Author: Asian Bangla

Serena Williams, the 23-time Grand Slam champion, continues her comeback on Wednesday following the arrival of daughter Olympia when she takes on Japan’s Naomi Osaka in the first round of the Miami Open Caroline Wozniacki says it would be “impossible” for her to follow Serena Williams’ lead and return to tennis after giving birth. Williams, the 23-time Grand Slam champion, continues her comeback on Wednesday following the arrival of daughter Olympia when she takes on Japan’s Naomi Osaka — winner of the Indian Wells title on Sunday — in the first round of the Miami Open. Williams is certainly up…

In the global push to end child marriage, Japan looks set to join the movement. A proposed revision of Japan’s Civil Code would set the minimum age of marriage at 18 for both women and men. At present, people must be 20 years old to marry without parental permission; with parental permission, men can marry from 18, and girls can marry as young as 16. If passed, the law, which the government supports, would take effect in 2022. This step is long overdue. Different marriage ages for women versus men violate Japan’s obligations under international human rights law not to…

Bangladesh’s export sector will face tougher competition in the global market after losing duty-free market access and preferential trade benefits when it graduates from LDC status and officially joins the ranks of developing countries. The Committee for Development Policy, a UN panel, on March 16 announced Bangladesh’s eligibility for the developing country category as it has met the three prerequisite criteria in terms of National Income per Capita, Human Assets Index, and Economic Vulnerability Index. But the country will have to pass two more reviews in 2021 and 2024 to get rid of the Least Developed Country (LDC) tag. Upon…

DHAKA : For well over a decade, Monir-Uz-Zaman had a business that imported toys from China and sold them in his wholesale shop in a busy market here in Bangladesh’s capital. But in 2004, his nephew, who had lived in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou for two years to help Zaman with purchasing, asked his uncle, “Why don’t you start manufacturing toys here [in Dhaka] instead of just importing?” For Zaman, it was a literal million dollar question, and one he had thought about before. This time, however, it seemed worth trying. In the wake of the Sept. 11,…

The BNP has announced fresh protest programmes after the Supreme Court stayed bail for BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia in a graft case on Monday. On Mar 20, the party will demonstrate across the country while on Mar 29, it will hold a rally at the Suhrawardy Udyan in Dhaka, as per an announcement by BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir. While addressing the media at BNP’s Naya Paltan office, Fakhrul said: “Protests will be carried out in Dhaka metropolitan and all other districts tomorrow. “On Mar 29, we will hold a public rally at the Suhrawardy Udyan. We are…

The latest incident of the Rohingya refugee influx into Bangladesh has produced a scenario which is different from earlier influxes in two aspects: one is humanitarian, which can be legally interpreted in various ways, from forced displacement to genocide. Killings, torture, rape, forced expulsion and starvation has driven nearly one million Rohingyas to take refuge in Bangladesh since August 2017. The second aspect is the extent of cruelty the Myanmar state has unleashed on a particular community by curtailing the minimum chances of their survival. This was evident when the Myanmar government blocked the activities of all United Nations (UN)…

 The council members sat grim faced in the chamber of the UN Security Council. On the screen in front of them was projected an image with the words: IRAQ: FAILING TO DISARM: Denial and Deception. Words like “accumulation of facts and disturbing patterns of behaviour” boomed in the chamber. The date was February 5, 2003. The speaker, US secretary of state General Colin Powell. Months before, the US had started to look for the casus belli, a justification of war, to invade Iraq and bring about a “regime change”, get rid of Saddam Hussein. Despite US efforts, western allies were…

Conversely, Myanmar State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, a former student of Sen at Delhi University, must have instructed her team of Burmese advisers on Rakhine, and their international allies, to treat genocide as a lack of development. There is, however, only one problem with Team Suu Kyi’s spin. The absence of (economic) development, or poverty, is not known to have led to either genocide or crimes against humanity. Typically, genocides are planned and carried out by well-fed and well-schooled individuals.  Hitler’s inner circle included Harvard or Hamburg-educated Nazis who wined and dined with the icons of Wall Street, for…

Access to drinking water and basic sanitation is a right and one of the sustainable development goals of the United Nations. It is a condition for human life. However, up totwo billion people on the planet do not have access to a safe source of water at home, and up to 2.3 billion people suffer from lack of sanitation. Approximately 260 million people-more than the entirepopulation of Brazil-must walk more than thirty minutes to gather water. Guaranteeing access to water is one of the main challenges of our time. Brazil has 12% of the planet’s fresh water-but, despite this fact,…

The national development discourse in Bangladesh often mistakenly considers graduating from the Least Developed Country (LDC) category and becoming a middle-income country (MIC) as interchangeable. Senior-level policymakers continue to express their aspiration for the country to join the middle-income group by 2021, which marks the 50th anniversary of Bangladesh’s independence. However, this status has been achieved when Bangladesh joined the lower-middle-income country category on July 1, 2015. Conversely, graduation from the LDC group is almost certain, but not until 2024, if the country meets all the technical requirements in the coming years. To strategise the country’s direction effectively, it is…