World

At least 30 people have been killed in the collapse of a gold mine in north-eastern Afghanistan, officials say.The collapse occurred in the Kohistan district of Badakhshan province.

Villagers had reportedly dug a 60m (220ft) deep but makeshift shaft in a river bed to hunt for gold and were caught in its collapse. Afghanistan has vast resources of minerals but many of the mines are old and poorly maintained, creating severe safety issues.

Villagers were reportedly using an excavator at the site when the mine collapsed.  At least seven other people were injured, officials say.

Kohistan district chief Rostam Raghi told the BBC's Afghan service: "Locals rushed to the scene and managed to rescue only 13 workers. Dozens of others, including some children, died."

Nik Mohammad Nazari, spokesman for the provincial governor, told Agence France-Presse: "The villagers have been involved in this business for decades with no government control over them. "We have sent a rescue team to the area, but villagers have already started removing bodies from the site."A spokesman for the National Disaster Management Authority told AFP the families of the dead would receive 50,000 afghanis ($660; £520).

Afghanistan's vast resources remain largely untapped due to the conflict with the Taliban.The conflict has seen the rise in illegal mining both by villagers and Taliban fighters who use it as a key source of revenue. (BBC)

Lawmakers in Britain’s Conservative Party on Wednesday triggered a “no confidence” vote against Prime Minister Theresa May, threatening her leadership as she struggles to secure a deal for Britain to leave the European Union.

May quickly responded that she would not resign but would defend her vision for Brexit. She warned the rebellious lawmakers that ousting her would not make getting a Brexit deal any easier but instead would bring delay and confusion.

“I will contest that vote with everything I’ve got,” said May, speaking outside her Downing Street offices. “I stand ready to finish the job.”

Removing and replacing the prime minister would take weeks. Changing leaders now, May warned, would “put our country's future at risk and create uncertainty when we can least afford it.”

The vote on the prime minister’s fate will take place Wednesday evening. 

If a large number of her fellow Conservatives vote against her, she may be pressed to resign. If half the Conservative Party lawmakers vote against her, May would be removed. 

The looming no-confidence vote throws May’s Brexit deal and Britain’s future relationship with Europe into chaos. 

The prime minister on Monday announced she was delaying a vote on her deal, after she concluded that the accord faced a humiliating defeat in the House of Commons. May spent Tuesday meeting with Netherlands Prime Minister Mark Rutte, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the E.U. leaders, trying to secure new concessions that might appease British lawmakers who oppose her Brexit withdrawal agreement.

For the Tories to challenge May, ostensibly their party leader, they need to send at least 48 letters — equaling 15 percent of the 315 Conservative lawmakers — to Sir Graham Brady, the chairman of the 1922 Committee in Parliament.

“The threshold of 15 percent of the parliamentary party seeking a vote of confidence in the leader of the Conservative Party has been exceeded,” Brady said.

Brady told the BBC that he informed the prime minister on Tuesday night that the threshold of 48 letters had been reached. May was “businesslike and keen to proceed as quickly as possible,” he said.

Brady said the no-confidence ballot would take place Wednesday evening between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. Votes will be counted “immediately afterward and an announcement will be made as soon as possible,” he said.

For May to survive a leadership challenge, she needs a simple majority of Conservative lawmakers — 158 of 315 to support her.

May advised her fellow Tories to look at the calendar. “The new leader wouldn’t have time to renegotiate a withdrawal agreement and get the legislation through Parliament by the 29th of March,” the date when Britain is set to leave the European Union, she said.

A new leader would have to seek delay, May said. “So one of their first acts would have to be extending or rescinding Article 50, delaying or even stopping Brexit when people want us to get on with it,” she said, referring to the provision of the European Union treaty that allows members to withdraw from the bloc.

The leader of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, expressed her frustration with the political squabbling. She tweeted: “Today is a stark reminder that the UK is facing chaos and crisis entirely because of a vicious civil war within the Tory party. What a self-centered bunch they are. They all need to go, not just the PM.”

