Category Archives: Bangladesh

MPs think they may have been targets of ‘disinformation’ over Bangladesh inquiry

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Group received emails about Ahsan Mansur, the central bank official investigating money laundering allegations

British MPs believe they may have been targeted by a “disinformation” campaign aimed at discrediting the man leading efforts to trace funds allegedly laundered from Bangladesh into the UK.

MPs raised the alarm after receiving emails about Ahsan Mansur, who was installed as the central bank governor of Bangladesh last year, after a student-led revolution swept away the autocratic government of Sheikh Hasina.

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Bangladeshi protesters destroy ex-PM’s family home symbolising independence

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Property from which Sheikh Hasina’s father declared break from Pakistan attacked due to link with authoritarianism

Thousands of protesters in Bangladesh have taken out their anger at exiled former prime minister Sheikh Hasina by destroying a family home that came to symbolise the country’s independence – and now, they say, the authoritarianism they believe she stood for.

The attack was sparked by a speech that Hasina planned to give to supporters from exile in neighbouring India, where she fled last year during a deadly student-led uprising against her 15-year rule. Critics had accused her of suppressing dissent.

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Who is Tulip Siddiq, niece of deposed Bangladeshi PM who quit Treasury role?

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Former Labour minister’s family background is indelibly bound up with Bangladesh

When Keir Starmer became the Labour leader in 2020, Tulip Siddiq described him in her local paper as a “good friend through thick and thin”.

On Tuesday, she found out where the limits of that friendship lay after the prime minister accepted her resignation from the government after weeks of revelations about Siddiq’s closeness to her aunt, the former prime minister of Bangladesh.

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Giving Tulip Siddiq anti-corruption job seen by insiders as own goal

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Some in No 10 wish they had thought a bit more about how it looked before giving job to niece of ousted Bangladesh PM

The warning signs were always there. When a photo of Tulip Siddiq standing alongside Vladimir Putin and her aunt, the now ousted leader of Bangladesh, emerged in 2015, alarm bells rang within the Labour party.

At the time, Siddiq was the Labour candidate for the marginal seat of Hampstead and Kilburn. Yet she brushed aside concerns over her presence at the signing of a billion-dollar arms deal and nuclear power project at the Kremlin two years earlier.

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Bangladesh files criminal case against UK minister Tulip Siddiq

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MP accused of misusing her position to gain influence and illegally acquire land with her aunt Sheikh Hasina

Authorities in Bangladesh have filed a criminal case against the UK Treasury minister Tulip Siddiq, accusing her of misusing her position as an MP to gain influence and illegally acquire land with her aunt the ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina.

Siddiq has faced mounting calls to resign over her links to Hasina, who was toppled in August after mass protests across Bangladesh and is facing charges of corruption and crimes against humanity.

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Bangladesh formally asks India to extradite former PM Sheikh Hasina

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Hasina fled to India after student-led protests that ended her 15 years in power

Bangladesh has submitted a formal request to India to extradite its former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who fled to New Delhi in August amid student-led protests that ended her 15 years in power, according to the country’s foreign affairs adviser.

Ties between the south Asian neighbours, who have strong trade and cultural links, have become fraught since Hasina was ousted after violent protests against her rule, and she took refuge across the border.

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Tulip Siddiq questioned over multibillion-pound embezzlement allegations

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Treasury minister denies claims by Bangladesh that she helped broker corrupt deal with Russia to build nuclear plant

The Treasury minister Tulip Siddiq has been questioned by the Cabinet Office’s propriety and ethics team after Bangladesh’s anti-corruption commission accused her and family members of embezzling billions for a nuclear power plant.

The Labour MP, who denies allegations that she helped broker a deal with Russia to build the energy project, reportedly told a government official that she was the victim of a “political hit job”.

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India-Bangladesh relations sour as tensions rise over attacks on Hindu minority

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Allegations of violence against Hindus prompt mass protests in India and attack on Bangladeshi consulate

Growing tensions between India and Bangladesh have erupted amid accusations of attacks on Bangladesh’s Hindu minority, which have prompted mass protests and assault on a Bangladeshi consulate in India.

The relationship between the two countries has soured since August, when a popular uprising – now widely termed the “monsoon revolution” – toppled Bangladesh’s authoritarian prime minister Sheikh Hasina.

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Bangladesh to seek extradition of ousted leader Sheikh Hasina from India

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Interim leader Muhammad Yunus confirms plans to put former PM on trial accused of crimes against humanity

Bangladesh will seek the extradition of the former prime minister Sheikh Hasina to face trial on charges including crimes against humanity, the country’s interim leader, Muhammad Yunus, has said in a speech.

Hasina, whose autocratic regime governed Bangladesh for 15 years, was toppled in a student-led revolution in August. Since then she has been living in exile in India after fleeing the country in a helicopter as thousands of protesters overran the presidential palace.

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Regulators urged to examine UK business dealings with Bangladeshi ex-minister

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HMRC and FCA asked to look into property deals with Saifuzzaman Chowdhury now under investigation for corruption in Dhaka

British regulators have been urged by MPs to examine the relationship between London estate agents, lawyers and lenders and a former Bangladeshi government minister under investigation for alleged corruption.

Saifuzzaman Chowdhury was the land minister in Bangladesh until earlier this year, when the government of Sheikh Hasina was spectacularly toppled, after her regime’s violent suppression of student protests.

