Thousands of protesters in war-torn Syria’s rebel enclave of Idlib on March 15 marked 11 years since the start of an anti-government uprising, buoyed by the global outcry over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Gathered on the main square in the northwestern city of Idlib, more than 5,000 people took part in one of the largest rallies the beleaguered region has seen in months. Many of the demonstrators hoped the war launched by the Syrian government’s main backer Russia in Ukraine would rekindle interest in their cause. “What is happening in Ukraine today is similar to the situation here; the enemy…
Author: post staff
Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo took a camping trip to the country’s future capital, he said on social media on March 15, posing for photographs in a forest at the site of the new city. The country is preparing to move its capital from overcrowded Jakarta to Nusantara, in a megaproject that has come under criticism from environmentalists who warn it could damage ecosystems in the region. “Morning, how does it feel to stay overnight at the location of Nusantara? The air was cool and the weather was clear last night,” Widodo posted on Instagram, captioning a picture of the…
Bangladesh police admitted for the first time on March 15 that an insurgent group ordered last year’s murder of a respected Rohingya leader, saying they were threatened by his growing popularity. The assassination of Mohib Ullah last September sent shockwaves through the sprawling border settlements that house hundreds of thousands of stateless Rohingya refugees who fled a violent crackdown in neighbouring Myanmar. Hours after the 48-year-old was gunned down in Kutupalong, the world’s largest refugee settlement, his family accused the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) of orchestrating the killing. The militant group is waging an insurgency in Myanmar and has…
2022 marks the second anniversary of the Covid-19 pandemic, and while an end to the pandemic is in sight, it is far from over and the consequences will be felt for decades to come. At the same time, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is becoming increasingly distant. The region must use the 17 Sustainable Development Goals as a roadmap to a fairer recovery. This year’s edition of the Asia and the Pacific SDG Progress Report published by the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) reveals three alarming trends. First, the region is losing ground in…
The tech industry has long tried to align with the green movement, though its leaders are often accused of spouting nebulous slogans and making hard-to-test pledges. The Mobile World Congress, an industry get-together in Barcelona, certainly saw some sloganeering. But Huawei, Orange and industry body GSMA attempted to flesh out some of the green claims made about 5G. The next-generation mobile network is being rolled out across the globe, with promises of super-fast internet going hand-in-hand with claims of massive benefits for the environment. Laurence Williams of Sussex university in the UK recently led research assessing the available evidence on…
Efren Rodriguez leaves the table annoyed as his fellow players, drunk and laughing, cry out “Zapato! Get out!” The 32-year-old has just suffered an embarrassing defeat in a game of dominoes in the little fishing village of Chichiriviche on Venezuela’s Caribbean coast. Zapato means shoe in Spanish and in dominoes is the equivalent of a “duck” in cricket – a score of zero. Dominoes “is the favourite past-time for everyone . . . in the rich people’s clubs just like poor neighbourhoods, in urban centres and rural areas,” wrote late former president Rafael Caldera in the prologue for Alfredo Fernandez…
With three friends, all violinists like her, Nadia Safina fled the war in Ukraine to find peace at a music school in Denmark, a horrific ordeal that took 10 days. Now, “all we have is our talent. Not boots. Not clothes, not jewellery. Only our talent and our instruments,” the 24-year-old says, a weary look of despair in her eyes. Safe but with her “heart in pain”, she arrived this week in Stevns, an hour outside Copenhagen, far from the bombs falling on her hometown of Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine which she fled on the first day of the war.…
Haider Ali dabs a brush with an iridescent glob of paint and gets to work on a pair of sparkling white trainers – his latest canvas for a carnival of colour celebrating Pakistani culture. Pakistan’s lorries are renowned for “truck art”: candy-coloured murals depicting South Asian animals, celebrities and religious icons. The tradition transforms the highways and cities into kaleidoscopic processions. And now Ali – a veteran truck artist – has transposed the painting onto sneakers. “A client came to me from the US asking me to paint shoes,” he explained. “I told him an exorbitant fee to discourage him…
For years, Nepali child soldier turned ultra-runner Mira Rai trained alone every morning, but now she leads other young women up and down the hills, hoping the sport can help them break cycles of poverty and discrimination. Rai, born in a farmer’s home in eastern Nepal, emerged as a trail running prodigy in 2014 after her racing debut in a steep 50km race in Kathmandu. Within a year she finished first at the 80km Mont Blanc Ultra in Chamonix, and was the second-placed woman in the Skyrunners World Series, garnering sponsorships including French sports manufacturer Salomon. She went on to…
The Pritzker Prize, architecture’s most prestigious award, was awarded Tuesday to Burkina Faso-born architect Diebedo Francis Kere – the first African to win the honor in its more than 40-year history. Kere, 56, was hailed for his “pioneering” designs that are “sustainable to the earth and its inhabitants – in lands of extreme scarcity,” Tom Pritzker, chairman of the Hyatt Foundation that sponsors the award, said in a statement. Kere, a dual citizen of Burkina Faso and Germany, said he was the “happiest man on this planet” to become the 51st recipient of the illustrious prize since it was first…