Bangladesh heads into election as opposition boycotts polls 

A man loads goods on a truck in a wholesale market in Dhaka on Dec. 31, 2023, ahead of the 2024 general elections. (AFP)
A man loads goods on a truck in a wholesale market in Dhaka on Dec. 31, 2023, ahead of the 2024 general elections. (AFP)
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Updated 01 January 2024
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Bangladesh heads into election as opposition boycotts polls 

A man loads goods on a truck in a wholesale market in Dhaka on Dec. 31, 2023, ahead of the 2024 general elections. (AFP)
  • Candidates on Jan. 7 ballot will all be from ruling Awami League, its allies or independents
  • PM Sheikh Hasina has been in power since 2009

DHAKA: Bangladesh’s ruling party held a campaign rally in Dhaka on Monday, ahead of general elections scheduled on Jan. 7 that the country’s main opposition party is boycotting.

The nation of nearly 170 million people will vote this coming Sunday in an election that many expect will give the ruling Awami League its fourth straight parliamentary term and a resounding victory for Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who has been in power since 2009.

The country’s main opposition parties are boycotting the upcoming election as Hasina rejected demands to step down and allow the polls to be held under a neutral interim government. The candidates on Sunday’s ballot will all be from the Awami League, its allies or independents.

“There’s no need for us to engage in vote theft,” Hasina said during an election rally in Dhaka. “With the ongoing democracy in the country, public service has increased, and we secure votes by genuinely connecting with people.”

In the last few months, tens of thousands of people have turned out for various protests calling for Hasina to resign ahead of the elections. Many leaders of Bangladesh’s main opposition parties and its supporters are currently jailed.

The biggest of these opposition parties, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, said they have no faith that the Awami League will hold a free and fair election.

“Democracy is dead in Bangladesh,” BNP International Affairs Secretary Muhammad Nawshad Zamir told Arab News. “This is in fact a dummy election at best.

“The civil administration, police administration, the judiciary, the election commission, and all other institutions that ensure democracy have been monopolized by the Bangladesh Awami League. There cannot be any free, fair and neutral elections in Bangladesh under the present setup.”

Under Hasina, Bangladesh has become one of the fastest-growing economies in the region from once being one of the world’s poorest. Poverty declined from 11.8 percent in 2010 to 5 percent in 2022, according to the World Bank.

She achieved political stability, managed to maintain economic stability, increased Bangladesh’s international standing, while also bringing in major infrastructure developments, including Dhaka’s metro rail and the $3.6 billion Padma Bridge, the country’s largest infrastructure project in its history that is expected to increase GDP by 1.3 percent.

But the growth appears to come at the cost of Bangladesh’s democracy, said Dr. ASM Amanulla, a sociology professor at Dhaka University.

“There is no democracy and democratic practice in Bangladesh,” Amanulla told Arab News. “Virtually, there is no civil society in the country … and in the truest sense, there are no democratic political parties.”

Hasina “turned into an authoritarian leader” because of local politics, economics and geopolitics, he said, adding that pressure had come from China, Russia, and India, but also from ensuring the continuation of the development she brought into the country.

“We don’t need to wait until Jan. 7 to see the results of the election, the people of this country are not waiting to see the results,” he said.

“Election means uncertainty in the results. Who will win, nobody knows. But there is no uncertainty of the result in Bangladesh. Throughout the country there is a certainty among the voters that the ruling Awami League is coming to power. The voting culture of South Asia is lost here. There is no election festivity in the whole country.”


EU chief says in Kyiv to offer support ahead of winter

Updated 41 sec ago
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EU chief says in Kyiv to offer support ahead of winter

