27-06-2021

SuNDAY, JuNe 27, 2021
11
The culvert of the road in Madhya Tikaria area of Ashidron union of Srimangal upazila of
Moulvibazar has broken and turned into a death trap.
Photo: PBA
China does not consider India a strategic
rival: Ambassador Li Jiming
DHAKA : Chinese Ambassador to
Bangladesh Li Jiming has said
emphasized that China never takes India
as a "strategic rival" rather they consider
India a good neighbour of China.
"I would say, we never take India as a
strategic rival. We still hope that the
China-India relationship can be
improved. So, never imagine that China
would like to have any hostile or rival
attitude to India. That's not the case,"
said the envoy.
He made the remarks while
responding to a question at an online
symposium titled "Bangladesh-China
Relations: Prognosis for the Future"
hosted by the Cosmos Foundation and
premiered on its Facebook page on
Thursday evening.
Cosmos Foundation Chairman
Enayetullah Khan delivered the opening
remarks at the event while Dr. Iftekhar
Ahmed Chowdhury, renowned scholardiplomat
and adviser on foreign affairs
to the last caretaker government,
chaired the session.
Ambassador (retd) Tariq A. Karim,
CPD Distinguished Fellow Dr.
Debapriya Bhattacharya, former
Foreign Secretary Shamsher M.
Chowdhury, Assistant Researcher of the
Institute for International Studies at
Biden vows 'sustained'
help as Afghanistan
drawdown nears
WASHINGTON : President
Joe Biden on Friday promised
Afghanistan's top leaders a
"sustained" partnership even
as he moves to accelerate
winding down the United
States' longest war amid
escalating Taliban violence,
reports UNB.
Afghan President Ashraf
Ghani and Abdullah
Abdullah, chair of the High
Council for National
Reconciliation, met at the
Pentagon with Defense
Secretary Lloyd Austin before
their sit-down with Biden at
the White House later in the
afternoon. While Biden vowed
that the U.S. was committed
to assisting Afghanistan, he
also insisted that it was time
for the American military to
step back.
"Afghans are going to have
to decide their future," Biden
said in brief remarks at the
start of his meeting with the
Afghan leaders. Biden did not
elaborate on what a
"sustained" partnership might
entail.
The leaders' visit to
Washington comes as the
Biden administration has
stepped up plans for
withdrawal ahead of the
president's Sept. 11 deadline to
end a nearly 20-year-old war
that has come with a
breathtaking human cost.
Ghani also paid a visit on his
own Friday to House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi and with House
Republican lawmakers. He
met with Senate Minority
Leader Mitch McConnell on
Thursday.
More than 2,400 U.S.
troops have been killed and
20,000 wounded in the war
since 2001, according to the
Defense Department. It's
estimated that over 3,800 U.S.
private security contractors
have been killed.
Yunnan University Dr Zou Yingmeng,
Assistant Research Fellow at China
Institute of International Studies Dr
Ning Shengnan, former Ambassador
Serajul Islam and Dhaka University
Professor Dr Rashed Al Mahmud
Titumir comprised the panel of
discussants.
The Chinese Ambassador mentioned
a number of platforms where the two
countries are working together. "We're
still working very, very well together,
very closely."
Ambassador Li, as the Chinese
Ambassador to India's neighboring
country - Bangladesh, hoped that this
China-India relationship would be
improved more in the future.
Historically, they envoy said, they
have more than 2000 to 3000 years of
good relationship with India, and any
Chinese intellectual like himself has a
special feeling for Indian culture.
"Any Chinese intellectual, who is
well-educated, would have a special
feeling. A good feeling, towards India -
that is something untold publicly
probably," he said.
Enayetullah Khan fondly recalled
interviewing the present Chinese
Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing
back in 2004 (when he was the Vice-
Foreign Minister) when Minister Yi
talked about new foreign policy which
is good neighborly relations with their
neighbors.
"I asked, where does Bangladesh
stand? His immediate answer was -
Bangladesh could be the bridge
between India and China," Khan said,
going down his memory lane.
As one of the discussants raised the
Quad issue - the 4-country alliance
between the USA, Australia, Japan and
India, that is seen as anti-Beijing. The
Ambassador took the opportunity to
explain what he said on the issue of
Bangladesh possibly being invited to
join, at a particular programme.
"As an Ambassador to Bangladesh,
the first foreign policy lesson I learned
is that Bangladesh adheres to the idea
of "friendship to all and malice to
none." So, I have full confidence that
Bangladesh will not be part of that
small clique," he said.
"But when I was asked if you would
like to see or do you think this is a good
idea for Bangladesh to do so, of course,
I would say no. What else can you
expect from me? Should I say yes?
That would have been ridiculous. So
that is the story about Quad,"
Ambassador Li added.
Knife attack in German city leaves
3 dead, suspect arrested
BERLIN : A man armed with a long knife
killed three people and injured five others,
some seriously, in Germany's southern
city of Wuerzburg on Friday before being
shot by police and arrested, authorities
said, reports UNB.
