Bangladesh revokes diplomatic passport of ex-PM Hasina: government
Interior ministry said that Hasina’s passport, as well as those belonging to former government ministers and ex-lawmakers no longer in their posts, “have to be revoked”
Updated 22 August 2024
AFP
DHAKA: Bangladesh’s interim government revoked the diplomatic passport of ousted premier Sheikh Hasina on Thursday, after she fled a student-led uprising earlier this month.
The interior ministry said in a statement that Hasina’s passport, as well as those belonging to former government ministers and ex-lawmakers no longer in their posts, “have to be revoked.”
More than 450 people were killed — many by police fire — during the weeks leading up to Hasina’s ouster, as crowds stormed her official residence in Dhaka.
A United Nations team arrived in Bangladesh on Thursday to assess whether to investigate alleged human rights violations committed during protests that ended Hasina’s iron-fisted 15-year rule.
“The former prime minister, her advisers, the former cabinet and all members of the dissolved national assembly were eligible for diplomatic passports by virtue of the positions they held,” the ministry said in a statement.
“If they have been removed or retired from their posts, their and their spouses’ diplomatic passports have to be revoked.”
Hasina’s government was accused of widespread abuses, including the mass detention and extrajudicial killing of political opponents.
Dhaka’s new authorities said that Hasina, and other former top officials during her tenure, could apply for a standard passport, but that those documents were contingent on approval.
“When the aforementioned people apply afresh for ordinary passports, two security agencies have to clear their application for their passports to be issued,” the ministry added.
Hasina, who fled to India, was a close ally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose Hindu-nationalist government preferred her over her rivals from the Bangladesh Nationalist Party.
While India is hosting Hasina, Modi has also offered his support to the new Bangladeshi leader Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, who is heading the caretaker administration.
Yunus has said his administration would “provide whatever support” UN investigators need.
9/11 anniversary brings Biden, Harris and Trump together at ground zero
Image was one of putting politics aside at commemoration of hijacked-plane attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people on Sept. 11, 2001
Attacks altered US foreign policy, domestic security practices and the mindset of many Americans
Updated 12 sec ago
AP
NEW YORK: With presidential candidates looking on, some 9/11 victims’ relatives appealed to them Wednesday for accountability as the US marked an anniversary laced with election-season politics.
In a remarkable tableau, President Joe Biden, former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris stood together at ground zero just hours after Trump and Harris faced off in their first-ever debate. Trump and Biden — the successor whose inauguration Trump skipped — shook hands, and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg appeared to facilitate a handshake between Harris and Trump.
Then the campaign rivals stood only a few feet (meters) apart, Biden and Bloomberg between them, as the hourslong reading of victims’ names began. At Trump’s side was his running mate, Sen. JD Vance.
The image was one of putting politics aside at this year’s solemn commemoration of the hijacked-plane attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people on Sept. 11, 2001. But some victims’ relatives, after reading out names, delivered political messages of their own.
“We are pleading for your help, but you ignore us,” Allison Walsh-DiMarzio said, directly challenging Trump and Harris to press Saudi Arabia about any official involvement in the attacks. Most of the 19 hijackers were Saudi, but the kingdom denies it was behind their plot.
“Which one of you will have the courage to be our hero? We deserve better,” Walsh-DiMarzio said. She’s a daughter of 9/11 victim Barbara P. Walsh, an administrative assistant.
Joanne Barbara was one of multiple readers who spoke out against a now-revoked plea deal that military prosecutors struck with alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two fellow defendants.
“It has been 23 years, and the families deserve justice and accountability,” said the widow of Assistant Fire Chief Gerard A. Barbara.
Former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a presidential debate with US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on September 10, 2024. (AFP)
Biden, on his last Sept. 11 in office, and Harris paid respects Wednesday at all three 9/11 attack sites: ground zero, the Pentagon and a rural part of Pennsylvania.
