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Vietnam’s plan to bar gas-guzzling motorbikes from central Hanoi may clear the air of the smog-smothered capital, but riders fear paying a high toll for the capital’s green transition.”Of course everyone wants a better environment,” said housewife Dang Thuy Hanh, baulking at the 80 million dong ($3,000) her family would spend replacing their four scooters with electric alternatives.”But why give us the first burden without any proper preparation?” grumbled the 52-year-old.Hanoi’s scooter traffic is a fixture of the city’s urban buzz. The northern hub of nine million people has nearly seven million two-wheelers, hurtling around at rush hour in a morass of congestion.Their exhausts splutter emissions regularly spurring the city to the top of worldwide smog rankings in a country where pollution claims at least 70,000 lives a year, according to the World Health Organization.The government last weekend announced plans to block fossil-fuelled bikes from Hanoi’s 31 square kilometre (12 square mile) centre by next July.It will expand in stages to forbid all gas-fuelled vehicles in urban areas of the city in the next five years.Hanh — one of the 600,000 people living in the central embargo zone — said the looming cost of e-bikes has left her fretting over the loss of “a huge amount of savings”.While she conceded e-bikes may help relieve pollution, she bemoaned the lack of public charging points near her home down a tiny alley in the heart of the city.”Why force residents to change while the city’s infrastructure is not yet able to adapt to the new situation?” she asked.Many families in communist-run Vietnam own at least two motorcycles for daily commutes, school runs, work and leisure.Proposals to reform transport for environmental reasons often sparks allegations the burden of change is felt highest by the working class. London has since 2023 charged a toll for older, higher pollution-emitting vehicles.France’s populist “Yellow Vest” protests starting in 2018 were in part sparked by allegations President Emmanuel Macron’s “green tax” on fuel was unfair for the masses.- ‘Cost too high’ -Hanoi authorities say they are considering alleviating the financial burden by offering subsidies of at least three million dong ($114) per switch to an e-bike, and also increasing public bus services.Food delivery driver Tran Van Tan, who rides his bike 40 kilometres (25 miles) every day from neighbouring Hung Yen province to downtown Hanoi, says he makes his living “on the road”.”The cost of changing to an e-bike is simply too high,” said the 45-year-old, employed through the delivery app Grab. “Those with a low income like us just cannot suddenly replace our bikes.”Compared with a traditional two-wheeler, he also fears the battery life of e-bikes “won’t meet the needs for long-distance travel”.But citing air pollution as a major threat to human health, the environment and quality of life, deputy mayor Duong Duc Tuan earlier this week said “drastic measures are needed”.In a recent report, Hanoi’s environment and agriculture ministry said over half of the poisonous smog that blankets the city for much of the year comes from petrol and diesel vehicles.The World Bank puts the figure at 30 percent, with factories and waste incineration also major culprits.Several European cities, such as Barcelona, Paris and Amsterdam have also limited the use of internal combustion engines on their streets — and other major Vietnamese cities are looking to follow suit.The southern business hub Ho Chi Minh City aims to gradually transition delivery and service motorbikes to electric over the next few years.But with the high costs, office worker Nguyen My Hoa thinks the capital’s ban will not be enforceable. “Authorities will not be able to stop the huge amount of gasoline bikes from entering the inner districts,” 42-year-old Hoa said.”It simply does not work.”

