The announcement from the head of the army, Gen. Waker-uz-Zaman, came after security forces were overwhelmed by thousands of people incensed by a violent government crackdown descending on the Sher-e-Bangla Nagar area of Dhaka, setting cars and offices ablaze.

Footage circulating online shows protesters celebrating inside Hasina’s residence, removing furniture and elsewhere in the city trying to tear down a statue of her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, former prime minister and leader of the country’s independence movement, who was assassinated in 1975.

Promising the formation of an interim government, Zaman pleaded with demonstrators to call off their protests.

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Source: https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2024/08/05/Bangladesh-Sheik-Hasina-quits-flees-abroad/5181722859745/

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Nov. 9 (UPI) — Bangladeshi authorities ordered about 500,000 people to evacuate ahead of Cyclone Bulbul, which made landfall at midnight Saturday night.

The storm, which is also known as Tropical Cyclone Matmo, made landfall in the world’s largest mangrove forest between Bangladesh and India. The cyclone had estimated sustained winds of 92 and gusts of 115 mph, according to the U.S. Joint Typhoon Warning Center. In the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale, a Category 1 storm’s sustain wind range from 96 mph to 110 mph.

Airports and seaside ports were shut down ahead of the storm. Indian authorities put military ships and planes on standby to assist with emergencies.

About 500,000 have been evacuated from the coastal region of Bangladesh ahead of the storm, according to Enamur Rahman, a minister of Bangladesh’s Disaster Management and Relief.

“We have taken all measures and people from coastal area … they have been moved to the cyclone shelters,” Rahman said Saturday.

Local volunteers helped spread awareness in the community and armed forces provided security.

Officials suspended operations at Shah Amanat International Airport in Chittagong due to the storm, Rhaman added. Kolkata Airport operations were also suspended.

The Indian Meteorological Department classified Bulbul as a severe cyclonic storm with maximum sustained winds of about 68 mph to nearly 75 mph — similar to a tropical storm or Category 1 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale.

The National Disaster Response Force and the Odisha Disaster Rapid Action Force began to clear uprooted trees to allow traffic to flow in affected areas.

Around 3,000 people were evacuated so far from low-lying coastal areas in the state of Odisha, officials said.

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Pope Francis has made dialogue with Islam a cornerstone of his papacy, which began in 2013, and visited several countries with large Muslim populations.

In February he will become the first pontiff to go to the Arabian Peninsula when he visits the United Arab Emirates. He is scheduled to travel to Morocco in March.

Here is a recap of some of his other trips to meet Muslims.

– Jordan, Palestinian territories, Israel –

In May 2014 Pope Francis receives a warm welcome in Jordan’s capital Amman from King Abdullah II and meets with Syrian refugees.

Pope Francis prays at Israel’s separation barrier with the West Bank at Bethlehem in 2014

A day later he begins a pilgrimage to the Holy Land at Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, stopping off for a silent prayer at the controversial separation wall erected by the Israelis.

Francis also visits some of the most sacred sites in Islam and Judaism, including the Al-Aqsa mosque compound and the Western Wall.

– Albania –

In September the same year he visits Albania where he praises the peaceful coexistence of its Catholics, Orthodox Christians and Muslims, labelling it “a precious gift to the country”.

Francis says it is especially important “in these times where an authentic religious spirit is being perverted and where religious differences are being distorted”.

– Turkey –

In November 2014 he travels to Turkey where there is a comparatively tiny Christian community — just 80,000 among about 75 million Muslims.

In Istanbul’s famous Blue Mosque, Francis clasps his hands in prayer alongside a senior Islamic cleric, a gesture of fraternity with Islam similar to that of his predecessor, Benedict XVI, in the same place eight years before.

While the pope defends the alliance of religions against terrorism, the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, responds by issuing a strong warning about “seriously and rapidly” rising Islamophobia in the world.

– Central Africa –

Pope Francis in Central African Republic in 2015, when he called for peace between Christians and Muslims

In November 2015 Pope Francis is given a rapturous welcome in the Central African Republic, a country plagued by sectarian violence.

During his 26 hours there, he visits a mosque in Bangui’s flashpoint PK5 Muslim neighbourhood where he says Christians and Muslims are “brothers”.

“Together, we must say no to hatred, to revenge and to violence,” he says.

Among the crowd are several Muslims from PK5 wearing T-shirts bearing the pope’s image.

– Azerbaijan –

In October 2016 the pontiff makes a brief visit to mainly Muslim Azerbaijan, a volatile ex-Soviet Caucasus region.

There he praises the “benefits of multiculturalism and of the necessary complementary of cultures” where the different religions practice “mutual collaboration and respect”.

– Egypt –

A poster welcomes Pope Francis to Egypt in 2017

In April 2017 Francis pays the second papal visit to Egypt of modern times, 17 years after that of pope John Paul II.

In a country where 10 percent of the population of 92 million is Coptic Christian, he says “true faith” depends on “the culture of encounter, dialogue, respect and fraternity.”

