United News of Bangladesh

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith have signed a memorandum of understanding to advance a pipeline project linking Alberta’s oil reserves to the Pacific Coast, a move that could lead to easing a longstanding tanker ban off British Columbia. Carney’s backing for the plan triggered turmoil within his government and prompted the resignation of cabinet minister Steven Guilbeault, a former environment minister and lifelong environmental advocate who had been serving as culture minister. He said he could not support a project that might cross the Great Bear Rainforest and increase the risk of coastal tanker spills, though he will continue as a Liberal MP. Carney said he respected Guilbeault’s decision to remain in Parliament, adding that Canada must diversify its export markets as U.S. tariffs continue to unsettle investors. He has set a target to double non-U.S. exports within a decade. Alberta’s premier said the initiative could open access to more than one million barrels of oil per day for Asian markets, reducing Canada’s reliance on the United States. Carney echoed that view, saying the country’s once-beneficial economic interdependence with the U.S. has become a vulnerability, with more than 95 percent of Canadian energy exports currently going south. He said the agreement is only the start of a process and stressed the need for a private-sector partner to make the pipeline viable. The framework also calls for engaging British Columbia, where coastal First Nations and environmental groups have long opposed oil tankers. Former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau approved one major Alberta-to-B.C. pipeline in 2016, but the federal government had to build it amid legal challenges and resistance. Trudeau rejected a separate proposal, the Northern Gateway project, which would have carried over half a million barrels a day through the Great Bear Rainforest. British Columbia Premier David Eby criticized the new pipeline push, saying lifting the tanker ban would undermine existing coastal projects and agreements with First Nations. He noted that no company is currently backing the proposal, calling it a “distraction.” Coastal First Nations President Marilyn Slett said the communities have “zero interest” in co-owning or benefiting from a project that threatens their territory and way of life. The agreement links the pipeline initiative with a proposed carbon capture project, and federal and provincial officials say both must proceed together. Ottawa and Alberta will work with companies to identify new emissions-reduction projects by April 1, with rollout beginning in 2027.  

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko arrived in Myanmar on a goodwill visit, state media reported Friday, becoming only the second foreign leader to set foot in the country since the military seized power in 2021. The trip comes weeks before a national election widely dismissed by critics as neither free nor fair. Lukashenko’s presence is seen by opponents of the junta as offering symbolic backing to the polls. Belarus has emerged as one of the junta’s strongest supporters after the military takeover, alongside China and Russia. Senior Gen Min Aung Hlaing, who heads Myanmar’s military government, has visited Belarus twice this year. Both countries are seen internationally as authoritarian regimes. Myanmar’s generals remain heavily sanctioned and isolated by Western nations for removing the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021 and for the widespread human rights abuses committed during the crackdown on anti-junta resistance. The only other foreign leader to visit Myanmar since the coup was Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen in 2022, when he chaired the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. According to the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar, Lukashenko landed Thursday night at Naypyitaw’s military airport, where Prime Minister Nyo Saw and other senior officials received him with full state honors, including cultural performances. The report said Lukashenko is expected to meet Min Aung Hlaing for talks on expanding cooperation across multiple sectors. Both sides are set to sign agreements and memorandums of understanding during the visit. During Min Aung Hlaing’s March trip to Belarus, Lukashenko pledged to support the upcoming election and said he would send observers to monitor it. Rights groups and opposition forces have criticized the election as an attempt to legitimize military rule. Several armed resistance groups have vowed to disrupt the vote. Justice For Myanmar, a rights organization that tracks the junta’s financial and military networks, said Belarus has supplied arms, equipment and training that strengthen Myanmar’s defense capabilities and its domestic weapons production. It said transfers have included air defense command systems, radar technology and ground-based missile systems.  