The president, vice president — and, separately, Trump — laid wreaths Wednesday afternoon at the Flight 93 National Memorial near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Biden and Harris spoke with victims’ relatives and visited the local fire department; Trump and Vance went to a New York City firehouse earlier in the day.
The Flight 93 memorial stands where one of the hijacked planes crashed after crew members and passengers tried to storm the cockpit. Trump described the site as an “incredible place” in brief remarks from afar to reporters.
The attacks killed 2,977 people and left thousands of bereaved relatives and scarred survivors. The planes took down the World Trade Center’s twin towers and carved a gash in the Pentagon, the US military headquarters, where Biden and Harris laid a red, white and blue wreath Wednesday afternoon.
While many Americans may not observe 9/11 anniversaries anymore, “the men and women of the Department of Defense remember,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said earlier in the day.
The attacks altered US foreign policy, domestic security practices and the mindset of many Americans who had not previously felt vulnerable to foreign extremists.
Effects rippled around the world. Victims came from more than 90 different countries, and the US responded to the attacks with a ” Global War on Terrorism.” US-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq killed hundreds of thousands of Afghans and Iraqis and thousands of American troops.
Communities around the country hold events on the anniversary, which Congress has titled both Patriot Day and a National Day of Service and Remembrance.
Thousands of Americans commemorate it with volunteer work — among them Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. He packed meals in St. Paul for people in need.
During early anniversaries at ground zero, presidents and other officeholders read poems, parts of the Declaration of Independence and other texts.
But the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum decided in 2012 to limit the ceremony to relatives reading victims’ names.
If politicians “care about what’s actually going on, great. Be here,” said Korryn Bishop, who attended Wednesday to remember her cousin John F. McDowell Jr., who worked in finance. “If they’re just here for political clout, that upsets me.”
Brandon Jones was glad politicians weren’t on the podium.
“This should be a site for coming together to find feasible solutions and peace. This should not be a place to score political points to get brownie points to round up your base,” said Jones. He’s a cousin of victim Jon Richard Grabowski, an insurance firm technology executive.
Former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a presidential debate with US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on September 10, 2024. (AFP)
In 2008, then-senators and presidential campaign rivals John McCain and Barack Obama jointly paid their respects at ground zero.
Eight years later, the Democratic nominee, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, abruptly left the trade center ceremony, stumbled while awaiting her motorcade and later disclosed that she had been diagnosed with pneumonia. The episode stirred fresh attention to her health, which her Republican opponent — Trump, who was also at that observance — had been questioning for months.
Over the years, some victims’ relatives have used the forum to exhort leaders to prioritize national security, acknowledge the casualties of the war on terror, complain that officials are politicizing 9/11 and even criticize individual officeholders. Others bemoan Americans’ divisions or decry violence.
US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris gives a thumbs down during a presidential debate with former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on September 10, 2024. (AFP)
“It’s my prayer that this wicked act called terrorism will never occur again,” Jacob Afuakwah said Wednesday. He lost his brother, Emmanuel Akwasi Afuakwah, a restaurant worker.
But many family members stick to tributes and personal reflections. Increasingly they come from children and young adults born after the attacks killed one of their relatives.
Thirteen-year-old twins Brady and Emily Henry read names to honor their uncle, firefighter Joseph Patrick Henry.
“We promise to continue telling your stories,” Emily Henry said, “and we’ll never let anyone forget all those lost on Sept. 11.”
Malaysian police rescue 400 minors from suspected sexual abuse at charity homes
Police arrested 171 adults, including religious teachers, during coordinated raids on 20 premises across two Malaysian states
The homes were all run by GISB, which had been linked to the banned Al-Arqam religious sect, says a top police official
Updated 3 min 52 sec ago
Reuters
KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian authorities rescued more than 400 children on Wednesday suspected of being sexually abused at charity homes run by a prominent business organization with links to a banned religious sect, the top police official said.
Police arrested 171 adults, including ‘ustazs’ or Islamic religious teachers, during coordinated raids on 20 premises across two Malaysian states, Inspector-General of Police Razarudin Husain said.
