Author: Asian Bangla

Asianbangla Desk : Suspected rebels shot dead four police officers while security forces killed two militants in Indian Kashmir yesterday as tensions rose before a major Supreme Court hearing on the troubled region. Afp, Srinagar Five police officers who had stopped near the southern Kashmir town of Shopian to repair their vehicle were ambushed, Inspector General of Police Swayam Prakash Pani told AFP. Separately, two suspected rebels were killed in a gunfight with government forces not far from the attack on the police, officials said. The Muslim-majority Himalayan region, divided between India and Pakistan since their split in 1947, has…

Asianbangla Desk : US support for the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen is not “unconditional,” Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Tuesday, as he defended America’s ongoing role in the war. Afp, Washington The Pentagon chief’s comments came the same day as UN investigators said they had reasonable grounds to believe that warring parties in Yemen may have committed a “substantial number” of violations of humanitarian law that could amount to “war crimes.” The US provides weapons, aerial refueling to jets, intelligence and targeting information to the Saudi-led coalition that is fighting Huthi rebels in Yemen. “Our conduct there is to…

Asianbangla Desk : Oscar-winning actress Cate Blanchett told the UN Security Council on Tuesday that nothing prepared her for “the extent and depth of suffering” she saw when she visited camps in Bangladesh for Rohingya Muslim refugees who fled a violent crackdown by Myanmar’s military. Ap, United Nations In her very different role as a goodwill ambassador for the UN refugee agency, Blanchett said she heard “gut-wrenching accounts” of torture, rape, people seeing loved ones killed before their eyes, and children thrown into fire and burned alive. “I am a mother, and I saw my children in the eyes of…

Asianbagla Desk : Russia has deployed a dozen warships to the Mediterranean Sea in what a Russian newspaper on Tuesday called Moscow’s largest naval buildup since it entered the Syrian conflict in 2015. The reinforcement comes as Russia’s ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, is believed to be considering a major assault on the last rebel-held enclave in northern Idlib province, which is home to nearly three million people and has a large al-Qaeda presence in addition to several Syrian rebel groups. Upping the ante, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov yesterday described IDlib militants as a “festering abscess” that needed to…

Asianbangla Desk : Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who leaves Dhaka for Kathmandu this morning to attend the fourth Bimstec Summit, will meet her Indian counterpart Narendra Modi on the sidelines of the event. Diplomatic sources in Dhaka and New Delhi said Hasina-Modi meeting, scheduled for 6:45pm today, is crucial in the run-up to Bangladesh’s national election, likely to be held in December. The Summit is set to witness the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding on the Establishment of Bimstec Grid Interconnection, which will pave the way for buying and selling electricity among the seven Bimstec member states once the…

Asianbangla, Dhaka : Finance Minister AMA Muhith has said the age limit for entry into government service would not be increased before the national elections. “That’s my hunch,” the minister told journalists yesterday after a meeting of the cabinet committee on economic affairs. Currently, the highest ceiling for joining government services is 30 years. Different media reported that the government would increase the age bar to 32 years. Asked, Muhith said, “I had a plan to raise the age bar. I also made a proposal to that end, but it did not materialise. “I have no objection to raising the…

Asianbangla, Dhaka : Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina left here for Kathmandu on Thursday morning on a two-day official visit to Nepal to attend the 4th Bimstec Summit. The Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (Bimstec) having seven Member States — Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Thailand — came into being on June 6, 1997 through the Bangkok Declaration. A VVIP flight of Biman Bangladesh Airlines carrying the Prime Minister and her entourage left Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport for Kathmandu at 8:05am. The flight is scheduled to reach Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu at…

Asianbangla, Dhaka : Pharmaceuticals export has crossed $100-million mark for the first time in the country’s history, according to the Export Promotion Bureau. Export earnings from the sector hit $103.46 million in 2017-18, up 16.03 percent from a year ago thanks to improved compliance by the local manufacturers. Shipment of pharmaceutical products registered an average 14.6 percent growth between 2011 and 2016. “Pharmaceutical companies have the potential to earn $1 billion a year through exports in the next five years, but the sector needs fiscal benefits and policy support to do so,” Abdul Muktadir, managing director of Incepta Pharmaceuticals, told…

Asianbangla Desk : The UN has found that the Myanmar military had planned the Rohingya genocide long before the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army attacked the country’s security personnel, a justification put forward by Myanmar for the violent crackdown on the ethnic minority. “Although the Government [of Myanmar] has stated that ARSA burned Rohingya villages, the Mission found no such indication,” the UN Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar said in a report. The Myanmar government, including its de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi, has repeatedly said that ARSA’s attack forced the army to launch the crackdown. The UN report found that…

Asianbangla Desk : UN Secretary General António Guterres on Tuesday called for ensuring accountability for the “horrendous persecution” of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar and said there could be no excuse for delaying the search for dignified solutions that would allow Rohingyas to return home in safety and dignity. He made the call at a meeting of the UN Security Council, a day after the release of an independent United Nations investigation into human rights abuses carried out against Rohingyas. Guterres said that the disproportionate use of force against civilian populations and the gross human rights violations that followed could never…