Is real change possible in Kenya?
Tens of thousands of protesters call for end to what they say is corruption and mismanagement. Kenya is on the edge again. Protests against a finance bill have become a nationwide movement, challenging the foundations of President William Ruto’s government. Young people are leading the charge – demanding lower taxes, an end to corruption and a government that listens. But as the demonstrations have intensified, so too has the response. Dozens of activists and protesters have been killed, and others simply disappeared. Can President Ruto quell this rising tide of dissent? Or is Kenya on the brink of major political change? Presenter: Laura Kyle Guests:Nanjala Nyabola – Political analyst and author of Digital Democracy, Analogue Politics: How the Internet Era is Transforming Politics in Kenya Hassan Khannenje – Director of the HORN International Institute of Strategic Studies, a research and policy think tank based in the Kenyan capital Aly-Khan Satchu – Emerging markets economist and author Adblock test (Why?)
Muhammad Yunus returns to Bangladesh to lead interim government
‘Bangladesh has got a second independence,’ Nobel laureate says before meeting army chief, president and his swearing-in ceremony. Nobel Peace Prize-winning economist Muhammad Yunus has returned to Bangladesh to head an interim government after weeks of student-led protests forced Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to resign and flee to India. “It’s good to be back home,” said the 84-year-old after touching down at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in the capital, Dhaka, on Thursday on a flight from Paris via Dubai. Yunus was picked by President Mohammed Shahabuddin to lead an interim government, fulfilling a key demand of the student protest leaders. Reporting from Dhaka, Al Jazeera’s Tanvir Chowdhury said Yunus was expected to head first to a meeting with the army chief and the president before being sworn in at 8pm (14:00 GMT). “Today is a glorious day for us,” Yunus told reporters at the airport. “Bangladesh has created a new victory day. Bangladesh has got a second independence.” Yunus’s main objective was to hold elections as soon as possible, said Chowdhury, noting that the poll should be held 90 days from the dissolving of the country’s Parliament, which occurred on Tuesday. “[He] himself has said he doesn’t want to be a long-term caretaker government chief,” he said. Students had taken to the streets last month over a controversial government job quota system, their protests escalating into a nationwide crisis following a harsh crackdown by authorities. Nearly 300 people were killed within weeks in one of the most violent phases of Hasina’s 15-year rule. Hasina, 76, was forced to step down and flee, with millions of Bangladeshis celebrating her political demise. Yunus is an economist and banker who was awarded the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for founding Grameen Bank, which pioneered fighting poverty with microloans. “The students wanted someone noncontroversial, nonpolitical, somebody who is neutral, who has global connections and can bring something to the table for Bangladesh at this moment which is in crisis,” said Chowdhury. The veteran academic had travelled abroad this year while on bail after being sentenced to six months in jail on a charge condemned as politically motivated. He was acquitted on Wednesday by a Dhaka court. Yunus was hit with more than 100 criminal cases and a smear campaign by a state-led agency that accused him of promoting homosexuality, with courts accused of rubber-stamping decisions by Hasina’s government. Army chief General Waker-Uz-Zaman said he backed Yunus: “I am certain that he will be able to take us through a beautiful democratic process.” Adblock test (Why?)