The patient lay prone on the operating table. An IV line snaking from his left leg, near the wound from the tranquilliser dart that sedated him. Yong, a pig-tailed macaque rescued from a life harvesting coconuts, was being treated at Thailand’s only NGO-run wildlife hospital.He is one of dozens of animals treated each month at the Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand (WFFT) facility.Patients range from delicate sugar gliders intended as pets, to some of the hefty rescued elephants that roam WFFT’s expansive facility in Phetchaburi, southwest of Bangkok.The wide variety can be a challenge, said vet Siriporn Tippol.”If we can’t find the right equipment, we have to DIY use what we already have or modify based on the specifications we need.”She described strapping an extension handle onto a laryngoscope designed for cats and dogs so it could be used during surgery on bears and tigers.A treatment whiteboard gives a sense of an average day: cleaning a wound on one elephant’s tail, assessing another’s possible cataract and treating a Malayan sunbear’s skin condition.  Yong was in quarantine after rescue — coconut monkeys often carry tuberculosis or other infectious diseases — and needed a full health check.But first, he had to be sedated, with a tranquilliser dart blown from a white tube into his left haunch.Before long he was slumped over and ready to be carried to hospital.Blood was taken, an IV line placed and then it was X-ray time, to look for signs of broken bones or respiratory illness.Next was a symbolic moment: vets cut off the metal rings around the monkey’s neck that once kept him connected to a chain.The operating theatre was the final stop, for a vasectomy to allow Yong to join a mixed troop of rescued monkeys without risk of breeding.- Out-of-hand hobby -The light-filled hospital only opened this month, replacing a previous “tiny” clinic, said WFFT founder Edwin Wiek.”I’ve always dreamed about having a proper medical facility,” he told AFP, over the sound of nearby tigers roaring in grassy enclosures.With over 900 animals in WFFT’s care and a regular stream of emergency arrivals, “we needed really a bigger place, more surgery rooms, a treatment room,” he said.Wiek founded WFFT in 2001 with two macaques and a gibbon. It now spans 120 hectares (297 acres) and houses 60 species.”That hobby got out of hand,” he laughed.He has long advocated for stronger wildlife protections in a country well-known as a wildlife trafficking hub in part because of its location and strong transport links.Wiek once had tendentious relations with Thai authorities, even facing legal action, but more recently has become a government advisor.WFFT is now a force multiplier for the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation (DNP).”In many cases, when wild animals from elephants and tigers to macaques are found injured and displaced, we coordinate with WFFT, who assist in rehabilitation and medical care,” said DNP wildlife conservation director Chalerm Poommai.One of WFFT’s current campaigns focuses on the estimated thousands of monkeys like Yong trained to pick coconuts on plantations in southern Thailand.”The animal welfare issue is horrible,” said Wiek. “But another very important point is that these animals actually are taken out of the wild illegally. And that, of course, has a huge impact, negative impact on the survival of the species.”WFFT is working with authorities, the coconut industry and exporters to encourage farmers to stop using monkeys, and switch to shorter trees that are easier to harvest.There is also work to do equipping the new hospital. A mobile X-ray unit and specialised blood analysis machine are on Siriporn’s wishlist.And Wiek is thinking ahead to his next dream: a forensics lab to trace the origins of the animals confiscated from traffickers.”The laws are there, we lack the enforcement,” he said.”But with this tool, we could actually do some real damage to these illegal wildlife traffickers.”

Hundreds of thousands of supporters of Bangladesh’s main Islamist party rallied on Saturday, demanding an overhaul of the electoral system as the country gears up for polls next year.The Jamaat-e-Islami party has gained significant momentum since the ousting of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in a popular uprising last year. During her tenure, Hasina took a hardline stance against Jamaat, even cancelling its registration as a political party. For decades, Jamaat was barred from holding public rallies. Last month, the Supreme Court restored the party’s registration, paving the way for its participation in elections slated for next April.”We have suffered a lot in the last 15 years. We went to jail, we were robbed of our political rights,” Mohammad Abdul Mannan, a 29-year-old party activist, told AFP.Demonstrators braving the sweltering heat in the capital demaded changes to the distrution of seats, calling for proportional representation. “We’ve gathered here in masses to press our seven-point demand, which includes participatory representation in parliament,” Mannan said.”Elections shouldn’t be held unless our demands are fulfilled.”  After independence, Jamaat was banned. It later re-emerged and registered its best electoral performance in 1991 when it secured 18 seats.The party joined a coalition government in 2001, but failed to build lasting popular support. “We want a proportional representation system so that winners can’t take all — we too deserve a voice,” Mannan said. Tens of thousands of demonstrators began swarming the Suhrawardy Udyan memorial in capital Dhaka by midday, spilling out into the surrounding park. Some wore T-shirts bearing the party’s logo, others sported headbands inscribed with its name, while many displayed metallic badges shaped like a scale — the party’s electoral symbol.Md Shafiqul Islam, 58, travelled from Bogura — a stronghold of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, which is eyeing a landslide victory in the polls. “I felt it was my duty as a Muslim to attend. Jamaat-e-Islami promises to establish an Islamic country, and that’s why I came,” Shafiqul told AFP. During Bangladesh’s 1971 war of independence from Pakistan, Jamaat-e-Islami supported Islamabad, a role that sparks anger among many Bangladeshis today.Bangladesh’s war crimes tribunal sentenced several of Jamaat-e-Islami’s senior leaders to death for their roles in the war, executing four of them.Many Bangladeshis believe the party must acknowledge its past to regain public trust and become a viable electoral force. But at the rally, supporters offered a different take. “Jamaat is being blamed unfairly,” said a 33-year-old private service holder, who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity.”It did nothing except uphold the integrity of the nation.” 

