Author: Arif ArifArman

ZOOMBANGLA DESK: The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Tuesday summoned Myanmar Ambassador to Bangladesh, Aung Kyaw Moe, and strongly protested the incidents along the Bangladesh-Myanmar border. Director General (Myanmar wing) at the Foreign Ministry, Miah Md. Mainul Kabir, handed over the protest note to Myanmar Ambassador during a meeting at the state guest House Padma. Two people, including a woman, were killed in reported shelling on a house at Jolpaitoli under Ghumdum union of Naikhongchhari upazila in Bandarban district on Monday. One of the deceased was identified as Hosne Ara, 50, wife of Badsha Mia while the identity of the…

স্পোর্টস ডেস্কঃ লম্বা সময় পর ম্যানচেস্টার সিটির শুরুর একাদশে দেখা গেলো ডি ব্রুইনা ও আর্লিং হালান্ড জুটিকে। গত মৌসুমে ট্রেবল জেতাতে অবদান রাখা এ দুই তারকা চোটের কারনে একসাথে মাঠে নামতে পারেননি লম্বা সময় ধরে। তবে এ জুটিকে ছাপিয়ে ব্রেন্টফোর্ড কমিউনিটি স্টেডিয়ামে সবার দৃষ্টি কেড়ে নিলেন ফিল ফোডেন। শুরুতে পিছিয়ে পড়লেও ২৩ বছর বয়সী মিডফিল্ডারের হ্যাটট্রিকে ব্রেন্টফোর্ডকে ৩-১ গোলে হারিয়েছেন সিটিজেনরা। ম্যাচের ২১ মিনিটে নিল মপের গোলে এগিয়ে যায় স্বাগতিক ব্রেন্টফোর্ড। কিন্তু ব্যবধান ধরে রেখে বিরতিতে যেতে পারেনি। প্রথমার্ধের অতিরিক্ত সময়ের তৃতীয় মিনিটে সিটিকে সমতায় ফেরান ফোডেন। দ্বিতীয়ার্ধে আরও আগ্রাসী হয়ে উঠেন এই ইংলিশ তারকা। ৫৩ মিনিটে ডি ব্রুইনার এসিস্টে…

জুমবাংলা ডেস্ক: বাংলাদেশের সাথে অংশীদারিত্ব জোরদার করার আগ্রহ প্রকাশ করেছে ইউরোপিয়ান ইউনিয়ন। ব্রাসেলসে অনুষ্ঠিত দ্বিপাক্ষিক বৈঠকে বাংলাদেশের পক্ষে উপস্থিত ছিলেন পররাষ্ট্রমন্ত্রী ড. হাছান মাহমুদ। বৈঠক শেষে সংকট ব্যবস্থাপনা বিষয়ক ইউরোপীয় কমিশনার জেনেজ লেনাসির্স বলেন, ‘আমরা দুর্যোগ প্রস্তুতিতে ইইউ-বাংলাদেশ সহযোগিতা জোরদার করার বিষয়ে পারস্পরিক স্বার্থ পূনঃনিশ্চিত করেছি এবং রোহিঙ্গা শরণার্থী ও মিয়ানমায়ের জনগনের প্রতি মানবিক প্রতিক্রিয়া জোরদার করার প্রয়োজনীয়তা নিয়ে আলোচনা করেছি।’ বৈঠকে আন্তর্জাতিক অংশীদায়িত্ব বিষয়ক ইউরোপিয়ান কমিশনার জুট্টা লিনারইকও বাংলাদেশের সাথে সবক্ষেত্রে সম্পর্ক জোরদারের আশা ব্যক্ত করেছেন। দুই ইউরোপীয় কমিশনার ইইউ’র সহযোগিতা বৃদ্ধি এবং অংশীদারিত্ব জোরদারের মাধ্যমে বিভিন্ন বিষয়ে বাংলাদেশের সঙ্গে কাজ করার আগ্রহ প্রকাশ করেন বলে জানান পররাষ্ট্রমন্রী ড.…

