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Bangladesh out of T20 World Cup after ICC’s refusal to change venues

Bangladesh out of T20 World Cup after ICC’s refusal to change venues

Scotland replace Bangladesh after the BCB’s request to relocate its games from India is turned down by the ICC. The International Cricket Council (ICC) has kicked Bangladesh out of the upcoming T20 World Cup and replaced them with Scotland because of an impasse over security concerns that Bangladesh had raised about playing in India. Following weeks of deliberation and dialogue, the ICC said on Saturday that Bangladesh will be replaced in Group C of the tournament. Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list “Scotland will replace Bangladesh in the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2026 after the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) refused to participate in the tournament per the published match schedule,” the ICC said in its statement. “The ICC, in the absence of any credible or verifiable security threat to the Bangladesh national team in India, rejected the BCB’s demand to move its matches from India to Sri Lanka,” it added. The tournament, which is due to begin on February 7, is being co-hosted by India and Sri Lanka, but all of Bangladesh’s group fixtures were allocated to venues in India. The Tigers were scheduled to play on the opening day of the tournament, on February 7, when they would have faced the West Indies at Eden Gardens, Kolkata. They were set to play two other group-stage games at the same venue before their final Group C fixture against Nepal at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai. However, the BCB requested the ICC, on January 4, move their fixtures out of India. The move followed the abrupt removal of star fast bowler Mustafizur Rahman from the Indian Premier League (IPL) upon instructions from the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), due to the ongoing political tensions between the two nations. Advertisement The ICC said its decision followed “an extensive process to address concerns raised by the BCB regarding the hosting of its scheduled matches in India”. “Over a period of more than three weeks, the ICC engaged with the BCB through multiple rounds of dialogue conducted in a transparent and constructive manner, including meetings held both via video conference and in-person,” the ICC’s statement went on to add. “As part of this process, the ICC reviewed the concerns cited by the BCB, commissioned and considered independent security assessments from internal and external experts, and shared detailed security and operational plans covering federal and state arrangements, as well as enhanced and escalating security protocols for the event. These assurances were reiterated at several stages, including during discussions involving the ICC Business Corporation (IBC) Board.” The game’s governing body said its assessments concluded that there was “no credible or verifiable security threat to the Bangladesh national team, officials or supporters in India”. “In light of these findings, and after careful consideration of the broader implications, the ICC determined that it was not appropriate to amend the published event schedule. The ICC also noted the importance of preserving the integrity and sanctity of the tournament schedule, safeguarding the interests of all participating teams and fans, and avoiding the establishment of precedents that could undermine the neutrality and fairness of ICC events.” The ICC’s decision comes two days after the BCB reiterated its stance on not travelling to India for its group matches. The ICC asked the BCB to review its decision with the Bangladeshi government and give a response within a day, following which a final decision would be made. “Following its meeting on Wednesday, the IBC Board requested the BCB to confirm, within a 24-hour timeframe, whether Bangladesh would participate in the tournament as scheduled,” the ICC said. “As no confirmation was received within the stipulated deadline, the ICC proceeded in line with its established governance and qualification processes to identify a replacement team.” Scotland will now play in the T20 World Cup as they are the highest-ranked T20I side not to originally qualify for the tournament. “We want to play the World Cup, but we won’t play in India. We will keep fighting,” BCB President Aminul Islam told reporters. The BCB chief said the ICC would stand to lose if Bangladesh were expelled from the tournament. Advertisement “The ICC will miss out on 200 million people watching the World Cup,” he said. Adblock test (Why?)