Top Tories in her cabinet quickly announced they would back May. Supporters include Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt and Home Secretary Sajid Javid.

Philip Hammond, the chancellor of the exchequer, tweeted: “The Prime Minister has worked hard in the National interest since the day she took office and will have my full support in the vote tonight. Her deal means we leave the EU on time, whilst protecting our jobs and our businesses.”

Tim Bale, a professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London, said that in practice, May would likely need to win by more than a simple majority to stay in power. 

If she were to “win by 52-48, for example,” that would “indicate that so many of her MPs didn’t want her,” Bale said. “It would be morally difficult to carry on.” 

Bale also said that a new leader may not solve the Conservative Party’s Brexit problems. “Is the problem actually the prime minister? The problem is what it has always been. Any deal that could pass muster with the E.U. won’t pass muster with Tory Euroskeptics.” 

There is no shortage of fellow Tories who have suggested they might make fine replacements, if May is removed. Among the possible contenders are former Brexit secretary Dominic Raab and former foreign secretary Boris Johnson. Both men resigned their posts, saying they could not support May’s Brexit deal because it kept Britain too closely aligned with Europe. 

“Vassalage,” Johnson called it. 

Commentators were quick to draw comparisons to Margaret Thatcher, the original Iron Lady and Britain’s only other female prime minister, who won a vote of confidence on the first ballot, but resigned anyway in 1990. The party’s rules were very different then. Now, a leader cannot be challenged by a rival — a contest is triggered by the 48 letters — and needs to win by only a single vote. If May wins the vote, she cannot be challenged for a year.

If May loses the vote, she could remain as a caretaker prime minister until another leader is found, a process that could take six weeks. If multiple candidates throw their hats in the ring, then Conservative lawmakers vote, with the candidate receiving the fewest votes removed.

In the past, the voting has taken place on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Then, when two candidates are left, a vote is put to the wider grass-roots Conservative Party membership, which is more pro-Brexit than Parliament.

When David Cameron resigned as prime minister the morning after Britain’s 2016 Brexit referendum, he stayed on as caretaker prime minister for three weeks until May replaced him in July 2016. In that leadership context, the field was whittled down from five to two candidates — May and Andrea Leadsom. Leadsom dropped out after she gave an interview suggesting she was the stronger candidate because she had children.

Malaysia's king, Sultan Muhammad V, has unexpectedly abdicated in a historic first.No Malaysian monarch has stepped away from the throne since the country gained independence from the UK more than 60 years ago. The National Palace did not give a reason for his resignation but said it would take effect immediately.

It comes amid intense speculation about Muhammad V's private life following reports that he has married a Russian. He went on medical leave in November and, later that month, photographs emerged that appeared to show him marrying a former Miss Moscow in the Russian capital.

Officials have not commented on the rumours or given any further details about his health."His Majesty tells the people of Malaysia to continue to be united to maintain unity, tolerance, and work together," a statement from the palace said.

It added that the king, who took the throne in December 2016, was "ready to return home to the state of Kelantan". He may serve as acting king before a new monarch is selected by the Council of Rulers, the Straits Times reports.

Muhammad V, who was just 47 when he became king, has garnered a reputation for having relatively youthful interests. He is keen on extreme sports like off-road driving, shooting and endurance challenges.

Malaysia is the only country in the world to have a rotational monarchy, in place since the country became independent in 1957. The top job is passed between nine hereditary state rulers, with a rotation happening once every five years. But it is largely ceremonial, with power in the hands of parliament and the prime minister.

Despite this, the role is accorded considerable prestige, particularly among the country's Malay Muslim majority, for whom the king is seen as upholding Malay and Islamic tradition. Criticism deemed to incite contempt of the king can attract a jail term

The current Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who returned to office in a shock election victory last May, had a tense relationship with the Sultans during his previous governments when he attempted to limit their authority, the BBC's Jonathan Head reports.