ZOOMBANGLA DESK: The European Union (EU) wants to strengthen partnership with Bangladesh in the coming days. “We reconfirmed mutual interest on strengthening EU-Bangladesh cooperation on disaster preparedness and discussed the need to reinforce humanitarian response to Rohingya refugees and the people of Myanmar,” said European Commissioner for Crisis Management Janez Lenarcic after his meeting with Foreign Minister Dr Hasan Mahmud in Brussels. European Commissioner for International Partnerships Jutta Urpilainen also had a meeting with Foreign Minister Hasan and expressed willingness to strengthen the relations with Bangladesh on all fronts. The separate meetings with the Foreign Minister were held Friday evening…

INTERNATIONAL DESK: Taiwan’s envoy to the United Kingdom Yao Chin-hsiang has urged the United Kingdom and other Western allies to help deter Chinese aggression against Taiwan, Taiwan News reported. Yao Chin-hsiang made the remarks during a Council on Geostrategy public panel event on January 30. He said that the UK should continue to express concern regarding peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, oppose any unilateral changes to the status quo and actively take concrete measures to defend the freedom of navigation in the region, Taiwan News reported citing Central News Agency (CNA). He stressed that if the Taiwan Strait…

INTERNATIONAL DESK: UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Alice Jill Edwards, has written a letter to the Chinese authorities urging them to address the claims that it has allegedly tortured Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai for obtaining evidence against him, a press release from the United Nations Human Rights Commission stated. “I am deeply concerned that evidence that is expected to be presented against Jimmy Lai imminently may have been obtained as a result of torture or other unlawful treatment,” Edwards said. “An investigation into these allegations must be conducted immediately before any evidence is admitted into these present proceedings.” Article…

ZOOMBANGLA DESK: Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh has invited Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to pay an official visit to Vietnam. Vietnam’s Foreign Minister Bui Thanh Son has conveyed this to Foreign Minister Dr Hasan Mahmud during their meeting in Brussels. https://inews.zoombangla.com/pm-unveils-new-graphic-novel-on-bangabandhus-travel-to-china/ The meeting was held Thursday evening on the sidelines of the 3rd EU Indo-Pacific Ministerial Forum. The Vietnamese Foreign Minister has also invited Foreign Minister Hasan to visit Vietnam at an early date to further strengthen 50 years of Bangladesh-Vietnam friendly relations, said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Friday. The two Foreign Ministers also discussed issues of…

INTERNATIONAL DESK: Taiwan’s Civil Aviation Administration (CAA) protested China’s unilateral adjustment of flight routes close to the median line of the Taiwan Strait on Tuesday. In a statement, the CAA said it “deeply regretted and strongly protested” Beijing’s move earlier in the day, when the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) announced it was cancelling what it called an “offset measure” for the southbound operation of the M503 flight route, which is west of the median line of the Taiwan Strait. Also in the announcement, the CAAC said it plans to start eastbound operation of routes W122 and W123, which…

ZOOMBANGLA DESK: Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina unveiled a new graphic novel based on Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s book “Amar Dekha Noya Chin” (The New China as I Saw) on Thursday, February 1, following the inauguration of the Ekushey Book Fair. The unveiling took place at the Centre for Research and Information (CRI) stall located in the Bangla Academy premises, where she also purchased a copy of the book. The Prime Minister entered the fair at 4:40 pm and, after visiting several stalls and viewing the exhibits on display, she made her way to the CRI stall. Nasrul Hamid, a trustee…

INTERNATIONAL DESK: China’s economy faced many challenges in 2023, such as fiscal deficits, real estate defaults, financial closures, and export decline. These affected the citizens’ welfare, causing lower property values, higher unemployment, and less spending. The situation did not improve, and more defaults were feared. However, at the Davos Forum, Chinese Premier Le Qiang claimed a 5.2% growth for China in 2023, exceeding the government’s target of 5%. This sparked doubts about its validity, and some even said that China had negative growth last year. What is China’s economic outlook for this year, and can it recover from the previous…

