United News of Bangladesh

Japan’s minister for gender equality and children’s issues called the country’s record low births and plunging population a national crisis and blamed “indifference and ignorance” in the male-dominated Japanese parliament for the neglect. In a wide-ranging interview with The Associated Press, Seiko Noda couched the steadily dwindling number of children born in Japan as an existential threat, saying the nation won’t have enough troops, police or firefighters in coming decades if it continues. The number of newborns last year was a record low 810,000, down from 2.7 million just after the end of World War II, she said. “People say that children are a national treasure. ... They say that women are important for gender equality. But they are just talking,” Noda, 61, told the AP in a Cabinet office in downtown Tokyo’s government complex. “The politics of Japan will not move unless (the problems of children and women) are made visible.” She said there are a variety of reasons for the low birthrate, persistent gender bias and population decline in Japan, “but being in the parliament, I especially feel that there is indifference and ignorance.” Read: Saudi crown prince: First EU visit since Khashoggi killing Japan is the world’s third biggest economy, a powerful democracy and a major U.S. ally, but the government has struggled to make society more inclusive for children, women and minorities. There are deep concerns, both within Japan and abroad, about how Japan will reverse what critics call a deep-seated history of male chauvinism that has contributed to the low birthrate. The gap between men and women in Japan is one of the world’s worst. It ranked 116th in a 146-nation survey by the World Economic Forum for 2022, which measured progress toward equality based on economic and political participation, as well as education, health and other opportunities for women. “Japan has fallen behind because other countries have been changing faster,” said Chizuko Ueno, a University of Tokyo professor of feminist studies, referring to Japan’s gender gap. “Past governments have neglected the problem.” Because of outdated social and legal systems surrounding family issues, younger generations are increasingly reluctant to get married and have children, contributing to the low birthrate and shrinking population, said Noda. She has served in parliament since 1993 and expressed her ambition to be Japan’s first female prime minister. Noda criticized a law requiring married couples to choose one family name — 90% of the time it is the women who change their surnames — saying it’s the only such legislation in the world. “In Japan, women are underestimated in many ways,” said Noda, who is one of only two women in the 20-member Cabinet. “I just want women to be on equal footing with men. But we are not there yet, and the further advancement of women still has to wait.” The more powerful lower house of Japan’s two-chamber parliament is more than 90% “people who do not menstruate, do not get pregnant and cannot breastfeed,” Noda said. The lack of female representation is often referred to as “democracy without women.” A quota system could help increase the number of female candidates for political office, Noda said, but male lawmakers have criticized her proposal, saying women should be judged by their abilities. “That made me think that there are men who lack the ability” to be candidates, she said. But during the candidate selection process, “men can just be men, and I guess, for them, just being male can be considered their ability.” Noda graduated from Sophia University in Tokyo and worked at the prestigious Imperial Hotel in Tokyo before she entered politics, succeeding her grandfather, who was a parliamentarian in Gifu prefecture. Noda had her first child, who is disabled, at age 50 after fertility treatments. She supports same-sex marriage and acceptance of sexual diversity. Noda, who has many liberal supporters, called herself “an endangered species” in her conservative Liberal Democratic Party, which has governed Japan with little interruption since the end of the war. She said she is frequently “bashed” by conservatives in the party, but also by women’s rights activists, who don’t see her as an authentic feminist. Read: Russia to drop out of International Space Station after 2024 Still, without the help of powerful male lawmakers in the party she could not have come this far, Chiyako Sato, a Mainichi newspaper editorial writer, said in her recent article. Comparing Noda and her ultra-conservative and hawkish female rival Sanae Takaichi who both ran unsuccessfully in the September party leadership race, Sato said despite their different political views, they are similar “perhaps they had no other way but win powerful male lawmakers’ backing to advance in the Liberal Democratic Party at a time women are not considered full fledged humans.” Japan’s Self Defense Force, she said, has had trouble getting enough troops because of the shrinking younger population. She said there’s also not enough attention paid to what the dwindling numbers will mean for police and firefighters, who rely on young recruits. To try to address the problems, she has created a new government agency dedicated to children set to be launched next year. Younger male politicians in recent years have become more open to gender equality, a reflection, in part, of the growing number of children who are being raised by working parents, Noda said. But many male lawmakers, she said, think that issues around families, gender and population don’t concern them, and are reluctant to get involved. “The policies have been made as if there were no women or children,” she said.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman arrived in Greece Tuesday on his first trip to a European Union country since the killing in 2018 of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi that triggered widespread international condemnation. Bin Salman, who is traveling with a large government and business delegation, met with Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and will attend the signing of a series of bilateral investment and defense agreements. Khashoggi, a U.S.-based journalist, was killed at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul and his body was dismembered with a bone saw, according to Turkish officials. A U.S. intelligence report, made public last year, said the crown prince likely approved the killing but he has denied any involvement. Greece has forged close ties with Saudi Arabia in recent years as it seeks allies in the wider region to address long-standing tension with neighbor Turkey, mostly over sea boundaries and drilling rights. Last year, Greece and Saudi Arabia held joint military exercises out of the Greek island of Crete, and Athens lent the kingdom a missile battery from its Patriot air defense system. The two countries are also planning a data cable link worth a reported 800 million euros that would run under the Mediterranean Sea and be completed in 2025. Read: Jamal Khashoggi killing: Rights group files complaint against Saudi crown prince The Saudi Prince’s trip to Greece follows his meeting earlier with month in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, with President Joe Biden. Mitsotakis visited Saudi Arabia last October and met the crown prince who also later received visits from French President Emmanuel Macron and the outgoing British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

