United News of Bangladesh

A section of road in Bangkok collapsed on Wednesday, creating a massive sinkhole that disrupted traffic, damaged infrastructure, and forced evacuations in the surrounding area. No casualties were reported, though three vehicles were damaged in the incident, Bangkok Governor Chadchart Sittipunt said. He noted that preliminary findings suggest ongoing construction work at an underground train station caused the collapse. Dramatic footage showed the road gradually sinking, pulling down several electricity poles and rupturing water pipes. Cars were seen hastily reversing as the sinkhole widened, eventually cutting off the four-lane roadway. One side of the collapse ended at the entrance of a police station, exposing its underground foundation. Authorities evacuated people from the police station and nearby buildings as a precaution. A hospital in the vicinity announced closure of its outpatient services for two days, although city officials confirmed the facility’s structure was not compromised. Power and water supplies in the area were cut off to reduce risks. Governor Chadchart said repair crews are working to fill and stabilize the sinkhole as quickly as possible, warning that heavy rains during Bangkok’s ongoing monsoon season — which typically lasts from May to October — could worsen the situation.

The crash of a small plane in southwestern Brazil killed four people including Chinese landscape architect and urban planner Yu Kongjian, Brazilian authorities said Wednesday. The accident happened late Tuesday during a landing attempt at a large farm about 100 kilometers (60 miles) from the municipality of Aquidauana in Mato Grosso do Sul state, firefighters said. Yu, who was known for promoting ecologically sound development, was traveling with two Brazilian documentary makers, Luiz Fernando Feres da Cunha Ferraz and Rubens Crispim Jr., who were making a film about the Pantanal wetlands. All three were killed along with pilot Marcelo Pereira de Barros, authorities said. Yu was know for developing the concept of “ sponge cities, ” with infrastructure that can absorb rainwater to mitigate flood risks and improve the urban climate. “In times of climate change," Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva wrote on social media, “Yu became a global reference with his sponge cities, which unite quality of life and environmental protection.” Yu argued that by creating large spaces to hold water in city centers, such as parks and ponds, extreme rainfall can be absorbed, helping prevent floods. The idea is widely cited in Chinese urban planning, and in recent years Yu worked on projects in other countries including Saudi Arabia and Thailand. He was known for his “notable contributions to sustainable urbanism, the preservation of biodiversity, and the protection of the planet,” Brazil’s Vice President Geraldo Alckmin said on X, adding that Yu’s legacy will continue to inspire those dedicated to ecological cause. Yu founded the College of Architecture and Landscape at Peking University, one of China’s most prestigious universities. The university did not respond a request for comment. The military fire department in Aquidauana was called at around 8:10 p.m. local time on Tuesday to respond to a plane crash, firefighters said. A search and rescue operation lasted approximately nine hours. Yu and the filmmakers were part of a team producing a documentary about the world’s largest tropical wetlands. The Pantanal, fed by tributaries of the Paraguay River and mostly located in Brazil, is a biodiversity hotspot and a popular destination for tourists to see jaguars, macaws, caimans, capybaras and migratory birds in the wild. In an interview with The Associated Press in 2022, Yu criticized much of Asia’s modern infrastructure for being built on ideas imported from Europe, which he said are ill-fitted to the monsoon climate that prevails over much of the continent.