Catalonia ex-leader Puigdemont returns to Spain despite arrest warrant
Large crowd of supporters turns up to greet politician in Barcelona after seven years of self-imposed exile in Belgium. Catalan separatist leader Carles Puigdemont has returned to Spain after seven years of self-imposed exile and despite a pending warrant for his arrest. He appeared before a throng of supporters in Barcelona on Thursday, pumping his fist as he climbed on to a stage surrounded by officials of his hardline party, Junts, at the Arc de Triomf monument located near the Catalan Parliament. “I’ve come today to remind you that we’re still here,” Puigdemont told thousands of cheering supporters. “Long live Catalonia!” Many in the crowd waved red, yellow and blue flags and chanted slogans demanding Catalonia’s secession from Spain. Puigdemont fled Spain over his role in a failed 2017 independence bid for the wealthy region. After his brief address, Puigdemont appeared to head to the regional parliament for the investiture vote to elect a new leader. But the assembly began the vote without him being present. It was not immediately clear where he was. Police set up road blocks within Barcelona and leading out of the city, an interior department spokesperson said, according to the Reuters news agency. His potential arrest and imprisonment could unleash new turmoil in Catalonia. The building in central Barcelona housing the regional parliament was fenced off and surrounded by police. His arrest could delay the swearing-in of a Socialist government in Catalonia and jeopardise the national government’s fragile alliance with Junts, on which it relies for legislative support. Socialist Salvador Illa, who is backed by the left-wing separatist ERC party after a bilateral deal last week, is expected to be voted as leader. The Socialists hope taking control in Catalonia after a decade of separatist rule will turn the page on the independence drive, which has been losing support in recent years. Meanwhile, far-right party Vox was set to hold a counterprotest outside Parliament. Its secretary-general, Ignacio Garriga, said on X that “we will not tolerate the humiliation of seeing a criminal and fugitive from justice enter parliament”. The Spanish parliament passed an amnesty law in May pardoning those involved in the failed 2017 secession bid, but the Supreme Court upheld arrest warrants for Puigdemont and two others who were also charged with embezzlement, ruling that the amnesty law does not apply to them. Puigdemont says the referendum was not illegal and so the charges linked to it have no basis. “Things are complicated in the sense that there’s this interest in stopping him. But at the end of the day, he’s a member of parliament. He’s a former president. So if he is arrested, this would be against the immunity of the members of parliament,” Mar Aquilera Varques, a constitutional law professor at Barcelona University, told Al Jazeera. “There are some people who are tired of this political crisis. But many people in Catalonia still want independence,” she added. Adblock test (Why?)
Ukraine attacks Russia’s Kursk region, hopes F-16s boost counteroffensive
Ukraine continued its gradual rearguard action during the past week, ceding ground in feet and inches to preserve the lives of its soldiers while managing to prevent a Russian breakthrough anywhere along its front line. Meanwhile, it began to receive its first F-16 fighter jets from Western allies, a new weapon that could help turn the balance of power in the skies, which is key to developments on the ground. It also continued to build an estimated 15 new battalions it is counting on to one day mount a counteroffensive that will roll back Russian conquests. The fighting was fiercest in central Donetsk, the eastern province that has seen many of the bloodiest battles of this war. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Pokrovsk was the focus of Russian efforts on August 1. “Pokrovsk, I would say for today, this is a priority for them … the largest number of personnel, the largest number of weapons and [glide bombs], everything they have, they are centring today in the Pokrovsky direction,” Zelenskyy was quoted as saying by Suspilne, Ukraine’s public broadcaster. Pokrovsk lies 20km (12.4 miles) off the tip of a salient that Russian forces have created west of Avdiivka since seizing it in February. In the intervening six months, they have advanced 26km (16 miles). Russian forces completed their capture of Vesele at the tip of this salient on August 4. (Al Jazeera) The ultimate Russian goal, Zelenskyy said, was to seize Sloviansk, which together with Kramatorsk, forms the backbone of Ukraine’s defences in Donetsk. But Russia has obfuscated the direction from which the main thrust for Sloviansk and Kramatorsk would come, prioritising different fronts at different times. For example, Ukraine’s general staff said on Friday that Russian attacks were increasing in Toretsk, a front-line city 50km (30 miles) east of Pokrovsk. That intensity grew by Sunday when the general staff said Toretsk was absorbing 80 percent of Russian attacks. The battle for Chasiv Yar About 50km (30 miles) northeast of Pokrovsk, another fierce battle raged. Russian forces began to advance through Chasiv Yar, a high ground Ukrainians have defended stoutly to delay another Russian offensive to break through to Sloviansk and Kramatorsk. Geolocated footage on Friday showed that Russian forces had crossed the Siversky Donets-Donbas canal, a key defensive feature that had held them at bay for months. By Monday Ukraine’s general staff said attacks were still being repulsed in Chasiv Yar, however, one Ukrainian formation was announcing its departure, an apparent admission that the city would not ultimately be held. “Chasiv Yar is another Ukrainian city that actually ceased to exist after the so-called ‘liberation’ by the Russians,” wrote Ukraine’s Black Swan strike group from the 255th Assault Battalion online. “Our battalion defended it for four months, steadfastly holding the positions assigned to us. Now it’s time to rest and prepare for new tasks,” it posted. (Al Jazeera) Video taken by the battalion showed an utterly