Nobel winner Yunus sworn in to lead Bangladesh interim government

Update Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus (C) takes the oath of office as the chief adviser of Bangladesh’s new interim government in Dhaka on August 8, 2024. (AFP)
Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus (C) takes the oath of office as the chief adviser of Bangladesh’s new interim government in Dhaka on August 8, 2024. (AFP)
Short Url
Updated 08 August 2024
Follow

Nobel winner Yunus sworn in to lead Bangladesh interim government

Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus (C) takes the oath of office as the chief adviser of Bangladesh’s new interim government in Dhaka.
  • 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

DHAKA: Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus was sworn into office Thursday, vowing to lead Bangladesh back to democracy after a student-led uprising ended the 15-year rule of Sheikh Hasina.
Yunus, who earlier on Thursday had hailed the overthrow of Hasina as Bangladesh’s “second independence,” swore to “uphold, support and protect the constitution,” in front of political and civil society leaders, generals and diplomats at the presidential palace.
“Today is a glorious day for us,” Yunus, 84, told reporters hours earlier when he returned to Dhaka from Europe.
“Bangladesh has created a new victory day. Bangladesh has got a second independence.”
Yunus called for the restoration of order after weeks of violence that left at least 455 people dead, calling on citizens to guard each other, including minorities who came under attack.
“Law and order is our first task... We cannot take a step forward unless we fix the law and order situation,” he said.
“My call to the people is if you have trust in me, then make sure there will be no attacks against anyone, anywhere in the country.”
“Every person is our brother... our task is to protect them,” Yunus said, adding that “the whole of Bangladesh is one big family.”
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 former foreign secretary and a former attorney general, an environmental lawyer, and prominent rights activist Adilur Rahman Khan who was sentenced to two years in jail during Hasina’s rule.
Hasina, accused of widespread human rights abuses including jailing of political opponents, was forced to flee to neighboring India on Monday as masses of protesters flooded Dhaka’s streets.
The military then agreed to student demands that Yunus — who won the Nobel in 2006 for his pioneering microfinancing work — lead an interim government.
Yunus choked with emotion on Thursday as he recalled the killing of student activist Abu Sayeed, shot dead in July by police from close range.
He paid tribute to the youth who sparked the protest movement and those who risked all for their desire for change.
“They protected the nation and gave it a new life,” he said.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi offered his “best wishes” to Yunus on Thursday, saying New Delhi was “committed” to working with neighboring Dhaka.

During Hasina’s reign, Yunus was hit with more than 100 criminal cases and a smear campaign by a state-led Islamic agency that accused him of promoting homosexuality.
Yunus had traveled abroad this year while on bail after being sentenced to six months in jail on a charge condemned as politically motivated, and which a Dhaka court on Wednesday acquitted him of.
Army chief General Waker-Uz-Zaman said Wednesday he supported Yunus.
“I am certain that he will be able to take us through a beautiful democratic process,” Waker said.
Few other details about the planned government have been released, including the role of the military.
But Bangladeshis voiced hope as they joined a rally in Dhaka on Wednesday for the former opposition Bangladesh National Party (BNP).
“I expect that a national government will be formed with everyone’s consent in a beautiful way,” Moynul Islam Pintu told AFP.
“I expect that the country is run in a nice way, and the police force is reformed so that they can’t harass people.”
Monday’s events were the culmination of more than a month of unrest, which began as protests against a quota plan for government jobs but morphed into an anti-Hasina movement.
“The protests are a seismic moment in Bangladesh history,” said International Crisis Group analyst Thomas Kean.
“The country really had been at risk of becoming a one party state, and through a peaceful street-based movement led by Gen Z students in their 20s, they’ve managed to force her from power.”
The military’s switching of allegiance was the decisive factor in her ouster.
It has since acceded to a range of demands from the student leaders.
The president dissolved parliament on Tuesday, a key demand of the students and the BNP.
The head of the police force, which protesters have blamed for leading Hasina’s crackdown, was sacked on Tuesday.
The new chief, Mainul Islam, offered an apology on Wednesday for the conduct of officers and vowed a “fair and impartial investigation” into the killings of “students, common people and the police.”
Ex-prime minister and BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia, 78, was also released from years of house arrest, while some political prisoners were freed.
The military has demoted some generals seen as close to Hasina and sacked Ziaul Ahsan, a commander of the feared Rapid Action Battalion paramilitary force.


