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Students renew Bangladesh protests, call for nationwide civil disobedience

Students renew Bangladesh protests, call for nationwide civil disobedience

Crowds hit the streets in large numbers as student leaders press the government for more concessions. Protesters in Bangladesh have taken to the streets to demand justice for the more than 200 people killed in last month’s student-led demonstrations over quotas in government jobs. The large protests on Saturday came as student leaders called for a nationwide civil disobedience campaign, heaping further pressure on Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government. “She must resign and she must face trial,” Nahid Islam, the group’s leader, told a crowd of thousands at a monument to national heroes in the capital Dhaka to roars of approval. Reporting from Dhaka, Al Jazeera’s Tanvir Chowdhury said that the student movement had turned “into a public movement“, noting that people from all walks of life had joined Saturday’s protests calling for the government to resign. He added that clashes also took place between protesters and police in the Gazipur and Comilla districts in the capital’s outskirts. Hasina on Saturday called upon protest leaders to meet her at her official residence Ganabhaban, saying the “door is open”. “I want to sit with the agitating students of the movement and listen to them. I want no conflict,” she said, according to local media. The prime minister has also appointed three senior officials to negotiate with the protesters, Chowdhury reported. However, Students Against Discrimination, the group that organised the initial demonstrations in early July, has called for an all-out non-cooperation movement from Sunday. “This includes non-payment of taxes and utility bills, strikes by government workers and a halt to overseas remittance payments through banks,” the group’s Asif Mahmud told AFP. The demonstrations began over the reintroduction of a quota scheme – since scaled back by Bangladesh’s top court – that reserved more than half of all government jobs for certain groups. With some 18 million young Bangladeshis out of work, according to government figures, the move upset graduates facing an acute unemployment crisis. The protests had remained largely peaceful until attacks on demonstrators by police and pro-government student groups. Hasina’s government eventually imposed a nationwide curfew, deployed troops and shut down the nation’s mobile internet network for 11 days to restore order. Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan told reporters that security forces had operated with restraint but were “forced to open fire” to defend government buildings. The government has been weathering a worsening backlash over the deadly police crackdown that resulted in deaths of at least 200 people including 32 children, as well as hundreds of pellet gun injuries. UN experts have called for an immediate end to the violent crackdown against protesters as well as accountability for human rights violations. UN Human Rights Chief Volker Turk today called on the government to disclose full details about its crackdown on protests and to provide the details of those killed, injured or detained for the benefit of their families. European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell also called for an international probe into the “excessive and lethal force against protesters”. Adblock test (Why?)

Ukraine says it targeted Russian airfield, fuel depots in three regions

Ukraine says it targeted Russian airfield, fuel depots in three regions

Russia says air defence systems ‘intercepted and destroyed’ 75 drones over a number of regions. Ukraine says it has carried out attacks on a number of military targets in Russia, including an airfield and oil depots, as Russian authorities reported intercepting dozens of drones over several regions. In a post on Facebook, the Ukrainian General Staff said on Saturday its forces overnight had struck an airfield in Morozovsk, hitting ammunition depots with guided air bombs, as well as fuel storage facilities in the Belgorod, Kursk and Rostov regions. In Russia, local officials reported that tanks at a fuel storage depot in the Kamensky district of the Rostov region caught fire as a result of a drone attack. The regional governor of Belgorod also said Ukraine-launched drones caused a fire at an oil storage depot there, adding that the fire was extinguished and no one was injured. Russian officials did not address claims regarding the airfield, but Rostov Governor Vasily Golubev said authorities introduced a state of emergency in the district of Morozovsk. Golubev said the region was attacked by 55 drones, without specifying how many of these were intercepted and how many hit targets. “At the moment we have recorded damage to the windows in several social facilities, including schools and kindergartens, as well as in residential houses and industrial premises,” Golubev said on Telegram. For its part, Russia’s Ministry of Defence said in a statement that 36 drones were destroyed over the Rostov region. Overall, the ministry added its air defence systems “intercepted and destroyed” 75 drones over a number of regions that lie on the border with Ukraine or not far from it, including Belgorod, Krasnodar, Kursk, Oryol, Rostov, Voronezh, and the Ryazan region deeper inside Russia. One of those drones was also shot down over the Azov sea, the statement said. A ‘security decision’ Ukraine has stepped up aerial attacks in recent months on Russian territory, saying it carries out the strikes on sites fuelling Russia’s forces and economy in retaliation to the bombardments it has faced since President Vladimir Putin sent his troops into the neighbouring country in February 2022. Ukrainian officials have also repeatedly called on Western allies for permission to use their weapons for long-range attacks on Russia, in addition to striking military targets close to the border. “Russian combat aviation must be destroyed wherever it is, by all effective means. It is also quite fair to strike at Russian airfields. We need this joint decision with our partners – a security decision,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on social media on Saturday. “This is the only way to ensure the protection of our people,” he said, adding that Russian forces had used more than 600 guided aerial bombs to attack Ukraine in the past week. Amid a blistering Russian air campaign in recent months, Zelenskyy has placed Ukraine’s need for improved air defences at the top of his agenda at meetings with allies. Several NATO countries have pledged to supply F-16 fighter jets and have been training Ukrainian pilots and crews for months. Adblock test (Why?)