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Bangladeshis taking refuge in emergency shelters after heavy flooding

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Nearly 300,000 people forced to flee after monsoon rains, which have killed 42 people in India and Bangladesh

Nearly 300,000 Bangladeshis are taking refuge in emergency shelters from floods that inundated vast areas of the country, disaster officials said.

The floods were triggered by heavy monsoon rains and have killed at least 42 people in Bangladesh and India since the start of the week, many in landslides.

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Thousands flee after Myanmar rebels use drones to bomb Rohingya villagers

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Arakan Army targeting Muslim minority as Myanmar’s military are driven out of Rakhine, UN official says

Thousands of Rohingya are being forced to flee from their homes in Myanmar and escape on dangerous boat journeys after being targeted by armed rebels, activists and officials say.

Having seized control of much of Myanmar’s Rakhine state from the military, the rebel Arakan Army has turned on the Rohingya minority in areas it controls, shelling villages, forcing them to leave their homes and reportedly rounding up groups of men.

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Protesters attack supporters of ousted Bangladesh PM in Dhaka

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Hundreds of students and activists prevent Sheikh Hasina followers from visiting her father’s former house

Hundreds of student protesters and political activists armed with bamboo sticks, iron rods and pipes have assaulted supporters of the ousted Bangladeshi prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, and prevented them from reaching the former house of her father, the assassinated independence leader, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, in Dhaka.

The house in the Dhanmondi area of the capital was turned into a museum to showcase narratives and other objects about a military coup on 15 August 1975, when Rahman was killed along with most of his family members. The house, now called Bangabandhu Memorial Museum, was torched by the protesters hours after Hasina’s downfall on 5 August following an uprising during which more than 300 people were killed.

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Bangladesh court orders inquiry into Sheikh Hasina’s alleged role in grocer’s death

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Former PM and others accused over actions of police who fired on protesters, killing shop owner crossing street

A court in Bangladesh has ordered an investigation into the former prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s alleged role in the death of a grocery shop owner in the capital, Dhaka, during last month’s student-led protests.

The case filed by Bangladeshi citizen Amir Hamza against Hasina and six others was accepted by Dhaka’s chief metropolitan magistrates court after a hearing, Hamza’s lawyer, Anwarul Islam, said. The magistrate Rajesh Chowdhury ordered police to investigate the case, Islam added.

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Children among up to 200 Rohingya killed in Myanmar drone attack

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Witnesses say people killed in artillery and drone attack that targeted civilians fleeing violence

Many dozens of Rohingya people, including children, were killed in an artillery and drone attack that targeted civilians as they tried to flee Myanmar last week.

Civilians were trying to escape violence in Maungdaw town, Rakhine state, by crossing the Naf River into Bangladesh when they were targeted last Monday. Videos shared on social media, which appeared to have been taken in the aftermath of the attack, showed bodies and bags strewn across the ground.

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Bangladeshi journalists hopeful of press freedom as Hasina era ends

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Reporters cautiously optimistic as interim government takes over after years of intimidation and censorship

Bangladeshi journalists are hoping the resignation of the prime minister Sheikh Hasina will bring an era of censorship and fear to an end, as they prepare to hold a new interim government to account.

Arrests, abuse and forced disappearances at the hands of Bangladesh’s security forces have loomed over journalists for most of Hasina’s 15-year rule, preventing them from routine reporting for fear of writing anything that could be perceived as embarrassing for the government.

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Muhammad Yunus sworn in as interim leader of Bangladesh

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Nobel laureate hopes to restore calm and rebuild country after uprising that ended Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year rule

Muhammad Yunus has been sworn in as head of a new caretaker government in Bangladesh in a ceremony that began with a minute’s silence to remember those who were killed in the recent protests.

The swearing-in, led by President Mohammed Shahabuddin, was attended by more than 1,500 guests including politicians, students, protest coordinators and representatives from the military and civil society. Other members of the interim government also took their oaths. Among them Adilur Rahman Khan, a prominent human rights activist who was imprisoned by the ousted regime, and two student leaders.

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Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus urges peace ahead of return to Bangladesh

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Incoming head of interim government hails ‘second Victory Day’ but tells Bangladeshis: ‘Violence is our enemy’

The Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, who is to lead an interim government in Bangladesh, urged people in the country to “refrain from all kinds of violence” after a mass uprising that has included communal attacks.

Concern is rising in Bangladesh and neighbouring India over continuing violent unrest after the ousting of the former prime minister Sheikh Hasina; in particular, attacks on Hindu homes, shops and temples.

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Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus to head Bangladesh’s interim government

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Decision came during meeting of military chiefs and organisers of the student protests that helped drive longtime prime minister Sheikh Hasina from power

The Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus will be the head of Bangladesh’s interim government after the longtime prime minister Sheikh Hasina fled the country amid a mass uprising that left hundreds of people dead and pushed the south Asian country to the brink of chaos.

The decision, announced early on Wednesday by Joynal Abedin, the press secretary of the country’s figurehead president, Mohammed Shahabuddin, came during a meeting that included military chiefs, organisers of the student protests that helped drive Hasina from power, prominent business leaders and civil society members.

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Bangladesh parliament dissolved a day after resignation of prime minister

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Move comes after longtime leader Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled country after weeks of deadly unrest

The president of Bangladesh has dissolved the country’s parliament after an ultimatum issued by the coordinators of student protests that forced the resignation on Monday of the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina.

The office of the president, Mohammed Shahabuddin, also announced that the former prime minister and opposition leader Begum Khaleda Zia had been officially released from prison and given a full presidential pardon.

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