AFP Asia

Bangladesh’s most powerful political parties signed a charter on Friday aimed at ensuring democratic reform after next year’s elections, following a mass uprising that toppled the previous government.However, celebrations of the government led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus were muted after one party refused to sign, with police also firing tear gas to quash rock-throwing protesters ahead of the ceremony.Yunus, 85, has championed the document as his legacy, saying he inherited a “completely broken down” system and that reforms are needed to prevent a return to authoritarian rule.”This is the moment we are ushering in a new Bangladesh,” Yunus told the ceremony, held in front of parliament in Dhaka. “We have been reborn.”The South Asian nation of 170 million people has been in political turmoil since Sheikh Hasina was ousted as prime minister by a student-led revolt in August 2024.The document, dubbed the “July Charter” after last year’s uprising, has sparked intense arguments between parties jostling for power ahead of polls slated for February.Yunus, who has pledged to step down after elections, says it will strengthen checks and balances between the executive, judicial and legislative branches.It includes proposals for a two-term limit for prime ministers and expanded presidential powers.It also aims to enshrine the recognition of Bangladesh as a multi-ethnic and multi-religious nation.Leaders of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), seen as among the election front-runners, as well as Jamaat-e-Islami, the Muslim-majority nation’s largest Islamist party, signed the charter.However, the National Citizen Party (NCP), made up of many students who spearheaded the uprising that ended Hasina’s rule, boycotted the ceremony.Ahead of the ceremony, police and protesters clashed, including those who took part in demonstrations last year, demanding compensation for those who were injured.”The bloodshed of martyrs is now forgotten,” said Khandakar Mashruk Sarkar, 48.The charter was given a last-minute amendment to include monthly allowances for injured protesters.The document is expected to be ratified either by a referendum or by the new parliament to be elected.Mohammad Ibrahim Hossain, 25, an electrician, among the crowd watching the ceremony, was unclear exactly what changes the charter would make.”I don’t know what is in it, or what good it will bring for us,” he said. “I just don’t want to see people die anymore.”

A ceasefire between Afghanistan and Pakistan moved into its second day on Friday, following deadly violence between the neighbouring countries.Dozens of soldiers on both sides have been killed since the clashes began nearly a week ago, with explosions also heard in the Afghan capital Kabul.A truce was announced Wednesday, with Pakistan indicating that it would last until Friday evening — without saying what would happen afterwards.Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said Thursday that for the truce to endure, the ball was “in the court” of the Taliban government.”If in 48 hours they want to resolve the issues and address our genuine demands, then we are ready for them,” Sharif told his cabinet.Residents near the border said the ceasefire appeared to be holding.”Everything is fine, everything is open,” said Nani, 35, a resident of the Afghan frontier town of Spin Boldak, where the fighting had been particularly intense.”I’m not afraid, but everyone sees things differently. Some say they’re going to send their children elsewhere as the situation isn’t good, but I don’t think anything will happen,” said Nani, who did not give a surname.Afghanistan said on Wednesday that the truce would endure unless Pakistan violated it, without confirming that the deal had a 48-hour limit.- ‘Mixed feelings’ -Initial explosions, which the Taliban blamed on Pakistan, struck Kabul last week.Taliban authorities then launched an offensive along the border, prompting a deadly response from Islamabad in the days before the ceasefire.The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan said 37 people were killed and 425 wounded on the Afghan side of the border, calling on both sides to bring a lasting end to hostilities.An AFP correspondent in Spin Boldak said they saw hundreds of people attending funerals on Thursday, including for children whose bodies were wrapped in white shrouds.”People have mixed feelings,” Nematullah, 42, told AFP. “They fear that the fighting will resume, but they still leave their homes and go about their business.”Calm has also returned to Kabul, where new explosions rang out shortly before the ceasefire announcement on Wednesday.Nobody claimed responsibility for the blasts, but Pakistani security sources said they had undertaken “precision strikes” against an armed group in the Afghan capital.Sources in Afghanistan suggested that Pakistan was behind at least one of the blasts and that they were air strikes, but the government has not formally accused Islamabad.The initial explosions took place as the Taliban’s foreign minister was beginning an unprecedented visit to India, Pakistan’s historic foe.On Thursday, Sharif suggested that New Delhi was involved in the confrontation, without giving details.Security issues have been at the heart of resurgent tensions between Afghanistan and Pakistan.Pakistan, facing a rise in attacks on its security forces, has accused Afghanistan of harbouring terrorist groups, a claim that Kabul denies.