The Iranian police have seized 697 kg of illicit drugs and killed six armed smugglers in an operation in the southern province of Kerman, provincial police chief Abdolreza Nazeri said on Tuesday. Additionally, three assault rifles and large quantities of ammunition were discovered from the smugglers, Nazeri was quoted as saying by state TV. In the operation, one police officer was killed and five others were injured by the armed drug traffickers, he added. Iran has been suffering from drug trafficking given its location at the crossroads of international drug smuggling from Afghanistan to Europe. Read: Woman held for drug trafficking in DU Over the past few decades, Iran's eastern and southeastern borders have seen deadly clashes between Iranian security forces and armed drug smugglers. Unx4 Armed assailants kill 6 at Mexico rehab center.

International outrage over Myanmar's execution of four political prisoners intensified Tuesday with grassroots protests and strong condemnation from world governments, as well as fears the hangings could derail nascent attempts to bring an end to the violence and unrest that has beset the Southeast Asian nation since the military seized power last year. Myanmar's military-led government that seized power from elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021 has been accused of thousands of extrajudicial killings since then, but the hangings announced Monday were the country's first official executions in decades. “We feel that this is a crime against humanity,” said Malaysian Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah, speaking at the side of the United Nations' Special Envoy on Myanmar Noeleen Heyzer at a press conference in Kuala Lumpur. He said the executions would be a focus of the upcoming meetings of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations foreign ministers, which begin in Cambodia in a week. Myanmar is a member of the influential ASEAN group, which has been trying to implement a five-point consensus it reached on Myanmar last year calling for dialogue among all concerned parties, provision of humanitarian assistance, an immediate cessation of violence and a visit by a special envoy to meet all parties. With the executions, he said, “we look at it as if the junta is making a mockery of the five point process.” Heyzer said that the U.N. sees the executions as a “blatant violation” of a person's “right to life, liberty and security." In Bangkok, hundreds of pro-democracy demonstrators protested outside neighboring Myanmar's embassy, waving flags and chanting slogans amid a heavy downpour. Read:Myanmar executes NLD lawmaker, 3 other political opponents “The dictators used their power arbitrarily,” yelled a young man through a bullhorn to the crowd, some of whom waved pictures of Suu Kyi or the four executed men. “We can't tolerate this any more.” Among the four executed was Phyo Zeya Thaw, a 41-year-old former lawmaker from Suu Kyi’s party, and Kyaw Min Yu, a 53-year-old democracy activist better known as Ko Jimmy. All were tried, convicted and sentenced by a military tribunal with no possibility of appeal. The executions were carried out over the weekend, and came as a surprise even to family members. Phyo Zeya Thaw's mother Khin Win May told The Associated Press she had just spoken with her son via video conference on Friday and he had asked her for reading glasses, books and some spending money. “I was a little shocked when I heard about the execution, I think it will take some time,” she said. She said she hoped her son and the others would be seen as martyrs for their cause. “I'm proud of all of them as they sacrificed their lives for the country," she said. The execution of the four activists prompted immediate calls from around the world for a moratorium on carrying out any further sentences, and condemnation for what was broadly seen as a politically motivated move. Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, announced in June that it was going to resume executing prisoners and has 113 others who have been sentenced to death, although 41 of those were convicted in absentia, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a non-governmental organization that tracks killing and arrests. At the same time, 2,120 civilians have been killed by security forces since the military takeover. “This was a barbaric act by Myanmar's military regime,” said New Zealand's Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta of the four executions carried out. “New Zealand condemns these actions in the strongest possible terms.” Australia's Foreign Minister Penny Wong said she was “appalled” by the executions. “Australia opposes the death penalty in all circumstances for all people,” she said. Earlier, Australia and New Zealand had joined the European Union, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Norway and South Korea in a