07-02-2021

Orientation program for the divorcee women to create awareness and income generic in
Boguraorganised by Mary SomajKallyanSangstha last Saturday speech chief-guest
BoguraZilaJubo league President ShubasishPodderLiton.
Photo:Azahar Ali
Fox News
cancels show of
pro-Trump
host Lou Dobbs
NEW YORK : Fox News has
canceled the show of Lou
Dobbs, a right-wing
presenter with a history of
airing baseless conspiracy
theories and one of the
most ardent supporters of
former president Donald
Trump among US
broadcasters.
The decision on Friday
came a day after Fox News
and Dobbs were sued for
defamation by voting
technology
firm
Smartmatic, which is
claiming $2.7 billion in
losses from the network for
promoting false claims that
the company was involved
in fraud in November's
presidential election.
"As we said in October,
Fox News Media regularly
considers programming
changes and plans have
been in place to launch new
formats as appropriate
post-election, including on
Fox Business," a Fox News
spokesperson told AFP.
The cancellation of Lou
Dobbs Tonight "is part of
those planned changes," the
spokesperson said. "A new
5pm program will be
announced in the near
future."
Dobbs' show had the
highest viewership on Fox
News' affiliate channel,
averaging more than
300,000 viewers every
night.
Somalia leaders fail to reach
deal on elections: govt
MOGADISHU : Emergency talks between
Somalia's divided political leaders have
ended without agreement on how to proceed
with elections, a government minister has
announced just days before the president's
mandate expires.
Somalia is likely to miss a February 8
deadline to choose a new president after days
of negotiations between the central
government and federal states collapsed
Friday without resolution over the disputed
electoral process.
The impasse threatens a constitutional
crisis in the fragile Horn of Africa nation that
is already confronting a violent Islamist
insurgency, a locust invasion and serious
food shortages.
"The government offered to negotiate and
settle all the disputed issues, but some
brothers have failed to understand, and
refused to resolve the issues," Information
Minister Osman Abukar Dubbe told
reporters in the capital Mogadishu late
Friday.
"The government has shown flexibility to
compromise, gentleness and readiness to
negotiate, but some leaders tried to exploit
that openness to seek more. That will not
work." President Mohamed Abdullahi
Mohamed and Somalia's five regional
leaders reached an agreement on September
17 that paved the way for indirect
parliamentary and presidential elections in
late 2020 and early 2021. But that deal fell
apart as disagreements over the multi-stage
process escalated between the president,
better known by his nickname Farmajo, and
some regional rivals.
Farmajo, who is seeking a second term as
president, is expected to announce another
round of talks at a joint sitting of parliament
on Saturday.
The United Nations had warned that
Somalia risked entering uncharted territory
should the February 8 deadline lapse
without a concrete consensus about a way
forward.
Somalia had set itself the goal of holding its
first one-person, one-vote ballot since 1969,
a pursuit described by the UN as a "historic
milestone" on the country's path to full
democratisation and peace after decades of
war and violent instability.
But that was abandoned for a complex
indirect system similar to past elections,
where special delegates selected by Somalia's
myriad clans pick lawmakers for the upper
and lower houses of parliament, who in turn
choose the president.
Farmajo's political opponents have
accused the central government in
Mogadishu of an unwillingness to
compromise with regional leaders and
engage in good faith to reach common
ground on the fraught process.
Airstrikes kill 18 militants
in E. Afghanistan: gov't
JALALABAD : At least 18 Taliban militants
were killed when the Afghan Air Force struck
a militants' position in eastern Nangarhar
province overnight, the local government
confirmed on Saturday.
The airstrikes were conducted in the
mountainous Sherzad district in the west of
Nangarhar, the government said in a
statement.
Those among the killed were 14 members
of the Taliban's so-called Red Unit, or Special
Fighter Regiment, including divisional
militants' commander Khalid, the statement
noted. Ten Red Unit fighters were also
wounded following the air raids, according
to the statement.
The Afghan security forces have beefed up
offensive against the Taliban militants who
have been attempting to take territory and
consolidate their positions in the countryside
during the winter.
Police officer
killed, 6 wounded
in Kabul separate
bomb attacks
KABUL : A police officer was
killed and six civilians were
wounded in two separate
bomb explosions in Kabul,
capital of Afghanistan on
Saturday, the latest in a
string of bomb attacks in
recent months, the capital
police confirmed.