Authorities in India imposed strict security measures in two key districts of the remote Ladakh region on Thursday, a day after violent clashes left four people dead and dozens injured. The unrest erupted during protests demanding greater autonomy from the Indian government. Officials banned gatherings of more than five people in Leh and Kargil districts. Hundreds of police and paramilitary personnel patrolled the streets, while shops and businesses remained closed amid heightened restrictions. The clashes began Wednesday when protesters threw stones at officers attempting to stop them from marching in the high-altitude town of Leh. Demonstrators also set fire to police and paramilitary vehicles, as well as the local office of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and other government buildings, according to police. Security forces responded with bullets, tear gas, and batons, resulting in four deaths and dozens of injuries. Ladakh, located between India, Pakistan, and China, was separated from Indian-controlled Kashmir in 2019 when New Delhi revoked the region’s statehood and semi-autonomy. While Kashmir has largely been silenced through a crackdown on dissent and new laws, calls for political rights in Ladakh have grown in recent years. The protests are part of a broader movement in the federally administered region seeking statehood and constitutional provisions to gain control over land and agriculture policies. Wednesday’s unrest followed a local call for a strike after two residents collapsed during a hunger strike organized by more than a dozen people advocating for statehood. India’s Home Ministry said police acted in “self-defense” and blamed the violence on “provocative speeches” by climate activist Sonam Wangchuk, who led the hunger strike since Sept. 10. Wangchuk called off the protest after the clashes. The violence marked the most severe unrest in Ladakh in decades, reflecting growing frustration with New Delhi’s policies. Initial optimism over the 2019 changes has given way to fears of land grabs, economic disruption, and environmental damage. Ladakh’s villages, sparsely populated and prone to territorial disputes, are also facing climate challenges, including floods, landslides, and drought. The region’s thousands of glaciers are receding rapidly, threatening water supplies, while militarization since 2020 — following a deadly standoff between India and China — has worsened environmental degradation. A new round of talks between Ladakh representatives and Indian officials is scheduled for October 6.  

At least 24 people, including women and children, were killed in a series of explosions in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Monday, sparking widespread calls for an investigation. The blasts occurred in the remote Tirah Valley. Police initially said the explosions were caused by bomb-making material stored at a Pakistan Taliban (TTP) compound, killing both fighters and civilians. However, opposition leaders and local officials alleged that Pakistani warplanes carried out overnight air raids as part of a counterterrorism operation targeting militants in the mountainous region bordering Afghanistan. No official statement has yet been issued by the government or the military. Local police officer Zafar Khan told the Associated Press that 10 civilians — including women and children — were among the dead, along with at least 14 TTP fighters, two of them senior commanders. The outlawed TTP, separate from but ideologically linked to the Afghan Taliban, has waged an armed insurgency against the Pakistani state since 2007. Security forces frequently conduct operations against the group in Khyber, Bajaur and other tribal districts. ‘Attack on civilians’ Iqbal Afridi, an opposition lawmaker representing Tirah in Pakistan’s National Assembly, told AFP that Pakistani forces carried out the air strikes. Another provincial legislator, Sohail Khan Afridi, echoed the claim during a session of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly, saying: “This assault by the security forces is nothing less than an attack on unarmed civilians.” Both leaders are members of jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s party, which currently governs the province. Provincial assembly speaker Babar Saleem Swati also accused the military of aerial bombardment, saying civilians were killed and homes destroyed. Writing on X, he warned the bloodshed would have “negative consequences for the future of the country,” and urged federal and provincial authorities to launch a transparent inquiry and compensate affected families. Human rights concerns The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) expressed alarm at the reported deaths. “We are deeply shocked to learn that children and civilians were killed in the attack,” the rights body said in a statement. “We demand that the authorities conduct an immediate and impartial inquiry and hold those responsible to account. The state is constitutionally bound to protect the right to life of all civilians, which it has repeatedly failed to do.” Source: Agency

Thousands were evacuated, schools and offices closed, and flights cancelled in the northern Philippines and Taiwan on Monday as Super Typhoon Ragasa, one of this year’s strongest storms, barreled toward southeastern China. The typhoon, packing sustained winds of 215 kph and gusts of up to 295 kph, struck Panuitan island in Cagayan province on Monday afternoon, Philippine forecasters said. Classified as a super typhoon due to its strength, Ragasa is expected to remain over the South China Sea until midweek, passing south of Taiwan and Hong Kong before hitting China’s mainland. The Philippine weather bureau warned of storm surges over three meters in low-lying coastal areas, while power outages hit Calayan island and Apayao province. More than 8,200 people were evacuated in Cagayan, while President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. ordered work and classes suspended across northern Luzon, including the capital Manila. Flights and ferries were suspended, and fishing boats ordered to stay in port. Despite widespread disruption, no casualties were immediately reported. In Taiwan, closures were declared in Taitung and Pingtung counties, with flights and ferries to outlying islands cancelled. In China, authorities suspended 50 ferry routes in Fujian province, while Shenzhen prepared to relocate 400,000 residents and suspend flights from Tuesday night. Hong Kong and Macao announced school closures, flight cancellations, and flood precautions. China’s National Meteorological Center said Ragasa could make multiple landfalls in Guangdong province, bringing torrential rain, strong winds, and possible flooding.

