US
Missouri tornado kills multiple people, sows destruction
A large tornado tore through southeastern Missouri before dawn on Wednesday, causing widespread destruction and killing multiple people as a broad swath of the Midwest and South braced for further storms that could spawn additional twisters and hail.
The tornado touched down around 3:30 a.m. and moved through a rural area of Bollinger County, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of St. Louis, said Sgt. Clark Parrott of the Missouri State Highway Patrol. He said it caused “multiple injuries and multiple deaths,” but he didn’t specify how many or say precisely where they occurred.
“The damage is pretty widespread. It’s just heartbreaking to see it,” Parrott said.He said said a search and rescue operation involving multiple agencies was underway and that crews had to use chainsaws to cutback trees and brush to reach some homes.
The patrol posted an overhead photo of the damage that showed uprooted trees and homes that had been reduced to rubble.
Justin Gibbs, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Paducah, Kentucky, said the tornado remained on the ground for roughly 15 minutes, traveling an estimated 15-20 miles (24-32 kilometers).A weather service team was headed to Bollinger County to gather details about the tornado, but Gibbs said it’s clear “it was big. It was a significant tornado.”
He noted that tornadoes are especially dangerous when they touch down late at night or early in the morning, as this one did.
“It’s definitely a nightmare from a warning standpoint,” Gibbs said. “It’s bad anytime, but it’s especially bad at 3:30 in the morning.”
Larry Welker, Bollinger County’s public administrator, said the twister traveled along route 34 into Glen Allen, a village of slightly more than 100 people, and that he hasn’t been able to inspect the damage firsthand because law enforcement were restricting access to the area.
“I’m getting reports that it was pretty bad,” he said.
“There was several trailers there, and I understand that there is still people missing,” Welker said.
The storms moving through the Midwest and South on Wednesday threaten some areas still reeling from a deadly bout of bad weather last weekend. The Storm Prediction Center said up to 40 million people in an area that includes major cities including Chicago, Indianapolis, Detroit and Memphis, Tennessee, were at risk from the storms later Wednesday. As of late morning, the the greatest threat appeared to be to an area stretching from lower Michigan into Tennessee and Kentucky.
Fierce storms that started last Friday and continued through the weekend spawned deadly tornadoes in 11 states as the system plodded through Arkansas and into the South, Midwest and Northeast.
Schools in Little Rock, Arkansas, canceled Wednesday classes because the storms were expected to move through the area during the morning rush, KFVS-TV reported.
At least two tornadoes were confirmed Tuesday in Illinois as storms targeted the state and eastern Iowa and southwest Wisconsin before nightfall.
The National Weather Service issued tornado warnings in Iowa and Illinois on Tuesday evening and said a confirmed twister was spotted southwest of Chicago near Bryant, Illinois. Officials said another tornado touched down Tuesday morning in the western Illinois community of Colona. Local news reports showed wind damage to some businesses there.
Earlier Tuesday, strong thunderstorms swept through the Quad Cities area of Iowa and Illinois, with winds up to 90 mph (145 kph) and baseball-sized hail. No injuries were reported, but trees were downed and some businesses were damaged in Moline, Illinois.
Northern Illinois, from Moline to Chicago, saw 75-80 mph (120-128 kph) winds and hail 2 to 3 inches (5 to 8 centimeters) in diameter Tuesday afternoon, National Weather Service meteorologist Scott Baker said. The agency received reports of semitrucks tipped over by winds in Lee County, about 95 miles (153 km) west of Chicago.
The same conditions that fueled those storms — an area of low pressure combined with strong southerly winds — were setting up the severe weather Tuesday into early Wednesday, said Ryan Bunker, a meteorologist with the National Weather Center in Norman, Oklahoma.
Those conditions, which typically include dry air from the West going up over the Rockies and crashing into warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico, are what make the U.S. so prone to tornadoes and other severe storms.
Besides Trump, these are the current and former world leaders facing criminal charges
Donald Trump may be the first former US president to face criminal charges, but many current and past leaders around the world have been tried or even jailed.