Last week, he warned that all Malaysians must be bound by the law, whatever their status, our correspondent adds. (BBC)

The European Commission is planning to ask social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter and Google for monthly reports on Russian disinformation campaigns ahead of the European election next May, two EU officials told POLITICO.

The call to the tech companies is part of an “action plan” on fake news, expected to be presented Wednesday.

Facebook and others will be asked to provide reports from January to May, one official said. The information would be compiled by the European Commission, which is also planning to publish these reports to create awareness among European voters on how foreign actors try to influence their vote.

Wednesday’s action plan would single out Russia as a repeated offender using systematic, large-scale disinformation campaigns.
The tech companies’ reports would include figures on how they label political adverts as well as how many bot accounts and fake accounts they identify and disable.

Companies that have signed up to the EU’s Code of Practice on Disinformation would be asked for monthly reporting. So far, individual companies that have signed up include Google, Facebook, Twitter and Mozilla. 

The Commission’s action plan would include a request for more funding for disinformation agencies in Europe, including the EU’s own StratCom unit in the External Action Service, and the creation of a “rapid alert system” to notify national authorities if the country is under a sustained attack of fake news.
(Politico)

The death toll following the tsunami caused by the Anak Krakatau volcano in Indonesia has risen to at least 429, the disaster mitigation agency says.

On Saturday giant waves crashed into coastal towns on the islands of Sumatra and Java. It is thought that volcanic activity set off undersea landslides which in turn generated the killer waves.

About 150 people are still missing, while more than 16,000 have been displaced, the agency says. Coastal residents near the volcano have been warned to keep away from beaches amid fears it could trigger a new tsunami. Anak Krakatau erupted again on Sunday, spewing ash and smoke.

Video shot from a charter plane captured the magnitude of the volcanic event in the Sunda Strait, between Sumatra and Java. Rescue efforts are being hampered by blocked roads but heavy lifting equipment is being transported to badly hit areas to help search for victims.

Source : BBC

Israeli police are recommending Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu be indicted in a corruption case involving Israel's telecom giant.

Police said on Sunday that they have established an evidentiary foundation to charge Netanyahu and his wife Sara with accepting bribes, fraud and breach of trust.

The case revolves around suspicions that confidants of Netanyahu promoted regulations worth hundreds of millions of dollars to the Bezeq telecom company in exchange for positive coverage of the prime minister on Bezeq's news website, Walla.

Police have already recommended indicting Netanyahu on corruption charges in two other cases, one involving accepting gifts from billionaire friends, and the second over trading positive media coverage for advantageous legislation for a newspaper.

The prime minister has denied any wrongdoing, dismissing the accusations as a witch hunt orchestrated by the media.

Kenyan government risks losing the lucrative Mombasa port to China should the country fail to repay huge loans advanced by Chinese lenders. In November, African Stand reported on how Kenya is at high risk of Losing strategic assets over huge Chinese debt and just after some few months the Chinese are about to take action.

The loans have been granted for the development of the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR). Also at stake is the Inland Container Depot in Nairobi, which receives and dispatches freight hauled on the new cargo trains from the seaport. Implications of a takeover would be grave, including the thousands of port workers who would be forced to work under the Chinese lenders.

Management changes would immediately follow the port seizure since the Chinese would naturally want to secure their interests. Further, revenues from the port would be directly sent to China for the servicing of an estimated Sh500 billion lent for the construction of the two sections of the SGR.

In September 2018, Zambia lost Kenneth Kaunda International Airport to China over debt repayment. The SGR –operated by the Chinese, is a hugely loss-making venture, meaning it cannot generate enough money to repay loans. SGR reported a near Sh10 billion loss in its first year of operations.

The Auditor General has warned that the eventuality is likely because of a lopsided loan agreement that greatly favours the China Exim Bank, who advanced Kenya the loan.Specifically, Kenya got the short end of the stick in the agreement where any disputes arising from the debt servicing would be arbitrated in China.