Nearly 80 percent of the world’s poorest, or about 900 million people, are directly exposed to climate hazards exacerbated by global warming, bearing a “double and deeply unequal burden,” the United Nations warned Friday.”No one is immune to the increasingly frequent and stronger climate change effects like droughts, floods, heat waves, and air pollution, but it’s the poorest among us who are facing the harshest impact,” Haoliang Xu, acting administrator of the United Nations Development Programme, told AFP in a statement.COP30, the UN climate summit in Brazil in November, “is the moment for world leaders to look at climate action as action against poverty,” he added.According to an annual study published by the UNDP together with the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative, 1.1 billion people, or about 18 percent of the 6.3 billion in 109 countries analyzed, live in “acute multidimensional” poverty, based on factors like infant mortality and access to housing, sanitation, electricity and education.Half of those people are minors.One example of such extreme deprivation cited in the report is the case of Ricardo, a member of the Guarani Indigenous community living outside Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia’s largest city.Ricardo, who earns a meager income as a day laborer, shares his small single-family house with 18 other people, including his three children, parents and other extended family. The house has only one bathroom, a wood- and coal-fired kitchen, and none of the children are in school.”Their lives reflect the multidimensional realities of poverty,” the report said.- Prioritizing ‘people and the planet’ -Two regions particularly affected by such poverty are sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia — and they are also highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.The report highlights the connection between poverty and exposure to four environmental risks: extreme heat, drought, floods, and air pollution.”Impoverished households are especially susceptible to climate shocks as many depend on highly vulnerable sectors such as agriculture and informal labor,” the report said. “When hazards overlap or strike repeatedly, they compound existing deprivations.”As a result, 887 million people, or nearly 79 percent of these poor populations, are directly exposed to at least one of these threats, with 608 million people suffering from extreme heat, 577 million affected by pollution, 465 million by floods, and 207 million by drought.Roughly 651 million are exposed to at least two of the risks, 309 million to three or four risks, and 11 million poor people have already experienced all four in a single year.”Concurrent poverty and climate hazards are clearly a global issue,” the report said.And the increase in extreme weather events threatens development progress. While South Asia has made progress in fighting poverty, 99.1 percent of its poor population exposed to at least one climate hazard.The region “must once again chart a new path forward, one that balances determined poverty reduction with innovative climate action,” the report says.With Earth’s surface rapidly getting warmer, the situation is likely to worsen further and experts warn that today’s poorest countries will be hardest hit by rising temperatures.”Responding to overlapping risks requires prioritizing both people and the planet, and above all, moving from recognition to rapid action,” the report said.