INTERNATIONAL DESK: For over three decades, every Chinese foreign minister’s first overseas trip of the year has been to Africa. This year continued the tradition with China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, visiting Egypt, Tunisia, Togo and Côte d’Ivoire. Notably, every one of these countries is coastal. And yet, at a time of continued speculation over China’s next military installation in Africa, none of these countries has featured prominently as potential locations in previous analyses. We might, therefore, reasonably ask what China’s current considerations are around basing in Africa. Faced with an increasingly multipolar and assertive Africa at a time of…

ZOOMBANGLA DESK: Bangladesh is virtually participating at the senior level officers meeting (SOM) in a major international conference in Colombo, Sri Lanka. The SOM is the forum of the senior officers from the 46 member states in the Asia and the Pacific to discuss multilateral effort to reform agrifood systems across the Asia-Pacific region, after years of pandemic, climate emergencies, volatile markets and economies that have affected millions of producers and consumers. The Regional Conference for Asia and the Pacific (#APRC37) is convened by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations and hosted by the Government of Sri…

INTERNATIONAL DESK: About 110,000 Chinese Communist Party officials faced disciplinary action last year as part of the ongoing drive to clean up the party’s act, according to the country’s top anti-corruption body. The figures published by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) on Sunday represent a 13 per cent increase in the number of cases compared with the previous year. There is little sign of Beijing easing up on its latest crackdown more than a year after the party’s national congress in October 2022, when President Xi Jinping began an unprecedented third term as China’s paramount leader and filled…

ZOOMBANGLA DESK: President Mohammed Shahabuddin on Tuesday urged all concerned to take stern actions against corruption alongside reforming the financial sector. “Uncertainty is increasing in the global economy due to geopolitical instability. In this regard, if the global economic crisis occurs, it will also affect us,” he said. He was addressing the opening session of the newly elected 12th Parliament. Earlier, he convened the first parliament session of 2024 exercising the power bestowed upon him as per the Article 72 (1) of the Constitution. Maiden JS session: Speaker nominates 5-member panel of chairmen The president’s speech was approved in the…

INTERNATIONAL DESK: For China’s middle class, things have never looked harder as they reflected on 2023 and peered ahead to the second year of what should be a post-pandemic economic recovery in 2024. No signs have yet emerged to upend their frustration as the property market meltdown and free-falling stock market have continued to wipe out their wealth. The troubles are endangering the world’s largest middle class, as economists have warned that the group that numbers an oft-cited 400 million may shrink in the absence of a strong economic recovery. https://inews.zoombangla.com/the-boundaries-of-china-in-the-south-china-sea-are-being-challenged-by-the-philippines/ A continued decline would also threaten Beijing’s efforts to…

ZOOMBANGLA DESK: Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Monday directed the authority concerned to reduce import duty on four essential items – rice, edible oil, sugar and date– ahead of the upcoming Ramadan. The directive came from the Cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at her office in the city. “The Prime Minister has given a clear directive to decrease the duty on four items – edible oil, sugar, rice and date — on the occasion of the upcoming Ramadan, said Cabinet Secretary Md Mahbub Hossain while briefing reporters at the Secretariat. Now the National Board of Revenue (NBR)…

INTERNATIONAL DESK: Former US President Donald Trump discussed with his advisers the possibility of imposing a 60% tariff on all imports from China if he is re-elected, the Washington Post reported on Sunday, citing sources. The former president is considering options for starting a new large-scale economic attack on China if he returns to the White House, which, according to the report, could lead to a global trade war. Experts asked by the newspaper said that such a move could lead to enormous disruption to both the US and global economies, which would be much more serious than the impact…

