WIO News: Thailand should release recently-arrested ethnic minority refugees and asylum seekers, rights group Human Right Watch said in a statement late Wednesday. The 181 refugees, including 50 children, mostly from the Montagnard population in Vietnam and Cambodia, were arrested from their homes in Nonthaburi province on the outskirts of Bangkok on Tuesday after local residents had…
Sky News: Almost £60,000 has been raised for an enormous blimp of Sadiq Khan to fly over London in a bid to oust the mayor from office. It comes a month after a similarly huge balloon depicting a spray-tanned Donald Trump in a nappy with a smartphone soared above the capital during his first presidential…
Hossen Sohel: The South Korean government yesterday said that it would seek to make denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula the primary topic of discussion during the September summit between the heads of the two Koreas. Denuclearisation would be a major agenda of the meeting in Pyongyang between South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean…
Abrar Hussain: The Supreme Court has fixed October 1 for the hearing of two petitions filed by the government seeking stay on the High Court order that granted bail to BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia in two defamation cases filed in Dhaka and Narail districts. The full bench of the Appellate Division will hear the petitions,…
Reuters: To hear Venezuela’s leftist President Nicolas Maduro tell it, this remote hamlet of 1,300 souls is perched on the cutting edge of an innovation in cryptocurrency. Located in an isolated savanna in the center of the country, Atapirire is the only town in an area the government says is brimming with 5 billion barrels…
Arab News: Yemen’s Information Minister Muammar Al-Iryani condemned the United Nations on Wednesday over its report on war crimes in Yemen, in which he says the leader of the Houthi militia was referred to as a “leader of the revolution.” The UN Security Council designated sanctions on Abdul Malik Al-Houthi in April 2015 for engaging…
Kabir Humayun: Bim-stec foreign ministers from the seven-nation group identified and agreed on Wednesday to push forward 167 various connectivity-related projects at an estimated cost of $50 billion, reports the Kathmandu Post. Following a detailed study by the Asian Development Bank, the ministers agreed to approve projects, at least in principle. Nepalese Foreign Minister Pradeep…
Reuters: China’s defense ministry said on Thursday that it was supporting Afghanistan’s defense and counterterrorism efforts, a day after Beijing denied a plan to build a base in Afghanistan and to send Chinese forces to the war-torn country. China’s foreign ministry on Wednesday dismissed a report by the South China Morning Post that cited sources…
Dr. Forqan Uddin Ahmed, Former Deputy General and Commandant, Ansar VDP Academy: Writers are members of the society and so they react and respond to the changes and chances that take place in the society. They are molded by the social forces and they in turn mould the society. P.B. Shelley said, “The poets are…
Nael M Shama/BDnews24 The foreign policy of the United Arab Emirates offers a curious case study for scholars of international relations: a small state with a tiny population and historically little presence on the world stage, but with outsized – and seemingly ever-expanding – ambitions. Over the past decade, while consolidating its status as a…