A ceasefire along the frontier between Afghanistan and Pakistan was holding on Thursday, officials on both sides said, after dozens of troops and civilians were killed in cross-border clashes.In Spin Boldak, a flashpoint on the Afghan side, an AFP journalist saw shops reopening and residents returning to homes they had fled during the fighting. The 48-hour truce — which expires Friday evening — was aimed at allowing time to “find a positive solution…through constructive dialogue”, according to Islamabad.Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Thursday evening that whether the temporary truce would be extended now depended on Kabul’s response.”If in 48 hours they want to resolve the issues and address our genuine demands, then we are ready for them,” Sharif told his cabinet, reiterating that Pakistani Taliban militants should be eliminated and that Afghan territory not be used to plot attacks.Pakistan is facing a resurgence of attacks against its security forces on its western border with Afghanistan, led by the Pakistani Taliban and its affiliates.Spin Boldak’s health director said 40 civilians were killed and 170 wounded on Wednesday, while the UN mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) has reported at least 37 killed and 425 wounded in several provinces impacted by the clashes.”Our houses were bombed, a child was wounded. I heard the plane myself,” Abdul Zahir, a 46-year-old resident, told AFP. “It’s terrifying.”Hundreds of residents and Taliban officials attended the funeral of seven members of the same family in Spin Boldak, an AFP journalist saw.Islamabad accuses Kabul of sheltering militants who plan their frequent assaults from Afghan soil — a charge the Taliban government denies.Pakistani officials on the northern and southern border with Afghanistan told AFP on Thursday that “no violence was reported overnight, and the ceasefire remains in effect”.A senior security official in Peshawar told AFP: “Additional paramilitary troops have been deployed to counter potential…militant activity that could jeopardise the ceasefire.”Blasts were reported in the capital Kabul shortly before the truce was announced, as well as in the southern province of Kandahar, where the Afghan Taliban’s shadowy supreme leader lives.UN rights chief Volker Turk welcomed the truce and urged both sides to prevent further harm to civilians and “commit to a lasting ceasefire”.- ‘Precision strikes’ -The first explosions that struck Afghanistan last week — blamed by the Taliban on Islamabad — occurred while Afghanistan’s top diplomat was on an unprecedented visit to India, Pakistan’s longtime rival.Taliban authorities then launched an offensive at the border, prompting Islamabad to vow a strong response of its own.Exchanges of fire from Saturday killed dozens of people, with renewed violence on Wednesday also causing civilian casualties, according to Kabul.The Taliban government officially blamed Wednesday’s blasts in the Afghan capital on the explosion of an oil tanker and a generator.However, Pakistani security sources said the military targeted an armed group with “precision strikes” in Kabul, as well as hitting Afghan Taliban bases in Kandahar.There were blackouts overnight and into Thursday morning in some areas of Kabul, caused by electricity cables damaged in the explosions, AFP journalists in the city said. AFP journalists saw municipal workers carrying out repairs on Thursday morning in a Kabul neighbourhood, where the road was charred and apartment windows had been blown out.At least five people were killed and 35 wounded in Wednesday’s explosions in Kabul, an Italian NGO that runs a hospital in the city said.”We started receiving ambulances filled with wounded people,” said Dejan Panic, EMERGENCY’s country director.Ten people were in critical condition, with injuries including shrapnel wounds, blunt trauma and burns, the NGO said.

Rory McIlroy left the driver out of his bag as he made his debut in India with a three-under 69, but it was his Ryder Cup partner Shane Lowry who led after a superb 64 Thursday in the first round at the DP World India Championship in Delhi.Lowry got up-and-down at the par-five 18th hole, despite a stray dog delaying his final putt, to complete a flawless eight-under-par round which included five straight birdies from the 11th.The Irishman led a packed leaderboard by one stroke from Keita Nakajima of Japan who, like Lowry, rolled in eight birdies but dropped a shot at the sixth in his seven-under 65.Lowry missed the cut last week in Spain on his return to action after the Ryder Cup but it was McIlroy’s first outing since inspiring the European team to glory in New York, albeit on a vastly different course to Bethpage Black.The stunning Lodhi course at the historic Delhi Golf Club is a par-72 layout that is short by modern standards, at less than 7,000 yards, but is studded with the ruins of ancient tombs dating back to the Mughal Empire.Its narrow fairways are bordered by treacherous dense vegetation on a course that is a throwback to a bygone golfing era, rewarding accuracy rather than distance.”I feel like this type of golf course suits me,” said Lowry, the 2019 British Open champion.”I spend half the year moaning about golf courses that are too wide. So when I get to somewhere like here, I need to take advantage and I did that today.”Hopefully I can keep doing that for the rest of the week.”McIlroy, one of golf’s longest hitters, said Delhi Golf Club was not the place to unleash 350-yard drives with his “big dog” after finishing as one of 11 players lying five shots off Lowry’s lead.- ‘Rough is unpredictable’ -“Dog was out of the bag,” said the five-time major champion of his driver. “Probably asleep in the locker.”I’m never going to hit driver (here). I just don’t see any hole out there to hit it more than say 260, 270 off the tee,” added the Northern Irishman.McIlroy had six birdies but also three bogeys, falling foul of the thick rough on more than one occasion.”You just have to get the ball in the fairway,” he said.  “The rough is unpredictable. You get a lot of fliers.”In third place on his own was South Africa’s Casey Jarvis after a six-under 66, ahead of a three-way tie for fourth on five-under par 67 and 10 players locked on 68.The inaugural $4 million tournament has attracted a stellar field including Tommy Fleetwood, who was one of those to card 68, his Ryder Cup teammate Viktor Hovland who shot 71 and European team captain Luke Donald with another 68.US PGA Tour stars have made the trip for the event on the former European Tour, including 2023 British Open champion Brian Harman and Ryder Cup rookie Ben Griffin who both also had 68s.