EU chief says in Kyiv to offer support ahead of winter
  • Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has dragged on for more than 30 months, with Ukraine now controlling parts of Russia’s Kursk region
Kyiv: EU chief Ursula von der Leyen said Friday that she had arrived in Kyiv to offer support ahead of winter, as Russia keeps up its bombing campaign of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.
“My 8th visit to Kyiv comes as the heating season starts soon, and Russia keeps targeting energy infrastructure,” she wrote on X, formerly Twitter, along with a picture of her at a rail station.
“We will help Ukraine in its brave efforts. I come here to discuss Europe’s support. From winter preparedness to defense, to accession and progress on the G7 loans.”
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has dragged on for more than 30 months, with Ukraine now controlling parts of Russia’s Kursk region while Moscow presses an advance into eastern Ukraine.
Ukraine has lobbied its allies to allow it to use donated weapons to strike “legitimate” military targets deep in Russian territory.
The United States and Britain have been discussing allowing it to do just that — but EU states remain divided over the issue.
On Thursday, the European Parliament adopted a resolution calling on EU countries to allow Kyiv to use Western weapons to strike military targets inside Russia.
Washington currently authorizes Ukraine to only hit Russian targets in occupied parts of Ukraine and some in Russian border regions directly related to Moscow’s combat operations.

Taiwan questions two in probe into Hezbollah pagers

Taiwan questions two in probe into Hezbollah pagers
Updated 20 September 2024
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Taiwan questions two in probe into Hezbollah pagers

Taiwan questions two in probe into Hezbollah pagers
  • The New York Times reported this week that Israel had inserted explosive material into a shipment of pagers from Taiwan’s Gold Apollo, citing American and other anonymous officials

TAIPEI: Two people from Taiwanese companies were questioned multiple times as part of a probe into pagers that exploded while being used by Hezbollah operatives in Lebanon, Taipei investigators said Friday.
Questions and speculation have swirled over where the devices came from and how they were supplied to Hezbollah, after hundreds of pagers and walkie-talkies detonated across Lebanon on Tuesday and Wednesday, killing at least 37 people and wounded nearly 3,000.
The New York Times reported this week that Israel had inserted explosive material into a shipment of pagers from Taiwan’s Gold Apollo, citing American and other anonymous officials.
But Gold Apollo’s head Hsu Ching-kuang denied producing the devices, pointing the finger instead at Hungary-based partner BAC Consulting KFT, who it allowed to use its trademark.
On Thursday, as part of a probe by Taiwanese investigators, Hsu and a woman from a different company were questioned by prosecutors.
Local media reported that the woman questioned was Wu Yu-jen, a representative connected to BAC Consulting KFT, who had set up a company based in Taipei called “Apollo Systems.”
“Our country takes the case very seriously,” said the prosecutors office from Taipei’s Shilin district in a statement Friday.
“We instructed the Investigation Bureau’s national security station to further interview two people from Taiwanese companies as witnesses yesterday.”
The two witnesses were allowed to leave after multiple rounds of questioning.
“We will clarify the facts as soon as possible such as whether Taiwanese companies are involved or not,” the office said.
It also said investigators searched four locations, including in New Taipei City’s Xizhi district, where Gold Apollo is located, and Taipei’s Neihu district.
Neihu district is the listed address of Apollo Systems, according to a company register website, which also showed that the firm was established in April this year.
Wu did not speak to reporters when she was brought in for questioning, according to local TV footage.
Hsu, who was shuttled back and forth between his office and the prosecutors office on Thursday, also declined to comment on the investigation.
Earlier this week, his company said the pager model mentioned in media reports “is produced and sold by BAC.”
But a Hungarian government spokesman said BAC Consulting KFT was “a trading intermediary, with no manufacturing or operational site in Hungary.”


World leaders to gather at UN as crises grow and conflicts rage

World leaders to gather at UN as crises grow and conflicts rage
Updated 20 September 2024
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World leaders to gather at UN as crises grow and conflicts rage

World leaders to gather at UN as crises grow and conflicts rage
  • Gaza war, soaring Mideast tensions, Sudan’s civil war and the grinding Russian-Ukraine war are among the rancorous issues on the agenda of UNGA 2024
  • UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says this week that the world would be able to “avoid moving to World War Three”