An audit completed last month indicates that Kenya Ports Authority’s (KPA) assets, which include the Mombasa port, could be taken over if the SGR does not generate enough cash to pay off the debts.

“The China Exim Bank would become a principal in (over) KPA if Kenya Railways Corporation (KRC) defaults in its obligations and China Exim Bank exercise power over the escrow account security,” the audit reads in part. (African Stand)

George H.W. Bush, who in one term as president reasserted the U.S. as the world's lone superpower, rallying an international coalition against Iraq's Saddam Hussein in the first Gulf War and presiding over the fall of the Berlin Wall and subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union, died on Friday. He was 94.

The announcement of his passing was made in a statement by his son, former President George W. Bush.

"Jeb, Neil, Marvin, Doro and I are saddened to announced that after 94 remarkable years, our dear Dad has died," his son said in a statement released Friday night.

"George H.W. Bush was a man of the highest character and the best dad a son or daughter could ask for. The entire Bush family is deeply grateful for 41's life and love, for the compassion of those who have cared and prayed for Dad, and for the condolences of our friends and fellow citizens," the statement read.

Grandson George P. Bush said on Twitter Friday night, "He was more than a great man; he was a good man. His courage was matched by his compassion; and his dedication to country was equaled only by his devotion to his family."

One of the most experienced public servants in U.S. history, Bush served two terms as vice president under Ronald Reagan before becoming president in 1989, capping off a career that included stints as director of the CIA and U.S. ambassador to China and the U.N. in the 1970s.

President George H.W. Bush smiles after he was introduced at the New York State Republican dinner at the Waldorf-Austria Hotel on June 22, 1989 in New York.Rick Bowmer / AP file

A longtime pillar of the moderate wing of the Republican Party — he was national chairman after the Watergate scandal left the GOP in disarray — Bush lent establishment credentials to Reagan's conservative insurgency, becoming his running mate in 1980 after losing the presidential nomination to him.

But for all of the foreign policy successes of Bush's lone term in the White House, it was a basic domestic issue that effectively undercut his shot at a second: his decision to raise taxes to address a deficit that had exploded under Reagan. Conservatives cried heresy, and repercussions still ripple through the GOP today.

Serving as president from 1989 to 1993, Bush and his wife, Barbara, who died in April, remained prominent public figures long afterward. They stood apart as a genial reminders of a political era that many Americans preferred to recall as more bipartisan and cooperative than perhaps it really was.

President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump said Bush led the nation with sound judgement, common sense and unflappable leadership.

"Through his essential authenticity, disarming wit, and unwavering commitment to faith, family, and country, President Bush inspired generations of his fellow Americans to public service—to be, in his words, “a thousand points of light” illuminating the greatness, hope, and opportunity of America to the world," they said in a statement.

With the election of George W. Bush as the 43rd president in 2000, the Bushes became the second father-son set to serve as commander in chief — John Adams and John Quincy Adams being the first.

The Bush political dynasty began decades before, with the elder Bush's father, Prescott Bush, a Wall Street banker, representing Connecticut in the U.S. Senate from 1952 to 1963.

An accomplished athlete throughout his life — Bush played first base for Yale University teams that twice made the College World Series — Bush celebrated his 90th birthday by taking a tandem skydive, even though by then he was using a wheelchair because of a disease similar to Parkinson's.

He had been in and out of hospitals several times in recent years, including a stay in the intensive care unit for shortness of breath and pneumonia in January 2017, when President Donald Trump was inaugurated.

At his wife's funeral on April 21, the gregarious and polite former president shook the hands of hundreds of mourners. He went into the hospital days later with what doctors said was an infection.

Although born into privilege, George Herbert Walker Bush looked for opportunities to serve early in life. At 18, he defied his parents and joined the military after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. He was among the youngest pilots in the Navy and was shot down over the Pacific and was rescued by a passing submarine.