At least three wild elephants were found dead across Sri Lanka on Friday, officials said, a day after six young rescued elephants were returned to the jungle under a conservation drive.Wildlife officials said one elephant was run over by a passenger train in the island’s northeast, while two others were found shot dead in the central and eastern regions.Elephants are protected by law and considered sacred due to their significance in Buddhist culture, but farmers often kill them to protect their crops.Human-elephant conflict in Sri Lanka has resulted in the deaths of nearly 200 elephants and 55 people so far this year.”We have launched investigations into the shootings of the two elephants, it looks like the work of local farmers,” a police spokesman in the capital Colombo said.The train accident occurred in Gallella, the same area where seven elephants were killed by a locomotive in February, the worst incident of its kind in Sri Lanka.It happened despite speed limits on trains passing through elephant-inhabited forest areas.A Sri Lanka railway official said an “internal investigation has been launched to establish if the driver had violated the speed limit”.Wildlife authorities released six elephants, aged between five and seven, back into the jungle on Thursday after rehabilitating them under a conservation programme that began in 1998.The Elephant Transit Home in Udawalawe, about 210 kilometres (130 miles) southeast of Colombo, cares for rescued animals and eventually returns them to the wild.The sanctuary is a major tourist attraction and holds 57 elephants that had been abandoned, injured, or separated from their herds.Sri Lankan authorities believe the transit home’s strategy of rewilding rescued elephants, rather than domesticating them, has been successful.The home has returned 187 elephants to the wild since 1998.Conservation efforts have become increasingly urgent due to the escalating conflict between wild elephants and farmers.Official figures from Sri Lanka’s wildlife department show that 4,835 elephants and 1,601 people have been killed in the worsening conflict since 2010.

Pakistan will ban for five years the construction of new hotels around picturesque lakes in the north that attract tens of thousands of tourists each year, a government agency said.Unregulated construction of hotels and guest houses in Gilgit-Baltistan — which boasts around 13,000 glaciers, more than any other country on Earth outside the polar regions — has sparked major concerns about environmental degradation.The natural beauty of the region has made it a top tourist destination, with towering peaks looming over the Old Silk Road, and a highway transporting tourists between cherry orchards, glaciers, and ice-blue lakes.However, in recent years construction has exploded led by companies from outside the region, straining water and power resources, and increasing waste.”If we let them construct hotels at such pace, there will be a forest of concrete,” Khadim Hussain, a senior official at the Gilgit-Baltistan Environmental Protection Authority told AFP on Friday.”People don’t visit here to see concrete; people come here to enjoy natural beauty,” he added.Last month, a foreign tourist posted a video on Instagram — which quickly went viral — alleging wastewater was being discharged by a hotel into Lake Attabad, which serves as a freshwater source for Hunza.The next day, authorities fined the hotel more than $5,000.Asif Sakhi, a political activist and resident of the Hunza Valley, welcomed the ban.”We have noticed rapid changes in the name of tourism and development,” he said, adding hotel construction was “destroying our natural lakes and rivers”.Shah Nawaz, a hotel manager and local resident of the valley, also praised the ban, saying he believes “protecting the environment and natural beauty is everyone’s responsibility”.