Those rescued included 201 boys and 201 girls, aged between one and 17, after reports were filed this month that alleged neglect, abuse, sexual harassment and molestation, Razarudin told a press conference. He did not say who wrote the reports.
The homes were all run by Global Ikhwan Services and Business (GISB), Razarudin said.
In a statement late Wednesday, GISB denied the sexual abuse allegations and said it did not manage the charity homes. “It is not in our policy to plan and carry out actions that are against Islamic and national laws,” the company said, adding that it would file a police report and demand an investigation.
GISB, involved in businesses ranging from supermarkets to laundromats, operates in many countries, according to its website.
Razarudin said preliminary police investigations had found that the rescued minors were children of Malaysian GISB employees, who were sent to the homes shortly after they were born, before being subjected to multiple forms of abuse.
The victims were allegedly sexually abused by adult guardians and later taught to do the same to other children at the homes, he said.
GISB has been linked to the now-defunct Malaysia-based Al-Arqam religious sect, which was banned by the government in 1994. GISB has acknowledged the link but now describes itself as an Islamic conglomerate based on Muslim practices.
The firm previously made headlines for establishing the controversial Obedient Wives’ Club, a group that had called on women to submit to their husbands “like prostitutes.”
The children will be sent for health screening and documentation, Razarudin said, adding that the case was being investigated under laws covering sexual offenses against children and human trafficking.
“The children and religious sentiments were also used to gain public sympathy and raise funds for the organization,” he said. “What we have seen is the indoctrination of children using religious tools in a harmful way.”
Australia moves to strip medals from Afghanistan war commanders
Updated 10 min 50 sec ago
AFP
SYDNEY: Australia on Thursday moved to strip medals from Afghanistan war commanders whose units were involved in alleged war crimes and “unlawful conduct.”
Defense Minister Richard Marles said the decision — related to specific unit commanders who were in charge between 2005 and 2016 — was needed to “address the wrongs of the past.”
Fewer than ten commanders will be stripped of their awards, but their names will not be released for privacy reasons.
An official inquiry into the 11-year period examined the alleged unlawful killing of 39 civilians and prisoners in Afghanistan by Australia’s elite special forces.
Its findings in 2020 revealed a “sub-culture of elitism and deviation from acceptable standards,” Marles said, which “warranted the most serious, considered and thorough response.”
Almost all the report’s 143 recommendations have been adopted — including a medal review, a compensation scheme and culture reform.
The inquiry also suggested 19 individuals be referred to Australian Federal Police, but this process has been slow.
Police have so far only pressed charges against a former SAS soldier — whose case remains before the courts.
Ex-SAS corporal Victoria Cross recipient Ben Roberts-Smith notably lost a defamation case last year over allegations he had murdered four Afghan prisoners.
But he has not faced criminal charges and is not identified in the government’s report over any wrongdoing.
Despite being decorated for his service in Afghanistan, Roberts-Smith is not understood to be affected by the latest decision to strip unit commanders of their honors.
Marles said the commanders involved in Thursday’s decision may not have been aware of the war crimes their units allegedly carried out, but there was an expectation for them to know what was happening.
He vowed to continue reforming the defense force culture and police have not pressed charges.
“Australia is a country which holds itself accountable,” Marles said.
The governor-general of Australia — the king’s representative in the Commonwealth — will determine how and when the medals are handed back.
Greg Melick, president of the Returned and Services League of Australia veteran support group, said no medals should be taken away from recipients until all investigations and potential trials have been completed.
Melick said the incident had caused “significant strain” to veterans’ mental health — even those not involved in alleged incidents.
After the September 11, 2001 attacks, more than 26,000 Australian uniformed personnel were sent to Afghanistan to fight alongside US and allied forces against the Taliban, Al-Qaeda and other Islamist groups.
Australian combat troops officially left the country in late 2013, but since then a series of often-brutal accounts have emerged about the conduct of elite special forces units.