Biden, Harris to visit Sept. 11 sites, White House vows ‘never again’

Biden, Harris to visit Sept. 11 sites, White House vows ‘never again’
Updated 15 sec ago
Follow

Biden, Harris to visit Sept. 11 sites, White House vows ‘never again’

Biden, Harris to visit Sept. 11 sites, White House vows ‘never again’
  • Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will start their day with a visit to the site where planes brought down the World Trade Center’s twin towers
  • Donald Trump will also attend the New York City ceremony, along with former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg
NEW YORK: US President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday will observe the 23th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on the US with visits to each of the three sites where hijacked planes crashed in 2001, killing nearly 3,000 people.
Biden and Harris will start their day with a visit to the New York City site where planes brought down the World Trade Center’s twin towers.
Harris, now the Democratic nominee for president, was due to traveled to New York after debating her Republican rival, former President Donald Trump, in Philadelphia on Tuesday evening, with just eight weeks left before the Nov. 5 presidential election.
No remarks are scheduled at the site, where relatives will read the names of those who died.
Trump will also attend the New York City ceremony, along with former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a source familiar with the plans said.
Biden and Harris will then fly to Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where passengers on United Flight 93 overcame the hijackers and the plane crashed in a field, preventing another target from being hit. Then they will head back to the Washington area to visit the Pentagon memorial.
“We can only imagine the heartbreak and the pain that the 9/11 families and survivors have felt every day for the past 23 years and we will always remember and honor those who were stolen from us way too soon,” White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters aboard Air Force One on Tuesday.
“We will continue to do everything in our power to ensure that an attack like this never happens again,” she said.
Biden issued a proclamation honoring those who died as a result of the attacks, as well as the hundreds of thousands of Americans who volunteered for military service afterwards.
“We owe these patriots of the 9/11 Generation a debt of gratitude that we can never fully repay,” Biden said, citing deployments to Afghanistan, Iraq and other war zones, as well as the capture and killing of Sept. 11 mastermind Osama bin Laden and his deputy.
US congressional leaders on Tuesday posthumously awarded the congressional gold medal to 13 of those service members who were killed in the Aug. 26, 2021, suicide bombing at Kabul’s airport during the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Taiwan grounds Mirage fighter jet fleet after crash at sea

Taiwan grounds Mirage fighter jet fleet after crash at sea
Updated 8 min 48 sec ago
Follow

Taiwan grounds Mirage fighter jet fleet after crash at sea

Taiwan grounds Mirage fighter jet fleet after crash at sea
  • The Mirage was conducting nighttime exercises late on Tuesday after taking off from the Hsinchu air base when it suffered a loss of engine power and the pilot bailed out

TAIPEI: Taiwan’s air force said on Wednesday it had grounded its fleet of French-made Mirage fighter jets for maintenance checks after one crashed off the island’s northwest coast, though the pilot was rescued.
The Mirage was conducting nighttime exercises late on Tuesday after taking off from the Hsinchu air base when it suffered a loss of engine power and the pilot bailed out. Rescuers later found him and took him to hospital.
The air force said the Mirage fleet has now been grounded for checks, and that they would ensure sufficient coverage from other aircraft to make up for those taken out of rotation.
The US-built F-16 fighter jet is the mainstay of Taiwan’s air force. Taiwan received its first of 60 Mirage 2000 jets in 1997, though they have been upgraded several times since then. At least seven have since been lost in accidents.
Taiwan’s air force has suffered a series of crashes in recent years, including in 2022 when it grounded its Mirage fleet after one crashed into the sea off the east coast.
While Taiwan’s air force is well trained, it has been repeatedly scrambling to see off Chinese military aircraft flying near the island in the past five years, though the accidents have not been linked in any way to these intercept activities.