A senior Kremlin official on Wednesday confirmed that U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff will visit Moscow next week as efforts to find a resolution to the nearly four-year war in Ukraine gain momentum. Yuri Ushakov, foreign affairs adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin, said Kremlin officials have not officially received the U.S. peace proposal, although they have reviewed a copy obtained through informal channels. Earlier this week, representatives from the United States, Russia, and Ukraine held discussions in the United Arab Emirates. “Contact is ongoing, including by phone, but no one has yet discussed the plan point by point,” Ushakov told Russian state media. Ukrainian officials did not confirm whether U.S. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, recently active in peace efforts, would visit Kyiv, as indicated by U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday. Trump’s peace plan, made public last week, appeared heavily focused on Russian demands. After U.S.-Ukraine talks in Geneva over the weekend, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the plan as “workable,” though key details remain unresolved. Zelenskyy hopes to meet with Trump in the coming days. Witkoff has been involved in guiding Russian officials on presenting the peace plan. Trump described this approach as standard negotiation procedure, emphasizing that a deal requires selling the plan to both Ukraine and Russia. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov downplayed the leaked call but warned that many actors could attempt to disrupt peace efforts. Meanwhile, violence continued on the ground. Russian drones struck the southern city of Zaporizhzhia overnight, damaging over 50 residential buildings, including a university dormitory, and wounding at least 19 people, according to regional military chief Ivan Fedorov. Ukraine struck a missile component plant in Cheboksary, western Russia, while Russian air defenses shot down 33 Ukrainian drones over Russian territory and the Black Sea. European leaders have stressed the importance of their role in peace negotiations. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Europe seeks a swift end to the war and must have a say in any deal, while European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen emphasized that any settlement must include security guarantees for Ukraine and cannot limit its armed forces or NATO prospects. EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas expressed doubt over Russia’s readiness for talks and called for increased economic pressure, including sanctions and the seizure of Moscow’s frozen assets, to force genuine negotiations.  

Hong Kong’s worst fire in decades was still smoldering in several apartment towers Thursday as firefighters struggled to rescue dozens of people still unaccounted for. At least 55 people were known to have died in the blaze that broke out Wednesday at Wang Fuk Court in Taipo, a suburb in the city's mountainous New Territories. Dozens more were injured, and about 900 of the 4,800 residents were evacuated to temporary shelters overnight. Seven of the 32-story towers in the eight building complex were engulfed in flames after construction materials and bamboo scaffolding caught fire. Officials said that extreme heat was hampering rescue efforts. It's the deadliest fire in Hong Kong since November 1996, when 41 people died in a commercial building in Kowloon in a fire that lasted for around 20 hours. Here's what to know about the disaster: Why the buildings burst into flames Officials are investigating why construction materials, netting and bamboo scaffolding being used in renovations to the outsides of the high-rise buildings at Wang Fuk Court caught fire. In the meantime, authorities arrested three people, the directors and an engineering consultant of a construction company, on suspicion of manslaughter. Police did not name the company, but they searched the office of Prestige Construction & Engineering Co., which The Associated Press confirmed was in charge of the renovations. Phone calls to the company's offices went unanswered. Officials said they suspect that some materials, such as plastic foam panels being used to protect windows from damage, did not meet fire resistance standards. High winds helped spread the flames. The type of buildings affected About a third of Hong Kong residents live in the government's Housing Authority dwellings. Wang Fuk Court is a complex of privately-owned, but subsidized housing.

Authorities around the world have confiscated an average of nine tigers every month over the past five years, underscoring a rapidly worsening trafficking crisis that threatens one of the planet’s most iconic animals, according to new research released Tuesday. A report by the wildlife trade watchdog TRAFFIC says criminal networks involved in the tiger trade are evolving faster than global conservation efforts. The global wild tiger population, once about 100,000 a century ago, has now fallen to an estimated 3,700–5,500. Despite decades of international protection, TRAFFIC found that tiger trafficking is accelerating and is increasingly focused on whole animals, alive or dead. Experts believe the trend may be tied to captive-breeding facilities, but also to tigers being seized shortly after poaching or before being processed for their parts. Rising demand for exotic pets and taxidermy may also be driving the shift. The report — the sixth in TRAFFIC’s Skin and Bones series — shows stark patterns. Between 2000 and mid-2025, global authorities recorded 2,551 seizures involving at least 3,808 tigers. From 2020 to June 2025 alone, officials made 765 seizures, equal to 573 tigers — roughly nine each month. The worst year was 2019 with 141 seizures, followed by 139 in 2023. Most cases were recorded in the 13 countries with wild tiger populations, led by India, China, Indonesia and Vietnam. But nations without tigers — including Mexico, the U.S. and the U.K. — also reported significant numbers of incidents. Enforcement has improved, TRAFFIC noted, but so has the illegal trade. “This rise reflects improved enforcement efforts but also signals persistent and, in some areas, escalating criminal activity and a widespread demand for tigers and their parts,” said Ramacandra Wong, a senior wildlife crime analyst and co-author of the report. TRAFFIC’s analysis also shows a major shift: while tiger parts made up 90% of seized items in the 2000s, that share has dropped to 60% since 2020, with a sharp increase in whole carcasses and live animals. In countries such as Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia and Russia, more than 40% of seizures now involve whole tigers. The report identifies key hotspots where enforcement should be strengthened: tiger reserves in India and Bangladesh, Indonesia’s Aceh region, the Vietnam–Laos border, and Vietnam’s major consumption centers including Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. Nearly one in five tiger trafficking cases also involved other threatened species, particularly leopards, bears and pangolins — a trend the report calls “species convergence.” Demand also varies by region: in Mexico and the U.S., the market leans toward live tigers as exotic pets; in Europe, toward derivatives used in traditional remedies and decorative taxidermy; across Asia, demand includes skins, bones, claws and whole carcasses. The report urges that investigations go beyond seizures and calls for stronger international cooperation to dismantle criminal networks through intelligence-driven, multi-agency action. Leigh Henry, wildlife conservation director at WWF, told AP that the rise in whole-animal trafficking shows the significant role captive-breeding facilities play in sustaining illegal trade. “Illegal trade remains the greatest immediate threat to wild tigers,” she said. “If we don’t urgently scale up efforts to stop tiger trafficking at every point in the trade chain, we truly risk a future without wild tigers.”  