Several of those leaders described the charges leveled against them as “politically motivated”. Yet, the charges have not always been a barrier to holding political office, reports CNN.Here are some notable recent examples:
Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu
No one has served as Prime Minister of Israel longer than Benjamin Netanyahu, who was sworn in for his sixth term late last year.
He is also being tried for corruption on counts of fraud, bribery, and breach of trust. The Israeli PM, however, called the trial a “witch hunt.”
While the case continues, Netanyahu has pushed a contentious plan to weaken Israel's judiciary, the report also said.
One of the measures limits the methods by which a sitting prime minister may be judged unfit for office, prompting many Israeli opposition lawmakers to accuse Netanyahu of manipulating the judicial makeover to protect himself. He denies the charges.
Read More: Trump's day in court as criminal defendant: What to know
Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva
Brazil's Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was imprisoned in April 2018, and was released in November 2019.He was jailed for corruption and money laundering after a construction business reportedly paid him and his wife $1.1 million in renovations and costs for a beachfront condominium.
Prosecutors claimed that in exchange, the business received lucrative contracts from Petrobras, the state-controlled oil giant.
Lula has referred to the allegations as a "farce," stating that they are politically driven. Upon his release from jail in 2019, a Brazilian court overturned his corruption convictions, allowing Lula to run for president in 2022, when he beat Jair Bolsonaro. In January, he was sworn in for the third time as president.
Bolsonaro is now facing potential legal problems, including allegations that he incited violent attacks in the Brazilian capital of Brasilia in January.
Read More: Trump charged with 34 felony counts in hush money scheme
Argentina’s Cristina Fernández de Kirchner
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, Argentina's current vice president, was sentenced to six years in jail last December after being found guilty of corruption during her two stints as president, from 2007 to 2011 and 2011 to 2015, the report also said.
She was accused of conspiring with other government officials to grant contracts worth millions of dollars for road construction that were unfinished, expensive, and useless, according to the complaint.The charges against her were politically-motivated, Kirchner stated.
The Argentine court convicted the 70-year-old former president of the country guilty of "fraudulent administration" and barred her from holding public office again.
She does, however, have temporary immunity because of her present employment, which means she will not be going to jail anytime soon and can appeal.
Read More: Trump indictment ends decades of perceived invincibility
Malaysia’s Anwar Ibrahim
After two stints in jail prior to his premiership, Anwar Ibrahim became Malaysia's prime minister in November 2022, in an unprecedented turn of events.
Anwar was sentenced to prison in April 1999 after being convicted of sodomy. Sodomy, even if consensual, is a crime punishable by up to 20 years in jail in Muslim-majority Malaysia. He has always vigorously denied the allegations, claiming they were politically motivated.
In 2004, a court reversed that conviction. Further claims of sodomy were leveled against him after his comeback as an opposition figure, and he was remanded to prison in 2014 after a lengthy legal struggle that lasted years.
Anwar was freed from jail in May 2018 after receiving a royal pardon. He immediately returned to parliament before leading the Pakatan Harapan coalition to a majority of seats in Malaysia's general election in 2022.
Read More: Capitol insurrection: Jan. 6 panel unveils report, describes Trump 'conspiracy'
Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi
Before 2011, the flamboyant Italian billionaire was a serial prime minister.
Berlusconi was the dominating figure in Italian politics for over two decades, during which time he was prosecuted on at least 17 counts of embezzlement, tax fraud, and bribery, said the CNN report.He has consistently denied any wrongdoing, and several of his convictions have been overturned on appeal.
His resignation in 2011 was not due to legal concerns, but rather to Italy's debt crisis.The 81-year-old gained a seat in Italy's Senate in September 2022, and his party is a member of the country's ruling coalition.
Read More: Trump probe: Court halts Mar-a-Lago special master review
The US leads the world in weather catastrophes. Here’s why
The United States is Earth's punching bag for nasty weather.
Blame geography for the U.S. getting hit by stronger, costlier, more varied and frequent extreme weather than anywhere on the planet, several experts said. Two oceans, the Gulf of Mexico, the Rocky Mountains, jutting peninsulas like Florida, clashing storm fronts and the jet stream combine to naturally brew the nastiest of weather.
That’s only part of it. Nature dealt the United States a bad hand, but people have made it much worse by what, where and how we build, several experts told The Associated Press.