A ceasefire along the frontier between Afghanistan and Pakistan was holding on Thursday, officials on both sides said, after dozens of troops and civilians were killed in cross-border clashes.In Spin Boldak, a focal point of recent clashes on the Afghan side, an AFP journalist saw shops reopening and residents returning to homes they had fled during the fighting. The 48-hour ceasefire was aimed at allowing time to “find a positive solution… through constructive dialogue”, according to Islamabad.Pakistan is facing a resurgence of attacks against its security forces on its western border with Afghanistan, led by the Pakistani Taliban and its affiliates.Forty civilians were killed and 170 others wounded on Wednesday, according to Spin Boldak’s director of public health Karimullah Zubair Agha.The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) earlier reported at least 18 civilians killed and more than 350 wounded in the violence.”Our houses were bombed, a child was wounded. I heard the plane myself,” Abdul Zahir, a 46-year-old resident, told AFP. “It’s terrifying.”Hundreds of residents and Taliban officials attended the funeral of seven members of the same family in Spin Boldak, an AFP journalist saw.Islamabad accuses Kabul of offering safe haven to militants who plan their frequent assaults from Afghan soil — a charge the Taliban government denies.Pakistani officials on the northern and southern border with Afghanistan told AFP on Thursday that “no violence was reported overnight, and the ceasefire remains in effect”.A senior security official in Peshawar told AFP: “Additional paramilitary troops have been deployed to counter potential… militant activity that could jeopardise the ceasefire.”Shortly before the truce was announced, blasts were reported in the capital Kabul and the southern province of Kandahar province, where the Afghan Taliban’s shadowy supreme leader lives.UN rights chief Volker Turk welcomed the ceasefire and appealed to “both parties to prevent any further harm to civilians & commit to a lasting ceasefire”.- ‘Precision strikes’ -The first explosions that struck Afghanistan last week, which the Taliban blamed on Islamabad, hit while Afghanistan’s top diplomat was on an unprecedented visit to India — Pakistan’s eastern neighbour and rival.Taliban authorities then launched an offensive at the border, prompting Islamabad to vow a strong response of its own.Exchanges of fire from Saturday killed dozens of people, with renewed violence from Wednesday also causing civilian casualties, according to Kabul.The Taliban government officially blamed Wednesday’s blasts in the Afghan capital on an explosion of an oil tanker and a generator.However, Pakistani security sources said the military targeted an armed group with “precision strikes” in Kabul, as well as hitting Afghan Taliban bases in Kandahar.There were blackouts overnight and into Thursday morning in some areas of Kabul, caused by electricity cables damaged in the explosions, AFP journalists in the city said. AFP journalists saw municipal workers carrying out repairs in a Kabul neighbourhood on Thursday morning, where the road was charred and apartment windows had been blown out.At least five people were killed and 35 wounded in Wednesday’s explosions in Kabul, an Italian NGO that runs a hospital in the city said.”We started receiving ambulances filled with wounded people, and we learned that there had been explosions a few kilometres away from our hospital,” Dejan Panic, EMERGENCY’s country director in Afghanistan, said in a statement.The casualties suffered shrapnel wounds, blunt force trauma and burns, with 10 in critical condition, the NGO said. 

An Afghan man deemed psychologically ill faced a German court on Thursday over a deadly knife attack on a group of toddlers that his defence lawyer labelled the “deed of a madman”. The stabbings nine months ago in a park in the southern city of Aschaffenburg killed a two-year-old boy and a 41-year-old man who tried to protect the children, and left three others wounded.Prosecutors acknowledged that the 28-year-old who set upon the daycare group with a kitchen knife on January 22 was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia.The attack, which came just a month before German national elections, inflamed an already heated debate on migration.The suspect, who was arrested near the scene of the stabbing, has been only partially named as Enamullah O., in line with usual practice by the German judiciary.Facing the court in handcuffs and foot shackles, he appeared groggy and subdued, wearing an open white shirt with a dark jacket.He mostly stared at the table and yawned frequently, which his lawyer said was due to medication he has been taking.Prosecutors are seeking to have him permanently confined to a psychiatric facility. They previously said there was no indication the suspect acted out of extremist or terrorist motivation.Five toddlers from a kindergarten class were in a public park, accompanied by two teachers, when the assailant attacked them with a kitchen knife.He also injured a two-year-old Syrian girl, one of the teachers as well as a 72-year-old man who had also tried to protect the children.- Fits of delusion -Defence lawyer Juergen Vongries told the court that O. was experiencing fits of delusion and had only vague memories of voices he heard at the time of the crime.His client had expressed regret, but could offer no explanation for why he attacked the children.A few minutes before the attack, he had allegedly watched a YouTube video with the Turkish title “Motivating Combat Music”, prosecutor Juergen Buntschuh said while reading the indictment.The two-year-old boy was stabbed five times, and the man slain by the attacker was stabbed four times, he said.Buntschuh said the attacker’s delusions and severe mental impairment meant he was not able to fully recognise the horrific nature of his actions.Not long after the attack, German media reported that the authorities had tried and failed in 2023 to deport the man to Bulgaria — the first EU country he had arrived in.In August 2024, he allegedly threatened a fellow resident at an accommodation for asylum seekers in the nearby town of Alzenau with a butcher’s knife and caused her minor injuries.The Aschaffenburg stabbings, which followed a string of other bloody attacks in Germany, provoked intense political reactions.Friedrich Merz, the leader of the centre-right Christian Democrats who went on to become chancellor, promised a “fundamental” overhaul of asylum rules and strict border controls if elected.About a week later, Merz, then the opposition leader, relied on support from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) to/ach  pass a non-binding resolution through parliament demanding stricter immigration and refugee policies.Merz’s decision to rely on far-right support broke a longstanding taboo in post-World War II German politics, prompting fierce criticism and mass street protests.

The last surviving member of the first mountaineering expedition to successfully reach the summit of Mount Everest died in Kathmandu on Thursday, aged 92, his family said. Kanchha Sherpa was a teenager when he accompanied the historic 1953 team led by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay Sherpa, who became the first mountaineers to reach the peak of the world’s highest mountain.The cause of Kanchha Sherpa’s death early on Thursday morning was not clear.”He had been unwell for a few days,” his grandson, Tenzing Chogyal Sherpa, told AFP.Born in 1933, Kanchha Sherpa was 19 when he joined the expedition as a porter despite no prior mountaineering experience.He undertook the arduous trek, lasting more than two weeks, to Mount Everest’s Base Camp, carrying food, tents and equipment, before climbing to an altitude of more than 8,000 metres (26,200 feet) close to the peak.”He was a living legend and an inspiration for all in mountaineering and those working in the industry,” said Fur Gelje Sherpa, the president of Nepal’s mountaineering association. “We’ve lost our guardian.”Kanchha Sherpa worked in the Himalayan mountains for two more decades after the expedition until his wife asked him to stop the dangerous journeys after many of his friends died assisting other climbing treks, his family said.

