift financial sanctions to help the war-torn country deal with its deadliest earthquake in more than two decades.     The United Nations said humanitarian organizations, in coordination with Taliban authorities, are continuing to …