NEW YORK CITY: World leaders will descend on the United Nation’s New York HQ from Sunday for the organization’s annual signature gathering against an explosive backdrop of raging wars, growing populism and diplomatic deadlock.
The war in Gaza, soaring Middle East tensions, famine conditions in Sudan’s civil war and the grinding conflict in Ukraine are among the rancorous issues on the agenda of the presidents and prime ministers attending the General Assembly’s high-level week — the UN’s showpiece event.
But UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres insisted this week that the world would be able to “avoid moving to World War Three.”
“What we are witnessing is a multiplication of conflicts and the sense of impunity,” Guterres said at a briefing.
The gathering “could not come in a more critical and more challenging moment,” said Washington’s UN envoy Linda Thomas-Greenfield.
“The list of crises and conflicts that demand attention and action only seem to grow and grow... it’s easy to fall into cynicism.
“But we can’t afford to do that.”
It is unclear what if anything the grand gathering, the World Cup of diplomacy, can achieve for the millions mired in conflict and poverty globally.
With Israel’s leader Benjamin Netanyahu, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas and Iran’s new President Masoud Pezeshkian, due to attend, “Gaza will obviously be the most prominent of these conflicts in terms of what leaders are saying,” said Richard Gowan of the International Crisis Group.
He suggested the set piece diplomatic speeches and posturing would “not actually make a great deal of difference to events on the ground.”
The war in Gaza began after Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, which ultimately resulted in the deaths of more than 1,200 people, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
More than 41,272 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s military campaign in Gaza since the war began, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza. The UN has acknowledged these figures as reliable.
Fears are high that the conflict could boil over into Lebanon, where a series of deadly explosions apparently targeted Hezbollah’s communications this week. Israel has yet to comment.
The action in New York begins Sunday with a “Summit of the Future,” Guterres’ flagship attempt to get ahead of challenges that will face the world in coming years.

World leaders, expected to include India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, will attend to adopt a pact on how to confront the most pressing issues going forward.
Despite intense negotiations and Guterres calling on leaders to show “courage,” the draft text has been panned by observers as badly lacking in ambition.
“One of the risks, and it’s more than a risk, (is) that the Summit of the Future may look like the summit of the past, and in the best-case scenario, the summit of the present,” said another diplomat.”
Guterres insists the summit has value, saying that “international challenges are moving faster than our ability to solve them.”
“We see out of control, geopolitical divisions and runaway conflicts, not least in Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan and beyond, runaway climate change, runaway inequalities... and our institutions simply can’t keep up,” he said.
The ICRC’s UN representative Laetitia Courtois said it was vital that conflict was tackled “right now,” not as “an objective for the next generation.”
The summit will be followed by the high-level week at which the UN’s 193 members will address each other, kicking off with Brazil.
That will be followed by the United States, with President Joe Biden due to speak — likely on ceasefire talks in Gaza, among other issues.
The leaders of China and Russia will be absent as in past years, but Britain’s Keir Starmer, Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky, and Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will be present.
Zelensky was the star attraction in 2023, but one diplomat said he would struggle to stay in the spotlight this year as he presents his “plan for victory.”
Ahead of the gala events, a security ring of steel was being erected around the UN’s riverfront HQ and local people and businesses braced for traffic paralysis caused by the endless VIP motorcades and street closures.
 


How two Colombians wound up in a Russian prison after fighting in Ukraine

How two Colombians wound up in a Russian prison after fighting in Ukraine
Updated 20 September 2024
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How two Colombians wound up in a Russian prison after fighting in Ukraine

How two Colombians wound up in a Russian prison after fighting in Ukraine
  • Jose and Alexander were going home to Colombia after fighting with the Ukrainian army against invading Russian forces
  • They were in Venezuela on the last leg of their journey home when they vanished, leading to speculation Venezuela authorities handed them over to Russia

POPAYAN, Colombia: “Mom, I’m on my way. Save me some sancocho!“
The last time Otilia Ante, 78, heard from her son Alexander, he was telling her to put aside some of the hearty meat and corn stew on which he was raised in southwestern Colombia.
Alexander, 47, was in neighboring Venezuela at the time, on a circuitous route home from Ukraine where he had fought invading Russian forces with the army there.
But he and his Colombian brother-in-arms Jose Medina, 36, never made it onto the last leg of their long journey back from the battlefield.
The pair vanished on July 18 in Venezuela, a staunch ally of Russia, just before their connecting flight to the Colombian capital Bogota.
The next time their families saw the men was in a video released by Russia’s FSB security service on August 30, showing them being led down a corridor in prison garb with their hands cuffed behind their backs before being interrogated.
Moscow accuses the pair of acting as mercenaries, a crime punishable in Russia by up to 15 years in prison.
Jose’s wife Cielo Paz said seeing the images left her “heartbroken.”
Describing the anxious wait for news about his fate, she said she and the couple’s seven-year-old daughter “feel as if we’re also imprisoned.”