Donald Trump makes surprise ‘spin room’ visit after US presidential debate

Donald Trump makes surprise ‘spin room’ visit after US presidential debate
Updated 29 min 9 sec ago
Follow

Donald Trump makes surprise ‘spin room’ visit after US presidential debate

Donald Trump makes surprise ‘spin room’ visit after US presidential debate

PHILADELPHIA: Minutes after being hustled by Kamala Harris during their US presidential debate on Tuesday, Donald Trump appeared in front of reporters to get the last word.
As the debate drew to a close, cries of surprise went up at the entrance to the press room.
Trump had made an unexpected entrance to the “spin room,” where the candidates’ spokespeople and supporters usually hurry to distribute talking points to journalists.
Cameras and microphones in hand, dozens of reporters crowded behind thin ribbons to get as close as possible to the former president.
“What about black voters?” a reporter asked, managing to stand out from the crowd. “I love them. They love me,” the Republican billionaire declared.
Others tried to get his opinion on the 90-minute debate, during which 59-year-old Democratic candidate Harris had launched a relentless attack.
“I thought it was a great debate,” Trump said.
“I thought it was my best performance, actually, but I don’t even view it as a performance,” he added.
“Our country is in decline. We’re a nation in decline. And I thought that when we got that out, she was unable to defend it.”
Trump walked around the room, trailed by reporters, and after fielding a few questions, he finally disappeared behind black curtains.
“The fact that he showed up in the media filing center and spin room at the end, we haven’t seen that in years,” said Aaron Kall, director of debates at the University of Michigan.
“He wants to try to change the subject to something as quickly as possible.”
Both Trump and Harris will be back on the campaign trail on Wednesday, with less than two months left before the election.
They will take part in separate ceremonies to honor the victims of the September 11, 2001, attacks.


Russian lawmaker warns the West over supplies of long-range missiles to Ukraine

Russian lawmaker warns the West over supplies of long-range missiles to Ukraine
Updated 34 min 6 sec ago
Follow

Russian lawmaker warns the West over supplies of long-range missiles to Ukraine

Russian lawmaker warns the West over supplies of long-range missiles to Ukraine
  • Washington and other European states are becoming parties to the war in Ukraine – Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of Russia’s Duma
  • Sources said last week that the US was close to an agreement to give Ukraine of long range weapons

MOSCOW: Russia will consider the United States and its allies to be parties to the Ukraine war and Moscow will use more powerful weapons if the West allows Ukraine to use long-range weapons for strikes deep into Russia, a senior lawmaker said on Wednesday.
“Washington and other European states are becoming parties to the war in Ukraine,” Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of Russia’s Duma, the lower house of parliament, said on Telegram.
Volodin said that the United States, Germany, France, and Britain were becoming parties to the conflict.
“All this will lead to the fact that our country will be forced to respond using more powerful and destructive weapons to protect its citizens,” Volodin said.
US President Joe Biden said on Tuesday that his administration was “working that out now” when asked if the US would lift restrictions on Ukraine’s use of long range weapons in the war.
Sources said last week that the US was close to an agreement to give Ukraine such weapons, but that Kyiv would need to wait several months as the US works through technical issues ahead of any shipment.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Iran had supplied Russia with ballistic missiles in what he said was a “dramatic escalation.” Tehran said the claims were “ugly propaganda.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been pleading for Western countries to supply longer-range missiles and to lift restrictions on using them to hit targets such as military airfields inside Russia.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said in June that he could deploy conventional missiles within striking distance of the United States and its European allies if they allowed Ukraine to strike deeper into Russia with long-range Western weapons.
The conflict in eastern Ukraine began in 2014 after a pro-Russian president was toppled in Ukraine’s Maidan Revolution and Russia annexed Crimea, with Russian-backed separatist forces fighting Ukraine’s armed forces.
Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 with thousands of troops, triggering the biggest confrontation between Russia and the West since the depths of the Cold War.
Putin casts the conflict in Ukraine as part of an existential battle with a declining and decadent West which he says humiliated Russia after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 by encroaching on what he considers Moscow’s sphere of influence, including Ukraine.
The West and Ukraine describe the invasion as an imperial-style land grab by Putin and has vowed to defeat Russia on the battlefield.


