United News of Bangladesh

After India's main opposition Congress party's leader Sonia Gandhi, her daughter Priyanka has contracted coronavirus. The 50-year-old is currently in home isolation in Delhi. Priyanka took to Twitter on Friday to announce that she had tested positive for Covid-19. "I've tested positive for COVID-19 with mild symptoms. Following all the protocols, I have quarantined myself at home. I would request those who came in contact with me to take all necessary precautions," she wrote. Also read: India's top court orders release of ex-PM Rajiv Gandhi's assassin On Thursday, the Congress party tweeted to say that Sonia was down with Covid. "Congress President had developed mild fever & Covid symptoms last evening. On testing, she has been found to be Covid positive," senior Congress leader Randeep Singh Surjewala wrote. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi soon took to social media to wish Sonia a speedy recovery. "Wishing Congress President Smt. Sonia Gandhi Ji a speedy recovery from COVID-19," Modi wrote.

A soldier was killed when terrorists targeted security forces in the North Waziristan district of Pakistan's northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, an army statement said on Thursday night. The terrorists fired at a military post in the area of Datta Khel town of the district. "The troops initiated a prompt response and effectively engaged the terrorists' location," the military's media wing Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said in the statement. Also Read: Indian, Pakistani killed in UAE gas blast that injured 120 During an intense exchange of fire, a young soldier who was 28 years old lost his life, the ISPR said. Actions had been carried out to eliminate any terrorists found in the area, said the statement. "Pakistan army is determined to eliminate the menace of terrorism and such sacrifices of our brave soldiers will not go unpunished," according to the ISPR.

Assailants fatally shot a Hindu bank manager and a worker in targeted shootings in Indian-controlled Kashmir on Thursday, according to police who blamed the attacks on militants fighting against Indian rule of the disputed region. Militants shot and wounded two Hindu workers at a brick factory near Chadoora town on Thursday night, Jammu-Kashmir police said in a statement. They were taken to a hospital, where one of the workers from India’s Bihar state died. Earlier Thursday, suspected militants shot and killed a bank manager, Vijay Kumar, in southern Kulgam district, a separate Jammu-Kashmir police statement said. Kumar, from India’s Rajasthan state, died at a hospital following the shooting. CCTV footage circulating on social media shows a masked assailant walk into the bank and fire shots at Kumar with what appears to be a handgun. Also read: India soldier killed, 4 workers injured in Kashmir attacks Muslim-majority Kashmir has witnessed a spate of targeted killings in recent months. They come as Indian troops have continued their counterinsurgency operations across the region amid a clampdown on dissent and media freedom, which critics have likened to a militaristic policy. On Tuesday, suspected militants, also in Kulgam, shot and killed a Hindu schoolteacher, Rajini Bala. After that killing, Hindu government employees staged protests in several areas, demanding the government relocate them from Kashmir to safer areas in the Hindu-dominated Jammu region. They accused the government of making them “scapegoats” and “cannon fodder” to showcase normalcy in the region and chanted slogans like “The only solution is relocation.” Hundreds of Hindus who had returned to the region after 2010 as part of a government resettlement plan that provided them with jobs and housing fled the Kashmir Valley after the killing of Bala, according to Kashmiri Hindu activists. Some 4,000 Kashmiri Hindus, who are locally known as Pandits, have been recruited for government jobs under the program. Those employees have been on a strike since May 13 after a Hindu revenue clerk was killed inside an office complex in Chadoora town. In the aftermath of the clerk’s killing, hundreds of Pandits — an estimated 200,000 of whom fled Kashmir after an anti-India rebellion erupted in 1989 — organized for the first time simultaneous street protests at several locations in the region demanding better security. “We were tricked into thinking that the government is rehabilitating us under an employment package,” said Jyoti Bhat, a local Hindu teacher who joined the program seven years ago. “It’s turning out to be a death package.” Also read: Indian, Pakistani killed in UAE gas blast that injured 120 Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan and both claim it in its entirety. Most Muslim Kashmiris in the Indian-controlled portion support the rebel goal of uniting the territory, either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country. When Kashmir turned into a battleground in the 1990s, attacks and threats by militants led to the departure of most Kashmiri Hindus, who supported India’s rule, with many believing that the rebellion was also aimed at wiping them out. Most of the region’s Muslims, long resentful of Indian rule, deny that Hindus were systematically targeted, and say India helped them move out or allowed their flight in order to cast Kashmir’s struggle as Islamic extremism. Those tensions were renewed after Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power in 2014 amid a sharp rise in communalism in India, and the Indian government pursued a plan to house returning migrant Kashmiri Hindus in new townships. Muslim leaders described such plans as a conspiracy to create communal division by separating the population along religious lines, particularly after India stripped the region’s semi-autonomy in 2019 and removed inherited protections on land and jobs amid a monthslong lockdown and communication blockade. Last year, suspected rebels killed a minority Sikh and several Hindus, including immigrant workers from Indian states, in a wave of targeted shootings in the region. The killings came after India enacted a slew of changes in 2019, such as issuing “domicile certificates” to Indians and non-residents, entitling them to residency rights and government jobs. Many Kashmiris view such moves as aimed at engineering a demographic change in India’s only Muslim-majority region. Many Muslim village councilors, police officers and civilians also have been killed in targeted shootings during the period. “It’s a disastrous situation. It’s not just the (Hindu) employees who are in panic. We all are living in constant fear since 2019,” said Sanjay Tickoo, a local Kashmiri Pandit activist, who like some 800 other Pandit families did not migrate from Kashmir in the 1990s but chose to stay behind to live with their Muslim neighbors. He said that New Delhi’s 2019 changes in Kashmir brought “demons of hate and division” back to the fore. “Killings in Kashmir happen as communalism is fast rising in India," he said. "If there is another large-scale migration (of minorities) from Kashmir to other parts of the country, it will create more difficulties for Muslim minorities in India. Minorities are vulnerable everywhere.”