More than 20 people have died and 14 others are missing after days of heavy rain triggered landslides and flooding across Sri Lanka. Sri Lankan authorities have suspended passenger train services and shut down several roads as severe rainfall continues to unleash deadly landslides and floods, officials reported Thursday (November 27). According to the government’s disaster management center, 18 of the confirmed deaths were in the central highland districts of Badulla and Nuwara Eliya, well-known tea plantation areas located about 300 kilometers (186 miles) east of Colombo. Read more: Over 220 dead as floods and landslides devastate Northwest Pakistan The center also stated that 14 people remained unaccounted for Thursday following landslides in the same region. Since last week—when the country first began experiencing the intense weather—the overall death toll has climbed to 31. Torrential rains over the weekend inundated roads, farmland, and homes, causing widespread disruption. Train services in some mountainous areas were halted after landslides sent rocks, mud, and fallen trees onto rail lines. Local television footage showed crews working to clear the debris. Several roads were also closed because of deep flooding. Roughly 4,000 families have been affected by the severe weather, officials said. Read more: Tidal waters inundate low-lying areas as embankment collapses in Khulna

A court in Thailand said Wednesday that it has issued an arrest warrant for a co-owner of the Miss Universe Organization in connection with a fraud case. Jakkaphong “Anne” Jakrajutatip was charged with fraud then released on bail in 2023. She failed to appear as required in a Bangkok court on Tuesday. Since she did not notify the court about her absence, she was deemed to be a flight risk, according to a statement from the Bangkok South District Court. The court rescheduled the hearing for Dec. 26. According to the court’s statement, Jakkaphong and her company, JKN Global Group Public Co. Ltd., were sued for allegedly defrauding Raweewat Maschamadol in selling him the company’s corporate bonds in 2023. Raweewat says the investment caused him to lose 30 million baht ($930,362). Financially troubled JKN defaulted on payments to investors beginning in 2023 and began debt rehabilitation procedures with the Central Bankruptcy Court in 2024. The company says it has debts totaling about 3 billion baht ($93 million). JKN acquired the rights to the Miss Universe pageant from IMG Worldwide LLC in 2022. In 2023, it sold 50% of its Miss Universe shares to Legacy Holding Group USA, which is owned by a Mexican businessman, Raúl Rocha Cantú. Jakkaphong resigned from all of the company’s positions in June after being accused by Thailand’s Securities and Exchange Commission of falsifying the company’s 2023 financial statements. She remains its largest shareholder. Her whereabouts remain unclear. She did not appear at the 74th Miss Universe competition, which was held in Bangkok earlier this month. This year’s competition was marred by various problems, including a sharp-tongued scolding by a Thai organizer of Fátima Bosch Fernández of Mexico, who was crowned Miss Universe 2025 on Nov. 19. Two judges reportedly dropped out, with one suggesting that there was an element of rigging to the contest. Separately, Thai police investigated allegations that publicity for the event included illegal promotion of online casinos. On Monday, JKN denied rumors that Jakkaphong had liquidated the company’s assets and fled the country, but there has been no immediate reaction regarding the arrest warrant. She could not be reached for comment. Jakkaphong is a well-known celebrity in Thailand who has starred in reality shows and is outspoken about her identity as a transgender woman.