joint statement condemning the executions. ASEAN denounced the executions as “highly reprehensible.” It said the move represented a setback to the group's efforts to facilitate a dialogue between the military leadership and opponents. “We strongly and urgently call on all parties concerned to desist from taking actions that would only further aggravate the crisis, hinder peaceful dialogue among all parties concerned, and endanger peace, security and stability, not only in Myanmar, but the whole region,” the group said in a statement. The military’s seizure of power from Suu Kyi’s elected government triggered peaceful protests that soon escalated to armed resistance and then to widespread fighting that some U.N. experts characterize as a civil war. Some resistance groups have engaged in assassinations, drive-by shootings and bombings in urban areas. Mainstream opposition organizations generally disavow such activities, while supporting armed resistance in rural areas that are more often subject to brutal military attacks. News of the executions prompted a flash-demonstration Monday in Myanmar’s largest city, Yangon, where about a dozen protesters took to the streets marching behind a banner saying “we are never afraid,” then quickly slipping away before authorities could confront them. Similar demonstrations broke out in more rural areas across Myanmar on both Monday and Tuesday. The last judicial execution to be carried out in Myanmar is generally believed to have been of another political offender, student leader Salai Tin Maung Oo, in 1976 under a previous military government led by dictator Ne Win. All four executed men had been accused of violent anti-government acts, charges which were denied by their defenders.

At least 28 people have died and 60 others became ill from drinking altered liquor in western India, officials said Tuesday. Senior government official Mukesh Parmar said the deaths occurred in Ahmedabad and Botad districts of Gujarat state, where manufacturing, sale and consumption of liquor are prohibited. It was not immediately known what chemical was used to alter the liquor. Ashish Gupta, Gujarat state's police chief, said several suspected bootleggers who were involved in selling the spiked alcohol have been detained. Read: 8 killed in India road crash Deaths from illegally brewed alcohol are common in India, where illicit liquor is cheap and often spiked with chemicals such as pesticides to increase potency. Illicit liquor has also become a hugely profitable industry across India where bootleggers pay no taxes and sell enormous quantities of their product to the poor at a cheap rate. In 2020, at least 120 people died after drinking tainted liquor in India’s northern Punjab state.

India's daily caseload further slipped to 14,830 on Tuesday, officials said. According to health ministry data released on Tuesday morning, 14,830 new cases of COVID-19 were reported during the past 24 hours, taking the total tally to 43,920,451 in the South Asian country. The new cases reported on Tuesday mark a decrease from the Monday daily caseload of 16,866. With the reporting of fresh cases, the number of active cases currently stands at 147,512 in India. The country also logged 36 new deaths due to COVID-19, bringing the death toll to 526,110 since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, the ministry said. With the increase in cases, the daily positivity rate stood at 3.48 percent and the weekly positivity rate was recorded at 4.53 percent, the ministry data showed. The ministry said that so far 43,246,829 COVID-19 cases have been cured and discharged from hospitals in the country, including 18,159 new recoveries. According to the health ministry, the cumulative COVID-19 vaccination coverage in the country has exceeded 2 billion vaccine doses as 2,025,057,717 doses have been administered until Tuesday morning. Read: From Dec, only Covid booster dose will be available in Bangladesh So far over 873 million COVID-19 tests have been conducted across the country, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said on Tuesday. Out of them 426,102 tests were conducted on Monday. The Indian government said recently that an estimated 40 million eligible people in the country have failed to take a single dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. The government is currently focusing efforts on promoting booster doses as the uptake for the third dose has been low. Last week the Indian government said that given the emergence of COVID-19 sub-variants with variable transmissibility and other public health implications, the health ministry was closely following the COVID-19 trajectory globally and in the country. Local governments in various states have issued advisories urging people to wear face masks and follow COVID-19 protocols at mass gatherings in the wake of an increase in daily infections.

