DHAKA: A judge in Bangladesh issued an arrest warrant for British lawmaker and former government minister Tulip Siddiq, a niece of Bangladesh’s former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who was ousted from her 15-year rule in a mass uprising in August.
The country’s Anti-Corruption Commission has been investigating allegations against Siddiq that she and her family members, including Hasina, illegally received land in a state-owned township project near the capital, Dhaka.
Senior Special Judge of Dhaka Metropolitan Zakir Hossain passed the order on Sunday, after considering charges in three separate cases filed by the Anti-Corruption Commission, the leading Dhaka-based Bengali-language Prothom Alo newspaper reported.
Siddiq, 42, was named in the arrest warrant along with more than 50 others including her mother, Sheikh Rehana, and her brother, Radwan Siddiq, the newspaper reported.
Siddiq said the charges were “a completely politically motivated smear campaign, trying to harass me.”
“There is no evidence that I’ve done anything wrong,” she told reporters in London.
Siddiq’s lawyers also called the charges baseless. “To be clear, there is no basis at all for any charges to be made against her, and there is absolutely no truth in any allegation that she received a plot of land in Dhaka through illegal means,” the law firm Stephenson Harwood said in a statement.
The lawmaker, who represents the north London district of Hampstead and Highgate in Parliament, served in Britain’s center-left Labour Party government as economic secretary to the Treasury — the minister responsible for tackling financial corruption.
She quit that post in January after she was named in an anti-corruption investigation into Hasina and her family in Bangladesh. The investigation alleged that Siddiq’s family was involved in brokering a 2013 deal with Russia for a nuclear power plant in Bangladesh in which large sums of money were said to have been embezzled.
Siddiq said in January that she had been cleared of wrongdoing, but that the issue was becoming “a distraction from the work of the government.”
Hasina’s Bangladesh Awami League party says the charges are politically motivated to destroy the reputation of the prominent family. Hasina’s father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, is Bangladesh’s independence leader. The country gained independence in 1971 under his leadership after a nine-month war against Pakistan.
Hasina has been in exile in India since early August.
After the ouster of Hasina on Aug. 5 last year, Siddiq’s mother’s home in Dhaka’s upscale Gulshan area was looted and vandalized, and so far no police case has been filed over the incident. Hasina accused Bangladesh’s interim administration headed by Nobel Peace laureate Muhammad Yunus of backing mobs to attack her followers across the country. The home affairs adviser says they are trying to restore order in the country.
Bangladesh arrest warrant issued for British lawmaker linked to ex-Premier Hasina
https://arab.news/m286g
Bangladesh arrest warrant issued for British lawmaker linked to ex-Premier Hasina
- Tulip Siddiq, 42, is a niece of ex-Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina who was ousted in violent uprising in 2024
- Country’s anti-corruption watchdog has been probing Siddiq for allegedly receiving land illegally in state-owned project
‘World cannot afford’ India-Pakistan confrontation: UN
UNITED NATIONS: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was “very concerned” about Indian military strikes on Pakistan, his spokesperson said on Tuesday, hours after India said it hit nine sites in Pakistani territory.
“The Secretary-General is very concerned about the Indian military operations across the Line of Control and international border. He calls for maximum military restraint from both countries. The world cannot afford a military confrontation between India and Pakistan,” said Stephane Dujarric, the spokesperson.
Germany’s Merz vows to be ‘very European’ chancellor
BERLIN: Germany’s new Chancellor Friedrich Merz vowed Tuesday to be a “very European” leader, with the continent’s other countries hopeful Germany will take on a greater international role.
“I am influenced by my work in the European Parliament, that has shaped me a lot to this day,” Merz said after being elected chancellor by the Bundestag earlier in the day.
On his first full day in office, Merz will head Wednesday to France and then Poland seeking to boost ties with European neighbors in turbulent times.
Europe has sought to present a united front as US President Donald Trump upends long-standing security and diplomatic ties, and in the face of a hostile Russia.
But Germany has for the most part been on the sidelines since the collapse in November of former chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government, with politics all but paralyzed as the country awaited a new leader.
Asked how Germany could seek to influence talks on a possible peace deal in the Ukraine war, Merz said there was a “proven format” of Berlin working together with France and Britain.
“Germany has been quite reticent in recent months due to the transition from one government to another,” Merz told public broadcaster ZDF, before adding that he planned to “consult intensively” with London and Paris from now.
“If we can include the Poles, then it will be even better,” he added.
European countries have been worried about being sidelined in talks on the conflict, after Trump’s overtures to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Merz has vowed a crackdown on immigration but he insisted that European neighbors’ views would be “taken into consideration.”
“I will be discussing these issues with both the French president and the Polish prime minister — we want to prepare a European policy together,” he said.
US judge blocks Trump from shuttering three small federal agencies
A federal judge on Tuesday blocked President Donald Trump’s administration from firing workers and taking other steps to shut down federal agencies that fund museums and libraries, mediate labor disputes and support minority-owned businesses.
