Student leaders in Bangladesh yesterday demanded that Nobel winner Muhammad Yunus lead a caretaker government, a day after the military took control as mass demonstrations forced Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to flee the country.
Hasina, 76, had been in power since 2009, but was accused of rigging elections in January and then watched millions of people take to the streets over the past month demanding she quit.
Hundreds of people were killed as security forces sought to quell the unrest, but the protests grew and Hasina on Monday finally fled aboard a helicopter after the military turned against her.
Photo: Reuters
Bangladeshi army chief General Waker-Uz-Zaman announced on state television on Monday afternoon that Hasina had resigned and the military would form an interim government, acknowledging that “it is time to stop the violence.”
Bangladeshi President Mohammed Shahabuddin yesterday dissolved parliament, a key demand of the student leaders and the major opposition Bangladesh National Party (BNP).
Waker was expected to meet student leaders yesterday to hear their demand for the microfinance pioneer Yunus, 84, to lead the government.
Photo: Reuters
Former Bangladeshi prime minister and BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia was also released from years of house arrest, a presidential statement and her party said.
Zia, 78, who is in poor health, was jailed by her archrival Hasina for graft in 2018.
The students also want the dissolution of parliament in a call echoed by the BNP, which has demanded elections within three months.
“In Dr Yunus, we trust,” Asif Mahmud, a key leader of the Students Against Discrimination group, wrote on Facebook.
Yunus has not commented on the call for him to lead, but he said in an interview with India’s The Print that Bangladesh had been “an occupied country” under Hasina.
“Today all the people of Bangladesh feel liberated,” it quoted Yunus as saying.
Streets in Dhaka were largely peaceful, with traffic resuming and shops opening, but government offices were mainly closed a day after chaotic violence in which at least 113 people were killed.
Millions of people flooded the streets of Dhaka to celebrate after Waker’s announcement on Monday, although jubilant crowds also stormed and looted Hasina’s official residence.
“We have been freed from a dictatorship”, said Sazid Ahnaf, 21, comparing the events to the independence war that split the nation from Pakistan more than five decades ago.
There were also scenes of chaos and anger, with police reporting mobs had launched revenge attacks on Hasina’s allies and their own officers.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat
RSS