Then add climate change, and “buckle up. More extreme events are expected,” said Rick Spinrad, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Tornadoes. Hurricanes. Flash floods. Droughts. Wildfires. Blizzards. Ice storms. Nor’easters. Lake-effect snow. Heat waves. Severe thunderstorms. Hail. Lightning. Atmospheric rivers. Derechos. Dust storms. Monsoons. Bomb cyclones. And the dreaded polar vortex.
It starts with “where we are on the globe,” North Carolina state climatologist Kathie Dello said. “It’s truly a little bit ... unlucky.”
China may have more people, and a large land area like the United States, but “they don't have the same kind of clash of air masses as much as you do in the U.S. that is producing a lot of the severe weather,” said Susan Cutter, director of the Hazards Vulnerability and Resilience Institute at the University of South Carolina.
The U.S. is by far the king of tornadoes and other severe storms.
Also Read: UN General Assembly adopts historic resolution to advance climate justice
“It really starts with kind of two things. Number one is the Gulf of Mexico. And number two is elevated terrain to the west,” said Victor Gensini, a Northern Illinois University meteorology professor.
Look at Friday's deadly weather, and watch out for the next week to see it in action: Dry air from the West goes up over the Rockies and crashes into warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico, and it’s all brought together along a stormy jet stream.
In the West, it's a drumbeat of atmospheric rivers. In the Atlantic, it's nor'easters in the winter, hurricanes in the summer and sometimes a weird combination of both, like Superstorm Sandy.
“It is a reality that regardless of where you are in the country, where you call home, you’ve likely experienced a high-impact weather event firsthand,” Spinrad said.
Killer tornadoes in December 2021 that struck Kentucky illustrated the uniqueness of the United States.
They hit areas with large immigrant populations. People who fled Central and South America, Bosnia and Africa were all victims. A huge problem was that tornadoes really didn't happen in those people's former homes, so they didn't know what to watch for or what to do, or even know they had to be concerned about tornadoes, said Joseph Trujillo Falcon, a NOAA social scientist who investigated the aftermath.
With colder air up in the Arctic and warmer air in the tropics, the area between them — the mid-latitudes, where the United States is — gets the most interesting weather because of how the air acts in clashing temperatures, and that north-south temperature gradient drives the jet stream, said Northern Illinois meteorology professor Walker Ashley.
Then add mountain ranges that go north-south, jutting into the winds flowing from west to east, and underneath it all the toasty Gulf of Mexico.
The Gulf injects hot, moist air underneath the often cooler, dry air lifted by the mountains, “and that doesn't happen really anywhere else in the world,” Gensini said.
If the United States as a whole has it bad, the South has it the worst, said University of Georgia meteorology professor Marshall Shepherd, a former president of the American Meteorological Society.
“We drew the short straw (in the South) that we literally can experience every single type of extreme weather event,” Shepherd said. “Including blizzards. Including wildfires, tornadoes, floods, hurricanes. Every single type. ... There's no other place in the United States that can say that.”
Florida, North Carolina and Louisiana also stick out in the water so are more prone to being hit by hurricanes, said Shepherd and Dello.
The South has more manufactured housing that is vulnerable to all sorts of weather hazards, and storms are more likely to happen there at night, Ashley said. Night storms are deadly because people can't see them and are less likely to take cover, and they miss warnings in their sleep.
The extreme weather triggered by America’s unique geography creates hazards. But it takes humans to turn those hazards into disasters, Ashley and Gensini said.
Just look where cities pop up in America and the rest of the world: near water that floods, except maybe Denver, said South Carolina's Cutter. More people are moving to areas, such as the South, where there are more hazards.
“One of the ways in which you can make your communities more resilient is to not develop them in the most hazard-prone way or in the most hazard-prone portion of the community,” Cutter said. “The insistence on building up barrier islands and development on barrier islands, particularly on the East Coast and the Gulf Coast, knowing that that sand is going to move and having hurricanes hit with some frequency ... seems like a colossal waste of money.”
Construction standards tend to be at the bare minimum and less likely to survive the storms, Ashley said.