Jose and Alexander hail from Colombia’s southwestern Cauca department, the epicenter of a decades-old conflict involving the Colombian army, right-wing paramilitaries, left-wing guerrillas and drug gangs.
The pair met on the frontlines in eastern Ukraine, 11,000 kilometers (some 6,800 miles) from home, in a battalion counting many foreigners, which suffered heavy losses.
After fighting through the grueling Ukrainian winter into spring, they asked to be discharged.
The men’s families deny they were guns-for-hire, insisting they were recruited by the Ukrainian government and not a private contractor.
Colombia has one of Latin America’s largest armies and a growing pool of ex-soldiers acting as mercenaries.
About 50 Colombians have been killed in Ukraine since the start of the war in February 2022, according to Colombian government figures.

Relatives of retired Colombian military officer Jose Medina are pictured during an interview with AFP at their home in Popayan, Cauca department, Colombia, on September 13, 2024. (AFP)

Jose and Alexander were paid $3,000 a month to fight alongside Ukrainian forces — almost ten times the basic salary of a Colombian soldier.
After 14 years in the army, Alexander, who is married with a daughter, went to work as a cash-in-transit driver. He was laid off after failing an eye test.
After for months of unemployment, he decided to enlist again, this time in Ukraine.
“His plan was to go there and (earn enough money to) get his mother out of this neighborhood,” Alexander’s brother Arbey told AFP, describing the district of Popayan as “very dangerous.”
He said recruiters had assured the Colombians they would not be deployed on the frontlines.
“I think they were deceived,” he said.

“My love, here we are in Caracas,,” Jose wrote in his last WhatsApp message to Cielo from Caracas international airport.
“He was on his way home,” she told AFP at their Popayan home, which Jose was planning to finish building with his earnings.
Arbey said Alexander and Jose chose to fly through Venezuela because “the tickets were cheaper” and the pair were unaware of developments in the increasingly isolated Latin American state.
Venezuela was then in the midst of a high-stakes presidential campaign.
Incumbent strongman Nicolas Maduro claimed victory despite polling station results published by the opposition appearing to show a clear victory for their man.
Russia is one of just a handful of countries to have recognized Maduro’s victory, leading to speculation the Venezuelan strongman handed over the Colombians as thanks.
Bogota last week issued its first statement on the matter, saying merely it had requested information from Moscow about their “legal status, location and health status.”
It added a third Colombian, Miguel Angel Cardenas was also being held, without giving details.
The men have been assigned a lawyer but their families say they have been unable to communicate with their state-appointed defender.
Holding up a picture of Jose in uniform, his daughter Alison told AFP he meant “nearly everything” to her.
“Give him back to me,” she appealed.


US broadcast regulator rejects Trump call to pull ABC licenses over presidential debate

US broadcast regulator rejects Trump call to pull ABC licenses over presidential debate
Updated 20 September 2024
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US broadcast regulator rejects Trump call to pull ABC licenses over presidential debate

US broadcast regulator rejects Trump call to pull ABC licenses over presidential debate
  • Jessica Rosenworcel said "the Commission does not revoke licenses for broadcast stations simply because a political candidate disagrees with or dislikes content or coverage"

WASHINGTON: The chair of the Federal Communications Commission rejected former US President Donald Trump’s suggestion that Walt Disney-owned ABC should lose its broadcast licenses over the network’s moderating Sept. 10 presidential debate.

“The First Amendment is a cornerstone of our democracy. The Commission does not revoke licenses for broadcast stations simply because a political candidate disagrees with or dislikes content or coverage,” FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel said on Thursday.

The FCC, an independent federal agency, does not license broadcast networks, but issues them to individual broadcast stations that are renewed on a staggered basis for eight-year periods.

Trump has repeatedly complained about how ABC moderators handled the September 10 presidential debate, calling them "dishonest" and partial to his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris.

He said Linsey Davis and David Muir fact-checked him three times for every instance that they corrected Harris.

Appearing on "Fox & Friends" the morning after the debate, Trump repeated his accusations against the two debate moderators and demanded that ABC be punished.

"They ought to take away their license for the way they did that," he said.