deserted and gutted city, with occasional artillery explosions on August 5 continuing to blow apart the abandoned concrete skeletons of buildings. Asked by the Philadelphia Inquirer in late June whether Ukraine would manage to hold Chasiv Yar, the chief of Ukrainian intelligence Kyril Budanov had said, “I will refrain from response.” All these gains have come at a high cost. Ukraine’s ground forces commander Oleksandr Pavlyuk on Sunday gave the weekly tally of Russian losses: 8,220 soldiers, 67 tanks, and 160 armoured fighting vehicles – weekly Russian losses typical for the past several months. Al Jazeera could not independently verify the toll. What is Ukraine’s game? Russian President Vladimir Putin had set the conquest of Donetsk and Luhansk as a goal for his armies by last February, the war’s second anniversary. In June, he told Ukraine he would agree to a ceasefire and peace talks only if Ukraine handed over those two provinces along with Zaporizhia and Kherson, which Russia also partially occupies. Ukraine’s inability to match Russian troop strength and firepower appeared to vindicate Putin’s strategy of attritional war to prevent Ukraine from ever retaking the initiative. A serviceman of the 24th Mechanised Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, runs on the road along a front line amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, near the town of Chasiv Yar in Donetsk region, Ukraine, on August 6, 2024 [Oleg Petrasiuk/Press Service of the 24th King Danylo Separate Mechanised Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces/Handout via Reuters] Ukrainian Brigadier-General Andriy Hnatov said as much in an interview on Friday. Putin launched his May 10 incursion into Ukraine’s northern Kharkiv region a month after Ukraine passed a new mobilisation law to raise a quarter of a million new troops, he said. “It’s not accidental,” said Hnatov, who has commanded the Khortytsia group of forces facing the fiercest battles in Donetsk. “The real goal of the enemy was not to capture 10-15 kilometres (6-9 miles) of our territory there … the goal of the enemy was to do everything so that we could not quickly feel the results of mobilisation.” Konstantyn Mashovets, a retired Ukrainian colonel who regularly comments on military developments, said Ukrainian troops in the Pokrovsk area were “inferior to the enemy in forces and means … especially in the air component and artillery”, and called the Russian advance “slow but rather confident”. (Al Jazeera) But Ukraine has played defence knowing that it would take Putin years – by some estimates 14 years – to complete his conquest of just Luhansk and Donetsk. It appears to have done this to buy time for a strategy where it feels it has the advantage – using drones to undermine Russian power on land, at sea and in the air. A Russian military reporter said Ukraine’s strategy was “catastrophic” for Russian forces in Siversk, where “the enemy [first person viewer] drones dismantle all the dugouts and burrows known to them, and there is no way to dig new normal shelters, as they are burning in the first stages of construction”. Ukraine has posted videos showing off its drone
Taylor Swift concerts cancelled in Austria after attack threat
Chancellor Karl Nehammer says threat was ‘very serious’ and a ‘tragedy was averted’ after police detain two suspects. Three Taylor Swift concerts in Vienna this week have been called off, organisers said, after the authorities announced arrests over an apparent plot to launch an attack on a public event in the Austrian capital. Swift was scheduled to perform at the Ernst Happel Stadium on Thursday, Friday and Saturday as part of her Eras Tour. Event organiser Barracuda Music said in a post on Instagram late on Wednesday that “we have no choice but to cancel the three scheduled shows for everyone’s safety”, citing government officials’ “confirmation” of a planned attack at the stadium. Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer said “a tragedy was averted”, in a post on X. “Thanks to the intensive cooperation of our police and the newly established DSN with foreign services, the threat was identified early on, combated and a tragedy averted,” Nehammer wrote. DSN is Austria’s Directorate for Security and Intelligence. Barracuda Music said all tickets would be refunded. Police detained two people suspected of plotting attacks on concerts, Franz Ruf, director general for public security, said at a news conference on Wednesday. “During our investigations, we identified preparatory actions and noted that the 19-year-old suspect had a particular focus on the Taylor Swift concerts in Vienna,” Ruf said, adding that the suspect, an Austrian citizen, had pledged allegiance to the ISIL (ISIS) group. Another suspect was later arrested in Vienna. Police searched the residence of one of the suspects in Ternitz, Lower Austria, and were analysing items from the home, according to the Reuters news agency. Austrian media, citing police sources, said at least three suspects were still on the run. Earlier on Wednesday, before the cancellation announcement, police had said the events would take place but with increased entry checks and personal searches, and with deployment of special units including anti-terror and bomb disposal teams, advising the public to arrive early. Police had been expecting about 65,000 people to attend each show, as well as up to 15,000 people outside the stadium without tickets. The American singer-songwriter commands a massive following around the world, and her ongoing series of concerts have drawn hundreds of thousands of spectators, which has also been an economic windfall for countries where the events are held, leading to the coining of the term “Swiftonomics“. Swift, 34, has not yet commented on the cancellations on her official Instagram account which has 283 million followers. In the official “Swifties” fan group on WhatsApp, panic ensued following the announcement of the cancellations with administrators overwhelmed with thousands of messages. After Vienna, Swift was set to perform in London where six concerts are scheduled at Wembley Stadium, starting on August 15. Adblock test (Why?)