“Our infrastructure is crumbling and nowhere near being climate-resilient at all,” Shepherd said.
Poverty makes it hard to prepare for and bounce back from disasters, especially in the South, Shepherd said. That vulnerability is an even bigger issue in other places in the world.
“Safety can be bought," Ashley said. “Those that are well-to-do and who have resources can buy safety and will be the most resilient when disaster strikes. ... Unfortunately that isn't all of us.”
“It’s sad that we have to live these crushing losses,” said Kim Cobb, a Brown University professor of environment and society. “We’re worsening our hand by not understanding the landscape of vulnerability given the geographic hand we’ve been dealt.”
Iran-backed fighters on alert in east Syria after US strikes
Iran-backed fighters were on alert in eastern Syria on Saturday, a day afte r U.S. forces launched retaliatory airstrikes on sites in the war-torn country, opposition activists said. The airstrikes came after a suspected Iran-made drone killed a U.S. contractor and wounded six other Americans on Thursday.
The situation was calm following a day in which rockets were fired at bases housing U.S. troops in eastern Syria. The rockets came after U.S. airstrikes on three different areas in Syria’s eastern province of Deir el-Zour, which borders Iraq, opposition activists said.
While it’s not the first time the U.S. and Iran have traded strikes in Syria, the attack and the U.S. response threaten to upend recent efforts to deescalate tensions across the wider Middle East, whose rival powers have made steps toward détente in recent days after years of turmoil.
“The calm continues as Iran-backed militiamen are on alert out of concern of possible new airstrikes,” said Rami Abdurrahman, who heads the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor.
Also Read: Suspected Iran drone kills US worker in Syria; US retaliates
President Joe Biden said Friday that the U.S. would respond “forcefully” to protect its personnel after U.S. forces retaliated with airstrikes on sites in Syria used by groups affiliated with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. The strikes followed an attack Thursday by a suspected Iran-made drone that killed a U.S. contractor and wounded five American servicemembers and a U.S. contractor.
“The United States does not, does not seek conflict with Iran,” Biden said in Ottawa, Canada, where he was on a state visit. But he said Iran and its proxies should be prepared for the U.S. “to act forcefully to protect our people. That’s exactly what happened last night.” Activists said the U.S. bombing killed at least four people.
A statement issued late Friday by the Iranian Consultative Center in Syria warned the U.S. not to carry out further strikes in Syria. Otherwise, “we will have to retaliate." It warned that "it will not be a simple revenge.”
Also Read: Saudi Arabia, Syria may restore ties as Mideast reshuffles
The center, which speaks on behalf of Tehran in Syria, said the U.S. airstrikes targeted places used to store food products and other service centers in Deir el-Zour. It said the strike killed seven people and wounded seven others without giving the nationalities of the dead. An official with an Iran-backed group in Iraq said the strikes killed seven Iranians.
The Observatory raised the death toll from the U.S. strikes to 19, saying they were killed in three locations, including an arms depot in the Harabesh neighborhood in the city of Deir el-Zour, and two military posts near the towns of Mayadeen and Boukamal.
Iran-backed militia groups and Syrian forces control the area, which also has seen suspected airstrikes by Israel in recent months allegedly targeting Iranian supply routes.
According to U.S. officials, two simultaneous attacks were launched at U.S. forces in Syria late Friday. Officials said that based on preliminary information, there was a rocket attack on the Conoco plant, where U.S. troops are stationed, and one U.S. service member was wounded but is in stable condition. At about the same time, several drones were launched at Green Village, in Deir el-Zour province where U.S. troops are also based. One official said all but one of the drones were shot down, and there were no U.S. injuries there. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss military operations.
Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, which answers only to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has been suspected of carrying out attacks with bomb-carrying drones across the wider Middle East.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the American intelligence community had determined the drone in Thursday’s attack was of Iranian origin, but offered no other immediate evidence to support the claim. The drone hit a coalition base in the northeast Syrian city of Hasakeh.
Iran relies on a network of proxy forces throughout the Mideast to counter the U.S. and Israel, its arch regional enemy. The U.S. has had forces in northeast Syria since 2015, when they deployed as part of the fight against the Islamic State group, and maintains some 900 troops there, working with Kurdish-led forces that control around a third of Syria.