Hanoi river level hits 20-year high as typhoon toll passes 150

Hanoi river level hits 20-year high as typhoon toll passes 150
Updated 14 min 7 sec ago
Follow

Hanoi river level hits 20-year high as typhoon toll passes 150

Hanoi river level hits 20-year high as typhoon toll passes 150
  • Police, soldiers and volunteers help residents along the banks of the swollen river in Hanoi to evacuate their homes
  • Typhoons in the region are forming closer to the coast, intensifying more rapidly, and staying over land longer due to climate change

HANOI: Residents of Hanoi waded through waist-deep water Wednesday as river levels hit a 20-year high and the toll from the strongest typhoon in decades passed 150, with neighboring nations also enduring deadly flooding and landslides.

Typhoon Yagi hit Vietnam at the weekend bringing winds in excess of 149 kilometers per hour and a deluge of rain that has also brought destructive floods to northern areas of Laos, Thailand and Myanmar.

The Red River in Hanoi reached its highest level in 20 years on Wednesday, forcing residents to trudge through waist-deep brown water as they retrieved possessions from flooded homes.

Others fashioned makeshift boats from whatever materials they could find.

“This was the worst flooding I have witnessed,” said Nguyen Tran Van, 41, who has lived near the Red River in the Vietnamese capital for 15 years.

“I didn’t think the water would rise as quick as it did. I moved because if the water had risen just a bit higher, it would have been very difficult for us to leave,” Van said.

A landslide smashed into the remote mountain village of Lang Nu in Lao Cai province, levelling it to a flat expanse of mud and rocks, strewn with debris and laced by streams.

State media said at least 30 people had been killed in the village, with another 65 still missing.

Villagers laid dead bodies on the ground, some in makeshift coffins, some wrapped in cloth, while police with picks and shovels dug through the dirt in search of more victims.

Vietnamese state media said the toll from Yagi — the strongest storm to hit northern Vietnam in 30 years — had risen to 155 across the country, with 141 missing.

It was not clear whether that total includes victims of Tuesday’s landslide, where access remained difficult and Internet was cut off, reports said.

Mai Van Khiem, head of the national weather bureau, told state media that the water level in the Red River in Hanoi was at its highest since 2004.

He warned of serious widespread flooding in the provinces surrounding the capital in the days to come.

Police, soldiers and volunteers helped hundreds of residents along the banks of the swollen river in Hanoi to evacuate their homes in the early hours as the water level rose rapidly.

A police official in Hanoi, refusing to be named, said officers were going on foot or by boat to check every house along the river.

“All residents must leave,” he said. “We are bringing them to public buildings turned into temporary shelters or they can stay with relatives. There has been so much rain and the water is rising quickly.”

On Tuesday images showed people stranded on rooftops and victims posted desperate pleas for help on social media, while 59,000 people were forced to evacuate their homes in Yen Bai province.

In neighboring Laos, authorities evacuated 300 people from 17 villages in northern Luang Namtha province, deputy district chief Sivilai Pankaew said.

He said the high-speed Laos-China railway was not affected by the floods.

In the historic city of Luang Prabang — a world heritage site and major tourist destination — houses and shops were inundated, Lao Post reported.

State media said at least one person has been killed and images showed rescuers working in murky brown flood waters.

Thai authorities said four people were killed in the kingdom’s northern provinces of Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai and the army has been deployed to help around 9,000 flood-hit families.

In Myanmar, residents and local media said flooding knocked out power and telephone lines in the town of Tachileik, in eastern Shan state where further heavy rain was forecast.

Further south, hundreds of residents of the Myanmar border trade hub of Myawaddy left their homes to take shelter in schools and monasteries on higher ground as flood waters rose, a resident of the town, which sits on the border with Thailand, said.

Southeast Asia experiences annual monsoon rains, but human-made climate change is causing more intense weather patterns that can make destructive floods more likely.

Typhoons in the region are forming closer to the coast, intensifying more rapidly, and staying over land longer due to climate change, according to a study published in July.