Deepa Parent

2 weeks ago | theguardian.com | Julian Borger |Peter Beaumont |Deepa Parent

Israel has warned that its aerial assault on Iran, bombing nuclear facilities and air defences, killing military commanders and scientists, was “just the beginning” of an operation to smash the country’s nuclear programme, leaving the Middle East facing the prospect of a full-scale war. Iran has vowed revenge, with the new head of the Revolutionary Guard, Mohammad Pakpour, hastily appointed after his predecessor was killed in Friday’s attack, threatening to open “the gates of hell” on Israel.

2 weeks ago | theguardian.com | Jason Burke |Deepa Parent

As dawn broke over Tehran, firefighters and other rescue workers saw for the first time the full extent of the damage done by overnight Israeli strikes. Among the first locations reached by responders in the capital was a 12-storey block of flats looming above a road junction and a shopping mall in the northern suburbs. A huge blast at around 4am had gutted two upper levels, showering debris into the street below.

2 weeks ago | theguardian.com | Deepa Parent |Ruchi Kumar

Women working in sugar cane fields are still being “pushed” to undergo surgery to remove their womb and enable them to work longer hours without period pain, activists in India’s state of Maharashtra have said. Large numbers of women undertake long hours of manual work harvesting, gathering, lifting and loading large stacks of cane to trucks and tractors.