The United Nations' humanitarian relief agency says the number of people displaced within strife-torn Myanmar has for the first time exceeded 1 million, with well over half the total losing their homes after a military takeover last year. The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says in a report that an already critical situation is being exacerbated by ongoing fighting between the military government and its opponents, the increasing prices of essential commodities, and the coming of monsoon season, while funding for its relief efforts is severely inadequate. Its report covers the situation up to May 26. The military has hindered or denied independent access to areas not under its control, hampering aid efforts. Myanmar’s army in February last year seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, triggering widespread peaceful protests. When those were put down with lethal force by the army and police, nonviolent opposition turned into armed resistance, and the country slipped into what some U.N. experts characterize as a civil war. Also read: Myanmar situation continues to remain unsafe for civilians: Bangladesh OCHA says that fighting has recently escalated. “The impact on civilians is worsening daily with frequent indiscriminate attacks and incidents involving explosive hazards, including landmines and explosive remnants of war," the report says. It says that more than 694,300 people have become displaced from their homes since the army takeover, with thousands being uprooted a second or third time, and an estimated 346,000 people were displaced by fighting before last year’s takeover — mostly in frontier regions populated by ethnic minority groups who have been struggling for greater autonomy for decades. The report also says about 40,200 people have fled to neighboring countries since the takeover and more than 12,700 “civilian properties,” including houses, churches, monasteries and schools are estimated to have been destroyed. As of the end of the first quarter of this year, humanitarian assistance reached 2.6 million people in Myanmar, or 41% of the 6.2 million people targeted, OCHA says. The country's total population is over 55 million. But it warns this year’s Myanmar Humanitarian Response Plan is only 10% funded so far, falling short by $740 million. An official of the military government's Ministry of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement said Wednesday at a news conference in Myanmar's capital Naypyitaw that the government distributed humanitarian aid to more than 130,000 displaced people from May 2021 through May 27 this year. The official, whose testimony was broadcast but who was not identified by name, said 1,255 houses and five religious buildings were burned or destroyed in fighting between the army and local resistance militias, and consequently received government aid for rebuilding. Also read: FM urges UNHCR to expedite efforts at Rohingya repatriation to Myanmar U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said last month that the number of people worldwide forced to flee conflict, violence, human rights violations and persecution has crossed the milestone of 100 million for the first time on record. That's more than 1% of the global population and comprises refugees and asylum-seekers as well as people displaced inside their own countries by conflict. Violence and conflicts in countries including Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, Myanmar, Nigeria, Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo had driven the total to almost 90 million by the end of last year. The war in Ukraine pushed the number past the 100 million mark. The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, an independent Geneva-based non-governmental organization, said 53.2 million people were displaced within their countries as a result of conflict and violence as of Dec. 31.

