Full Coverage: South Asia

31.10.2008 A deterioration in press freedom in Sri Lanka has been found by an International Press Freedom mission, confirming the country's lowest rating of any democratic country worldwide.

30.10.2008 Development agencies fly teams into the area of Pakistan struck by an earthquake on Wednesday.
+ Thousands homeless after Pakistan earthquake
+ MSF team dispatched to villages hit by earthquake in Balochistan
+ World Vision ready to respond as survivors face frigid temperatures

29.10.2008 Emteaz Hussain says she ran away and took shelter in a women’s refuge when she was 16, so it’s not surprising that the central characters in her first play, Sweet Cider, are two young British Asian women who have run away from home.

22.10.2008 “I don’t want to be a martyr and get it banned and boast about it,” says actress Nandita Das of her directorial debut, Firaaq. But she is aware that her film about people caught up in the anti-Muslim violence in Gujarat in 2002 might be controversial.

15.10.2008 About 190,000 people have been displaced from Pakistan’s Bajaur agency bordering Afghanistan since fighting started in mid-August, UN refugee agency teams report.

13.10.2008 One of India’s most isolated tribes is preparing to stop the British company Vedanta from mining aluminium ore on their sacred mountain, after police and hired thugs forced protestors to dismantle a barricade over the weekend.
+ Uncontacted tribe’s plight sparks mass Indian plea to president
+ Amazon tribe’s protest shuts down dam site

10.10.2008 At least 1,252 people were executed in 24 countries last year - though the real figure is certainly higher - with 88 per cent occurring in China, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the US.