Police identified the suspect as a 24-
year-old Somali man living in Wuerzburg.
His life was not in danger from his
gunshot wound, they said.
Bavaria's top security official Joachim
Herrmann said the injured include a
young boy, whose father was probably
among the dead.
The suspect was in psychiatric treatment
before the attack and had been known to
police, Herrmann said. There was no
immediate word on a possible motive.
Videos posted on social media showed
pedestrians surrounding the attacker and
trying to hold him at bay with chairs and
sticks.
A woman who said she had witnessed
the incident told German RTL television
that the police then stepped in.
"He had a really big knife with him and
was attacking people," Julia Runze said.
"And then many people tried to throw
chairs or umbrellas or cellphones at him
and stop him."
"The police then approached him and I
think a shot was fired, you could hear that
clearly."
Police spokeswoman Kerstin Kunick
said officers were alerted around 5 p.m.
(1500 GMT) to a knife attack on
Barbarossa Square in the center of the
city. Wurzburg is a city of about 130,000
people located between Munich and
Frankfurt.
Bavaria's governor Markus Soeder
expressed shock at the news of the attack.
"We grieve with the victims and their
families," he wrote on Twitter.
"A big thank you and respect for the
spirited intervention by many citizens,
who confronted the suspected attacker in
a determined way," Soeder added. "And
also to all first responders for their work at
the scene."
Almost five years ago a 17-year-old
refugee from Afghanistan wounded four
people with an ax on a train near
Wuerzburg. He then fled and attacked a
woman passer-by before police shot him
dead.
Rab members arrested a terrorist with pistol in Baraigram of Natore yesterday.
Photo : Tofazzol Hossain
Bangladesh-Korea
CSR virtual
conference Sunday
DHAKA : A Bangladesh-
South Korea conference on
Corporate
Social
Responsibility (CSR) and
economic growth will be held
virtually on Sunday to discuss
ways to further deepen
Korean companies'
engagement with local
communities, reports UNB.
The South Korean
Embassy in Dhaka and the
CSR Centre in partnership
with Korea Trade Investment
Promotion Agency (KOTRA)
Dhaka office are jointly
organizing the "Korea-
Bangladesh CSR Conference
2021: CSR for Human
Resource Development and
Economic Growth".
The conference will be held
from 5pm to 6:35pm.
Planning Minister MA
Mannan will join the event as
the chief guest.
Corporate Social
Responsibility (CSR) is
increasingly becoming
important, especially for
developing nations, said the
Korean Embassy in Dhaka.
As Bangladesh strives
towards attaining economic
development with the target
set out in the Sustainable
Development Goals, it said.
Representatives from
Youngone Corporation,
Samsung R and D Institute
(SRBD), Samsung
Electronics, Hyundai E and
C, and Dohwa Engineering
will present their respective
CSR activities in Bangladesh.
6 troops killed, 15 UN peacekeepers
wounded in separate Mali attacks
BAMAKO : Six Malian soldiers were killed
on Friday in a raid in the centre of the war-torn
Sahel state, in a violent day which also saw 15
United Nations peacekeepers wounded in a
car-bomb attack further north, reports BSS.
The UN said on Twitter that an evacuation
was under way after a car bomb struck a
temporary base near Tarkint, in the lawless
north of Mali.
German Defence Minister Annegret Kramp-
Karrenbauer said 12 of the peacekeepers were
German and that three were seriously injured.
Two of the three were in a stable condition,
she said in a statement, while one has
undergone surgery. All of the wounded have
been evacuated by helicopter, Kramp-
Karrenbauer added.
One Belgian soldier was also injured in the
attack, according to a Belgian defence ministry
statement.
About 13,000 troops from several nations
are deployed in the UN's MINUSMA
peacekeeping mission across the vast semiarid
country.
Mali is struggling to contain an Islamist
insurgency that erupted in 2012 and which has
claimed thousands of military and civilian
lives.
Despite the presence of thousands of French
and UN troops, the conflict has engulfed the
centre of the country and spread to
neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger.
A security official, who declined to be
identified, told AFP that the MINUSMA
forward operating base attacked on Friday was
only set up the previous day, after a land mine
damaged a UN vehicle in the area.
The peacekeepers set up the base in order to
remove the damaged vehicle, the security
official said.
Separately on Friday, militants also attacked
a Malian military outpost in the village of Boni
in the centre of the country, killing six soldiers
and injuring another. Mali's army stated on
Twitter that the troops had "vigorously
responded" to "simultaneous attacks"
launched in Boni in the afternoon.
Ten Malian soldiers had been killed in a
similar ambush in Boni in February.
Central Mali-which is the epicentre of the
conflict in the Sahel-also saw six French
soldiers and four civilians wounded on
Monday when a car bomb detonated near a
French armoured car.
Former colonial power France, which
intervened in Mali in 2013 to beat back the
jihadists, currently has 5,100 soldiers deployed
across the Sahel region.
But French President Emmanuel Macron
announced earlier this month that he would
wind down the Barkhane force.
