Southern Pakistan hit hard by widespread flooding – The Sunday Tribune/Today’s Zaman/Evening Herald

SINDH PROVINCE — Dirty, tired and bedraggled, Imran beckons us over to the women who fled their village. They came thirty miles on foot only to spend almost three weeks here in the dead heat at this makeshift camp outside Sukkur in southern Pakistan. “Take some photographs”, he implores. “You sure this is OK?” I reply, our conversation translated from Sindhi to English and back again by Nizam Ud Din Bharchood, a long time charity worker for Hands, a NGO based in southern Pakistan. “Go ahead, he insists!” assured Nizam. Often foreigners cannot take photos of women or girls in Pakistan, but Imran waives this, showing a canny insight into how best to raise awareness about his people’s plight. The ladies, adorned in their assorted pinks, greens and orange veils, clasp their children close and sit atop a rusted old bed, one of the few possessions they managed to carry from one of their houses. Photo taken, Imran explains their plight. “We are here twenty days now, without any shelter and only a little food.”

Haiti earthquake: time running out in nightmare republic – The Sunday Tribune

PORT-AU-PRINCE — In ‘The Comedians’, Graham Greene called Haiti the nightmare republic. But for the past few days in Haiti, truth has been more nighmarish than fiction after an estimated 140,000 people were killed in last week’s earthquake. The international relief operation appears to be struggling, meaning that time is running out for the estimated 3 million Haitians affected by the disaster, people now injured, homeless,  without food and water. There seems to be little hope for those still trapped alive under the rubble as the risk of disease grows by the hour — and with each passing hour the prospect of rescue diminishes.