He visits Al-Azhar university, one of the Muslim world’s leading religious authorities with whom the Vatican’s ties soured in 2006 when Benedict XVI made a speech in which he was seen as linking Islam to violence.

– Myanmar and Bangladesh –

In December 2017, during a visit to Bangladesh, the pope asks for “forgiveness” from Muslim Rohingya refugees who have fled persecution in neighbouring Myanmar in their hundreds of thousands.

“In the name of all those who have persecuted you, who have harmed you, in the face of the world’s indifference, I ask for your forgiveness,” he says after meeting 16 Rohingya refugees.

The pontiff had just made a four-day visit to Myanmar where he called on Buddhist clergy to conquer “prejudice and hatred”, without explicitly referring to the Rohingyas.

Source: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/afp/article-6652101/Pope-Francis-reaching-Muslims.html

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Filippo Grandi told reporters in the Bangladeshi town of Cox’s Bazar that the needs of the more than 430,000 people who have fled terrible violence in Myanmar over the last month are enormous and that the international community must step up financial and material aid to Bangladesh if the South Asian nation is to be able to help the refugees.

The latest round of violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine state erupted when a Rohingya insurgent group launched deadly attacks on security posts Aug. 25, prompting Myanmar’s military to launch “clearance operations” to root out the rebels.

Those fleeing have described indiscriminate attacks by security forces and Buddhist mobs. The government has blamed the Rohingya, saying they set fire to their own homes, but has provided no proof.

The U.N. and others have described the violence as ethnic cleansing. Rohingya have faced persecution and discrimination in majority-Buddhist Myanmar for decades and are denied citizenship, even though many families have lived there for generations.

The government says that there is no such ethnicity as Rohingya and that they are Bengalis who illegally migrated to Myanmar from Bangladesh.

Grandi toured the massive refugee camps that have sprung up to accommodate the new refugees. Cox’s Bazar also has a large Rohingya camp that has housed Rohingya fleeing persecution over the decades.

Another 300,000 older refugees make their home in these camps.

“This has been since the 25th of August the fastest and most urgent refugee emergency in the world,” Grandi said. “I was struck by the incredible magnitude of their needs. They need everything.

They need food, they need clean water, they need shelter, they need proper health care,” he said. Grandi said he was thankful that Bangladesh’s government had kept its borders open for the terrified Rohingya “in a world that has often turned hostile to refugees.”

He said that the Rohingya need a long-term solution beyond helping ease their immediate suffering and added that “just like the causes of the influx are in Myanmar, clearly the solution is in Myanmar as well.”

He said that Myanmar must end the violence that has caused such a vast number of people to flee their homes and to grant human rights organizations like his access to areas where the violence had taken place.

He said that while UNHCR and the World Food Program have a presence in Rakhine, “our movement is still restricted. This has to be restored so that we can help those who have not come over.”

“The information that we have is very patchy,” Grandi said. “But we know that there are people on the other side and under pressure and we know that there are people who are displaced internally in northern Rakhine.”

Last week, Myanmar’s leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, said in a televised national address that the worst of the violence in Rakhine state was over. She said that the “great majority” of Muslims within the conflict zone stayed and that “more than 50 per cent of their villages were intact.”

However, Amnesty International said in a statement Friday that new satellite images and videos showed smoke rising from Rohingya Muslim villages in Rakhine.

The London-based group said its sources in Rakhine claim the fires were started by members of the Myanmar security forces and vigilante mobs.

Source: https://globalnews.ca/news/3765635/united-nations-myanmar-crisis-most-urgent-refugee-emergency/

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The floods in Nepal, Bangladesh and India are thought to have killed about 500 people and are expected to worsen.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) says it is becoming one of the worst regional humanitarian crises in years.

There are growing concerns about food shortages and disease.

Martin Faller, IFRC’s deputy regional director, said more than a third of Bangladesh and Nepal were flooded, while about 11 million people across four northern Indian states were also affected.

Tens of thousands of people have been displaced.

“This is fast becoming one of the most serious humanitarian crises this region has seen in many years, and urgent action is needed to meet the growing needs of millions of people affected by these devastating floods,” Mr Faller said in a statement.

“Millions of people across Nepal, Bangladesh and India face severe food shortages and disease caused by polluted flood waters.”

Bangladesh, where flood levels are already at a record high, is expected to be further hit as swollen Indian rivers flow down through it in the coming days.

Save the Children Director Mark Pierce said the situation there was “extremely desperate”.

“The sheer volume of water is also making it really difficult to access some of the communities most in need.”

Nepal’s Red Cross Society said food crops there had been wiped out, as floods hit major farming and agricultural land in the south.

“We fear that this destruction will lead to severe food shortages,” said Secretary General Dev Ratna Dhakhwa.

Further heavy rain has been forecast across the region in the coming days, worsening the flooding and making it harder to reach those affected.

Save The Children’s India manager, Murali Kunduru, told Reuters that while the monsoon rains come annually, “this year is particularly severe”.

Source: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-40975232

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