Gunmen shot and killed three transgender women on the outskirts of Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, before fleeing the scene, police said Monday, underscoring the dangers faced by the community across the country. The victims’ bodies were found on a roadside Sunday. All three were shot at close range and the victims were later buried in a local graveyard, senior police official Javed Abro said. The motive was not immediately clear and a hunt was underway to trace and arrest the killers, Abro said. Israeli strikes kill at least 25 family members in Gaza City homes Sindh Province Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah, condemned the killings and ordered a probe. “Transgenders are an oppressed section of society,” he said, vowing that those behind the attack would be arrested. Members of the transgender community staged a protest Sunday outside Karachi’s state-run Jinnah Hospital, where the bodies were taken for autopsy. They warned of nationwide demonstrations if the killers were not brought to justice. Transgender rights activist Bindiya Rana told The Associated Press on Monday that violence against the community “is not new and it is deeply embedded in our society.” “If the police fail to identify the killers, we will announce a countrywide protest,” she said. Drone strike on Sudan Mosque kills at least 70, army blames paramilitary group The Gender Interactive Alliance, a local rights group, identified the victims as Karachi residents who earned their livelihood by begging. The group also pointed to a separate knife attack two days earlier that critically wounded another transgender woman at Karachi’s Sea View Beach. “These back-to-back tragedies show that the community is being systematically targeted. This is not just about individual killings, it is an attempt to terrorize and silence an entire community,” the alliance said, demanding immediate arrests, a dedicated protection unit for transgender persons and greater solidarity from civil society. Transgender people in Pakistan, a Muslim-majority nation, often are subjected to abuse. They also are among the victims of so-called honor killings carried out by relatives to punish perceived sexual transgressions. Pakistan’s Supreme Court has recognized transgender people as a third gender, which in theory affords them legal protection, but discrimination remains rampant. Pakistan's parliament in 2018 passed a law to secure fundamental rights for transgender people, including legal gender recognition, yet activists say social stigma and violence persist.

Philippine police arrested 49 people suspected of hurling rocks, bottles and fire bombs at officers and blocking heavily guarded roads and bridges leading to the presidential palace Sunday while a peaceful anti-corruption rally took place in the capital, officials and witnesses said. The melee outside the country’s seat of power unfolded while more than 33,000 other protesters rallied in a historic park and a democracy monument in Manila. They expressed outrage over a corruption scandal involving lawmakers, officials and construction company owners who allegedly pocketed huge kickbacks from flood-control projects in the impoverished Southeast Asian country that is regularly buffeted by storms and typhoons. The hourslong rampage by about 100 mostly club-wielding people, some of whom waved Philippine flags and displayed carton posters with anti-corruption slogans, wounded about 70 Manila law enforcers, according to the Manila police. Schools were canceled due to the violence. Police said they lobbed tear gas to try to disperse the attackers, who sprayed graffiti on walls, toppled steel posts, shattered glass panels and ransacked the lobby of a budget inn along a popular road dotted with university campuses, banks and restaurants before dispersing at night. Hours after the assault, police have yet to identify the attackers, some of whom carried black flags with the caricature of a skull and crossbones. It was also unclear if they had earlier participated in the peaceful protests before heading toward the presidential office. It was not immediately known if President Marcos Jr. was in the Malacanang presidential palace during the chaos. Police said in a statement after the arrests that the situation was “contained” but warned that violence and vandalism would not be tolerated. Protesting corruption “I feel bad that we wallow in poverty and we lose our homes, our lives and our future while they rake in a big fortune from our taxes that pay for their luxury cars, foreign trips and bigger corporate transactions,” student activist Althea Trinidad told The Associated Press in Manila. Trinidad lives in Bulacan, a flood-prone province north of Manila where officials said the most flood-control projects were being investigated either as substandard or nonexistent. “Our purpose is not to destabilize but to strengthen our democracy,” Cardinal Pablo Virgilio David, the head of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, said in a statement. He called on the public to demonstrate peacefully and demand accountability. Marcos first highlighted the flood-control corruption scandal in July in his annual state of the nation speech. He later established an independent commission to investigate what he said were anomalies in many of the 9,855 flood-control projects worth more than 545 billion pesos ($9.5 billion) that were supposed to have been undertaken since he took office in mid-2022. He called the scale of corruption “horrible” and accepted his public works secretary's resignation. Public outrage erupted when a wealthy couple who ran several construction companies that won lucrative flood-control project contracts showed dozens of European and American luxury cars they owned during media interviews. The fleet included a British luxury car costing 42 million pesos ($737,000) that they said they bought because it came with a free umbrella.  