INTERNATIONAL DESK: Democratic Republic of Congo President Felix Tshisekedi has promised to use $7 billion from a renegotiated Chinese mining deal to build roads and infrastructure but his critics say the new agreement lacks transparency and is unfavorable towards Congo. In a surprise announcement last weekend, Tshisekedi said that talks between his government and a consortium of Chinese investors over rebalancing the so-called Sicomines mining agreement would bring in $7 billion to the Congolese treasury. The sum represents a huge and possibly transformative opportunity in the impoverished central African country of about 100 million people, where the national budget this…

INTERNATIONAL DESK: China sent more than 30 warplanes and a group of navy ships toward Taiwan, the island´s defense ministry said Saturday. The military pressure comes on the heels of an announcement that senior American and Chinese representatives were expected to meet in the Thai capital as the two countries seek to cool tensions. The Chinese People´s Liberation Army sent 33 aircraft, including SU-30 fighters, and six navy vessels around Taiwan, between 6 a.m. Friday to 6 a.m. Saturday. Of these, 13 warplanes crossed the midline of the Taiwan Strait – an unofficial boundary that’s considered a buffer between the…

INTERNATIONAL DESK: China’s air force is improving its ability to deliver close air support to the army, according to some U.S. experts, even as questions persist about whether China is capable yet of delivering the tight air-ground integration that has long been standard in US military operations. This has deep implications for a Chinese readiness to invade Taiwan. Ground troops dropped by air or scrambling ashore lack heavy weapons such as tanks and artillery. This makes them heavily dependent on external fire support to suppress enemy defenses they’ll face, including naval gunfire, missile and drone strikes, and attacks from jets…

INTERNATIONAL DESK: An estimated 233 home developers in China have registered for bankruptcy in 2023, Taiwan News reported citing the China Real Estate Association. The highest number of bankruptcies have been filed in China’s Zhejiang province. As many as 36 cases of bankruptcy filed in Zhejiang accounted for 15.45 per cent of China’s total. Hunan and Guangdong provinces were second and third respectively in China, according to a Taiwan News report. https://inews.zoombangla.com/us-lawmakers-push-for-limits-on-american-investment-in-china-tech/ According to the report, the number of bankruptcies for 2023 was the lowest since 2020. As many as 408 home developers filed for bankruptcy in 2020, the first…

INTERNATIONAL DESK: China slashed its high youth unemployment by nearly a third this month—at least on paper. However, some experts say the government’s new methodology, which follows a half-year moratorium on publishing this data, does little more than whitewash a systemic problem. One told Newsweek removing students from the sample is what caused the drop. Though Beijing reported last week it had hit its stated goal of at least 5 percent GDP growth in 2023, the world’s second-largest economy faces major headwinds in the long term. These include an aging workforce, declining foreign investment, a property market slump, and lower…

INTERNATIONAL DESK: Taiwan detected 33 military aircraft and six naval vessels from China between 6 a.m. Friday (Jan. 26) and Saturday around the nation, the Ministry of National Defence of Taiwan reported. Taiwan responded by sending planes and navy ships, as well as deploying air defence missile systems, to track the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) actions. According to Taiwan News, the country’s defence ministry reported that 13 Chinese aircraft breached the southern and northern air defence identification zones (ADIZ). It did not offer information on all of the planes and drones. The military “monitored the situation and tasked appropriate forces…

INTERNATIONAL DESK: Two United States House of Representatives members told former Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen and Taiwan President-elect Lai Ching-te on Thursday that their current visit to Taipei was meant to showcase bipartisan support from the US Congress for Taiwan. It reported that the visiting delegation sends a clear message that the US Congress, across party lines, firmly supports Taiwan and its prosperity and security, Representative Mario Diaz Balart of the Republican Party told Tsai during a closed-door meeting, according to a press release issued by the Presidential Office. Diaz Balart and Democrat Ami Bera, both co-chairs of the congressional…