Systematic effort to change Tamil areas’ demographics, alleges Batticaloa MP Shanakiyan Rasamanickam.

Over the last few months, farmers of Mavadi Odai in Sri Lanka’s eastern Batticaloa district frequently spotted something crop up on their land overnight — a border stone they had not planted.

Main photo: Zulfi Bukhari, Special Assistant to PM on Overseas Pakistanis, Afzaal Mahmood, Pakistan Ambassador, Ahmed Shaikhani, President, PBC, Shabbir Merchant, Director PBC, Imran Chaudhry and guests at the PBC reception in Dubai on Sunday. Image Credit: Virendra Saklani/Gulf News

The special courts will decide any property dispute within 30 days, says Bukhari in UAE

THE DESIGNATION by incoming President Rodrigo Duterte of Rafael “Ka Paeng” Mariano as his secretary of agrarian reform is welcome news for the Filipino peasantry, farmworkers and the rural poor. Mariano, born into a poor peasant family in Nueva Ecija, is chair of Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas and former Anakpawis party-list representative.

Dzuds, a weather phenomenon characterized by extreme cold, used to be unusual. Now, they’re becoming the new normal.

DALANZADGAD, UMNUGOVI PROVINCE, MONGOLIA — Clouds gather in the moody winter sky, and the wind picks up. As the temperature plummets, sheep and goats turn from the pasture where they were grazing to huddle in the shelter of a shed.

Trend of large once green swathes of land turned into concrete jungles in recent years has environmentalists concerned

FAISALABAD, Pakistan

A mounting housing crunch is fast devouring Pakistan's agricultural lands, which may have cascading effects on the country's food security in years to come.