Tunisian President Kais Saied summoned the European Union’s ambassador to convey “a firmly toned protest” over a perceived breach of diplomatic protocol, Tunisia's presidency said Wednesday. The summons came after EU Ambassador Giuseppe Perrone met with the heads of Tunisia's influential UGTT labor union and main employers’ union UTICA. The two unions won the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize along with two other Tunisian organizations for laying the groundwork for the North African country's new democracy. The Tunisian president’s office said in a statement that Saied reminded the ambassador that accredited envoys are expected to respect Tunisia’s sovereignty and follow official channels in their contacts. The statement did not specify what prompted the reprimand. European Commission spokesperson Anouar el-Anouni said Wednesday the EU ″takes note of the messages transmitted by President Saied″ to the ambassador. ″It is normal ... for diplomats to have dialogue with a broad range of interlocutors,″ el-Anouni said. ″That includes members of civil society, who can greatly contribute to reinforcing bilateral cooperation and improve the quality of dialogue.″ He noted the Nobel honors. In recent weeks, Tunisia has faced growing protests across the country, as doctors, activists and regular citizens raise demands for more social justice. Tunisia is also seeing an escalating clampdown on rights and freedoms under Saied, which he frames as a war against corruption and perceived national security threats. Saied has increasingly strained relations with major civil-society groups and conventional labor partners. The EU ambassador met this week with UGTT leader Noureddine Taboubi to mark 30 years of EU-Tunisia cooperation. According to a readout from UGTT’s Echaab newspaper, Perrone visited the union’s headquarters and praised the organization’s role in social dialogue and economic development. Taboubi used the meeting to call for deeper cooperation, notably regarding employment, professional training and economic reforms. Last week, Perrone met with UTICA leader Samir Majoul to discuss economic ties and challenges facing Tunisian industries. Both groups are considered key players in Tunisian society and have been at the center of national dialogue efforts since the 2011 Arab Spring uprising.

Belarusian opposition politician Mikola Statkevich has been returned to prison after refusing a U.S.-brokered “forced deportation,” activists said Tuesday. Statkevich, a former presidential candidate, had been freed on Sept. 11 under a pardon from President Alexander Lukashenko at the request of U.S. President Donald Trump. He was placed on a bus with other released prisoners to the Belarusian-Lithuanian border but refused to leave his country, describing the move as a “forced deportation.” He reportedly broke down the bus door and remained in the no-man’s land for hours before Belarusian police escorted him back. Statkevich’s wife, Maryna Adamovich, confirmed that he was returned to prison and continues to serve his 2021 sentence for organizing mass unrest—a case human rights groups have described as politically motivated. Belarusian authorities have not disclosed his location or health status. Adamovich said she is particularly concerned for Statkevich, who suffered a heart attack in prison. Pavel Sapelka, a lawyer with the Viasna human rights group, criticized the move as “legal chaos,” noting that Statkevich had been pardoned and should have been free. He highlighted the arbitrary treatment of political prisoners who are expelled or re-imprisoned without due process. Lukashenko, in power for over 30 years, has sought to improve ties with the West, freeing a group of 52 mostly political prisoners earlier this year after discussions with Trump. Sanctions on Belarus’ national airline, Belavia, were subsequently lifted. Further Minsk-Washington talks are scheduled for December. Statkevich has spent more than 12 years in prison during his political career and is among the 1,246 political prisoners currently detained in Belarus, according to Viasna, including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski.  

Human rights organizations on Tuesday condemned the Trump administration’s decision to end temporary deportation protections for Myanmar citizens, despite ongoing civil war and alleged war crimes by the country’s military leadership. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Monday that Myanmar’s “notable progress in governance and stability,” including planned elections in December and reported ceasefire agreements, justified ending the protections. “The situation in Burma has improved enough that it is safe for Burmese citizens to return home,” she said. Critics dismissed the decision as dangerously misguided. Phil Robertson of Asia Human Rights and Labor Advocates said the move risks sending people back into “prisons, brutal torture, and death.” The shadow National Unity Government (NUG) also rejected Noem’s reasoning, citing ongoing military attacks, forced conscription, and the exclusion of genuine opposition in the upcoming elections. Myanmar’s military, led by Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, welcomed the U.S. decision. Government spokesperson Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun said returning citizens would face prosecution only for serious crimes, while others would receive “special leniency.” Since the military seized power in 2021, widespread uprisings have occurred, with opposition forces controlling large areas. The junta has been accused of indiscriminate attacks on civilians, using landmines, targeting schools, hospitals, and places of worship, and forcing civilians into combat situations. Min Aung Hlaing also faces an ICC arrest warrant for crimes against humanity related to persecution of the Rohingya minority. Human rights reports indicate more than 30,000 political arrests and over 7,400 deaths since the coup. The U.S. State Department continues to advise against travel to Myanmar due to armed conflict, civil unrest, landmines, and arbitrary detentions. Despite these warnings, Homeland Security stated that country conditions have improved sufficiently for safe return and that continued temporary stay in the U.S. was “contrary to the national interest.” Human Rights Watch called the decision “egregious” and questioned its credibility, noting it could affect up to 4,000 people.