DHAKA: The Bangladeshi student group leading demonstrations that have spiralled into deadly violence suspended protests Monday for 48 hours, with its leader saying they had not wanted reform “at the expense of so much blood.”
What began as demonstrations against politicized admission quotas for sought-after government jobs snowballed into some of the worst unrest of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s tenure.
A curfew has been imposed and soldiers are patrolling cities across the South Asian country, while a nationwide Internet blackout since Thursday has drastically restricted the flow of information to the outside world.
“We are suspending the shutdown protests for 48 hours,” Nahid Islam, the top leader of the main protest organizer Students Against Discrimination, told AFP from his hospital bed.
He was being treated for his injuries after being beaten by people he accused of being undercover police, he said.
“We demand that during this period the government withdraws the curfew, restores the Internet and stops targeting the student protesters.”
On Sunday, the Supreme Court pared back the number of reserved jobs for specific groups, including the descendants of “freedom fighters” from Bangladesh’s 1971 liberation war against Pakistan.
“We started this movement for reforming the quota,” Islam said.
“But we did not want quota reform at the expense of so much blood, so much killing, so much damage to life and property.”
At least 163 people have died in clashes, including several police officers, according to an AFP count of victims reported by police and hospitals.
Sporadic violence continued Monday, with four people brought to the Dhaka Medical College Hospital with bullet injuries, an AFP reporter at the scene saw.
Government officials have repeatedly blamed the protesters and opposition for the unrest.
Dhaka Metropolitan Police spokesman Faruk Hossain told AFP that “at least 532” people had been arrested in the capital since protests began, including some leaders of the opposition Bangladesh National Party.
Ali Riaz, a professor of politics and leading Bangladesh expert at Illinois State University, described the violence as “the worst massacre by any regime since independence.”
“The atrocities committed in the past days show that the regime is entirely dependent on brute force and has no regard for the lives of the people,” he told AFP.
“These indiscriminate killings cannot be washed by a court ruling or a government announcement.”
Bangladeshi Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus urged “world leaders and the United Nations to do everything within their powers to end the violence.”
“There must be investigations into the killings that have taken place already,” the 83-year-old said in a statement, his first public comments since the unrest began.
The respected economist is credited with lifting millions out of poverty with his pioneering microfinance bank but earned the enmity of Hasina, who has accused him of “sucking blood” from the poor.
“Bangladesh has been engulfed in a crisis that only seems to get worse with each passing day,” Yunus said. “High school students have been among the victims.”
Diplomats in Dhaka questioned Bangladeshi authorities’ deadly response to the protests.
Foreign Minister Hasan Mahmud summoned ambassadors for a briefing on Sunday and showed them a 15-minute video that sources said focused on damage caused by protesters.
US ambassador Peter Haas told Mahmud he was presenting a one-sided version of events, according to a senior diplomatic official.
“I am surprised you did not show the footage of police firing at unarmed protesters,” the source quoted Haas as telling the minister.
A US embassy official speaking on condition of anonymity confirmed the ambassador’s comments.
The diplomatic source added that Mahmud did not respond to a question from a UN representative about the alleged use of UN-marked armored personnel carriers and helicopters to suppress the protests.
Bangladesh is a major contributor to UN peacekeeping operations around the world — earning significant revenues from its efforts — and has UN-marked equipment in its military inventories.
With around 18 million young people in Bangladesh out of work, according to government figures, the quota scheme’s reintroduction deeply upset graduates facing an acute jobs crisis.
The Supreme Court decision curtailed the number of reserved jobs from 56 percent of all positions to seven percent, most of which will still be set aside for the children and grandchildren of “freedom fighters” from the 1971 war.
While 93 percent of jobs will be awarded on merit, the decision fell short of protesters’ demands to scrap the “freedom fighter” category altogether.
Critics say the quota is used to stack public jobs with loyalists to Hasina’s ruling Awami League.
Opponents accuse her government of bending the judiciary to its will.
Hasina, 76, has ruled the country since 2009 and won her fourth consecutive election in January after a vote without genuine opposition.
Her government is also accused by rights groups of misusing state institutions to entrench its hold on power and stamp out dissent, including by the extrajudicial killing of opposition activists.
Bangladesh student group suspends protests for 48 hours over death toll
https://arab.news/njj8t
Bangladesh student group suspends protests for 48 hours over death toll
- What began as demonstrations against politicized admission quotas for sought-after government jobs snowballed into some of the worst unrest of PM Sheikh Hasina’s tenure
- A curfew has been imposed and soldiers are patrolling cities across the country, while a nationwide Internet blackout since Thursday has drastically restricted flow of information
WHO says vaccine-derived poliovirus detected in Papua New Guinea
- Wild polio is only endemic in Pakistan and Afghanistan but vaccine-derived polio continues to cause outbreaks in wider range of countries
- This is first polio outbreak in Papua New Guinea since 2018 when an outbreak was reported in the same area as the new detections, Lae city
The World Health Organization said on Tuesday that circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 (cVDPV2) had been detected in stool specimens of two healthy children in Papua New Guinea on May 9.
