Bangladesh’s Nobel Peace Prize-winning economist Muhammad Yunus was sworn in as the head of the country’s caretaker government on Thursday, three days after former prime minister Sheikh Hasina was forced to quit and flee the country following violent protests. “I will uphold, support and protect the constitution,” Yunus said during the swearing-in ceremony, adding that he would perform his duties “sincerely”. More than a dozen members of his cabinet, who are titled advisers, not ministers, also took the oath. They included top leaders of the Students Against Discrimination group that led the weeks-long protests, Nahid Islam and Asif Mahmud. Others included a…
Author: Hasnain Abid Khanzada
COX’S BAZAR: The bodies of 34 Rohingya refugees, who fled Myanmar only to drown when their overcrowded boat sank while crossing a river to Bangladesh, have been recovered, a top local government official said on Thursday. Other refugees fleeing the bitter conflict described grim scenes of “bloodshed” as thousands tried to escape. The boat sank on Tuesday, when the bodies of 10 people — including young children — were initially recovered. But more have since washed ashore, taking the total killed to 34. Police said the group had fled their villages in Myanmar’s Rakhine state and their small craft sank in…
PARIS: It is “increasingly likely” 2024 will be the hottest year on record, despite July ending a 13-month streak of monthly temperature records, the EU’s climate monitor said on Thursday. The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said last month was the second warmest on record books going back to 1940, only slightly cooler than July 2023. Between June 2023 and June 2024, each month eclipsed its own temperature record for the time of year. “The streak of record-breaking months has come to an end, but only by a whisker,” said Samantha Burgess, deputy director of C3S. Last month the global…
KABUL: Afghan government employees must attend mosque five times a day or face punishment, Taliban supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada said on Thursday in his latest edict. Since the 2021 Taliban takeover, Akhundzada has overseen sweeping restrictions on society — shutting women and girls out of modern education, ordering male chaperones for females and effectively banning music. “The officials of the ministries and institutions of the (Taliban government) are obliged by Sharia to pray in congregation at their fixed times,” said the order signed by Akhundzada. It added that employees who miss a prayer “without a reasonable excuse” should receive a warning, and…
VIENNA: An Austrian teenager arrested over an alleged plot to strike a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna had built explosive devices for his attack and had pledged loyalty to the militant Islamic State group, authorities said on Thursday. The 19-year-old man, who has North Macedonian roots, made a full confession in custody, Austria’s general director for public security Franz Ruf told a news conference. He swore allegiance to the IS group’s leader on the internet and had chemicals, machetes, and technical devices at his home in the town of Ternitz in preparation for an attack, Ruf added. The suspect, whose…
WASHINGTON: Advanced American F-22 stealth warplanes arrived in the Middle East on Thursday, the US military said, as Washington boosts its forces in the region ahead of an expected Iranian counterattack on Israel. The deployment is part of “force posture changes in the region to mitigate the possibility of regional escalation by Iran or its proxies”, US Central Command said on social media, without specifying the number or exact location of the planes. The Pentagon said last week that Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin had ordered assets including additional warships and a fighter squadron to the region. Seven American personnel were wounded in…
JERUSALEM/WASHINGTON: Israel said on Thursday it was revoking the diplomatic status of Norway’s envoys to the Palestinian Authority accusing Oslo of “anti-Israel behaviour” during the Gaza crisis and drawing a formal protest. Norway — a key facilitator in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, particularly in the secret negotiations that led to the Oslo Accords of the 1990s — swiftly summoned the Israeli ambassador to lodge a formal protest. Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said he “ordered the termination of any representation on behalf of the Norwegian embassy in Israel vis-a-vis the Palestinian Authority,” which has limited powers in urban areas of the Israeli-occupied…
UNITED NATIONS: A UN counter-terrorism official warned on Thursday that the Afghanistan branch of the militant Islamic State group (IS) poses the greatest external terrorist threat to Europe as it boosts its organisational strength. “ISIL-K has improved its financial and logistical capabilities in the past six months, including by tapping into Afghan and Central Asian diasporas for support,” Vladimir Voronkov, undersecretary-general for counter-terrorism, said. ISIL-K, or IS-K, is an acronym for the group’s branch in Afghanistan, known as Islamic State Khorasan Province. The group claimed a March attack on a music hall in Moscow, which left 145 people dead. The risk of…
CAIRO: Israeli forces stepped up airstrikes across the Gaza Strip on Thursday, killing at least 40 people, Palestinian medics said, in further battle with Hamas fighters as Israel braced for potential wider war in the region. Israeli airstrikes hit a cluster of houses in central Gaza’s Al-Bureij camp, killing at least 15 people, and the nearby Al-Nuseirat camp, killed four, medics said. Israeli aircraft also bombed a house in the heart of Gaza City in the north, killing five Palestinians, while another airstrike in the southern city of Khan Younis killed one person and wounded others, according to medics. Later…
ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Interior Mohsin Naqvi said on Thursday that establishing peace in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is the top priority of the federal government. He made the remarks in a meeting with KP Governor Faisal Karim Kundi, who called on Mr Naqvi at the Ministry of Interior in Islamabad. They also discussed the law and order situation in KP, including the situation in Kurram. The interior minister and the KP governor expressed their grave concern over the Kurram incident and agreed to formulate a multi-faceted joint strategy to prevent such incidents in future. They expressed deep grief over the loss of…