He returned home to marry his sweetheart, Barbara Pierce, and the couple settled in Texas, where he worked in the oil business. They had six children.

Bush made his first bid for office in 1964, running for the U.S. Senate in Texas as a Republican, like his father. He didn't win, but went on to secure a House seat two years later and ran again for Senate in 1970 at the urging of President Richard M. Nixon. Again, he was unsuccessful — but Nixon rewarded Bush by appointing him ambassador to the United Nations.

It would be the first in a series of positions at the pinnacle of American power. He was appointed in 1973 as chairman of the Republican National Committee, tasked with cleaning up the party's mess from the Watergate scandal, and President Gerald Ford rewarded Bush by appointing him U.S. envoy to China and then director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Four transgender women have been allowed to pray at an Indian temple at the centre of a bitter row over whether women should be permitted to enter.

Despite a Supreme Court ruling allowing women devotees into the Sabarimala shrine in Kerala state, they have been blocked repeatedly by mobs.

The transgender women, all wearing black sarees, were allowed to enter on Tuesday under police protection.

The temple has historically been closed to women of "menstruating age". The group of transgender women had been blocked from accessing the temple on Sunday by police, citing security concerns.

Before September's Supreme Court ruling, transgender women were allowed to enter the shrine, but since the decision - which sparked violent protests - some police officials had suggested that transgender women should dress as men in order to gain access.

They refused and took their case to a committee set up by the Kerala High Court. The panel agreed that they could pray at the shrine, and temple officials also said they did not object to the transgender women because they do not menstruate.

Source : BBC

Traces of faeces have been found on every single McDonald’s touchscreen swabbed in an investigation by metro.co.uk. 

Samples were taken from the new machines that have been rolled out at restaurants across the country – every one of them had coliforms. 

Senior lecturer in microbiology at London Metropolitan University Dr Paul Matewele said: ‘We were all surprised how much gut and faecal bacteria there was on the touchscreen machines. These cause the kind of infections that people pick up in hospitals.

The machines have been rolled out in McDonald’s branches across the UK (Picture: Susannah Ireland for metro.co.uk)

‘For instance Enterococcus faecalis is part of the flora of gastrointestinal tracts of healthy humans and other mammals. It is notorious in hospitals for causing hospital acquired infections.’ 

Unsuspecting diners choose their food on the touchscreens then head to the server to pick up their burgers more often than not without washing their hands.

A screen at one branch was found to have staphylococcus, a bacteria that can cause blood poisoning and toxic shock syndrome. Dr Matewele said: ‘Seeing Staphylococcus on these machines is worrying because it is so contagious. ‘It starts around people’s noses, if they touch their nose with their fingers and then transfer it to the touchscreen someone else will get it, and if they have an open cut which it gets into, then it can be dangerous.

‘There is a lot of worries at the moment that staphylococcus is becoming resistant to antibiotics. However, it is still really dangerous in places like Africa where it can cause toxic shock.’ Metro.co.uk’s study with the university’s school of human sciences involved swabs taken from eight McDonald’s restaurants. Six in London and two in Birmingham. Listeria bacteria was found in Oxford Street and Holloway Road branches. It can cause listeriosis which can lead to miscarriages and stillbirths in pregnant women. 

Dr Matewele said: ‘Listeria is another rare bacterium we were shocked to find on touchscreen machines as again this can be very contagious and a problem for those with a weak immune system.’ Three quarters of the screens swabbed showed traces of the bacteria proteus.

Dr. Paul Matewele , microbiology and immunology expert, was shocked at the findings (Picture: Susannah Ireland for metro.co.uk)
Dr Matewele said: ‘Proteus can be found in human and animal faeces. It is also widely distributed in soil. It can cause urinary tract infections and is also one of the hospital acquired infections where it may responsible for septicaemia. ‘Klebsiella is also from the gut and mouth, they are associated with urinary tract infections, septicemia and diarrhoea. Some species can infect the respiratory tract resulting in pneumonia.’