The exchange of strikes came as Saudi Arabia and Iran have been working toward reopening embassies in each other’s countries. The kingdom also acknowledged efforts to reopen a Saudi embassy in Syria, whose embattled President Bashar Assad has been backed by Iran in his country’s long war. According to officials, Iran has launched 80 attacks against U.S. forces and locations in Iraq and Syria since January 2021. The vast majority of those have been in Syria.
The U.S. under Biden has struck Syria previously over tensions with Iran — in February and June of 2021, as well as August 2022.
Syria’s conflict that began in 2011 has left nearly half a million people dead.
Chocolate plant blast kills 2, leaves 9 missing in US
An explosion at a chocolate factory in Pennsylvania Friday killed two people and left nine people missing, authorities said.
Several other people were injured by the explosion at the R.M. Palmer Co. plant, said West Reading Borough Police Department Chief of Police Wayne Holben, who did not confirm the exact number of injured.
The explosion just before 5 p.m. sent a plume of black smoke into the air, destroying one building and damaging a neighboring building that included apartments.
“It’s pretty leveled,” West Reading Borough Mayor Samantha Kaag said of the explosion site. “The building in the front, with the church and the apartments, the explosion was so big that it moved that building four feet forward."
Also Read: Coroner: 7 dead in tornado that ripped through US South
The cause of the blast in the community about 60 miles (96 kilometers) northwest of Philadelphia was under investigation, Holden told reporters.
Eight people were taken to Reading Hospital Friday evening, Tower Health spokeswoman Jessica Bezler said.
Two people were admitted in fair condition and five were being treated and would be released, she said in an email. One patient was transferred to another facility, but Bezler provided no further details.
Also Read: US Embassy expects investigation of alleged assault on journo Zulkarnain's brother
Kaag said people were asked to move back about a block in each direction from the site of the explosion but no evacuations were ordered.
Dean Murray, the borough manager of West Reading Borough, said some residents were displaced from the damaged apartment building.
Kagg said borough officials were not in immediate contact with officials from R.M. Palmer, which Murray described as “a staple of the borough.”
The company's website says it has been making “chocolate novelties” since 1948 and now has 850 employees at its West Reading headquarters.
House China panel turns focus to plight of Uyghurs
Two women who experienced life in Chinese “reeducation” camps for Uyghurs told lawmakers Thursday of lives under imprisonment and surveillance, rape and torture as a special House committee focused on countering China shined a light on human rights abuses in the country.
Qelbinur Sidik, a member of China's ethnic Uzbek minority who was forced to teach Chinese in separate detention facilities for Uyghur men and women, told lawmakers of male Uyghur detainees held chained and shackled in cells so tiny they had to crawl out when authorities summoned them. “They were called by numbers for interrogations. And then you would hear horrible screaming sounds from torture,” she said.
Innocent female Uyghur detainees were held by the thousands, heads shaved, in gray uniforms, Sidik said. Guards tortured the women by electric shocks and by gang rape, sometimes combining both.
Reeducation camps intended to drain the Uyghur inmates of their language, religious beliefs and customs forced men and women into “11 hours of brainwashing lessons on a daily basis,” testified Gulbahar Haitiwaji, a Uyghur who spent more than two years in two reeducation camps and police stations.
“Before eating, we have to praise them, say that we are grateful ... for China's Communist Party and we are grateful for (President) Xi Jinping,” Haitiwaji said. “And after, to finish eating, we have to praise them again.”
Accused of “disorder” and detained with 30 to 40 people in a cell meant for nine, the Uyghur woman said, she and other female detainees were chained to their beds for 20 days at one point.
Detention left her gaunt. Freed and sent to France thanks to a pressure campaign by her family there in 2019, she was given more food by Chinese authorities before her release, so her appearance would not speak of her mistreatment.
In parting, Chinese officials warned Haitiwaji that “whatever I had witnessed in the concentration camp I should not talk about it,” she said. “If I do, they will retaliate against my family back home.”