Tunisia’s President Saied sacks prime minister
The dismissal comes ahead of Tunisia’s October 6 presidential election and amid a continuing crackdown on critics. Tunisian President Kais Saied has sacked Prime Minister Ahmed Hachani and replaced him with the social affairs minister. The statement from the president’s office late on Wednesday did not specify why Hachani was removed. Hachani had taken office on August 1 last year, replacing Najla Bouden, who was also dismissed without an official reason by Saied. A few hours before he was dismissed, Hachani said in a video message that the government had made progress on a number of issues despite global challenges, including securing the country’s food and energy needs. His replacement, Kamel Madouri, had only taken on the social affairs portfolio in May. In a social media post from his office, Saied is shown shaking hands with Madouri with a brief statement saying only that the president had “decided to assign him to head the government, succeeding Mr Ahmed Hachani”. The sacking comes ahead of Tunisia’s October 6 presidential election, in which Saied is seeking another term, and amid widespread discontent over continuing water and electricity outages in many parts of the country. While the government attributes these issues to a persistent drought, leading to the implementation of a water distribution quota system, Saied claims that the water cuts are a conspiracy in the run-up to the presidential election, insisting that the dams are actually full. The agriculture ministry says the dam level is extremely critical and has reached 25 percent. A growing crackdown Saied was democratically elected in 2019 but orchestrated a sweeping power grab in 2021. He faces criticism from the opposition, human rights groups and candidates for restricting and intimidating competitors to pave the way for him to win a second term. Earlier this week, an opposition figure and potential presidential candidate was sentenced to two years in prison. Lawyer Abir Moussi was arrested last year after criticising the electoral process, and investigated under a controversial cybercrime decree outlawing fake news. The sentence is the latest in a growing crackdown that observers have said is politically motivated against Saied’s critics, regardless of political affiliation. Moussi appeals to parts of the population that are nostalgic for Tunisia’s pre-revolutionary era. A critic of politicians such as imprisoned Ennahdha leader Rached Ghannouchi, Moussi was an official in longtime President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s ruling party. Tunisia’s constitution was rewritten in 2022 to create a presidential regime whose parliament has extremely limited powers. Adblock test (Why?)
Nagasaki defends decision not to invite Israel to atomic bomb memorial
The United States, United Kingom and other countries say they will send lower-level officials to ceremony that will take place on Friday. The mayor of Nagasaki has defended his decision not to invite Israel to Friday’s memorial for those killed in 1945’s atomic bombing after ambassadors from countries including the United States and the United Kingdom said they would no longer attend the event. “It is unfortunate that they have communicated to us that their ambassadors are not able to attend,” Shiro Suzuki told reporters on Thursday. Suzuki said Israel had not been invited to avoid possible protests over Israel’s war on Gaza war. “We made a comprehensive decision not for political reasons. We want to conduct a smooth ceremony in a peaceful and solemn environment.” On August 9, 1945, the US dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, killing 74,000 people including many who survived the explosion but died later from radiation exposure. The attack came three days after the US dropped the world’s first nuclear bomb on Hiroshima killing 140,000 people and devastating the city. Japan announced its surrender on August 15, 1945, ending World War II and the country’s nearly half-century of aggression in Asia. The US embassy announced on Wednesday that Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel would skip the Nagasaki memorial because Israel’s exclusion had “politicized” the event. Nagasaki officials said they were told that an official of the US consulate in Fukuoka will represent the US at Friday’s ceremony. Five other Group of Seven nations — Canada, France, Germany, Italy and the UK — as well as the European Union, are also expected to send lower-ranking envoys to Nagasaki. Envoys from those nations signed a joint letter expressing their shared concern about Israel’s exclusion, saying treating the country on the same level as Russia and Belarus — the only other countries not invited — would be misleading. The envoys urged Nagasaki to reverse the decision and invite Israel to preserve the universal message of the city’s ceremony. The exclusion of Israel would make their “high-level participation” difficult, they said. The British embassy said leaving out Israel created “an unfortunate and misleading equivalency with Russia and Belarus — the only other countries not invited to this year’s ceremony”. Hiroshima invited the Israeli ambassador to Japan to its memorial ceremony, which took place on Tuesday. At least 39,677 people have been killed since Israel went to war in Gaza after Hamas, the group that controls the territory, launched a surprise attack on Israel that killed more than 1,000 people. Thousands have been killed and millions forced to flee since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Belarus is Moscow’s closest ally. Adblock test (Why?)