At least 30 passengers were killed and several others injured on Sunday evening when their bus fell off a bridge and plunged into a river along the highway in Tharaka Nithi, Kenya, local police said. The bus, traveling from Meru town to the coastal city of Mombasa, plunged into the Nithi River about 40 meters below along the Meru-Nairobi highway at around 6:40 p.m. (1540 GMT), Eastern Regional Police Commander Rono Bunei said on Monday. Bunei said the bus must have developed brake failure because it was at a very high speed when the accident happened. Also read: 22 killed in Egypt traffic accident The wreckage of the bus could be seen strewn on the hillside near the black spot. Alex Mugambi, Tharaka Nithi County Rescue team manager, said the death toll may rise. The accident is among a series of deadly crashes in the country. On July 8, more than 20 passengers were killed in an accident along the Nairobi-Mombasa highway. Also read: 13 killed in India bus accident

Sri Lanka on Monday reopened government-owned public and state-approved private schools, which were closed for nearly a month due to fuel shortages. However, schools will be open only three days a week on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday, and students will be taught online on the other two days of the school week. The Ministry of Education also extended the first school term until September 7. Also read: Sri Lanka: The state strikes back Schools will also not conduct examinations at the end of the first term, and principals have been instructed to conduct alternative forms of evaluation. Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe has instructed officials to provide fuel to school buses from all state-run fuel depots. There are close to 40,000 vehicles that are engaged in transporting students to schools in Sri Lanka.  Also read: Group seeks ex-Sri Lankan president's arrest in Singapore

Eight people were killed and over 30 others injured after a double-decker bus crashed into another in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh on Monday. The accident occurred on the Purvanchal Expressway near Narayan Pur village in the state's Barabanki district, some 600 kms from the national capital. Police said both the ill-fated buses were travelling to Delhi from the eastern Indian state of Bihar when the tragedy occurred. "When one of the buses stopped suddenly in the middle of the high-speed corridor, the second one hit it from behind at cruise speed," a police officer told the local media. Read: India's top court frees leading Muslim journo The impact of the crash was such that eight passengers of the buses died on the spot, he said, adding that the injured were rushed to nearby hospitals. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath took to social media to express his grief and extend condolences to the families of the deceased. "A probe has been ordered into the crash," the police officer said. Road accidents are common in India, with one taking place every four minutes. These accidents are blamed on poor roads, rash driving and scant regard for traffic laws.  The Indian government's implementation of stricter traffic laws in recent years has failed to rein in accidents, which claim over 100,000 lives every year.

Myanmar's government announced Monday it had carried out its first executions in nearly 50 years, hanging a former National League for Democracy lawmaker, a democracy activist and two men accused of violence after the country's takeover by the military last year. The executions, detailed in the state-run Mirror Daily newspaper, were carried out despite worldwide pleas for clemency for the four political prisoners, including from United Nations experts and Cambodia, which holds the rotating chairmanship of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. The four were executed “in accordance with legal procedures” for directing and organizing "violent and inhuman accomplice acts of terrorist killings,” the newspaper reported. It did not say when the executions were carried out. The military government issued a brief statement confirming the report while the prison where the men had been held and the prison department refused comment. Aung Myo Min, human rights minister for the National Unity Government, a shadow civilian administration established outside Myanmar after the military seized power in February 2021, rejected the allegations the men were involved in violence. “Punishing them with death is a way to rule the public through fear,” he told The Associated Press. Among those executed was Phyo Zeya Thaw, a former lawmaker from ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, also known as Maung Kyaw, who was convicted in January by a closed military court of offenses involving explosives, bombings and financing terrorism. His wife, Thazin Nyunt Aung, told the AP she had not been informed his execution had been carried out. “I am still trying to confirm it myself,” she said.