Philippine police on Sunday arrested 17 people who burned tires on a barricade truck and hurled rocks at riot officers near the presidential palace, even as thousands of others staged largely peaceful anti-corruption rallies across Manila. The clashes triggered a brief lockdown at the Malacanang presidential palace, where access roads were blocked by security forces. Police later said the situation was “contained” but warned that violence and vandalism would not be tolerated. The arrested group, many dressed in black and masked, acted separately from the estimated 18,000 demonstrators who marched peacefully at Manila’s Rizal Park and along the EDSA Democracy Shrine. Later, some protesters sprayed graffiti and waved Philippine flags near the palace, prompting police to fire tear gas and make further arrests. The rallies were fueled by public outrage over a massive flood-control corruption scandal, in which lawmakers, officials and contractors allegedly siphoned off billions of pesos from projects meant to protect poor, flood-prone communities. “Our purpose is not to destabilize but to strengthen democracy,” Cardinal Pablo Virgilio David, head of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference, said in a statement urging calm and accountability. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has acknowledged “horrible” irregularities in more than 9,800 flood-control projects worth $9.5 billion since 2022. The scandal has already forced the resignation of his public works secretary, while Senate President Francis Escudero and House Speaker Martin Romualdez also stepped down amid mounting revelations.

The Taliban government on Sunday dismissed U.S. President Donald Trump’s suggestion that Washington could retake Bagram Air Base, four years after America’s withdrawal handed the facility over to Taliban control. Trump recently hinted that the Taliban, facing economic woes, a lack of international recognition, internal tensions and threats from rival militant groups, might allow the U.S. military back into Afghanistan. However, Taliban chief spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid rejected the claim, urging the U.S. to act with “realism and rationality.” Posting on X, Mujahid said Afghanistan was pursuing an economy-driven foreign policy and sought constructive ties with all countries on the basis of mutual interests. He stressed that Afghanistan’s independence and territorial integrity had been repeatedly emphasized in all negotiations with the U.S. Mujahid also reminded Washington of its commitment under the 2020 Doha Agreement not to use or threaten force against Afghanistan or interfere in its internal affairs. “The United States must remain faithful to its commitments,” he said. Mujahid did not respond to AP questions about whether any discussions on Bagram had taken place with the Trump administration or why Trump believed such a move was possible. In August 2024, the Taliban marked the third anniversary of their return to power with a military display at Bagram, showcasing abandoned U.S. equipment. Trump has since repeatedly criticized his predecessor Joe Biden for what he called “gross incompetence” during the chaotic 2021 withdrawal that ended America’s longest war.

The United States has said the people of Nepal deserve a "hopeful future" focused on advancing economic growth, strengthening regional security, and promoting prosperity for all. "We extend our congratulations to the people of Nepal on this day and look forward to continuing close cooperation with Nepal in promoting stability in South Asia and contributing to a safer and more secure world," US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a press statement marking Nepal's Constitution Day. On behalf of the government of the United States of America, he congratulated the people of Nepal as they celebrate Nepal’s Constitution Day on September 19. Rubio said the United States supports the Nepali people’s aspirations for a transparent government that adheres to the country’s Constitution, which is essential for achieving a democratic solution as they prepare for elections in the coming months. Nepal PM appoints three new ministers ahead of March Elections The United States joined the people of Nepal in mourning the loss of life and extends our condolences to the families of those killed and injured in recent protests. The Millennium Challenge Corporation Compact will support the expansion of Nepal’s transportation and energy infrastructure, create jobs, and drive long-term economic growth while strengthening the U.S.-Nepal partnership and creating business opportunities for American companies, said the US Secretary of State.