‘I’m scared, but I’ll carry on’: Venezuelans caught between hope and fear

‘I’m scared, but I’ll carry on’: Venezuelans caught between hope and fear

Caracas, Venezuela – As dark clouds hung above an unusually empty street in the neighbourhood of Petare, Eglle Camacho started to hear a dull, rhythmic clanging. The noise soon crescendoed. From their windows and doorways, people stood armed with kitchen utensils, banging spoons against pans. They started to spill onto the street. Camacho decided to join them. Their impromptu march cascaded towards the centre of Venezuela’s capital of Caracas on Monday, scooping up thousands of people on foot and motorbikes. What brought them all together was outrage over what they saw as fraudulent election results announced in favour of President Nicolas Maduro. Camacho took lots of photos that day – the smiles, the flags and even the violence – but she told Al Jazeera she has since deleted all of them. She fears what Maduro’s government may do to the protesters who support the opposition’s claims to victory. “There is so much persecution,” Camacho said from her home in Petare. “They’re coming into neighbourhoods to look for people.” That fear has been widespread in the days following July 28’s presidential election. Protesters spray-paint graffiti on a Caracas wall that says, ‘We want freedom’ [Catherine Ellis/Al Jazeera] For weeks, opinion polls ahead of the vote had suggested Maduro would lose to retired diplomat Edmundo Gonzalez, provided that elections were free and fair. Maduro’s rival had a sizeable lead – about 30 points. Exit polls reflected a similar trend. But when Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE) announced the outcome of the vote early on Monday morning, it told a different story. The government agency claimed Maduro had won with more than 51 percent of the vote, a comfortable seven points ahead of Gonzalez. Demonstrations began, and clashes between opposition supporters and security forces ensued. Some have led to detentions, injuries and even death. After days of turbulence, many opposition supporters are in no man’s land, navigating a narrow path between hope and fear over what comes next. Jorge Fermin, 86, has been protesting for years against the socialist regime in Venezuela, first under the late Hugo Chavez and then under his hand-picked successor, Maduro. At a gathering in central Caracas, the former Ministry of Education worker waves a homemade poster in the air. The poster offers an optical illusion: Seen from one side, it shows Gonzalez’s face. Look at it from another angle, though, and it shows Maria Corina Machado, the candidate who was meant to run against Maduro, only to be banned from public office. “This is the biggest lie in the world,” Fermin said of the CNE’s results. “The government knows the true result but they don’t want to show it.” Protester Jorge Fermin shows off a handmade poster that displays the faces of two opposition leaders: Maria Corina Machado and Edmundo Gonzalez [Catherine Ellis/Al Jazeera] Maduro’s government has so far failed to publish the voting tallies from individual polling stations, as has been the tradition in the past. All the CNE has offered is the overall percentage. However, tallies collected by poll monitors – and handed to the opposition – appear to show Gonzalez won with a landslide, securing 67 percent of the vote. Despite calls from the opposition, as well as the international community, the government has not yet shown any proof that Maduro officially won. Maduro has pledged to reveal the voting tallies, but a timeline has not yet been set. “This government has caused so much pain, misery, and now they have tried to rob us of our last remaining hope,” Fermin told Al Jazeera. As a retiree in Venezuela, his pension is equivalent to just $3.50 a month. “It doesn’t even allow me to top up my phone,” he explained. The pro-Maduro posters that once decorated almost every lamp post in Caracas have now vanished, torn down and thrown onto rubbish heaps or fires. A number of statues representing the late Chavez, seen as the father of Venezuela’s socialist project, have also been toppled. Margarita Lopez, a Venezuelan historian who has studied the country’s protest movement and Chavez’s socialist government, told Al Jazeera that today’s demonstrations share the hallmarks of past mobilisations: the ripping down of statues, the banging of pots and pans in a style of protest called “cacerolazo”. But this time, she said, there is one key difference. “The polarisation has gone,” she explained. Previous protests, Lopez pointed out, were largely made up of middle- and upper-class voters. But with Venezuela’s economy in continued decline, a more diverse cross-section of society has poured out on the streets to demonstrate. “Everyone is struggling with work,” Lopez said. “They’ve gotten poorer. They don’t have full access to public services. The political discourse of polarisation isn’t valid any more for Venezuelans.” A crumpled-up poster of Nicolas Maduro lies in a rubbish heap in Caracas, Venezuela [Catherine Ellis/Al Jazeera] Traditionally, many residents in working-class areas of Venezuela were followers of Chavismo – the ideology named after Chavez, which promotes income redistribution and resistance against “imperial” forces, represented by countries like the United States. But for many, Chavismo has not lived up to its expectations. After Chavez’s death in 2013, Maduro took over the government, and the country tumbled into an economic abyss. Part of the problem was the global fall in oil prices in 2014, but the crisis was also due to poor economic mismanagement, embezzlement of state funds and international sanctions. “I’ve come from Petare. I’m here for the freedom of my county, for the future of my daughter, for my sister, for my niece,” a shirtless man cried at one recent protest, as he raised one hand in the air. He used the other to point towards the tattoo on his chest: a colourful map of Venezuela. According to Lopez, low-income areas like Petare were once bastions of Chavismo. But for residents there today, the socialist rhetoric feels no longer relevant. “Maduro can say imperialism and the ‘fascist’ right-wing opposition haven’t yet been stopped, but in reality, people aren’t interested any more,” Lopez explained. The country’s gross domestic product (GDP) has contracted by 80