The police officer died in
the line of duty when an
improvised bomb struck a
police pick-up truck in
Khairkhana neighborhood,
Police District 11, roughly at
9:40 a.m. local time, a
source from Kabul police
told Xinhua anonymously.
The vehicle was destroyed
and several shops were
damaged by the force of the
blast.
Earlier on Saturday, an
improvised bomb exploded
outside a shop in Shorbazzar
locality, PD 1 of the city,
injuring six civilians, Kabul
police spokesman Ferdaus
Faramarz told reporters via
a text message.
No group has claimed
responsibility for the attacks
so far.
Half of Americans
want Senate to
convict Trump:
report
WASHINGTON : Half of
Americans believe that the
Senate should convict
Former U.S. President
Donald Trump in an
upcoming impeachment
trial for his alleged role in
inciting an insurrection at
the U.S. Capitol earlier this
year, local media said.
Impeachment trial of the
former president - his
second in little more than a
year - is set to begin on Feb
8, weeks after the House
voted to impeach him for
stoking the riot with toxic
rhetoric before and during
the insurrection.
Forty-one percent of
respondents believe that
Trump should be held guilty,
The Hill reported, citing a
Marist poll.
Meanwhile, 90 percent of
Democrats said Trump
should be convicted, while
only 5 percent believe he
should be acquitted,
according to the poll.
Conversely, 90 percent of
Republicans desire an
acquittal for Trump and only
5 percent cling to a
conviction. There is much
more to this bipartisan
outrage.
SUNDAY, feBRUARY 7, 2021
11
UN chief
UN will seek to unite world,
reverse Myanmar coup
UNITED NATIONS : Secretary-General
Antonio Guterres pledged Friday that the
United Nations will do everything it can to
unite the international community and
create conditions for the military coup in
Myanmar to be reversed.
The U.N. chief told a news conference it is
"absolutely essential" to carry out the
Security Council's calls for a return to
democracy, respect for the results of the
November parliamentary elections, and
release of all people detained by the military,
"which means the reversal of the coup that
took place."
"It is absolutely essential that that moves
forward, and for that, I believe, we need to
have all possible areas of pressure to make it
happen," Guterres said.
Myanmar's military announced Monday
on the eve of the meeting of new Parliament
that it will take power for one year, accusing
leader Aung San Suu Kyi's government of
not investigating allegations of voter fraud in
the November elections, where its party did
poorly. It detained Suu Kyi, whose party
swept that vote, and other lawmakers,
activists, journalists and members of civil
society. The election commission had refuted
the military's allegations.
In its first statement following the
military's takeover on Thursday, the Security
Council "stressed the need to uphold
democratic institutions and processes,
refrain from violence, and fully respect
human rights, fundamental freedoms and
the rule of law." It also "emphasized the need
for the continued support of the democratic
transition in Myanmar."
Guterres said Christine Schraner
Burgener, the U.N. special envoy for
Myanmar, had a first contact Friday with the
military since the coup and expressed the
U.N.'s strong opposition to the takeover.
According to U.N. spokesman Stephane
Dujarric, she reiterated to Deputy
Commander-in-Chief Vice Gen. Soe Win
"the secretary-general's strong
condemnation of the military's action that
disrupted the democratic reforms that were
taking place in the country."
Intruder at Canada PM's
residence pleads guilty
OTTAWA : A heavily armed military reservist who crashed his truck onto the estate where
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau lives pleaded guilty Friday to eight mischief and weapons
charges. Corey Hurren, 46, had originally faced 21 counts of firearms violations and one of
uttering threats against the prime minister.
In July 2020 Hurren drove his pick-up truck into the main gate of Rideau Hall and was
arrested without incident. The court heard that Hurren was carrying several loaded firearms
and prohibited weapons, including shotguns, pistols and rifles with high capacity magazines,
as he then tried to walk from his abandoned truck to confront Trudeau.
The sprawling estate in Ottawa is the home of the governor general, who represents Queen
Elizabeth II in this Commonwealth country. Trudeau, his wife and three children are staying
at Rideau Cottage on the estate because his official residence is in disrepair. They were not at
home at the time of the security breach. According to an agreed statement of facts read out in
court and cited by public broadcaster CBC, Hurren had wanted to interrupt the prime
minister's daily news conference on the front steps of his home to press him on the
government's pandemic response and a recent ban on assault rifles.
A press conference was recently organized at Bangladesh Crime Reporters
Association protesting against the unjust eviction from ancestral land and
attempted murder.
Photo : TBT
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