The detection of wild poliovirus or vaccine-derived poliovirus, including from samples taken from healthy children, is considered a serious public health event, WHO said in a statement.
It added that the detection of circulating type 2 poliovirus was classified as a “polio outbreak.”
Wild polio is only endemic in Pakistan and Afghanistan, but vaccine-derived polio continues to cause outbreaks in a wider range of countries. For example, this year, countries including Nigeria and Ethiopia, among others, have reported tens of cases of paralysis caused by polio.
This is the first polio outbreak in Papua New Guinea since 2018, when an outbreak was reported in the same area as the new detections, Lae city in Morobe province.
Vaccination protects against all forms of polio, but coverage rates in Papua New Guinea are only around 44 percent for the third dose needed for protection, the WHO said. Efforts are now underway to detect further transmission and boost vaccination coverage in the affected area.
Poliomyelitis, which is spread mainly through the faecal-oral route, is a highly infectious virus that can invade the nervous system and cause paralysis and death in young children, with those under 2 years old most at risk. In nearly all cases it has no symptoms, making it hard to detect.
US expects Russia offer soon as Zelensky sounds warning
WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Tuesday he expected Russia to present a Ukraine ceasefire outline within days that will show if it is serious, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Moscow of buying time.
President Donald Trump spoke separately by telephone on Monday to Zelensky and Russia’s Vladimir Putin, after Russian and Ukrainian officials met in Istanbul on Friday for their first direct talks on the conflict in three years.
Putin has consistently rejected proposals for a 30-day truce put forward by Kyiv and its Western allies.
But Rubio said that Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov indicated they would present their own terms “maybe in a number of days, maybe this week hopefully.”
The Russians will offer “just broad terms that would allow us to move toward a ceasefire, and that ceasefire would then allow us to enter into detailed negotiations to bring about an end of the conflict,” Rubio said.
He said that the presentation will “tell us a lot about their true intentions.”
“If it’s a term sheet that’s realistic and you can work off of it, that’s one thing. If it makes demands that we know are unrealistic, I think that will be indicative.”
Putin after Trump’s call said he was ready to work with Ukraine on a “memorandum” outlining a possible roadmap and different positions on ending the war.
And Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Tuesday said that Pope Leo XIV was willing “to host upcoming discussions between the parties at the Vatican,” according to her office.
Rubio insisted to critical lawmakers that Putin “hasn’t gotten a single concession” from Trump. But Russia has also not indicated any new flexibility since Trump took office in January with vows to end the war through dialogue.
“It is obvious that Russia is trying to buy time in order to continue its war and occupation,” Zelensky said in a post on social media.
Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told Rubio that Putin’s refusal to go to Istanbul despite the stated willingness of both Zelensky and Trump to meet showed “he believes it’s in Russia’s interest to carry out this war as long as possible.”
The European Union formally on Tuesday adopted its 17th round of sanctions on Moscow, targeting 200 vessels of Russia’s so-called shadow maritime fleet.
Kirill Dmitriev, the head of Russia’s Direct Investment Fund and lead economic negotiator with Washington, attacked the move, saying: “Western politicians and the media are making titanic efforts to disrupt the constructive dialogue between Russia and the United States.”
Rubio said that Trump for now opposed new sanctions for fear that Russia would no longer come to the table.
Moscow appears confident, with its troops advancing on the battlefield and Trump ending Western isolation of the Kremlin.
The memorandum mentioned by Putin “buys time for Russia,” Russian political analyst Konstantin Kalachev said.
“The cessation of hostilities is not a condition for it, which means that Russia can continue its offensive,” he added.
Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 and has since destroyed swathes of the country’s east, killed tens of thousands and now controls around one-fifth of its territory.
People who spoke to AFP both in Kyiv and Moscow were skeptical about peace prospects and thought the Putin-Trump call had not brought them closer.
“I never had any faith in him and now I have none at all,” retired teacher Victoria Kyseliova said in Kyiv, when asked if she was losing confidence in Trump.
Vitaliy, a 53-year-old engineer from Kyiv, said Trump was no “messiah” and that his flurry of diplomacy has changed little.
Ukrainian political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko said Trump’s latest calls had only added to the uncertainty.
“This conversation not only failed to clarify the future of the negotiations but further confused the situation,” he said.
He said Trump had fallen for Putin’s tactics of trying to use talks “as a cover to continue and intensify the war.”
In Moscow, there was defiance and confidence.
“I believe that we don’t need these negotiations. We will win anyway,” said Marina, a 70-year-old former engineer.