The U.S. and many other governments, the United Nations, and human rights groups accuse China of sweeping a million or more people from its Uyghur community and other predominantly Muslim ethnic minority groups into detention camps, where many have said they were tortured, sexually assaulted, and forced to abandon their language and religion. China denies the accusations, which are based on evidence including interviews with survivors and photos and satellite images from Uyghur's home province of Xinjiang, a major hub for factories and farms in far western China.
The accusations also include draconian birth control policies, all-encompassing restrictions on people’s movement and forced labor.
Read more: To China’s fury, UN accuses Beijing of Uyghur rights abuses
“For a long time, some U.S. politicians have repeatedly used Xinjiang-related issues to stir up rumors and engage in political manipulation under the pretext of human rights, in an attempt to tarnish China’s image and curb China’s development,” said Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington.
The Chinese government's actions in Xinjiang were about “countering violence, terrorism, radicalization and separatism,” the embassy spokesman insisted.
The early focus on the plight of Uyghurs by the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party is designed to show the Chinese government's true nature, said Rep. Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin, the committee's Republican chairman.
“They are the first-hand witnesses to the systemic, unimaginable brutality, witnesses to the attempted elimination of a people, a culture, a civilization,” Gallagher said Thursday.
Between 1 million to 2 million members of China’s Uyghur minority have been held in mass internment centers, said Adrian Zenz, a researcher on the Xinjiang camps at the Washington-based Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. More exact estimates are not possible, given China’s concealment, Zenz said.
Expert witnesses praised U.S. actions, including passage of a bill on forced labor and the levying of penalties on companies shown to be using the forced labor of Uyghurs. They denounced businesses and investors still profiting from suspect supply chains and possibly complicit Chinese enterprises there.
Nury Turkel, chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and a Uyghur-American, said crimes against humanity cannot be treated merely as an area of disagreement or an irritant in a bilateral relationship. “Genocide is defined as an international crime for a reason,” Turkel said. “Confronting is not an option," it's a necessity, he said.
Chinese technology is enabling and facilitating total control and collective punishment of vulnerable populations, Turkel said.
And Naomi Kikoler, director of the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide, which is affiliated with the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, urged the U.S. to start working with allies in a more comprehensive way to confront China on the abuses in Xinjiang.
Read more: UN cites possible crimes vs. humanity in China’s Xinjiang
“The United States alone cannot prevent these crimes,” Kikoler said. “We must work with other governments, Uyghur civil society and the private sector to develop a swift, coordinated and global strategy to protect the Uyghur community. Thus far no such strategy exists.”
The hearing comes following Chinese President Xi's trip to Russia to show support for President Vladimir Putin, underscoring just how badly U.S. relations with China have deteriorated.
“What we're seeing here is increasingly a de facto alliance against America and our allies to try and undercut our interests,” Gallagher said.
The formation of the special China committee this year was a top priority of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., but close to 150 Democrats also voted for the committee’s creation, and its work has been unusually bipartisan so far.
Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois, the ranking Democrat, said more needs to be done to protect the Uyghurs and the new committee can help lead the way. “Make no mistake, CCP leaders are absolutely listening to us closely this evening,” he said, adding: “Let's make sure the CCP hears us loud and clear. Their genocide must end.”
Haitiwaji, the ethnic Uyghur woman testifying before the committee, said she is speaking out because she feels an obligation to speak for those still languishing in detention centers. She called on lawmakers to follow the example of Canada, which has adopted a policy of accepting 10,000 Uyghur refugees from around the world.
“Please rescue Uyghur and other Turkic refugees, like Canada has done,” she said. “Please stop American companies from continuing to be complicit in surveilling our people and profiting from their labor.”
US human rights report one-sided: Hasan Mahmud
Information and Broadcasting Minister Hasan Mahmud on Wednesday termed the US human rights report on Bangladesh as one-sided since its information came from the biased sources.
“They collected this information not only from one source, but from several anti-government and biased sources. Therefore, this report is one-sided”, said the minister.
The minister made these remarks while exchanging views with reporters after a meeting with Bangladesh Federal Union of Newspaper Press Workers and Bangladesh Newspaper Employees Federation at the conference room of the secretariat.
“However, we are not renouncing the entire report as it contains many good points as well. But all the issues mentioned in the report about our human rights, election, and democracy are one-sided”, Hasan said.