Cori Bush loses Democratic primary after huge campaign by pro-Israel groups
Two-term representative defeated in a race that saw pro-Israel campaign contributions help to topple a member of US Congress’s left-wing ‘Squad’. United States Representative Cori Bush, a fierce critic of Israel’s war in Gaza, has lost her Democratic congressional primary, in a race that saw a massive influx of money from pro-Israel groups to defeat a member of Congress’s left-wing “Squad”. Bush, a Congresswoman from Missouri, lost Tuesday’s primary to St Louis prosecutor Wesley Bell, who won about 51.2 percent of the vote to her 45.6 percent. “We will stand up for what is right, no matter the cost,” Bush said on Tuesday night in a defiant concession speech posted to social media. “I just hope he [Bell] actually takes time to learn about our Palestinian, our Arab and Muslim community.” Bush’s defeat followed an onslaught by pro-Israel groups such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and its affiliated Super PAC, United Democratic Project (UDP), which together poured about $8.5m to topple her. It was the latest successful effort by the powerful pro-Israel lobbies to knock off lawmakers critical of Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza, which has killed nearly 40,000 people, mostly women and children, and has triggered numerous allegations of war crimes by Israeli forces, including the systematic use of torture. Bush introduced a resolution in Congress calling for a ceasefire in Gaza just weeks after the start of the war, saying Israel was waging an “ethnic cleansing campaign” in the Palestinian territory. She boycotted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to a joint sitting of Congress last month, saying attending would be celebrating a “war criminal” at the forefront of a “genocide”. In June, fellow progressive Jamal Bowman, also critical of the war in Gaza, was defeated by a pro-Israel primary challenger after UDP spent about $15m on the race. While the defeats of Bowman and Bush show that pro-Israel groups in the US still have the ability to sway important races, they have also been unable to reverse a trend of greater sympathy for the plight of the Palestinians among Democratic voters. A 2023 Gallup poll found an 11-point swing in favour of sympathy with the Palestinians and away from Israel, and numerous progressive lawmakers have called for an end of US support for Israel’s war in Gaza. During the Democratic presidential primaries, the “uncommitted” movement, which urged voters in a series of states to mark “uncommitted” on their ballots in protest against President Joe Biden’s support of the war, consistently outperformed expectations. A pastor and nurse, Bush became a Black Lives Matter activist and led protests after the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014. During her concession speech, Bush said she would continue to support “a free Palestine”, to which the crowd responded with chants of “Free, free Palestine”. Adblock test (Why?)
