Asia
Myanmar: human rights crisis
Oscar-winning actor Cate Blanchett described to the UN security council meeting in New York 'gut-wrenching' accounts from Myanmar of Rohingya people being tortured, raped and killed in front of their relatives. 'How can…
Saudi Arabia: repression
Five Saudi activists face possible execution for ‘participating in protests’, ‘chanting slogans hostile to the regime’, and ‘filming protests and publishing on social media’. The five, including women’s rights campaigner Israa al-Ghomgham, have…
India: waters recede but thousands still trapped
Monsoon flood waters have receded in Kerala after the worst monsoon rains in a century, allowing authorities to retrieve the bodies of victims and enabling residents to start assessing the damage to their…
Facebook removes Russian and Iranian accounts
Facebook has identified and banned groups and pages engaged in misleading political behaviour and removed 652 pages, groups, and accounts linked to Russia and Iran, for ‘coordinated inauthentic behaviour’ that included the sharing…
Turkey: Erdogan refuses to release pastor, lira plunges
The Turkish currency is in freefall after President Trump escalated a feud with Ankara by doubling tariffs on metals imports. The lira has long been falling due to worries about President Erdogan's influence…
Yemen: mass funeral for boys
On 12 August, a Saudi-led airstrike on Yemen killed 51 people (including 40 children) and wounded 79. The next day hundreds of mourners gathered for a mass funeral for the schoolboys. By the…
Pakistan: poverty and persecution
Pakistan plans to seek its largest ever bailout from the IMF as Imran Khan takes office. The loan is to resolve the country’s escalating foreign reserves crisis. However a loan would see IMF…
Sri Lanka: ‘They took everything from us’
A Sri Lankan brick-maker is living with death threats after his conversion to Christianity, often seen as a ‘foreign’ religion, even though Christianity arrived in the Indian sub-continent almost two thousand years ago.…
Laos: dam collapse forces thousands to flee
On 23 July a fault in the structure of a dam in Laos was discovered and alerts went out to evacuate villages downstream as repairs were started, but the dam’s walls broke. Residents…
Pakistan: election in disarray
Pakistan’s election results are in doubt, with the incumbent Pakistan Muslim League (PML) rejecting the result amid widespread allegations of ballot rigging in favour of Imran Khan’s PTI party. With most of the…