He said Bangladesh never faced any incident like Capitol riot by supporters of former US President Donald Trump.
The minister said that before raising questions about election, they should pay heed to their own election system. “There are still many questions about their election.”
Read more: PM: During BNP’s regime, human rights were violated at every step
Responding to a question on US allegations about extra-judicial killings in Bangladesh, the minister said, “In a country where on average one thousand people are killed by the police every year, how much moral right do the country have to raise questions about other countries?”
Information and Broadcasting Ministry joint secretary Md. Kawsar Ahmed, Bangladesh Newspaper Employees Federation president Md. Bazlur Rahman, Secretary General Md. Khairul Islam and many others also participated in the meeting.
Bangladesh maintains close ties with all – China, US and India: PM tells CNN
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has said Bangladesh maintains close ties with everyone, not only with any particular country.
“We’re close to everyone – China, USA and India. Those who support our development, we’re with them,” she said in an interview with CNN, aired today.
The premier made the remark when CNN’s senior journalist Richard Quest mentioned that the US believes and is concerned that Bangladesh is “getting too close” to China.
Sheikh Hasina said China is one of Bangladesh’s development partners. China is investing here and they are involved in construction. “That’s all. We’re not dependent on anyone,” she said.
When her attention was drawn to Bangladesh’s stance on the so-called “Chinese debt trap”, the PM said, “We’re extremely cautious when taking loans or undertaking development project.”
She said Bangladesh takes majority of loans from different institutions like the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. “When it comes to Chinese loans, our case is not like Sri Lanka’s or others,” she said.
The PM said her government always considers the returns and the benefits before undertaking any development project.
Read: ‘Enjoying her own recipe for tea’: CNN’s Richard Quest tweets photo with PM Hasina
“Another thing is that we always try our best to develop our country with our own resources. We don’t take unnecessary loans or big projects. We always consider from which project we can get returns and to what extent people will be benefited,” she said.
'Bangladesh never supports any invasion'
The prime minister also told CNN that Bangladesh never supports any kind of invasion, rather it believes in peaceful resolution through dialogue.
“We believe in peaceful resolution. If there is any conflict, it can be solved through dialogue. We never support any kind of invasion or conflict,” she said.
Sheikh Hasina said Bangladesh’s foreign policy is clear and transparent: “Friendship to all, malice to none.”
“So, when we see any human rights violation or invasion, we definitely oppose it,’’ she said.
She asked the global community to come forward to stop the war in Ukraine. ‘’I feel that the world should come forward to stop the war. Because, people are suffering,” she added.
She said a war cannot be dragged on by one side; it needs involvement from both sides. “I believe, each country has the right to maintain and protect its territory,” she added.
'International community should exert pressure on Myanmar to repatriate Rohingyas'
The premier said Bangladesh has called upon the international community to exert pressure on Myanmar to take their nationals back to their country.
She said this while replying to a question on what Bangladesh needs from the global community to deal with the Rohingya crisis.
Read: BGMEA ties up with CNN to promote 'Made in Bangladesh'
Sheikh Hasina said Bangladesh is continuing a dialogue with Myanmar. But unfortunately Myanmar is not responding positively.
She said her government had already talked to China, ASEAN countries, Japan, USA and others countries and requested them to put pressure on Myanmar to take back their nationals.
“Unfortunately, the Myanmar government is not listening to anybody. That is the problem,” she said.
The PM said Bangladesh had given shelter to the Rohingyas on humanitarian grounds.
She said the Rohingya (12 lakh) are becoming a “big burden” for Bangladesh as it has to feed them alongside ensuring their basic rights despite the fact that the country is overpopulated.
“I have to feed them (Rohingyas). I have to ensure their basic needs,” she said.
The first episode of the interview was aired in the early hours of Tuesday and the second episode will be aired soon.
Australia won’t promise to side with US in Taiwan conflict
The Australian defense minister says his country has made no promises to the United States that Australia would support its ally in any future conflict over Taiwan in exchange for American nuclear-powered submarines.
U.S. President Joe Biden and the leaders of Australia and the United Kingdom announced in San Diego last week that Australia would purchase nuclear-powered attack submarines from the U.S. to modernize its fleet amid growing concern about China’s influence in the Indo-Pacific.
