Asian nations evacuate citizens from Israel and Iran as war escalates
TOKYO -- Asian governments are scrambling to evacuate citizens from Israel and Iran as the air war between the two sworn enemies intensifies.
The conflict, now entering its second week since Israel launched an attack aimed at halting Tehran's nuclear program, has drawn global condemnation and concern due to its potential to destabilize the broader region. Asian countries, many with citizens working, studying or traveling in the region, are now grappling with complex logistical and diplomatic challenges.
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Gulf Today
an hour ago
- Gulf Today
'Moving Great Wall:' China unleash towering teen basketball star
China look set to unleash their 2.26m (7ft 5in) "moving Great Wall" at the Women's Asia Cup after teenager Zhang Ziyu put in another towering display days after her debut. The 18-year-old centre scored 18 points as China beat great rivals Japan 101-92 on Wednesday in Xi'an in a warm-up for the regional tournament next month on home soil. It was her third appearance for the senior Chinese squad, having helped them to blowout victories over Bosnia and Herzegovina over the weekend. Chinese state media dubbed her and gangly centre Han Xu the "Twin Towers." Zhang's looming presence on court — footage showed her barely needing to jump to make a basket — seemed to stump Japan head coach Corey Gaines. Asked if he had figured out a way "to deal" with the teenager, the American ex-NBA guard told reporters: "We'll just say: Interesting. Very interesting." Zhang Ziyu (#28) shoots as Japan's Azusa Asahina (#14/R) blocks during a warm-up game in Xian. AFP Zhang hails from northern China's Shandong province and had reached 2.10m by the end of primary school. She has been likened by Chinese fans to Houston Rockets great Yao Ming. Yao, who at 2.29m was one of the tallest NBA players in history, was known as the "moving Great Wall" before retiring from basketball in 2011 and Zhang has now taken on the nickname. Both of Zhang's parents played professional basketball. Her father, Zhang Lei, turned out for the Chinese Basketball Association's Jinan Military Region while her mother Yu Ying played as a centre for Shandong, according to local media. Zhang Ziyu (#28) shoots as Japan's Miwa Kuribayashi (#77) and Nanako Todo (#75) try to block during a warm-up game. AFP The teenager may have a distinct height advantage but she has been told she needs to sharpen up. Experienced centre Yang Liwei said after Wednesday's win that Zhang "could have been tougher on some shots". "I think she played at her normal level," added Yang, who helped China win the Asian title in 2023. China meet Japan again on Friday at home for another warm-up. Both will play at the Women's Asia Cup in Shenzhen from July 13. Agence France-Presse
Gulf Today
an hour ago
- Gulf Today
Bangladeshi workers risk lives in shipbreaking yards
Antoine Guy, Agence France-Presse Mizan Hossain fell 10 metres from the top of a ship he was cutting up on Chittagong beach in Bangladesh — where the majority of the world's maritime giants meet their end — when the vibrations shook him from the upper deck. He survived, but his back was crushed. 'I can't get up in the morning," said the 31-year-old who has a wife, three children and his parents to support. "We eat one meal in two, and I see no way out of my situation," said Hossain, his hands swollen below a deep scar on his right arm. The shipbreaking site where Hossain worked without a harness did not comply with international safety and environmental standards. Hossain has been cutting up ships on the sand without proper protection or insurance since he was a child, like many men in his village a few kilometres inland from the giant beached ships. One of his neighbours had his toes crushed in another yard shortly before AFP visited Chittagong in February. Shipbreaking yards employ 20,000 to 30,000 people directly or indirectly in the sprawling port on the Bay of Bengal. But the human and environmental cost of the industry is also immense, experts say. The Hong Kong Convention on the Recycling of Ships, which is meant to regulate one of the world's most dangerous industries, is set to come into effect on June 26. But many question whether its rules on handling toxic waste and protecting workers are sufficient or if they will ever be properly implemented. Only seven out of Chittagong's 30 yards meet the new rules about equipping workers with helmets, harnesses and other protection as well as protocols for decontaminating ships of asbestos and other pollutants and storing hazardous waste. Chittagong was the final destination of nearly a third of the 409 ships dismantled globally last year, according to the NGO coalition Shipbreaking Platform. Most of the others ended up in India, Pakistan, or Turkey. But Bangladesh — close to the Asian nerve centre of global maritime commerce — offers the best price for buying end-of-life ships due to its extremely low labour costs, with a minimum monthly wage of around $133 (115 euros). Chittagong's 25-kilometre stretch of beach is the world's biggest ship graveyard. Giant hulks of oil tankers or gas carriers lie in the mud under the scorching sun, an army of workers slowly dismembering them with oxyacetylene torches. "When I started (in the 2000s) it was extremely dangerous," said