Big challenges ahead for Muhammad Yunus, Bangladesh’s new interim leader
Bangladesh’s Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus has been asked to head the interim government in the wake of the political crisis that saw Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina flee the country on Monday. Yunus, 84, who hailed the weeks-long student-led protests that brought down the Hasina government as a “Second Victory Day”, has been a critic of Hasina’s 15 years of iron-fisted rule. The protests began against a job quota, which reserved more than half the posts to particular groups including one-third for the descendants of 1971 war veterans. It was scaled back by the Supreme Court on July 21, but it did not assuage the protesters. “This is our beautiful country with lots of exciting possibilities. We must protect and make it a wonderful country for us and for our future generations,” Yunus told reporters. The economist and entrepreneur takes over the reins of the country after one the deadliest protests in its history, which saw more than 300 killed and thousands arrested. Big challenges lie ahead as he has to establish law and order, revive the economy, and pave the way for free and fair elections. Ahmed Ahsan, a former World Bank economist and a director of the Policy Research Institute in Bangladesh, says Yunus “is the man of the hour, chosen by the students who spearheaded the entire movement”. “He commands enormous respect both in the country and in the world,” Ahsan told Al Jazeera. ‘Banker to the poor’ Yunus, the third of nine children, was born in 1940 in a village near the southern port city of Chittagong in what was then East Pakistan. He graduated from the University of Dhaka in 1961. He joined Vanderbilt University in the United States in 1965 on a Fulbright scholarship for his PhD in economics, which he completed in 1969. He went on to become an assistant professor at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, Tennessee in the US. During the 1971 liberation war against the Pakistani military, Yunus supported efforts to create an independent Bangladesh. He founded a citizens’ committee in the US city of Nashville and helped run the Bangladesh Information Center in Washington, DC, which lobbied the US Congress to stop military aid to Pakistan. In 1972, Yunus returned to an independent Bangladesh, and after a brief spell in the country’s new Planning Commission, joined the economics department of the University of Chittagong. The protests began against a job quota that reserved more than half the posts to particular groups including one-third for the descendants of 1971 war veterans [Mohammad Ponir Hossain/Reuters] In 1976, he visited nearby villages in Chittagong that were affected by famines a few years earlier as part of his field work at the university. Yunus lent 42 people in the village $27 and found that each of them paid the money back as scheduled. He found out that small loans or microcredits given to poor villagers made a huge difference. Traditional banks would not lend them money, forcing them to rely on unscrupulous money lenders who charged exorbitant interest rates. This was the beginning of Grameen Bank (village bank) which pioneered the provision of microcredit to poor people to allow them to start up new businesses. Yunus became known as the “banker to the poor” as he helped lift millions out of poverty through his Grameen Bank. Awarded the Nobel Prize In 2006, Yunus and Grameen Bank were together awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their work to “create economic and social development from below”. By that time, the bank had lent more than $7bn to over seven million borrowers, 97 percent of them women, with a repayment rate of nearly 100 percent. “I see poor people are getting out of poverty every day … we can see that we can create a poverty-free world… where the only place we’ll see poverty will be in the museums, poverty museums,” Yunus said at the time. Yunus is now faced with the rough and tumble of politics beyond the reams of theory. His immediate task will be to restore stability after five weeks of deadly protests, but the larger issue is the economic crisis that has seen the ballooning of food prices and a stagnant private job sector. “The new government will need to stabilise the economy and contain inflation … and stabilise exchange rates,” Ahsan from the Policy Research Institute told Al Jazeera. Jon Danilowicz, a former US diplomat who spent eight years working in Bangladesh, believes that Yunus’s appointment is a good choice as his international profile will help the South Asian nation of 170 million. “His great strength is his credibility and his profile internationally, particularly in the United States. He can tap into the reservoir of goodwill that exists there and the willingness of the United States to do what it can do to help Bangladesh,” Danilowicz told Al Jazeera. The former diplomat, who is a board member of a rights NGO based in Bangladesh, thinks there are three big challenges for the interim government: dealing with the economic issues; unravelling the politicisation of the country’s institutions including the civil service, police and judiciary; and how to deal with the issues of accountability for serious human rights violations. “He must establish civilian control and supremacy early on and make sure that the army goes back to its normal role of supporting the civilian administration,” Danilowicz said. On the diplomatic front, Yunus will have to strike cordial ties with India, which backed the Hasina administration despite her rights violations and repression of opposition voices. Hasina is currently in India. “The new government must have cooperative relations with India as a hostile Indian government could be a spoiler, causing problems for Bangladesh,” Danilowicz said. On Hasina’s target Yunus became the target of Hasina’s ire after he floated the idea of launching a political party in 2007. Yunus’s initial idea of launching the party came against the backdrop of the failure of the two main parties – Hasina’s Awami League and the opposition Bangladesh
‘Swift response’: UK court delivers first sentences over far-right riots
NewsFeed The Liverpool Crown Court sentenced three men to prison terms ranging from 20 months to three years in the first prosecutions over far-right riots that spread across the UK after three young girls were killed in a stabbing attack. Published On 7 Aug 20247 Aug 2024 Adblock test (Why?)