Australian critics of the deal argue that the United States would not hand over as many as five of its Virginia-class submarines without assurances that they would be made available in the event of a conflict with China over Taiwan. Beijing says the self-ruled island democracy, which split with China in 1949 after a civil war, is obliged to unite with the mainland, by force if necessary.
Also Read: Chinese ships cut internet of Taiwan's outlying islands
But Defense Minister Richard Marles said his government had given the United States no assurances over Taiwan.
“Absolutely not, and I couldn’t be more unequivocal than that,” Marles told Australian Broadcasting Corp. ’s “Insiders” news program on Sunday.
Also Read: US approves selling Taiwan munitions worth $619 million
“I want to make it really clear that the moment that there is a flag on the first of those Virginia-class submarines in the early 2030s is the moment that that submarine will be under the complete control of the Australian government of the day and again, no one would have expected that to be any different. I mean, that is obviously the basis upon which this is happening,” he added.
Australia, like the United States, has a policy of “strategic ambiguity" in refusing to say how it would react to a Chinese attack on Taiwan. Australia and the U.S. have also shared a bilateral defense treaty since 1951 that obliges them to consult if either comes under attack but does not commit them to the other's defense.
Former Australian Prime Ministers Paul Keating and Malcolm Turnbull are among the critics who question how Australia could maintain its sovereignty with such heavy reliance on U.S. technology and military personnel under the submarine deal.
The AUKUS deal — named after Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States — provoked an angry reaction from China, which accused Australia of going down a “path of error and danger."
Marles said while the submarines could be used in the case of a conflict, the main intention was for them to protect vital trade routes through the South China Sea and contribute to regional stability.
“Nuclear-powered submarines have obviously the capacity to operate in the context of war, but the primary intent here is to make our contribution to the stability of the region,” Marles said.
Australia to buy up to 220 Tomahawk missiles from the US
Australia said it's planning to buy up to 220 Tomahawk cruise missiles from the United States after the U.S. State Department approved the sale Friday.
The deal comes days after Australia announced it would buy nuclear-powered attack submarines from the U.S. to modernize its fleet amid growing concern about China’s influence in the Indo-Pacific.
Australian officials said the new nuclear-powered submarines would be able to fire the Tomahawk missiles.
Japan last month also announced plans to upgrade its military in an effort to deter China, including buying 400 Tomahawk cruise missiles for deployment as soon as 2026.
The Australian missile sale comes with a price tag of nearly $900 million. The prime contractor will be Arizona-based Raytheon Missiles and Defense.
Also Read: Philippines eyes South China Sea patrols with US, Australia
“This proposed sale will support the foreign policy and national security objectives of the United States,” the State Department said in a statement. “Australia is one of our most important allies in the Western Pacific.”
Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles said his country would be working closely with the U.S.
“Making sure we have longer-range strike missiles is a really important capability for the country," Marles told Channel Nine. "It enables us to be able to reach out beyond our shores further, and that’s ultimately how we are able to keep Australia safe.”
Defense Industry Minister Pat Conroy said the missiles could be fired from the Virginia-class submarines Australia would be buying under the so-called AUKUS deal.
“We certainly want the best possible capability for the Australian Defense Force, so that includes the ability to strike opponents as far away as possible from the Australian mainland,” he told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. “The cruise missiles are a critical part of that, as are the submarines that launch them.”
The submarine deal has raised concerns that it could clear the way for bad actors to escape nuclear oversight in the future. Rafael Grossi, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, this week pledged to be “very demanding” in overseeing the planned transfer from the U.S. to Australia.
Former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating this week launched a blistering attack on his nation's plans, saying that because of the huge cost, “it must be the worst deal in all history.”
Australian officials have estimated the cost of the submarines at between 268 billion and 368 billion Australian dollars ($178-$245 billion) over three decades.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the government had been transparent about the expense.
“The assessment that has to be made is does the purchase, and then us building our own nuclear-powered submarines, increase the capacity for us to defend ourselves by more than 10%? You bet it does," Albanese told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. "That’s why it represents good value.”