France plans to refocus its energies on
strengthening an international task force of
special forces in Mali, known as Takuba.
A worker on whom a family depends. The picture was taken from Jamgarh in Ashulia area of Dhaka
on Saturday.
Photo: PBA
'Only going to get
hotter': Heat wave
blasts Northwest
SEATTLE : Seattle has only
hit 100 degrees Fahrenheit
(38 degrees Celsius) three
times in recorded history.
The National Weather
Service says the city could
top triple digits several times
in the coming days and may
eclipse the all-time record of
103 F (39 C) on Monday,
reports UNB.
The Pacific Northwest
sweltered as a historic heat
wave hit Washington and
Oregon, with temperatures
in many areas expected to
top out up to 30 degrees
above normal.
"If you're keeping a
written list of the records
that will fall, you might need
a few pages by early next
week," NWS Seattle tweeted.
The extreme and
dangerous heat was
expected to break all-time
records in cities and towns
from eastern Washington
state to southern Oregon as
concerns mounted about
wildfire risk in a region that's
already experiencing a
crippling and extended
drought.
Seattle was expected to edge
above 100 F © over the
weekend and in Portland,
Oregon, weather forecasters
said the thermometer could
soar to 108 F (42 C) by Sunday,
breaking an all-time record of
107 F (42 C) set in 1981.
Unusually hot weather was
expected to extend into next
week for much of the region.
Three MSF aid workers
killed in Ethiopia's Tigray
NAIROBI : One Spanish and two Ethiopian
employees of the medical charity Medecins
Sans Frontieres (MSF) have been "brutally
murdered" in Ethiopia's war-torn northern
Tigray region, the organisation said Friday.
The trio "were travelling yesterday
afternoon when we lost contact with them.
This morning, their vehicle was found empty
and a few metres away, their lifeless bodies,"
the international aid group said in a
statement.
"No words can truly convey all our sadness,
shock and outrage against this horrific
attack."
The conflict in Tigray began in November,
when Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed
sent troops in to oust the dissident regional
leadership, promising a swift victory.
But the fighting continues nearly eight
months later, and has triggered a
humanitarian crisis which the United
Nations warns has left 350,000 people on the
brink of famine.
MSF, or Doctors Without Borders, named
the Spanish victim as 35-year-old aid
coordinator Maria Hernandez from Madrid.
She started working with MSF in 2015 in
the Central African Republic and had since
worked in Yemen, Mexico and Nigeria.
The other victims were Yohannes Halefom
Reda, a 31-year-old coordination assistant
who had joined MSF in February, and Tedros
Gebremariam Gebremichael, also 31, who
had been a driver for the charity since May.
"We condemn this attack on our colleagues
in the strongest possible terms and will be
relentless in understanding what happened,"
said MSF, which was founded in Paris but is
headquartered in Geneva and has several
global affiliates.
"Maria, Yohannes and Tedros were in
Tigray providing assistance to people, and it
is unthinkable that they paid for this work
Man jumps from
moving plane at Los
Angeles airport
A passenger was taken to the hospital Friday
night after jumping out of a moving plane at
Los Angeles International Airport,
authorities said.
United Express flight 5365, operated by
SkyWest, was pulling away from a gate
shortly after 7 p.m. when the man
unsuccessfully tried to breach the cockpit,
then managed to open the service door and
jumped down the emergency slide onto the
tarmac, according to the airport and
SkyWest, reports UNB.
The man was taken into custody on the
taxiway, treated for injuries that were not
life-threatening and taken to the hospital,
authorities said.
The twin-engine Embraer 175, which was
headed to Salt Lake City, returned to its gate,
the airport said.
with their lives."
The UN called for Ethiopia to launch a swift
investigation into the killings.
Ramesh Rajasingham, the UN's acting
assistant secretary-general for humanitarian
affairs, described the attack as "outrageous
and saddening".
"Authorities must now promptly
investigate these reports of serious violations
of international humanitarian law," he added.
The United States echoed the call for an
independent investigation, saying it was
"appalled and deeply saddened" to hear
about the "indefensible" killings.
"The Government of Ethiopia ultimately
bears full responsibility for ensuring the
safety of humanitarian workers and free and
unhindered access to humanitarian
assistance," US State Department
spokesperson Ned Price added.
The European Union's chief diplomat
Josep Borrell said the bloc condemned the
aid workers' killings "in the strongest possible
terms", adding: "This atrocity is another
horrific example of the escalation of the
conflict in Tigray."
In a tweet, Spanish Foreign Minister
Arancha Gonzalez Laya expressed her "great
sadness" and said she was in contact with
Ethiopian authorities to "clarify" what
happened and repatriate Hernandez's
remains.
The Ethiopian foreign ministry confirmed
that three humanitarian workers had been
killed in the Abi Adi area, 50 kilometres (30
miles) from the regional capital Mekele,
adding that the Tigray People's Liberation
Front (TPLF) operate in the region.
Violence in the area has increased in recent
days.
On Tuesday at least 64 people were killed
and 180 injured in an air strike on a market in
the Tigray region.