Plea deal reversal for 9/11 terrorists wins praise and demands for justice from victims groups, Republicans

Plea deal reversal for 9/11 terrorists wins praise and demands for justice from victims groups, Republicans

The stunning reversal Friday of a plea deal for the mastermind behind the Sept. 11 terror attacks and his accomplices won praise and demands for justice from victims groups and Republican lawmakers. “The Biden-Harris Administration is correct to reverse course after receiving letters from @GOPoversight and @HASCRepublicans launching investigations into this terrible plea deal,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., posted on X after news broke that Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III had revoked the deal.  “Now deliver long awaited justice for 9/11 families,” he said.  Pentagon prosecutors stoked national outrage Thursday when they announced a plea agreement with Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin ‘Attash, and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi, who are awaiting trial in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The terms and conditions of the deal were never disclosed, but it took the death penalty off the table, three relatives of 9/11 victims were told by the Office of Military Commissions (OMC), the New York Post reported. BIDEN-HARRIS ADMINISTRATION BACKTRACKS, REVOKES PLEA DEAL FOR 9/11 TERRORISTS The World Trade Center attacks killed nearly 3,000 people in the worst terror attack on U.S. soil in American history. Families of the victims, groups that represent them and lawmakers expressed bewilderment and fury that those who planned the attack might not be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. The House Oversight and Armed Services Committees separately announced investigations into the plea deals, which Armed Services Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Ala., called, “unconscionable.”  However, that deal was rescinded after Austin relieved the official in charge of the military commission who had signed off on the agreement and assumed their authority for himself.  “Effective immediately, in the exercise of my authority, I hereby withdraw from the three pretrial agreements that you signed on July 31, 2024,” the secretary wrote in a short memo Friday. The defense secretary did not explain why he had not intervened before the plea deals were signed and publicly released.  9/11 MASTERMIND, 2 OTHERS STRIKE PLEA DEALS WHILE AWAITING TRIAL; FAMILIES OF VICTIMS ‘VERY DISAPPOINTED’ Even so, his swift action to reverse course won praise from 9/11 Families United, a group that represents the victims’ families and survivors of the Sept. 11 attacks. “Defense Secretary Austin is displaying America’s strength with this decision, that America does not negotiate with terrorists,” said Terry Strada, national chair for 9/11 Families United. “The media amplified our outcries for justice and the same mercy will be given for the three detainees at Guantánamo Bay that murdered my husband: none.” She called on Congress to pass the Ensuring Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act, which would allow the families of victims of terrorism to seek financial compensation from foreign sponsors of terrorism. “We need to send the same strong message to the sponsors of terrorism, if you harm Americans on American soil, we will hold you accountable in a U.S. court and justice will be served,” Strada said. LOVED ONES OF 9/11 VICTIMS REACT TO TERROR DEFENDANT PLEA DEAL: ‘LIFETIME OF PAIN AND SUFFERING’ Several New York Republican lawmakers applauded the defense secretary’s decision, though they demanded that Khalid Shaikh Mohammad and the other Sept. 11 terrorists face a trial for their crimes and receive the maximum sentence. “Grateful to see that @SecDef Austin made the right decision, in response to calls from myself & colleagues. Failing to hold these terrorists accountable for the atrocities they committed would be an insult to victims’ families, & it would send the wrong message to our enemies,” said Rep. Brandon Williams, R-N.Y. Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., urged Pentagon prosecutors to quickly proceed to trial.  “Good,” she posted on X. “Anything less than pursuit of the death penalty is unacceptable. Thanks to everyone who spoke out to demand real justice not a sweetheart deal for terrorists. Now let’s set the trial date.” 9/11 FAMILIES OUTRAGED AFTER ALLEGED MASTERMIND, 2 OTHERS GET PLEA DEALS: ‘WE NEED A DAY IN COURT’ Rep. Anthony D’Esposito echoed that demand: “Now, it’s time for Sec. Austin & President Biden to put an end to this 23 year long nightmare by expediting the execution of these terrorists and delivering justice for the families of those affected by 9/11.” Top Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., have not commented on the plea agreement or Austin’s reversal. The White House referred Fox News Digital to the Defense Department for comment.  Other victims’ groups swiftly responded to both the deal and the Biden-Harris administration’s about face. Patrick Hendry, president of the Police Benevolent Association of the City of New York, told Fox News that this was a big relief for the families of victims of the 9/11 terror attacks. LAWMAKERS, FAMILIES OF 9/11 VICTIMS REACT TO PLEA DEAL WITH TERRORISTS: ‘SLAP IN THE FACE’ “The families of our 9/11 heroes channeled their anguish and outrage into a powerful message. It’s thanks to their courage that these shameful plea agreements have been reversed,” Hendry said.  “We are relieved and grateful, but the job is not done yet. As we have said from the beginning, these terrorists who claimed so many innocent lives should receive the ultimate punishment. The safety of our nation demands it, and the long-suffering families of the fallen deserve nothing less.” 9/11 Justice President Brett Eagleson said his group is “astounded and deeply frustrated” that victims’ families were not notified or consulted about the plea agreement or its subsequent revocation.  CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP   “These monsters need to be forced to share every piece of information they have about the attacks and be held fully accountable for the murder of our loved ones. It’s not just about punishment, it’s about uncovering the full truth,” said Eagleson. “Our quest for truth and justice remains unwavering. We demand that the administration ensures these individuals provide vital information regarding the 9/11 attacks, including the extent of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s involvement. The American people and the families of the nearly 3,000