US District Judge John McConnell in Providence, Rhode Island, agreed with 21 mostly Democrat-led states that Trump’s March executive order directing that the agencies effectively be wiped out violated the US Constitution.
“This executive order ... ignores the unshakable principles that Congress makes the law and appropriates funds, and the Executive implements the law Congress enacted and spends the funds Congress appropriated,” wrote McConnell, an appointee of Democratic former President Barack Obama.
The judge halted Trump’s order from being implemented at the US Institute of Museum and Library Services, the Minority Business Development Agency, and the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service pending the outcome of the case.
McConnell did not order the agencies to take any specific steps. The judge told the states to consult with the Trump administration and submit a more detailed order for his approval.
Trump in his order directed that those agencies and four others be reduced “to the minimum presence and function required by law.” A judge in Washington, D.C. last week had separately blocked the museum and library agency from being shut down.
White House spokesman Davis Ingle said McConnell had defied US Supreme Court precedent by blocking Trump from closing elements of the federal bureaucracy.
“The lower court’s outrageous order will not be the last say on the matter,” Ingle said in a statement.
Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha, a Democrat whose office is leading the lawsuit, called the decision a critical win for the public.
“When the Trump Administration attempts to dismantle these agencies, it is making a targeted, concerted effort to prohibit everyday people from accessing their full potential,” Neronha said in a statement.
Trump’s executive order was part of his broader effort to dramatically shrink the federal government and slash government spending. Tens of thousands of federal workers have been fired, placed on leave indefinitely or accepted buyouts to leave their jobs.
At the three agencies involved in Tuesday’s case, virtually all employees were placed on administrative leave shortly after Trump issued his executive order, according to court filings.
The states in their lawsuit filed in April say that because Congress created the agencies and set their funding levels, Trump had no power to order that their work be halted.
McConnell on Tuesday agreed. Federal law includes a mechanism for the president to return unneeded funding to Congress, the judge said, but Trump failed to follow that process.
State libraries and museums have abandoned programs and implemented hiring freezes, business development offices are curbing training and other support programs, and state agencies have fewer options to mediate disputes with unions, McConnell said.
Inter beats Barcelona 4-3 after extra time to reach another Champions League final
- Substitute Davide Frattesi was the extra-time hero for Inter, firing home in the 99th minute to leave the Barcelona players slumped to the ground
MILAN: Inter Milan beat Barcelona 4-3 after extra time in another rollercoaster encounter Tuesday to reach a second Champions League final in three years.
In the end it took extra time, two astonishing Barcelona fightbacks and 13 goals — some of them mesmerizing — to separate the two sides and see Inter prevail 7-6 on aggregate.
Substitute Davide Frattesi was the extra-time hero for Inter, firing home in the 99th minute to leave the Barcelona players slumped to the ground and all his Nerazzurri teammates — including those on the bench — racing to celebrate with him.
Moments earlier, Frattesi had been encouraging the already loud San Siro crowd to make more noise and the atmosphere grew even more feverish after his strike.
Inter, which lost the final to Manchester City in 2023, will face either Paris Saint-Germain or Arsenal in Munich on May 31. PSG beat Arsenal 1-0 in London last week in their first match.
There was little sign of the drama to come at halftime, with Inter comfortably leading 2-0 after Lautaro Martínez scored and earned a penalty, which was converted by Hakan Çalhanoğlu.
But Barcelona had been in that position before, having gone 2-0 down early in the first leg last week before securing a thrilling 3-3 draw.
And Eric García scored nine minutes after the break before Dani Olmo headed in the equalizer six minutes later.
Raphina appeared to have secured the win for Barcelona when he put the Spanish side ahead two minutes before full time, tucking away the rebound after Yann Sommer had saved his initial shot.
However, 37-year-old Francesco Acerbi astonishingly leveled in stoppage time — with his first goal in European competition — to add another 30 minutes onto the tantalizing encounter.
Frattesi had proved crucial off the substitutes’ bench before, both for Italy and Inter, and so he was again, controlling Mehdi Taremi’s pass and dummying round Pau Cubarsí before curling past Wojciech Szczęsny.
Barcelona almost leveled again but Sommer made a fingertip save to push Lamine Yamal’s shot past his post.
North Korea’s Kim Jong Un inspects munitions plants, lauds increased shell production
SEOUL: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un inspected munitions factories that make shells and machinery, state media KCNA said on Wednesday.
Kim lauded the shell factory for increasing production to “four times the average-year level” and playing “an important role in increasing the basic combat power” of North Korea’s armed forces, KCNA said.
North Korea has provided “billions of dollars worth of missiles and shells” to Russia in its invasion of Ukraine as well as deploying about 15,000 troops, South Korean lawmakers said last week citing the country’s spy agency.
This gave Russia a battlefield advantage in the western Kursk region and has brought the two economically and politically isolated countries closer.