China’s government on Thursday accused Washington of jeopardizing peace after U.S. envoys began trade talks with Taiwan aimed at deepening relations with the self-ruled island democracy claimed by Beijing. Talks that started Wednesday cover trade, regulation and other areas based on “shared values” as market-oriented economies, according to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. It did not mention China but the talks add to gestures that show U.S. support for Taiwan amid menacing behavior by Beijing, which threatens to invade. Trade dialogues “disrupt peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait,” said a foreign ministry spokesman, Zhao Lijian. He called on Washington to “stop negotiating agreements with Taiwan that have sovereign connotations and official nature.” Taiwan and China split in 1949 after a civil war that ended with the ruling Communist Party’s victory on the mainland. They have multibillion-dollar trade and investment ties but no official relations. Beijing says Taiwan has no right to conduct foreign relations. READ: Carbon emissions dip, at least briefly, in China, study says The United States has diplomatic relations only with Beijing but extensive informal ties with Taiwan. The U.S. government is committed by federal law to see that the island has the means to defend itself. Zhao accused Washington of encouraging sentiment in Taiwan in favor of declaring formal independence, a step Beijing has said previously would be grounds for an invasion. The trade initiative is “intended to develop concrete ways to deepen the economic and trade relationship” and “advance mutual trade priorities based on shared values,” said a statement by the office of USTR Katherine Tai. Taiwan is the ninth-largest U.S. trading partner and an important manufacturing center for computer chips and other high-tech products. President Joe Biden said May 23 while visiting Tokyo that the United States would intervene militarily if China were to invade Taiwan. He said the U.S. commitment to help the island defend itself was “even stronger” following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. On Tuesday, U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth met with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen and expressed support for the island during her second visit in a year to Taiwan. On Monday, China sent 30 military aircraft toward Taiwan in the latest of a series of flights aimed at intimidating the island’s democratically elected government. Taiwan’s defense ministry said it sent up fighter planes and put air defense missile systems on alert.

With the last dead body found on Tuesday morning, all the 22 bodies left by a crashed Nepali passenger plane have been recovered, the Nepal Army said. "Last dead body has been recovered. Arranging to bring remaining 12 dead bodies from crash site to Kathmandu," tweeted Brigadier General Narayan Silwal, spokesman of the Nepal Army, which was leading the search and rescue effort. Read: Delhi's Health Minister arrested  A preliminary study shows bad weather conditions caused the Twin Otter plane to crash in a remote hilly area in Nepal's Mustang district, but the details will be probed by a five-member investigation team, Deo Chandra Lal Karn, spokesman of the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal, told Xinhua.