Sanctuary cities sending illegal immigrants to red states would face steep consequences under proposed bill

Sanctuary cities sending illegal immigrants to red states would face steep consequences under proposed bill

Proposed legislation from a Utah lawmaker would cut funding to sanctuary cities that attempt to transport illegal migrants into non-sanctuary municipalities. Republican Rep. Burgess Owens of Utah presented the Sanctuary City Oversight and Responsibility in Enforcement (SCORE) Act to the public on Friday, promising the bill would hold sanctuary cities responsible for their own migrants if passed. “If this administration won’t fight for American safety, security, and rule of law, our Republican majority will,” Owens said. “I introduced a bill to drop the taxpayer dollars funding migrants pouring into our communities.” ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT CRIMES IN SWING STATE HIGHLIGHTED AS GRANDMOTHER KILLED IN CARJACKING Owens released a video to social media platform X explaining the proposed legislation. “My message to these sanctuary cities is simple — you cheered on open borders and you welcomed these migrants with open arms,” Owens said in the video. “Now that your resources and services are overwhelmed, you will not be allowed to ship these desperate people into our communities.” The SCORE Act would restrict the use of FEMA Shelter and Services Program funding to purchase transportation to other municipalities without permission from local authorities. BURGESS OWENS CORNERS ELITE UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT OVER EYE-POPPING DONATIONS FROM HAMAS-HARBORING QATAR FEMA SSP funding is a federal initiative intended to assist recipients financially support migrants awaiting court appearances.   Migrants being transported to another location would also require a documented sponsor at their destination to ensure the individuals will not require government shelter. The SCORE Act would also require the Government Accountability Office to produce a quarterly report on the recipients of FEMA grants to ensure compliance. Owens was motivated to pursue the legislation after Denver authorities provided over 1,500 tickets for illegal migrants to travel to Salt Lake City, Utah, without notice to local officials. “Self-declared sanctuary cities like Denver have been quietly sending migrants to non-sanctuary cities like Salt Lake City as the Biden-Harris open border agenda overwhelms resources,” Owens said in his announcement video. “My new bill cuts off this funding and closes the loophole that’s fueling this crisis in Utah.”