Touchscreens at Holloway Road, McDonald’s where listeria and other bacteria were found (Picture: Susannah Ireland for metro.co.uk)

(Metro)

Former Maldives president Abdulla Yameen is under investigation for corruption, police said Sunday, after a court ordered accounts holding USD 6.5 million to be frozen. 

Yameen, who was defeated in a September election, was interviewed by police on the honeymoon islands on Saturday. 

He has been dogged by allegations that he received close to USD 1.5 million in illicit payments during his failed bid for re-election in the Indian Ocean archipelago nation. 

The country's monetary authority has lodged a police complaint about the alleged donations made into a private account held by Yameen in two suspicious tranches, local media reported. 

The former strongman president, who ruled the popular holiday islands with an iron fist, jailing or exiling his opponents, has denied the allegations. Yameen relied heavily on China for political and financial support in the nation of 340,000 Sunni Muslims, troubling neighbouring India.

Beijing has challenged New Delhi for regional influence, including in strategically-located nations like the Maldives, Sri Lanka and Nepal which have traditionally been within India's orbit.

China has loaned billions of dollars to countries around the Indian Ocean and beyond for infrastructure development, stoking fears of a debt trap.

But Yameen's defeat to Ibrahim Mohamed Solih signalled something of a reset, with the new president accusing China of a land grab in the Maldives and turning to India for help.

Solih departed for India on Sunday on his first official visit abroad since assuming office.

He is scheduled to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi on Monday. 

(PTI)

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When at 19 Mehnaz became pregnant for the fifth time, she panicked. She already had four daughters, and her husband was threatening to throw her out if she had another. So she did what millions of Pakistani women do every year: She had an abortion.

Like many of those women, her abortion was partly self-administered. "I kept taking tablets — whatever I laid my hands on," she says. "I lifted heavy things" — like the furniture in her tiny living room. She drank brews of boiled dates — many Pakistanis believe the beverage triggers labor.

Mehnaz says she felt "a terrible pain in my stomach." Her husband took her to a midwife, who told him the baby was dead. "She gave me injections and it came out," Mehnaz says.

That was eight years ago. Since then she has had two more abortions, each time because she feared the baby would be a daughter.
Mehnaz, whose last name is being shielded to protect her identity, is one of millions of Pakistani women who have abortions each year. The deeply conservative Muslim country is estimated to have one of the highest rates of abortion in the world, based on a 2012 study by the New York-based Population Council, a nonprofit that advocates family planning. The rate that year was 50 abortions for every 1,000 women aged 15 to 44 — roughly four times higher than in the U.S.

According to family planning researchers, abortion provisions in the country's penal code are vague. The procedure is "legal only in very limited circumstances," notes the Guttmacher Institute.

The circumstances include a pregnancy that is dangerous to a woman's health — or if there is a "need" for abortion, according to Zeba Sathar, the Pakistan director of Population Council, and Xaher Gul, a Karachi-based public health policy expert and lecturer who advises nonprofits. But what constitutes a "need" is not defined, they say.

What's more, hospitals generally refuse to perform an abortion because most doctors believe it is illegal, Sathar and Gul say. Even when doctors know abortion is allowed in certain circumstances, they cite their own cultural beliefs to not undertake abortions except in urgent cases — for example, if a woman walks in with "an incomplete abortion," Gul says.

That has left Pakistani women at the mercy of back-alley abortion providers.

Some of these women, like Mehnaz, will abort a fetus if they fear they are carrying a female child, who can be seen as an economic burden. But that's not the only reason.

Pakistani women largely seek abortions because they either don't know about contraception or cannot access reliable contraception — or they've stopped using contraception after suffering complications, Sathar says. According to her research, most of the women who seek abortions are married, poor and already have children. Only 30 percent of fertile-age women use modern contraceptives, according to a 2017 U.N. report.

