Bangladeshi protesters storm and destroy a house linked to exiled former prime minister Hasina

Protesters storm the Bangabandhu Memorial Museum, the former residence of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman father of the former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, in Dhaka on February 5, 2025. (AFP)
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Updated 06 February 2025
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Bangladeshi protesters storm and destroy a house linked to exiled former prime minister Hasina

  • Hasina’s Awami League in turn has accused the Yunus-led government of violating human rights and suppressing Bangladesh’s minority groups

DHAKA, Bangladesh: Thousands of protesters in Bangladesh took out their anger at exiled former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Wednesday by destroying a family home that came to symbolize the country’s independence — and now, they say, the authoritarianism they believe she led.
The attack was sparked by a speech Hasina planned to give to supporters from exile in neighboring India, where she fled last year during a deadly student-led uprising against her 15-year rule. Critics had accused her of suppressing dissent.
The house in the capital, Dhaka, had been home to Hasina’s late father and Bangladesh’s independence leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who declared the country’s formal break from Pakistan there in 1971. He was assassinated there in 1975. Hasina later turned the home into a museum.
Since she fled the country, some of her supporters have tried to gather there but have been attacked by Hasina’s critics, who have attacked other symbols of her government and party since the uprising, ransacking and setting fires in several buildings.
On Wednesday, some protesters threatened to “bulldoze” the building if the former prime minister went ahead with her speech, which marked the start of a month-long protest program by her Awami League political party. The party is trying to gain support amid allegations of attacks on its members and other Hasina backers.

As Hasina began speaking, protesters stormed the house and started dismantling the brick walls, later bringing a crane and an excavator to demolish the building.
“They do not have the power to destroy the country’s independence with bulldozers. They may destroy a building, but they won’t be able to erase the history,” Hasina said in response during her speech, even as the demolition continued.
She also called on the people of Bangladesh to resist the country’s new leaders and alleged that they took power by “unconstitutional” means.
Hasnat Abdullah, a student leader, had warned media outlets against Hasina’s speech and announced on Facebook that “tonight Bangladesh will be freed from the pilgrimage site of fascism.”
Many of the protesters chanted slogans demanding Hasina’s execution for hundreds of deaths during last year’s uprising against her. It was some of the country’s worst upheaval since independence. Hasina urged a UN investigation into the deaths.
They also chanted slogans criticizing India. An interim government in Bangladesh led by Nobel Peace laureate Muhammad Yunus has sought Hasina’s extradition but India has not responded.
The interim government, which has been struggling to maintain order and prevent mob justice against Hasina’s supporters, has accused the former prime minister of widespread corruption and human rights abuses during her rule that began in 2009.
Hasina’s Awami League in turn has accused the Yunus-led government of violating human rights and suppressing Bangladesh’s minority groups, which authorities have denied.


South Africa rescues all 260 miners stuck underground alive

Updated 5 sec ago
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South Africa rescues all 260 miners stuck underground alive

  • The miners were trapped underground on Thursday at the Kloof gold mine, 60 kilometers west of Johannesburg
  • The gold mine is one of the deepest operated by the Johannesburg Stock Exchange-listed company
WESTONARIA, South Africa: Rescuers on Friday pulled out all 260 mine workers who had been stuck for more than 24 hours in an underground shaft in South Africa, the mine’s operator said.
The miners were trapped underground on Thursday at the Kloof gold mine, 60 kilometers (37 miles) west of Johannesburg, after a hoist used to access the shaft was damaged in an accident, the mining company Sibanye-Stillwater said.
The first phase of the rescue brought 79 people to the surface by 1:30 p.m. (1130 GMT) while the rest were rescued six hours later, it said in a statement.
“At no point was there any risk of injury to employees during the incident,” it said. A decision had been made against using the emergency escape routes which would have involved the miners walking longer distances, it added.
The gold mine is one of the deepest operated by the Johannesburg Stock Exchange-listed company.
Desperate relatives of the miners waited outside the site during the rescue efforts, most of them expressing shock at the incident, local television footage showed.
“All affected employees will also undergo thorough medical examinations, if required, while support has also been extended to employees’ families,” the mining company said.
The National Union of Mineworkers said the incident happened around 10:00 a.m. (0800 GMT) on Thursday. It expressed concern for the miners who had been “underground for almost 20 hours.”
Sibanye-Stillwater had said earlier that the miners would be brought to the surface around midday Friday.
“The employees are not trapped; it was decided to keep them at the sub-shaft station for now,” spokesperson Henrika Ninham said.
Mining employs hundreds of thousands of people in South Africa, which is the biggest exporter of platinum and a major exporter of gold, diamonds, coal and other raw materials. But accidents are common.
Dozens of mineworkers are killed each year, though the numbers have been falling as safety standards have been stepped up over the past two decades.
According to industry group Minerals Council South Africa, 42 miners died in 2024, compared to 55 the previous year.
Sibanye-Stillwater chief executive Neal Froneman said Friday they would not resume operations “until we are confident that all the necessary remedial actions have been implemented.”