Iran rejects UN rights resolution condemning protest killings

Iran rejects UN rights resolution condemning protest killings

Tehran, Iran – The Iranian state has rejected a resolution by the United Nations’ Human Rights Council that strongly condemned the “violent crackdown on peaceful protests” by security forces that left thousands dead. After a detailed meeting and discussions in Geneva on Friday, 25 members of the council, including France, Japan and South Korea, voted in favour of the censure resolution. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list Seven votes against, including from China, India and Pakistan, as well as 14 abstentions, among others from Qatar and South Africa, failed to stop the resolution. The human rights council called on Iran to stop the arrests of people in connection with the protests, and to take steps to “prevent extrajudicial killing, other forms of arbitrary deprivation of life, enforced disappearance, sexual and gender-based violence” and other actions violating its human rights obligations. Iran said that the Western-led sponsors of the emergency meeting on Friday had never genuinely cared for human rights in Iran, or else they would not have imposed sanctions that have devastated the Iranian population over the past decade. Ali Bahreini, Iran’s envoy in the meeting, reiterated the state’s claim that 3,117 people were killed during the unrest, 2,427 of whom were killed by “terrorists” armed and funded by the United States, Israel and their allies. “It was ironic that states whose history was stained with genocide and war crimes now attempted to lecture Iran on social governance and human rights,” he said. The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) says it has confirmed at least 5,137 deaths during the protests, and is investigating 12,904 others. Advertisement UN special rapporteur on Iran, Mai Sato, has said the death toll could reach 20,000 or more as reports from doctors from inside Iran emerge. Al Jazeera has been unable to independently verify the figures. UN human rights chief Volker Turk told the council that “the brutality in Iran continued, creating conditions for further human rights violations, instability and bloodshed” weeks after the killings on January 8 and January 9, when a communications blackout was also enforced. Turk pointed out that executions for murder, drug-related and other charges continue across Iran, with the state executing at least 1,500 people in 2025, marking an enormous 50 percent increase compared with the year before. Payam Akhavan, a professor and former UN prosecutor of Iranian-Canadian nationality who was at Friday’s meeting as a civil society representative, called the killings “the worst mass-murder in the contemporary history of Iran”. He said as a prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal in the Hague, he had helped draft the indictment for the Srebrenica genocide in which some 8,000 Bosniaks were killed in July 1995. “By comparison, at least twice that number had been killed in Iran in half the time. This was an extermination,” he said. The adopted UN council resolution also extended the mandate of the special rapporteur for another year, while adding two more years to the mandate of the independent fact-finding mission that was formed to investigate killings and rights abuses during Iran’s nationwide protests in 2022 and 2023. More videos emerge despite internet blackout Meanwhile, the internet blackout continues to be enforced amid growing frustration and anger from the public and businesses alike. Global internet observatory Netblocks reported that international internet remained effectively blocked on Saturday despite brief moments of connectivity. Some users have been able to overcome the digital blackout over recent days for short periods of time using a variety of proxies and virtual private networks (VPNs). The limited number of users who have managed to get online, whether by using a combination of circumvention tools or leaving the country’s borders, continue to upload horrifying footage of killings during the protests. International human rights bodies like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have attested that many of the reviewed videos show state forces firing live ammunition at protesters, including from heavy machineguns. The state rejects all such accounts, claiming that security forces only fired at “terrorists” and “rioters” who attacked government offices and burned public property. Advertisement Threat of war looms The back and forth over one of Iran’s bloodiest chapters since its 1979 revolution continues as the threat of war looms large over the embattled 90-million-strong nation once again. US President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to intervene in Iran if it kills protesters. Washington is moving the USS Abraham Lincoln supercarrier, along with its strike group of supporting vessels, towards the Middle East in a move that has raised fears of more US strikes on Iran in the aftermath of the 12-day war with Israel in June. More US military aircraft, including fighter jets, have also been deployed to the region despite interventions from regional powers in an attempt to prevent an escalation. Iranians drive near an anti-US and Israel banner hanging at the Palestine square in Tehran, Iran, January 24, 2026 [Abedin Taherkenareh/EPA] Top Iranian authorities continue to send defiant messages to US President Donald Trump amid the rapid military buildup. “He [Trump] certainly says many things,” Majid Mousavi, the new aerospace chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), told state television on Saturday. “He can be certain that we will respond to him in the field of battle”. “He can say better things even if he is trying to escape the wishes of others who want to impose things on him,” said Ali Shamkhani, a top security official and representative of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the newly formed Supreme Defence Council. One of Iran’s top judicial authorities also shot back at Trump after the US president last week called for the end of Khamenei’s 37-year-rule in the country. “These acts of insolence and audacity are, in our view, tantamount to a declaration of all-out war, and based on this approach, in the event of any aggression, US interests around the world will be exposed to threat by supporters of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” said Mohammad Movahedi, the hardline cleric who heads

Trump threatens 100 percent tariff on Canada over China deal

Trump threatens 100 percent tariff on Canada over China deal

Donald Trump’s threat comes after Canada reached deal with China last week on trade of agriproducts, electric vehicles. Montreal, Canada – United States President Donald Trump has threatened to impose a 100 percent tariff against Canada if Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney moves ahead with an announced trade deal with China. In a statement shared on Truth Social on Saturday morning, Trump said Carney is “sorely mistaken” if he thinks Canada can become a “‘Drop Off Port’ for China to send goods and products into the United States”. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list “If Canada makes a deal with China, it will immediately be hit with a 100% Tariff against all Canadian goods and products coming into the U.S.A,” Trump wrote in the post, which referred to Carney as “governor” instead of prime minister. Carney’s office did not immediately respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment on Trump’s remarks. The threat comes as tensions mounted between Canada and the US this week after Carney delivered an address at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that was widely seen as a rebuke of the Trump administration’s policies. “We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition,” Carney said in the speech, urging the world’s “middle powers” to deepen cooperation in the face of coercion and threats. The prime minister’s remarks drew the ire of Trump, who responded by saying that “Canada lives because of the United States”. “Remember that, Mark, the next time you make your statements,” he said in Davos. Trump also revoked an invitation for Carney to join his so-called “Board of Peace” this week. The US president has been threatening to impose steep levies on Canadian goods since before he formally came into office in January 2025, while he has repeatedly said he wants Canada to become the US’s “51st state”. Advertisement That has plunged ties between the North American neighbours to historic lows, and pushed Carney in recent months to seek out new economic partnerships, including with China, the European Union and Qatar. “This is all part of Mr Carney’s goal to lessen [Canada’s] reliance on the United States,” Asa McKercher, a professor at St Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia specialised in Canada-US relations, told Al Jazeera after the Davos speech. “He’s a banker, so any sort of ‘diversified portfolio’ lessens our risk to certain shocks. That’s the way a banker would probably see it,” McKercher said. “[Carney] senses the US is a risky trade and security partner, which is not a bad assessment given that Donald Trump is threatening a trade war against America’s closest allies.” Last week, the Canadian government announced a “new strategic partnership” with China after Carney travelled to the country for talks with Chinese leaders. The deal would see Beijing lower tariffs on canola and other agriproducts from Canada in exchange for Ottawa allowing as many as 49,000 Chinese electric vehicles into the Canadian market. “At its best, the Canada-China relationship has created massive opportunities for both our peoples,” Carney said in a statement after the announcement. Adblock test (Why?)

Noida drowning: The Republic needs accountability towards citizens

Noida drowning: The Republic needs accountability towards citizens

The 27-year-old engineer’s death in Noida exposed the appalling condition of safety and emergency response by authorities despite mock drills. Administrative failures were seen in Indore’s water tragedy and a Goa club fire that points towards systemic misgovernance, with accountability missing.