State authorities blamed the management of India’s Royal Challengers Bengaluru cricket team for last month’s deadly stampede during celebrations for their first IPL title.Eleven fans were crushed to death and more than 50 wounded in a stampede near the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium after hundreds of thousands packed the streets in the southern city of Bengaluru on June 4, to welcome home their hero Virat Kohli and his RCB cricket team.Karnataka state authorities singled out the RCB, its partners and the state cricket association for their mismanagement of the event in a report made public on Thursday.It said organisers had not submitted a “formal request” or provided enough detail for permission to be granted for the celebrations. “Consequently, the permission was not granted,” it said.The team went ahead with its victory parade despite police rejecting RCB’s request, according to the report.AFP has been unable to contact RCB for comment.Four people, including a senior executive at RCB, representatives of event organisers DNA and Karnataka State Cricket Association, were detained by police in the days following the stampede.Players were parading the trophy near the stadium a day after their win over Punjab Kings in the final in Ahmedabad when the stampede occurred.The dead were aged between 14 and 29.Prime Minister Narendra Modi called it “absolutely heartrending” and Kohli, who top-scored in the final, was “at a loss for words” after it unfolded.India coach Gautam Gambhir said he was never a fan of roadshows, and the authorities should not have allowed the mass celebrations if they weren’t prepared.

Air India’s inspection of the locking feature on the fuel control switches of its existing Boeing 787 aircraft found no issues, an internal communication circulated within the airline said.The switches have come under scrutiny following last month’s crash of an Air India jet, which killed 260 people, after a preliminary probe by Indian investigators found that they had flipped from the run position to cutoff shortly after takeoff.India’s aviation regulator ordered the country’s airlines this week to investigate the locking feature on the switches of several Boeing models.The order came after Boeing notified operators that the fuel switch locks on its jets were safe.However, it was in line with a Special Airworthiness Information Bulletin (SAIB) issued by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in 2018, which recommended inspection of the locks to ensure they could not be moved accidentally.Air India’s probe found no problems with the locking mechanism.”Over the weekend, our Engineering team initiated precautionary inspections on the locking mechanism of Fuel Control Switch (FCS) on all our Boeing 787 aircraft,” the airline’s flight operations department said in a communication to its pilots.”The inspections have been completed and no issues were found,” the communication said, noting that it had complied with the regulator’s directives.It said all of its Boeing 787-8 aircraft had also undergone “Throttle Control Module (TCM) replacement as per the Boeing maintenance schedule”, adding that the FCS was part of this module.Other countries have also ordered their airlines to examine fuel switches on Boeing aircraft.Singapore found them all to be “functioning properly”.”Our checks confirmed that all fuel switches on SIA (Singapore Airlines) and Scoot’s Boeing 787 aircraft are functioning properly and comply with regulatory requirements,” an SIA spokesperson told AFP this week.The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner that crashed last month was heading from Ahmedabad in western India to London. All but one of the 242 people on board were killed, as well as 19 people on the ground.A report in the Wall Street Journal on Thursday, which cited unidentified sources, said a cockpit recording of a conversation between the two pilots indicated the captain had cut off fuel to the engines.India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB), which released the preliminary report, said it was still “too early to reach any definite conclusions”.It said the investigation’s final report would come out with “root causes and recommendations”. “We urge the public and the media to refrain from spreading premature narratives that risk undermining the integrity of the investigative process,” it said in a statement. 

Bangladesh police said on Thursday they had arrested 20 people, a day after clashes between supporters of ousted premier Sheikh Hasina and security personnel killed at least four people.The clashes erupted in Hasina’s hometown of Gopalganj on Wednesday after members of her Awami League party tried to foil a rally by the National Citizens Party (NCP), made up of many students who spearheaded the uprising that toppled her government last year. Bricks, stones and shattered windows littered the area where the clashes occurred. More than 1,500 police, as well as soldiers and border guards, have been deployed in the district to enforce a curfew. “The law and order situation in Gopalganj is currently under control and remains peaceful,” the police said in a statement on Thursday. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding president of Bangladesh, hailed from Gopalganj and Hasina, his daughter, also contested elections from the district.Jibitesh Biswas, director of the Gopalganj District Hospital, said on Thursday that four people “were brought in dead” after the clashes.Biswas said shots were also fired in front of the hospital and that at least 18 wounded people were also brought in. “Three of them are in critical condition with wounds to the chest, back of the head, and leg,” he said.Ramjan Sheikh, an 18-year-old mason, died of bullet wounds, his family told AFPblaming the military for his death. “They trampled on his chest… We rushed to the hospital only to find his lifeless body soaked in blood,” Mohammed Kalim Munshi, Ramjan’s uncle, said. AFP could not independently verify the claim. The Bangladeshi army said its soldiers intervened, along with the police, to control an “unruly crowd”.”In response, the crowd grew more aggressive, threw molotov (cocktails) and brickbats compelling the Army to use force in self-defence,” it said in a statement.A 24-year-old Gopalganj resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the NCP should have understood that the town would not “accept any disrespect” towards Rahman.”But their leaders continued rants against Mujibur (Rahman),” the resident said. Human rights organisation Ain o Salish Kendra said “the application of excessive force on people in Gopalganj and shooting at them blatantly violates human rights standards and the constitution”.Bangladesh’s interim leader Muhammad Yunus said on Wednesday the attempt to foil the NCP rally was “a shameful violation of their fundamental rights”.