Alberto Fujimori, Peru’s divisive former president, dies at age 86
First elected president in 1990, the son of Japanese immigrants stabilized Peru's economy and dealt a death blow to a Maoist rebellion
But he later turned into an autocrat and a slew of corruption scandals during his rule later turned public opinion against him
Updated 12 September 2024
Reuters
LIMA: Former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori, who steered economic growth during the 1990s but was later jailed for human rights abuses stemming from a bloody war against Maoist rebels, died on Wednesday. He was aged 86.
Close colleagues visited him earlier in the day, reporting that he was in a critical condition.
“After a long battle with cancer, our father... has just departed to meet the Lord,” his daughter Keiko Fujimori wrote in a message on X, also signed by the former leader’s other children.
Fujimori, the son of Japanese immigrants, was the little-known chancellor of a farming university when elected to office in 1990. He quickly established himself as a cunning politician whose hands-on style produced results even as he angered critics for concentrating power.
He slayed hyperinflation that had thrown millions of Peruvians out of work, privatized dozens of state-run companies, and slashed trade tariffs, setting the foundations for Peru to become, for a while, one of Latin America’s most stable economies.
Under his watch, the feared leader of the Maoist Shining Path, Abimael Guzman, was captured — dealing a crucial blow to a movement that in the 1980s seemed close to toppling the Peruvian state. Guzman died in prison in September 2021.
But many Peruvians saw Fujimori as an autocrat after he used military tanks to shut down Congress in 1992, redrafting the constitution to his liking to push free-market reforms and tough anti-terrorism laws.
A slew of corruption scandals during his 10-year administration also turned public opinion against him.
Shortly after he won a third election in 2000 — amending the constitution to run — videos emerged of his top adviser and spy chief Vladimiro Montesinos doling out cash to bribe politicians. Fujimori fled to exile in Japan.
He resigned via fax from Tokyo and then unsuccessfully campaigned for a Japanese senatorial seat.
Montesinos was later captured in Venezuela and jailed, convicted by the hundreds of videos he recorded of himself handing out cash bribes to politicians and business and media executives.
The cases against Fujimori piled up — including accusations that he had ordered the use of death squads in his battle against Shining Path militants.
Fujimori was safe in Japan — he was a dual citizen and Japan does not extradite its citizens. So many were shocked when in 2005 he decided to head back to Peru, apparently in hopes of forgiveness and a return to politics.
Instead, he was detained during a layover in Chile, extradited to Peru in 2007, and in 2009 he was convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison.
’FUJI-SHOCK’
Once jailed, Fujimori’s public appearances were limited to hospital visits where he often appeared disheveled and unwell.
While detractors dismissed his health complaints as a ploy to get out of prison, then-president Pedro Pablo Kuczynski briefly pardoned Fujimori in 2017.
Months later Kuczynski was impeached and the pardon overturned by Peru’s top constitutional court, sending Fujimori back to the special prison that held him and no other inmates.
The court restored the pardon in December 2023, releasing the ailing Fujimori, who had suffered from stomach ulcers, hypertension and tongue cancer. In May 2024, Fujimori announced he had been diagnosed with a malignant tumor.
Fujimori’s legacy has been most passionately defended by his daughter Keiko, who has been close to clinching the presidency herself three times on a platform that has included pardoning her father and defending his constitution.
The late Fujimori was born in Lima on Peruvian Independence Day, July 28, 1938.
A mathematician and agricultural engineer, Fujimori was a political nobody when he decided to run for the presidency, driving a tractor to his campaign rallies. He surprised the world by defeating renowned writer Mario Vargas Llosa in the 1990 election, with heavy support from the left.
He touted himself as an alternative to the country’s white elite and gained crucial support from Peru’s large Indigenous and mixed race populations.
As Peru battled what was among the world’s worst hyperinflation, Fujimori promised not to carry out drastic measures to tame it.
But on his second week in office he suddenly lifted the subsidies that kept food essentials affordable, in what became known as the ‘Fuji-shock.’