Rescuers searching a mountainside in Nepal on Monday recovered the bodies of 21 of the 22 people who were on board a plane that crashed a day earlier, officials said. The search is continuing for the remaining person, Kathmandu airport spokesman Tek Nath Sitaula said. Recovery efforts were delayed because some bodies were pinned under the plane’s wreckage. Rescuers working with their bare hands had difficulty moving the metal debris. Aerial photos of the crash site showed aircraft parts scattered on rocks and moss on the side of a mountain gorge. The Tara Air turboprop Twin Otter lost contact with the airport tower on Sunday while flying on a scheduled 20-minute flight in an area of deep river gorges and mountaintops. Relatives waited most of the day at the airport for news of their loved ones. Four Indians and two Germans were on the plane, Tara Air said. The three crew members and other passengers were Nepali nationals, it said. German news agency dpa reported that the two Germans were a man and a woman from the western state of Hesse. “Unfortunately, we have to assume at this point that the two people are no longer alive,” dpa quoted a spokesperson for the Hesse state interior ministry as saying. “On the part of the Hessian police, relatives have already been informed and care measures initiated.” Local news reports said the passengers included two Nepali families, one with four members and the other with seven. The army said the plane crashed in Sanosware in Mustang district close to the mountain town of Jomsom, where it was heading after taking off from the resort town of Pokhara, 200 kilometers (125 miles) west of Kathmandu. According to tracking data from flightradar24.com, the 43-year-old aircraft took off from Pokhara at 9:55 a.m. and transmitted its last signal at 10:07 a.m. at an altitude of 12,825 feet (3,900 meters). Also Read: Plane wreckage found in Nepal mountains; 17 bodies recovered The plane’s destination is popular with foreign hikers who trek on its mountain trails, and with Indian and Nepalese pilgrims who visit the revered Muktinath temple. The wreckage was located by villagers who had been searching in the area for the Yarsagumba fungus, which is commonly referred to as Himalayan Viagra, according to local news reports. The Setopati new website quoted a villager, Bishal Magar, as saying that they heard about the missing plane on Sunday but were only able to reach the site on Monday morning after following the smell of fuel. Magar said it appeared the plane may have clipped the top of a smaller mountain and then slammed into a bigger mountain. The Twin Otter, a rugged plane originally built by Canadian aircraft manufacturer De Havilland, has been in service in Nepal for about 50 years, during which it has been involved in about 21 accidents, according to aviationnepal.com. The plane, with its top-mounted wing and fixed landing gear, is prized for its durability and its ability to take off and land on short runways. Production of the planes originally ended in the 1980s. Another Canadian company, Viking Air, brought the model back into production in 2010.

India's Enforcement Directorate on Monday arrested Delhi's Health Minister Satyendar Jain in an alleged money laundering case. Sources said that Jain was involved in alleged "hawala transactions" linked to a Kolkata-based company. Also read: FM Momen rues long delay in Teesta deal with India "He will be produced in a court and the Directorate will seek his custody for interrogation," sources said. Jain also holds the additional portfolio of Delhi's home department and is a prominent face of Delhi's ruling Aam Aadmi Party. Also read: 7 soldiers killed in India road accident

The World Bank will disburse approximately 700 million U.S. dollars to Sri Lanka within the next few months, Sri Lanka's foreign minister announced on Monday. This pledge was made when the World Bank's Country Manager in Colombo Chiyo Kanda talked to Sri Lankan Minister of Foreign Affairs G.L. Peiris. During the meeting, the minister sought assistance from the World Bank until long term assistance materializes through the International Monetary Fund, other international institutions and donor countries. The minister stated that short term financial assistance from the World Bank would be appreciated until sustainable solutions are found. Also Read: Sri Lanka’s prime minister tackles thorny finances, economy The World Bank country manager said that her office is also working with other organizations such as the Asian Development Bank, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, and the UN office, encouraging them to "re-purpose" their already committed projects to help the people of Sri Lanka at this difficult time. Sri Lanka is facing a severe foreign currency shortage which has created problems in importing essential items. 

Shanghai will relax the curbs on entering or leaving residential compounds, resume public transport services and ease rules on private cars on roads, local authorities said Monday. The new rules will be put into effect starting Wednesday as the city's COVID-19 situation has been effectively curbed, according to a statement by Shanghai municipal leading group for COVID-19 prevention and control. Also read: N. Korea moves to soften curbs amid doubts over COVID counts No restrictions should be put on residents entering or leaving residential compounds except for those in middle and high risk areas and areas put under COVID-19 restrictions, the statement said. Shanghai will also essentially resume public transport services, including buses, rail transport and ferries, in the city, according to the statement. Taxis and online-hailing services will resume business and private cars will be allowed on roads, except for those in middle and high risk areas and areas put under COVID-19 restrictions, it said. Also read: India records 2,710 new COVID-19 cases, 14 more deaths