Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus said he has left Grameen Bank to prevent disruptions at the pioneering microlender he founded, days after a court upheld the Bangladeshi government’s decision to remove him.
The statement the 71-year-old banker issued late on Thursday said he was voluntarily resigning as managing director to “prevent undue disruption in the activities of Grameen Bank.”
He disputes the Supreme Court ruling that the government was right to remove him as he passed the retirement age of 60 and insists only Grameen’s board of directors has the power to remove him.
Yunus and Grameen pioneered the idea of issuing small loans to the poor as a way to lift people out of poverty. The work earned him and the bank the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize.
Yunus said last week he was worried about the future of the bank and its nearly 9 million borrowers, nearly all of them poor Bangladeshi women. Many use their small loans to make ends meet or to start small businesses.
He indicated he fears the government may seek to influence Grameen Bank’s governing structure and its lending policies, which could destabilize the agency.
He has accused Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s administration of trying to take control of the bank.
The government denies the allegation and says the bank will continue.
Yunus handed control to his deputy, Nurjahan Begum.
A government-sponsored committee last month recommended changes to make Gameen more accountable.
The committee concluded Grameen had changed many basics of its 1983 founding charter and created many successful affiliates beyond its mandate that did not benefit shareholders.
Grameen, however, disputed the report.
Yunus has long had frosty relations with the prime minister. She was reportedly angered by Yunus’ 2007 attempt to form his own political party backed by the powerful army when the country was under a state of emergency and Hasina herself was behind bars.
Hasina has also accused Grameen Bank and other microfinance institutions of charging high interest rates and “sucking blood from the poor borrowers.”
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion