Bangladesh blocked access to the video-sharing site YouTube after it hosted a recording of a tense meeting between the prime minister and army officials following a bloody mutiny by border guards, officials said yesterday.
The insurrection last month claimed more than 70 lives, shook the two-month-old government of Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and raised tensions with the military, which opposed her handling of the incident.
YouTube “has been temporarily blocked in the national interest,” said Abbas Faruq, a spokesman for the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission.
Faruq said gateway access to a few other Web sites, like esnips.com, were also being blocked. He would not say when the sites would be unblocked.
Commission Chairman Zia Ahmed defended the decision.
“The government can take any decision to stop any activity that threatens national unity and integrity,” Ahmed said, according to the online news service bdnews24.com.
The audio clip recorded Hasina defending her decision to negotiate with the mutineers while army officials shouted and jeered, drowning her out and preventing her from speaking.
The clip was being posted on blogs and overseas Web sites that cater to Bangladeshis.
Nasrin Sultana, a manager at Access Telecom Bangladesh, a major Internet providers, said the site was blocked late on Sunday because of an audio clip from the March 1 meeting.
Military officials and others with knowledge of the meeting said the gathering was tense.
The Feb. 26 and Feb. 27 revolt at the Dhaka headquarters of the Bangladesh Rifles left senior army officials furious at Hasina for negotiating with the mutineers instead of ordering an army attack.
The government and the army have both launched investigations into attack, which apparently began over complaints over pay, perks and promotion prospects.
The government rescinded its offer of amnesty for those behind the mutiny after the dozens of bodies were discovered.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of