Classes and transportation in Bangladesh were seriously disrupted yesterday as ousted former Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina and her former ruling Awami League party called for a nationwide “lockdown” in protest against her trial over last year’s protests that left hundreds dead.
Hasina faces charges of crimes against humanity involving a crackdown on the student-led uprising that ended her 15-year rule in August last year. She has been in exile in India since then and has not been seen in public or online.
A special tribunal in Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka, is expected to announce a verdict against Hasina on Monday, chief prosecutor Tajul Islam said at a news conference yesterday.
Photo: EPA
Hasina’s now-banned Awami League urged its supporters and others to protest, while the government and opposition to Hasina vowed to stop them.
Schools in Dhaka and major cities across Bangladesh switched to online classes and examinations, while public transportation was severely disrupted yesterday as the government increased its security measures across the country.
Dhaka has had incidents of vandalism this week as usually clogged streets remained mostly empty yesterday.
A fire bomb was thrown at a government office in Gopalganj District, which is Hasina’s ancestral home and a stronghold for her party.
An office of Grameen Bank, a small loan institution founded by Bangladesh’s interim leader, Muhammad Yunus, was torched on Wednesday in eastern Bangladesh, local media reported.
Yunus in a televised address yesterday said that his administration would hold a referendum on a national charter, which was signed last month by political parties, on the day of the next election in February.
The date has not yet been announced.
Yunus said that the referendum would propose a bicameral parliament in line with the “July National Charter” adopted by the interim government that he took over three days after Hasina’s fall on Aug. 5 last year.
Yunus also repeated his pledge to punish Hasina.
A signaling system malfunction disrupted high-speed rail (HSR) services beginning at 8am today, with trains temporarily reduced to three northbound and three southbound trains per hour as authorities conduct inspections. The malfunction occurred on a section of track in Miaoli County during pre-operation checks early this morning, forcing northbound and southbound trains to use a single track, the HSR operator said. The regular schedule has been replaced with three hourly trains offering only nonreserved seating in each direction, stopping at every station, it said, adding that business class cars would still have reserved seating. Departures from terminal stations are scheduled at the top
Taiwan is still in the process of assessing the possibility of recruiting workers from Eswatini, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday, adding that its goal is to help Eswatini upgrade its vocational training centers. If there are plans to recruit workers from Eswatini, safeguarding national security, protecting public health and ensuring the employment rights of Taiwanese would be prerequisites, Department of West Asian and African Affairs Director-General Yen Chia-liang (顏嘉良) told a news conference. Key considerations would also include filling labor shortages in specific industries, and fostering bilateral professional and technical exchanges, he said. Yen was asked about the progress of labor
A US uncrewed surface vessel (USV) encountered multiple Chinese warships during an autonomous transit of the Taiwan Strait, US defense company Seasats said in a statement on Wednesday. Seasats announced that a Lightfish USV had completed the first autonomous transit of the Taiwan Strait. Over five days, the USV traversed the entire length of the Strait while constantly monitoring surface vessel traffic, the company said. The Lightfish encountered multiple Chinese warships, one of which was a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) Type 056 corvette, it said. The Chinese vessels were operating “well within Taiwan’s exclusive economic zone without transmitting their identity via the
VERBOSE VESSELS: A CGA cutter and a China Coast Guard exchanged verbal barbs for more than a day in Taiwanese-controlled waters before the Chinese vessel left The Taiwanese and Chinese coast guards had a standoff near the strategically located Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the north of the South China Sea, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The two sides engaged in intense radio exchanges over sovereignty claims during the 33-hour standoff. China Coast Guard vessel 3501 eventually left the restricted waters, 26.6 nautical miles (49.2km) west of the Pratas Islands, at 5pm yesterday, the CGA said. Lying approximately between southern Taiwan and Hong Kong, the Taiwan-controlled Pratas are seen by some security experts as vulnerable to Chinese attack due to their distance — more than
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