Nepal have appealed to FIFA to overturn their 2-0 defeat to Malaysia in 2027 Asian Cup qualifiers in March this year, claiming that their opponents fielded an ineligible player.Last month, the world governing body FIFA banned seven Malaysian foreign-born players for a year and fined the FA of Malaysia (FAM) $440,000, saying they had submitted forged ancestry documents.One of the seven, Hector Hevel, scored Malaysia’s opening goal in the match played in Johor, Malaysia.”We have reached out regarding an ineligible player in the match. Thus the result has to be overturned,” Indra Man Tuladhar, CEO of All Nepal Football Association, told AFP. FIFA accused the FAM of submitting doctored or false documents that said the seven players had Malaysian ancestry, making them eligible to represent the country. FAM denied knowingly doing anything wrong.FIFA said an investigation showed that none of the players actually had a parent or grandparent born in the Southeast Asian nation.The seven banned players had all played in Malaysia’s 4-0 Asian Cup qualifying win against Vietnam in June.Nepal are currently at the bottom of Asian Cup qualifying Group F with no points from four games. Malaysia are top on 12 points, Vietnam are second on nine points with Laos third on three.

Pollution levels in India’s capital shaped Natasha Uppal and her husband’s decision on parenthood — either raise their child away from the city, or stay put and remain childless.New Delhi and the surrounding metropolitan area, home to more than 30 million people, consistently tops world rankings for air pollution.Uppal, who grew up in the city, often considered leaving — especially on days spent indoors with air purifiers humming, or when she battled severe migraines.The turning point came when the couple decided to try for a baby.”When we thought about what we can curate for our child in Delhi,” she told AFP, “the air just became such a blocker for so many of those things.”In 2022, they relocated to Bengaluru and, days later, she discovered she was pregnant.They are among a small but growing number of families leaving Delhi because of health risks linked to air pollution.Uppal, the 36-year-old founder of maternal health support group Matrescence India, said leaving was the “best decision”.Air pollution in Bengaluru can still sometimes hit three times World Health Organization (WHO) limits.But that is far below Delhi’s months-long haze — and means her son “is in and out of the house as many times as he likes”.Clean air is “something that is a basic human right”, she said. “Everyone should be able to take (it) for granted.”- 3.8 million deaths -Each winter, Delhi is blanketed in acrid smog, a toxic mix of crop-burning, factory emissions and choking traffic.Levels of PM2.5 — cancer-causing microparticles small enough to enter the bloodstream — have surged to as much as 60 times WHO limits.Despite pledges of reform, measures such as partial vehicle bans or water trucks spraying mist have done little to clear the air.This year, authorities promise cloud-seeding trials to cut pollution.A study in The Lancet Planetary Health last year estimated 3.8 million deaths in India between 2009 and 2019 were linked to air pollution.The UN children’s agency warns that polluted air puts children at heightened risk of acute respiratory infections.For Vidushi Malhotra, 36, the breaking point came in 2020 as her two-year-old son fell ill repeatedly.”We had three air purifiers running continuously, and then I needed more,” she said.A year later, Malhotra, her husband and son moved to Goa. She urged friends to follow, starting what she calls a “mini-movement”. A few did.”I have to keep going back and see my loved ones go through this,” she added. “That really makes me sad.”- Nebulisers, inhalers -Others, like Delhi resident Roli Shrivastava, remain but live in constant anxiety.The 34-year-old keeps inhalers for her smoke allegies and nebulisers ready for her toddler, whose cough worsens each winter.”The doctor told us winter will be difficult,” she said. “He just told us, ‘When your kid starts coughing at night, don’t even call me — just start nebulising.'”As winter nears, Shrivastava is preparing for another season indoors — restricting outdoor play for her son, running air purifiers and checking air quality daily. When the family visits relatives in the southern city of Chennai, her son’s health improves “drastically”.”His nose stops running, his cough goes away,” she said.Shrivastava and her husband, who both work with a global advocacy group, say they would have left Delhi long ago if not for the “jobs we love and the opportunities”.Relocation, she admits, is never far from their minds.”I don’t think at the rate it’s going, Delhi is a good place to raise kids — when it comes to air pollution at least.”