"We found to our surprise that most of the women had more than three children, maybe as many as five," Sathar says. "They were almost all — 90 to 95 percent — married. They were older, so they tended to be poorer, less educated."

Pakistan's high abortion and low contraception rates reflect a family planning policy in shambles, says Abdul Ghaffar Khan, director general of Pakistan's population program wing. His office is meant to set the national family planning agenda, but Khan described the situation as "a bureaucratic mess."

Family planning used to be the job of the federal government, but approval for a national policy languished for years.

In 2011, national authorities passed the matter to provincial governments. But at the provincial level, family planning is not part of the health ministry's portfolio. It is part of a different office and has long been neglected and underfunded, Khan says.

That means women aren't advised about contraception or supplied contraceptives when they are most amenable: after childbirth, receiving postnatal care or immunizing their babies, says Sathar of the Population Council. She described it as one of the chief "structural flaws of how we provide family planning."

The issues with family planning are partly why Pakistan has one of the world's fastest population growth rates, says demography expert Mehtab Karim, vice chancellor at Malir University of Science and Technology in Pakistan. That population boom has strained Pakistan's land and water resources, crowded its schools, outstripped development plans and may lead to more instability in this nuclear-armed state. "It has a tremendous impact," Karim says.

But changes may be coming. On July 4, Pakistan's Supreme Court demanded hearings into the country's family planning failures. A national policy may be put into action in the coming months, Khan says.

All this is too late for Mehnaz, who was married at 13 to her cousin in their tiny village and had four daughters in quick succession and seven children in all — six girls, one son. And three abortions. She is illiterate and said she didn't know anything about sex or contraception early in her marriage.

In a group interview with NPR, about a dozen midwives who also provide abortions said they would only help a woman who already appeared to be miscarrying — like Mehnaz, who induced her own abortion before seeking help.

Mumtaz Begum, 60, stands in her clinic in Karachi, Pakistan. Begum says a midwife taught her how to induce abortions using medications freely available in Pakistan. Citing her religious faith, she says she would only help women who she believed were already miscarrying. Diaa Hadid/NPR

"I don't help with murder," says Mumtaz Begum, a 60-year-old who lives in a slum in the port city of Karachi. She has no medical qualifications but says a midwife taught her how to induce abortions decades ago, using medications freely available in Pakistan.

On a recent day, Begum showed NPR those pills and injections. They were clustered on a dusty table alongside religious texts and a bag of onions in a dank room with peeling paint. The gurney where she treated women was littered with clothing. "I wipe it down before women come in," she says.

Because many providers aren't properly qualified, researchers estimate about a third of all women who undertake abortions in Pakistan suffer complications, ranging from heavy bleeding to a perforated uterus and deadly infections.

Health workers do reach out to women to provide information about family planning. Some 130,000 women are employed by provincial health ministries to do house visits across the country, teaching about birth control.

But Gul says health workers are poorly trained and in short supply. Budgetary shortages, supply problems and corruption mean they often don't have contraceptives, or distribute expired contraceptives — and that there's little follow-up on how to use them.

Mehnaz was paid a visit by two such workers. She says they gave her an injection meant to prevent conception for three months. She became pregnant again anyway. As before, she tried taking pills to induce an abortion but says they made her sick so she stopped taking them.

Three years ago she had her seventh child, a girl. She then tried taking the pill, offered by the visiting health workers.

She says it made her dizzy and she stopped taking it.

She again became pregnant but miscarried — and pleaded with doctors to sterilize her.

She says they told her she had to wait until she was 40 — or get a permission slip from her husband. He refused: "He says he can't sign this, it's a sin."

She says he also refuses to use condoms or to stop having sex with her.

If she has another girl, her husband may well abandon her. If she tries to induce another abortion, her health could deteriorate.

"I am stuck," she says. Ther are many instances that can be taken into account that we have taken into that can be taken into account as far they are concerened
(NPR)