“May God help us,” Fujimori’s finance minister said on TV after announcing the measure. Inflation worsened in the short-term but the bet paid off, eventually stabilizing the economy after over a decade of crisis.
Even as support for him started to wane, Fujimori pulled off audacious stunts in his second term.
In 1997, he devised a plan to dig tunnels under the Japanese ambassador’s residence in Lima to end a four-month hostage crisis after another insurgency, the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement, took 500 people captive for 126 days.
In a surprise attack, Fujimori sent in more than 100 commandos in a raid that killed all 14 insurgents.
Only two commandos and one of the remaining 72 hostages died. Television footage showed Fujimori calmly stepping over the corpses of the insurgents after the raid.
Fujimori was married twice. A public falling-out with his first wife Susana Higuchi while he was president led him to name daughter Keiko as the first lady. The couple had three other children, including Kenjo Fujimori, also a politician.
While Trump touts his debate performance, allies, donors and advisers lament it
“I think it was one of my better debates, maybe my best debate,” Trump told the “Fox & Friends” program
“My honest opinion is that Trump underperformed and she overperformed,” said donor Bill Bean, a commercial real estate investor in Fort Wayne, Indiana
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a prominent Trump ally, says the former president had failed to stay focused and lost chances to tout his record
Updated 12 September 2024
Reuters
Some Republican officials, donors and advisers said Donald Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, had botched his debate with Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, although Trump himself praised his performance.
“I think it was one of my better debates, maybe my best debate,” Trump told the “Fox & Friends” program on Wednesday, adding that he was not sure whether to do another one. “I’d be less inclined ... because we had a great night.”
Harris, 59, put Trump, 78, president from 2017-2021, on the defensive in a combative presidential debate on Tuesday with a stream of attacks on his fitness for office and his myriad legal woes. The election takes place on Nov. 5.
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a prominent Trump ally, was one of the few party leaders to publicly say Trump’s performance was poor.
“A missed opportunity,” Graham told reporters of Trump’s debate performance, adding that the former president had failed to stay focused and lost chances to tout his record.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, center, and other Trump allies line up to speak to FOX News host Sean Hannity in the spin room after Tuesday's presidential debate in Philadelphia. (AP)
Chris Christie, a former Trump ally-turned-critic who ran against Trump for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, said Harris was “exquisitely” prepared whereas Trump was not.
“Whoever did debate prep for Donald Trump should be fired. He was not good tonight at all,” Christie, who helped Trump with debate preparation in the 2016 election cycle, said on ABC News.
The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment on whether there would be a shake-up of Trump’s debate team.
With eight weeks to go before the election, and days until early voting starts in some states, the debate offered a rare head-to-head opportunity to face tens of millions of TV viewers.
Their ABC News debate attracted 67.1 million television viewers, according to Nielsen data, topping the roughly 51 million people who watched Trump debate then-candidate President Joe Biden in June.
The number does not capture the full extent of online viewing, which has grown in popularity as traditional TV audiences decline.
Six Republican donors and three Trump advisers, all but one asking to remain anonymous to speak freely, also told Reuters they thought Harris had won the debate largely because Trump was unable to stay on message.
Several brought up, with dismay, Trump’s amplification of a false online claim that numerous Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating residents’ pets.
Two of Trump’s advisers said they doubted the debate would move the needle in opinion polling.
In Reuters interviews with 10 undecided voters, six said after the debate they would now either vote for Trump or were leaning toward backing him. Three said they would now back Harris and one was still unsure how he would vote.
Still, in a sign of confidence in the debate’s outcome, Harris’ campaign challenged Trump to a second round in October.
Two of the six donors said they were not sure whether Trump should debate her again, with one saying it would hinge on whether his handlers were confident he could be more focused in a second round. Two other donors, however, said they thought Trump needed a second debate in order to regain momentum.
“My honest opinion is that Trump underperformed and she overperformed,” said donor Bill Bean, a commercial real estate investor in Fort Wayne, Indiana. On the prospect of a second debate, Bean said: “I’d like to see one.”
