Author: Asian Bangla

The BNP is likely to give the party ticket to the two current mayors of the Gazipur and Khulna city corporations for contesting the upcoming polls, considering their proven loyalty to the party. The party, however, is also keeping other options open. Gazipur city Mayor MA Mannan will get the party blessings if he remains physically fit, while Khulna city Mayor Moniruzzaman Moni is at the top of the list of three prospective party candidates, said BNP insiders. Both the mayors were suspended by the government after they got elected around five years back, and this helped them gain public…

The US Department of State will honour outstanding young leaders from around the world, including Tanzil Ferdous from Bangladesh, on 2 May. The 10 recipients of the third annual ‘Emerging Young Leaders Award’ will be acknowledged in a public ceremony at the State Department for their efforts as partners for peace and drivers of economic growth and opportunity on the day. The 2018 awardees are Sara Abdullah Abdulrahman from Iraq, Diovio Alfath from Indonesia, Ece Ciftci from Turkey, Tanzil Ferdous from Bangladesh, Zina Salim Hassan Hamu from Lithuania, Dania Hassan from Pakistan, Nancy Herz from Norway, Isasiphinkosi Mdingi from South…

Thousands of Palestinians protested along Gaza’s sealed border with Israel on Friday, engulfing the volatile area in black smoke from burning tires to try to block the view of Israeli snipers and cheering a Hamas strongman who pledged that the border fence will eventually fall. Israeli troops opened fire from across the border, killing at least nine Palestinians and wounding 491 others – 33 of them seriously – in the second mass border protest in a week, Gaza health officials said. A well-known Palestinian journalist was among the dead, and hundreds of others suffered other injuries, including tear gas inhalation,…

The government has decided to import liquefied natural gas (LNG) from next April. The vessels carrying the LNG will anchor at the entrance of the Chattogram port, where Karnaphuli Fertiliser Company Limited (KAFCO) and Chattogram Urea Fertiliser Factory (CUFL) jetties are situated. This will squeeze the space on the port channel. Almost 99 per cent of the container vessels, meant for export and import, use the port channel to enter or leave the port, but vessels carrying LNG create the risk of accidents. Vessel movement will certainly slow down, as the ships have to be more cautious, and this will invariably lead…

Use of public funds for political gains and pervasive corruption in Bangladesh has made the United Nations concerned. This concern was expressed in a report published by the UN committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights on Tuesday, following a two-day meeting in Geneva on 14-15 March. State minister for foreign affairs ShahriarAlam presented a country report there. The UN committee further expressed concern over the proposed Digital Security Act, Child Marriage Restraint Act 2017 and a few other matters including disparity in society and enforced disappearance. The report appreciated Bangladesh’s attainments in poverty alleviation, increase of per capita income,…

Asianbangla Desk : As the United States and the European Union debate tougher trade and diplomatic sanctions against Myanmar for expulsion and killing of Muslim Rohingya refugees, who after crossing the border by the hundreds of thousands into Bangladesh are now fleeing further south by boat ahead of the rainy season, the two-year-old government of Aung San Suu Kyi has also come under harsh international criticism for economic-policy lethargy. The International Monetary Fund (IMF), in its March Article IV report, joined alienated investors in urging a “second reform wave,” after a number of fiscal, monetary, business and banking steps were…

It’s an election year in Bangladesh and one that has been marked by political turmoil, notably the jailing of former prime minister Khaleda Zia in February over the Zia Orphanage Trust corruption case. Zia’s only glimmer of hope was the High Court granting her four months’ bail in March, but the Supreme Court put a stop to that by putting the lower court’s move on hold a week later. The dailyReport Given this, Zia’s beleaguered Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) has accused Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina — Zia’s arch-rival in the country’s infamous “Battle of two Begums” — and her Awami…

Canada should welcome Rohingya refugees and encourage other nations to do the same, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s special envoy to Myanmar said in his final report. “Canada should signal a willingness to welcome refugees from the Rohingya community both in Bangladesh and Myanmar and should encourage a discussion among like-minded countries to do the same,” Bob Rae said in the report, presented at a press conference in Ottawa on Tuesday. However, he said, this in no way lessens the obligations of Myanmar to accept responsibility for the departure in such violent circumstances of the Rohingya population from their homes. Rae…

By the twisted standards of Myanmar’s Rakhine state, Abdullah is one of its more fortunate Rohingya residents.      The 34-year-old is alive, his village is intact and he is able to make a living — albeit a meagre one — in his homeland as a farmer. Abdullah’s Rohingya Muslim minority are disappearing fast from Myanmar. Some one million of them — around two-thirds of their entire stateless community — have been forced over the border to refugee camps in Bangladesh by successive waves of persecution. The latest has expelled some 700,000 Rohingyas since August last year, when the army launched a…

Asianbangla Desk : Bollywood super star Salman Khan was today sentenced to five years in prison after being convicted by a court in northern Indian state of Rajasthan for killing two blackbucks, an endangered species. However, other Bollywood actors Saif Ali Khan, Tabu, Sonali Bendre and Neelam, also accused in the case, were acquitted by Chief Judicial Magistrate Dev Kumar Khatri in Jodhpur this morning. A fifth person, Dushyant Singh, a local of Rajasthan, has also been acquitted. 52-year-old Salman was found guilty of killing the blackbucks, from the antelope family, in Kankani village near Jodhpur on the night of…