Mohammad Ali, a thickset union leader who long worked without protection dismantling ships on the sand. "Accidents were frequent, and there were regular deaths and injuries." He was left incapacitated for months after being hit on the head by a piece of metal. "When there's an accident, you're either dead or disabled," the 48-year-old said. At least 470 workers have been killed and 512 seriously injured in the shipbreaking yards of Bangladesh, India and Pakistan since 2009, according to the Shipbreaking Platform NGO. No official death toll is kept in Chittagong. But between 10 and 22 workers a year died in its yards between 2018 and 2022, according to a count kept by Mohamed Ali Sahin, founder of a workers' support centre. There have been improvements in recent years, he said, especially after Dhaka ratified the Hong Kong Convention in 2023, Sahin said. But seven workers still died last year and major progress is needed, he said. The industry is further accused of causing major environmental damage, particularly to mangroves, with oil and heavy metals escaping into the sea from the beach. Asbestos -- which is not illegal in Bangladesh -- is also dumped in open-air landfills. Shipbreaking is also to blame for abnormally high levels of arsenic and other metalloids in the region's soil, rice and vegetables, according to a 2024 study in the Journal of Hazardous Materials. PHP, the most modern yard in the region, is one of few in Chittagong that meets the new standards. Criticism of pollution and working conditions in Bangladesh yards annoys its managing director Mohammed Zahirul Islam. "Just because we're South Asian, with dark skin, are we not capable of excelling in a field?" he told AFP. "Ships are built in developed countries... then used by Europeans and Westerners for 20 or 30 years, and we get them (at the end) for four months. "But everything is our fault," he said as workers in helmets, their faces shielded by plastic visors to protect them from metal shards, dismantled a Japanese gas carrier on a concrete platform near the shore. "There should be a shared responsibility for everyone involved in this whole cycle," he added. His yard has modern cranes and even flower beds, but workers are not masked as they are in Europe to protect them from inhaling metal dust and fumes. But modernising yards to meet the new standards is costly, with PHP spending $10 million to up its game. With the sector in crisis, with half as many ships sent for scrap since the pandemic — and Bangladesh hit by instability after the tumultuous ousting of premier Sheikh Hasina in August — investors are reluctant, said John Alonso of the International Maritime Organization (IMO). Chittagong still has no facility to treat or store hazardous materials taken from ships. PHP encases the asbestos it extracts in cement and stores it on-site in a dedicated room. "I think we have about six to seven years of storage capacity," said its expert Liton Mamudzer. But NGOs like Shipbreaking Platform and Robin des Bois are sceptical about how feasible this is, with some ships containing scores of tonnes of asbestos. And Walton Pantland, of the global union federation IndustriALL, questioned whether the Hong Kong standards will be maintained once yards get their certification, with inspections left to local officials. Indeed six workers were killed in September in an explosion at SN Corporation's Chittagong yard, which was compliant with the convention. Shipbreaking Platform said it was symptomatic of a lack of adequate "regulation, supervision and worker protections" in Bangladesh, even with the Hong Kong rules. The NGO's director Ingvild Jenssen said shipowners were using the Hong Kong Convention to bypass the Basel Convention, which bans OECD countries from exporting toxic waste to developing nations. She accused them of using it to offload toxic ships cheaply at South Asian yards without fear of prosecution, using a flag of convenience or intermediaries. In contrast, European shipowners are required to dismantle ships based on the continent, or flying a European flag, under the much stricter Ship Recycling Regulation (SRR). At the Belgian shipbreaking yard Galloo near the Ghent-Terneuzen canal, demolition chief Peter Wyntin told AFP how ships are broken down into "50 different kinds of materials" to be recycled. Everything is mechanised, with only five or six workers wearing helmets, visors and masks to filter the air, doing the actual breaking amid mountains of scrap metal. A wind turbine supplies electricity, and a net collects anything that falls in the canal. Galloo also sank 10 million euros into water treatment, using activated carbon and bacterial filters. But Wyntin said it is a struggle to survive with several European yards forced to shut as Turkish ones with EU certification take much of the business. While shipbreakers in the EU have "25,000 pages of legislation to comply with", he argued, those in Aliaga on the western coast of Turkey have only 25 pages of rules to respect to be "third-country compliant under SRR". Wyntin is deeply worried the Hong Kong Convention will further undermine standards and European yards with them. "You can certify yards in Turkey or Asia, but it still involves beaching," where ships are dismantled directly on the shore. "And beaching is a process we would never accept in Europe," he insisted.