Hungarian opposition leader Magyar walks to Romania, courting ethnic Hungarians

Updated 13 min 57 sec ago
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Hungarian opposition leader Magyar walks to Romania, courting ethnic Hungarians

  • Hungarian opposition leader Peter Magyar walked across the border to Romania on Saturday to try and win the support of ethnic Hungarians in Romania
  • Magyar says he is not going to cause trouble, rather to express solidarity with his Hungarian "brothers and sisters"

BUDAPEST: Hungarian opposition leader Peter Magyar walked across the border to Romania on Saturday after a week-long journey, in a attempt to win support of the ethnic Hungarians in Romania and appeal to conservative voters in the run-up to the 2026 elections.
Magyar’s center-right Tisza party emerged last year to mount the most serious challenge to nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban since he rose to power in 2010.
Most opinion polls now put Tisza ahead of Orban’s Fidesz party with the next parliamentary elections due in early 2026. No date has been set yet.
Carrying Hungary’s national flag, Magyar walked across the border on Saturday morning with a group of supporters.
“We are not going (to Romania) to escalate tensions or to cause any harm to our Hungarian brothers and sisters living there. We are going there to express our solidarity,” Magyar said on May 14 when he set out on foot in hiking gear.
On his way to the border, Magyar stopped in small towns to talk to rural voters, who have traditionally supported conservative Orban.
Orban’s government provides financial support to ethnic Hungarian communities in Romania and in 2014 granted the right to vote to Hungarians living abroad. In the last election in 2022 94 percent of these voters supported Fidesz.
The latest poll by the Publicus think tank, published on Friday, showed Tisza with 43 percent support among decided voters in Hungary while Fidesz had 36 percent.
Magyar announced his march on May 12 after Orban flagged he could cooperate with Romanian hard-right presidential candidate George Simion ahead of the May 18 election there.
The RMDSZ party representing ethnic Hungarians in Romania, said Simion’s win would pose a threat to minorities’ rights and urged its voters to support centrist Nicusor Dan who ended up winning the vote.


‘Seventh heaven’: Tears and laughter as Ukrainian POWs return

Updated 19 min 52 sec ago
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‘Seventh heaven’: Tears and laughter as Ukrainian POWs return

  • A number of Ukrainian detainees are released following a prisoner exchange agreement between Ukraine and Russia in Türkiye last week
  • Former detainees recount stories of mistreatment and torture in Russian captivity

CHERNIGIV: Waxy and emaciated, Konstantin Steblev spoke to his mother for the first time in three years after being released as part of the biggest ever prisoner swap between Russia and Ukraine.

“Hello mum, how are you?” the 31-year-old soldier said, moments after stepping back onto Ukrainian soil on Friday.

“I love you. Don’t be sad. It wasn’t my fault. I promised I would come back safe and sound,” he said, smiling but with watery eyes.

Steblev, who was captured at the start of Russia’s invasion, was one of 390 military and civilian prisoners released in exchange for 390 sent back to Russia.

More swaps are expected on Saturday and Sunday to bring the total to 1,000 for 1,000 as agreed in talks between Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul last week.

Steblev arrived with the other former captives by coach at a local hospital where hundreds of relatives were waiting, shouting, crying and singing “Congratulations!”

During the journey back to Ukraine, Steblev said he experienced “indescribable” emotions.

“It’s simply crazy. Crazy feelings,” he said.

During his years of captivity, Steblev said he managed to keep going thanks to his wife.

“She knows I am strong and that I am not going to give up just like that,” he said, adding that now he just wants to be with his family.

“It’s my absolute priority,” he said.

After that, he said it would be up to his wife to decide on the next steps.

“She will tell me and will show me how to act in future,” he said.

Thin, tired and looking slightly lost, the freshly released prisoners filed into a local hospital for medical checks.

But Olena and Oleksandr stayed outside, locked in a tight embrace despite the cameras pointed at them.

They said they had not seen each other in 22 months since Oleksandr was captured by Russia.

“I am in seventh heaven,” the 45-year-old said in his wife’s arms.

He said his dream now was to “eat... eat and spend time with my family.”

