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Bangladesh is not a banana republic.

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 13:08:02 GMT

To the signatories to the recent Open Letter on Professor YunusThe Open Letter on Professor Yunus was an act that militated against ethics and against the norms of political behaviour - writes Syed Badrul Ahsan. When the 170-plus global personalities decided to send what they called an open letter to Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and at the same time have it carried as an ad in newspapers, they did not quite seem to realise that such an act was a deliberate move aimed at humiliating not only Bangladesh’s leader but also the nation she happened to govern. The language employed in the letter is not the language in which a head of government is addressed.Professor YunusWe speak of the Nobel Laureates as well as others who recently thought it fit to speak up in defence of Professor Muhammad Yunus, who has of late been mired in legal complexities in Bangladesh. His travails apart, there is little question that Professor Yunus, who won the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2006, is a wid...

New York takes on Los Angeles, looks for 5th straight home win

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 13:08:02 GMT

Los Angeles Sparks (16-22, 8-11 Western Conference) at New York Liberty (30-7, 16-3 Eastern Conference)New York; Thursday, 7 p.m. EDTBOTTOM LINE: New York will try to keep its four-game home win streak intact when the Liberty face Los Angeles.The Liberty are 14-4 in home games. New York has a 3-0 record in games decided by 3 points or fewer.The Sparks have gone 6-12 away from home. Los Angeles has a 7-9 record in games decided by at least 10 points.The two teams match up for the third time this season. The Liberty defeated the Sparks 76-69 in their last matchup on Aug. 2. Courtney Vandersloot led the Liberty with 23 points, and Nneka Ogwumike led the Sparks with 20 points.TOP PERFORMERS: Vandersloot is averaging 10.5 points and 8.1 assists for the Liberty. Breanna Stewart is averaging 23.3 points over the last 10 games for New York.Jordin Canada is averaging 13.4 points, six assists and 2.2 steals for the Sparks. Ogwumike is averaging 13.2 points and 6.6 rebounds while shooting 49.5...

UK to label Wagner a terrorist organization

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 13:08:02 GMT

The U.K. government will categorize Wagner Group as a terrorist organization, under a draft order due before parliament on Wednesday.The proscription order from the U.K. Home Office will make it a criminal offense to be a member of or to support the state-backed Russian mercenary group, according to a statement from the government department. It will also be an offense to use the group’s logo.The move will allow the U.K. to seize Wagner assets as “terrorist property.” Breaching the order could lead to 14 years in prison or a fine of up to £5,000, the Home Office said.Home Secretary Suella Braverman said Wagner is a “violent and destructive organization which has acted as a military tool of Vladimir Putin’s Russia overseas.”“They are terrorists, plain and simple — and this proscription order makes that clear in U.K. law,” she said, adding that Wagner’s operations are a “threat to global security.”The Russian mercenary group was founded in 2014 by Yevgeny Prigo...

Blinken visits Kyiv in show of support for Ukraine’s efforts to push out Russia’s forces

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 13:08:02 GMT

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken arrived in Kyiv on an unannounced visit Wednesday, hours after Russia launched its first missile attack in a week against the Ukrainian capital.Blinken’s trip aimed to assess Ukraine’s 3-month-old counteroffensive and signal continued U.S. support for Kyiv’s efforts to drive out the Kremlin’s forces after 19 months of war amid concerns among some Western allies over the pace of progress, according to U.S. officials.After arriving in Kyiv, Blinken laid a wreath at the Berkovetske cemetery to commemorate members of the Ukrainian armed forces who lost their lives defending the country.He is expected to meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, and Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba to discuss the ongoing counteroffensive and reconstruction efforts.Those Washington officials said possible alternative export routes for Ukrainian grain will also be discussed following Russia’s exit from the Black Sea Gra...

Scholz calls for a broad pact to slash bureaucracy and modernize Germany

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 13:08:02 GMT

BERLIN (AP) — Chancellor Olaf Scholz urged Germany’s opposition and regional governments on Wednesday to help slash a “thicket of bureaucracy” that slows down Europe’s biggest economy, as his government grapples with poor poll ratings and a reputation for internal strife half way through its term.Scholz told lawmakers that his governing coalition has begun making Germany less complicated and bureaucratic, for example by introducing flat-rate tickets for regional public transport and by building the country’s first liquefied natural gas terminals within months after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But he appealed to highly decentralized Germany’s 16 state governments, local officials and the opposition to join in a “pact for Germany that makes our country faster, more modern and more secure.” That would include doing more to streamline notoriously lengthy planning processes, move forward the country’s famously slow digitization and speed the building of...