United News of India
2 hours ago
- United News of India
Sensex Zooms by 1,046.30 points
Mumbai, Jun 20 (UNI) Snapping three consecutive sessions of losses, the BSE Sensex on Friday surged by 1,0436 points to close at 82,408.17. Today's surge is seen as the result of gains in Asian markets and renewed foreign fund inflow, a trader explained. Markets sentiments turned bullish after the US President Donald Trump announced that he will decide in the next two weeks whether or not to get involved in the Iran-Israel conflict. This announcement eased crude oil prices improving investor sentiments, the trader added. National Stock Exchange (NSE) too advanced by 319.15 points to settle at 25,112.40. The Sensex opened marginally lower at 81,354,85 against its previous close of 81,361.87 .66 Sensex recorded an intra day high of 82,641.54 and low of 81,323.20. The NSE registered a day's high at 25,132.80 and a day's low at 24,738.10 Mid-cap rose by 1.20 pc and the Small-cap advanced by 0.22 pc. The market breadth stayed strong on Friday. The BSE witnessed 2,469 shares rising and 1,471 shares falling. A total of 151 shares remained unchanged. All Sectoral indices ended the Session in green with Telecom being the Top Sectoral gainer up by 2.73 pc Other Sectoral gainer were Commodities by 0.54 pc. Energy By 0.99 pc, FMCG by 0.52 pc, Financial by 1.35 pc, Health Care by 0.78 pc, Industrial by 1.21 pc, IT by 0.65 pc, Utilities by 1.62 pc, Auto by 0.84 pc, Bankex by 1.15 pc, Capital Goods by 1.17 pc, Consumer Durables by 0.84 pc, Metals by 1.10 pc, Oil & Gas bty 0.61 pc, Power by 1,46 pc , Realty by 2.22 pc and Teck by 1.42 pc Among the 30 scrips, 27 advanced while 3 declined. Notable gainers were Bharti Airtel by 3.17 pc to Rs 1,935.00, Nestle India by 2.98 pc to Rs 2,388.20, M&M by 2.86 pc to Rs 3,180.20, Power Grid by 2.18 pc to Rs 292.55, Reliance by 2.16 pc to Rs 1,462.65, NTPC by 1.70 to RS 33.35 and Eternal by 1.60 pc to Rs 253.40. The losers were Axis Bnak by 0.16 pc to Rs 1,215.00, Ultra tech by 0.07 pc to Rs 11,399.70 and Maruti by 0.02 pc to Rs 12,803.00. US Dow Jones futures were up by 0.56 pc, European shares advanced on Friday, FTSE by 0.47 pc, CAC by 0.58 pc and DAX by 0.95 pc Most Asian markets ended higher as investors assessed China data and monitored escalating tensions between Israel and Iran. Nikkei was 225 down by 0.22 pc, Straits Times rose by 0.28 pc, Hang Seng advanced by 1.24 pc and Kospi by 1.46 pc. UNI JS RKM