As the buses arrived at the hospital, relatives of soldiers who are still in prison ran toward the freed men to show them images of their loved ones and ask if they had seen them during their captivity.

Some women walked away crying when they failed to get any news.

Some know that their relatives are jailed but others have no news at all and desperately hope for any scrap of information.

Moments after being reunited with her husband Andriy after three years apart, Elia, 33, embraced the tearful mother of a soldier who had no news about her son.

When she saw her husband, Elia said her “heart was beating out of my chest” and she cried with joy.

“I have been waiting so long for this,” she said.

Several former prisoners of war interviewed by AFP in the past have spoken of harsh conditions and torture in Russian prisons.

Elia is now thinking about the future and about having a child with her husband.

But she said she knew that the path to rehabilitation would be a long one for him.

“He has an empty stare but I know they did not break him. The guys with him told me he was very strong,” she said.


Pope takes message of dialogue, unity to the Curia

Updated 16 min 48 sec ago
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Pope takes message of dialogue, unity to the Curia

  • Pope Leo XIV promotes dialogue and building bridges to the Roman Curia in his first meeting with the Church's governing body
  • Pope Leo XIV urges people to welcome “with open arms, everyone who needs our charity, our presence, dialogue and love”

VATICAN: Pope Leo XIV took his message of building bridges and promoting dialogue to the Roman Curia on Saturday, in his first audience with members of the Catholic Church’s governing body.
The late Pope Francis had sometimes difficult relations with the Curia and Vatican officials, accusing them early in his papacy of “spiritual Alzheimer’s” and a lust for power.
The new pontiff, the first from the United States, said Saturday that his inaugural meeting was an opportunity to say thanks for all their work.
“Popes come and go, the Curia remains,” Leo told the audience of officials, staff and their families in the Vatican’s vast Paul VI hall.
He repeated his first words from St. Peter’s Basilica when he became pope on May 8, where he urged people to “build bridges” and to welcome “with open arms, everyone who needs our charity, our presence, dialogue and love.”
“If we must all cooperate in the great cause of unity and love, let us try to do so first of all with our behavior in everyday situations, starting from the work environment,” the pope said.
“Everyone can be a builder of unity with their attitudes toward colleagues, overcoming inevitable misunderstandings with patience and humility, putting themselves in the shoes of others, avoiding prejudices, and also with a good dose of humor, as Pope Francis taught us.”
From decentralising power and increasing transparency to providing greater roles for lay people and women, Francis implemented several reforms of the Roman Curia.
But his criticism left a lasting impression among many officials, and he also drew accusations of being too authoritarian in his governance, regularly bypassing the administrative bodies of the Holy See.
In 2024, the Vatican — where trade unions are not recognized — also saw an unprecedented strike by around 50 employees of the Vatican Museums over their working conditions.
The pope spent two decades working in Peru but for the past two years was head of the Vatican department responsible for appointing bishops worldwide.


US ‘deeply concerned’ over activists’ treatment in Tanzania

Updated 16 min 31 sec ago
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US ‘deeply concerned’ over activists’ treatment in Tanzania

  • Prominent East African activists are facing detention and torture following government crackdown on dissent in Uganda and Tanzania
  • The United States voiced its concern over the mistreatment of several activists and called for an investigation into human rights abuses

NAIROBI: The United States expressed concern Saturday over the “mistreatment” of two east African activists in Tanzania, days after they were detained and reportedly tortured.
Prominent campaigners Boniface Mwangi of Kenya and Agather Atuhaire of Uganda traveled to Tanzania this week in solidarity with detained opposition leader Tundu Lissu ahead of his court hearing on charges of treason, which carries a potential death penalty.
But they themselves were detained before being deported and then found abandoned near the Tanzanian border.
Mwangi and rights groups allege that both were tortured while held “incommunicado” for days.
The US Bureau of African Affairs said on X it was “deeply concerned by reports of the mistreatment” of Atuhaire and Mwangi while in Tanzania.
“We call for an immediate and full investigation into the allegations of human rights abuses,” it said, urging “all countries in the region to hold to account those responsible for violating human rights, including torture.”
Atuhaire received in 2023 the EU Human Rights Defender Award for her work in Uganda and was honored last year with the International Women of Courage Award by former US First Lady Jill Biden.
Mwangi is a longtime critic of the Kenyan government, frequently denouncing instances of alleged injustice and rights abuses.
Human rights groups say Tanzania and neighboring Uganda have accelerated crackdowns on opponents and dissidents as they prepare for presidential elections in the next seven months.
But Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan has slammed what she called interference in the country’s affairs and had urged security services “not to allow ill-mannered individuals from other countries to cross the line here.”