Sri Lanka parliament debates the health minister’s fate over reports of lack of drugs, hospital care

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 13:08:02 GMT

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lankan lawmakers began a debate on the fate of country’s health minister on Wednesday, seeking to remove him over his alleged failure to secure enough essential drugs and laboratory equipment that some say resulted in preventable deaths in hospitals. Sri Lanka provides free health service through state-run hospitals but they have suffered from a shortage of medicines and health workers, especially doctors, as a result of an economic crisis after the government suspended repayment of foreign loans. Opposition lawmakers said in a no-confidence motion that a failure by Health Minister Keheliya Rambukwella to fulfil his responsibilities has ruined the health sector and that “people have to pay the price of his irresponsible conduct with their lives,.”Rambukwella has previously rejected the allegations against him.Several patients have died or suffered impairments including blindness during treatment at state-run hospitals in recent months under circum...

China’s premier is on a charm offensive as ASEAN summit protests Beijing’s aggression at sea

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 13:08:02 GMT

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — In talks with Southeast Asian leaders Wednesday in the Indonesian capital, Chinese Premier Li Qiang underscored his country’s importance as the world’s second-biggest economy and as the top trading partner of the region.Countering renewed alarm over Beijing’s aggression in the disputed South China Sea, Li cited China’s long history of friendship with Southeast Asia, including joint efforts to confront the coronavirus pandemic and how both sides have settled differences through dialogue.“As long as we keep to the right path, no matter what storm may come, China-ASEAN cooperation will be as firm as ever and press ahead against all odds,” Li said. “We have preserved peace and tranquility in East Asia in a world fraught with turbulence and change.”But rival claimant states in the South China Sea, which belong to the 10-nation bloc of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, have protested China’s aggressive moves to fortify its vast territorial c...

It’s official. Meteorologists say this summer’s swelter was a global record breaker for high heat

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 13:08:02 GMT

GENEVA (AP) — Earth has sweltered through its hottest Northern Hemisphere summer ever measured, with a record warm August capping a season of brutal and deadly temperatures, according to the World Meteorological Organization.Last month was not only the hottest August scientists ever recorded by far with modern equipment, it was also the second hottest month measured, behind only July 2023, WMO and the European climate service Copernicus announced Wednesday.August was about 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than pre-industrial averages, which is the warming threshold that the world is trying not to pass. But the 1.5 C threshold is over decades — not just one month — so scientists do not consider that brief passage that significant.The world’s oceans — more than 70% of the Earth’s surface — were the hottest ever recorded, nearly 21 degrees Celsius (69.8 degrees Fahrenheit), and have set high temperature marks for three consecutive months, the WMO and Cope...

The death toll from fierce storms and flooding in Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria rises to 8

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 13:08:02 GMT

ISTANBUL (AP) — The death toll from severe rainstorms that lashed parts of Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria increased to eight Wednesday after rescue teams located the body of a missing vacation who was swept away by flood waters that raged through a campsite in northwest Turkey.A flash flood at the campsite near the border with Bulgaria carried away bungalow homes. Hundreds of homes and workplaces in several neighborhoods in Istanbul, Turkey’s largest city, also were inundated during Tuesday’s storms.At least five people died, three at the campsite and two in Istanbu, authorities said. Rescuers were still searching for three people reported missing at the campsite.The victims in Istanbul included a 32-year-old Guinean citizen who was trapped inside his ground-floor apartment in the low-income Kucukcekmece district, Turkish broadcaster HaberTurk TV reported.The surging flood waters affected more than 1,750 homes and businesses in the city, according to the Istanbul governor’s offic...

David Grann and Siddhartha Mukherjee are among contenders for a prestigious nonfiction prize

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 13:08:02 GMT

LONDON (AP) — Books about the perilous state of our world, our food and our relationship with technology are in the running for Britain’s leading nonfiction book award, the Baillie Gifford Prize.The 13-book longlist announced Wednesday includes John Vaillant’s look at the reality of climate change, “Fire Weather”; Chris van Tulleken’s dietary warning “Ultra Processed People”; and “Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity” by Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson.Best-selling American author David Grann is nominated for the stirring seafaring yarn “The Wager,” while physician-writer Siddhartha Mukherjee is in the running with “The Song of the Cell.”British journalist Hannah Barnes is on the list for “Time to Think,” which charts the demise of Britain’s controversial Tavistock gender clinic for children.Other contenders examine key moments in history, including Tania Branigan’s look at China’s Cultural Revolution, “Red Memory,” and Katja Hoyer’s portrai...