Sri Lankan authorities returned six orphaned and injured elephants to the wild on Thursday after nursing them back to health under a long-running conservation project, officials said.Two females and four males, aged between five and seven, were released into the Mau Ara forest within the Udawalawe Wildlife Sanctuary, environment minister Dammika Patabendi told AFP.He said it was the 26th such release of rehabilitated elephants since the Udawalawe Elephant Transit Home began its programme in 1998.”We hope, in the interest of conserving elephants, we will be able to improve facilities at this transit home in the near future,” Patabendi said.The calves were transported in trucks and then allowed to walk free because they were deemed strong enough to fend for themselves or join wild herds.Baby elephants have minimal contact with humans at the transit home to ease their integration into wild herds.All elephants at the facility were rescued after being found abandoned, injured or separated from their herds.Udawalawe, about 210 kilometres (130 miles) southeast of Colombo, is renowned for its wild elephants and is a major tourist attraction.Sri Lankan authorities believe the transit home’s strategy of rewilding rescued elephants, rather than domesticating them, has paid off.The centre’s director, Malaka Abeywardana, said 57 elephants remain at the facility, which has released 187 back into the wild since the first release in early 1998.Sri Lanka had previously sent rescued calves to the Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage, which has also become a popular tourist site.The Pinnawala orphanage marked its golden jubilee in February.Conservation efforts have become increasingly urgent due to growing conflict between wild elephants and farmers.The human-elephant conflict has resulted in the deaths of around 400 elephants and 200 people annually over the past five years.

Heavy rains have been linked to 54 deaths in the past 24 hours in Pakistan, taking the toll to about 180 since the arrival of the monsoon in late June, the government’s disaster agency said on Thursday.Torrential rain has poured almost without pause across parts of Punjab province since Wednesday morning, causing urban flooding and houses to collapse.Rescue teams used boats to evacuate families from villages along the river further south in the morning, but the water had begun to recede by the afternoon.”Children were screaming for help, and women stood on rooftops, waving their shawls and begging to be rescued,” said Tariq Mehbood Bhatti, a 51-year-old farmer in Ladian village.Residents living in low-lying areas near the Nullah Lai river that runs through Rawalpindi city, neighbouring the capital Islamabad, were ordered to evacuate after a sharp rise in the water level.”Rescue teams are on standby for more evacuations,” a spokeswoman for the disaster agency said.”Residents of vulnerable areas should prepare emergency kits with food, water, and essential medicines for three to five days in case of an emergency,” the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) added in an alert.The Rawalpindi government declared a public holiday on Thursday to keep people at home, with the national meteorological department warning that heavy rain would continue until Friday.- Electrocutions, buildings collapsing -Around 180 people have been killed, including 70 children, and about 500 injured since the start of the monsoon on June 26, according to the disaster agency. “In the last 24 hours, 54 people were killed and 227 injured across Pakistan, with the majority of fatalities reported from Punjab,” the NDMA spokeswoman told AFP, adding that the toll had been counted at 8:00 am (0300 GMT) on Thursday. The majority of deaths were caused by collapsed houses and sudden flash floods, while dozens were also electrocuted.Monsoon season brings South Asia 70 to 80 percent of its annual rainfall, and runs from June until September in India and Pakistan.The annual rains are vital for agriculture and food security, and the livelihoods of millions of farmers, but also bring destruction.South Asia is getting hotter and has seen shifting weather patterns in recent years, but scientists are unclear on how exactly a warming planet is affecting the highly complex monsoon.Pakistan is one of the world’s most vulnerable countries to the effects of climate change, and its 255 million residents are facing extreme weather events with increasing frequency.In 2022, monsoon floods submerged a third of the country and killed 1,700 people.