Nvidia says US export controls on AI to China were ‘a failure’
TAIPEI: US export controls on artificial intelligence to China were a failure, Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang said on Wednesday.
Speaking at the annual Computex event in Taipei, Huang said Nvidia’s market share in China dropped to 50 percent, from 95 percent at the start of former US President Joe Biden’s administration.
Google’s unleashes ‘AI Mode’ in the next phase of its journey to change search
- Google is also feeding its latest AI model, Gemini 2.5, into its search algorithms and will soon begin testing other AI features
Google on Tuesday unleashed another wave of artificial intelligence technology to accelerate a year-long makeover of its search engine that is changing the way people get information and curtailing the flow of Internet traffic to websites.
The next phase outlined at Google’s annual developers conference includes releasing a new “AI mode” option in the United States. The feature makes interacting with Google’s search engine more like having a conversation with an expert capable of answering questions on just about any topic imaginable.
AI mode is being offered to all comers in the US just two-and-a-half-months after the company began testing with a limited Labs division audience.
Google is also feeding its latest AI model, Gemini 2.5, into its search algorithms and will soon begin testing other AI features, such as the ability to automatically buy concert tickets and conduct searches through live video feeds.
In another example of Google’s all-in approach to AI, the company revealed it is planning to leverage the technology to re-enter the smart glasses market with a new pair of Android XR-powered spectacles. The preview of the forthcoming device, which includes a hands-free camera and a voice-powered AI assistant, comes 13 years after the debut of “Google Glass,” a product that the company scrapped after a public backlash over privacy concerns.
Google didn’t say when its Android XR glasses will be available or how much they will cost, but disclosed they will be designed in partnership with Gentle Monster and Warby Parker. The glasses will compete against a similar product already on the market from Facebook parent Meta Platforms and Ray-Ban.
AI’s big role in Google search
The expansion builds upon a transformation that Google began a year ago with the introduction of conversational summaries called “AI overviews” that have been increasingly appearing at the top of its results page and eclipsing its traditional rankings of web links.
About 1.5 billion people now regularly engage with “AI overviews,” according to Google, and most users are now entering longer and more complex queries.
“What all this progress means is that we are in a new phase of the AI platform shift, where decades of research are now becoming reality for people all over the world,” Google CEO Sundar Pichai said before a packed crowd in an amphitheater near the company’s Mountain View, California, headquarters.
AI ripples across the Internet
Although Pichai and other Google executives predicted AI overviews would trigger more searches and ultimately more clicks to other sites, it hasn’t worked out that way so far, according to the findings of search optimization firm BrightEdge.
Clickthrough rates from Google’s search results have declined by nearly 30 percent during the past year, according to BrightEdge’s recently released study, which attributed the decrease to people becoming increasingly satisfied with AI overviews.
The decision to make AI mode broadly available after a relatively short test period reflects Google’s confidence that the technology won’t habitually spew misinformation that tarnishes its brand’s reputation, and acknowledges the growing competition from other AI-powered search options from the likes of ChatGPT and Perplexity.
Will AI undercut or empower Google?
The rapid rise of AI alternatives emerged as a recurring theme in legal proceedings that could force Google to dismantle parts of its Internet empire after a federal judge last year declared its search engine to be an illegal monopoly.
In testimony during a trial earlier this month, longtime Apple executive Eddy Cue said Google searches done through the iPhone maker’s Safari browser have been declining because more people are leaning on AI-powered alternatives.
And Google has cited the upheaval being caused by AI’s rise as one of the main reasons that it should only be required to make relatively minor changes to the way it operates its search engine because technology already is changing the competitive landscape.
But Google’s reliance on more AI so far appears to be enabling its search engine to maintain its mantle as the Internet’s main gateway — a position that’s main reason its corporate parent, Alphabet Inc., boasts a market value of $2 trillion.
During the year ending in March, Google received 136 billion monthly visits, 34 times more than ChatGPT’s average of 4 billion monthly visits, according to data compiled by onelittleweb.com.
Even Google’s own AI mode acknowledged that the company’s search engine seems unlikely to be significantly hurt by the shift to AI technology when a reporter from The Associated Press asked whether its introduction would make the company even more powerful.
“Yes, it is highly likely that Google’s AI mode will make Google more powerful, particularly in the realm of information access and online influence,” the AI mode responded. The feature also warns that web publishers should be concerned about AI mode reducing the traffic they get from search results.
Even more AI waiting in the wings
Google’s upcoming tests in its Labs division foreshadow the next wave of AI technology likely to be made available to the masses.
Besides using its Project Mariner technology to test the ability of an AI agent to buy tickets and book restaurant reservations, Google will also experiment with searches done through live video and an opt-in option to give its AI technology access to people’s Gmail and other Google apps so it can learn more about a user’s tastes and habits. Other features on this summer’s test list include a “Deep Search” option that will use AI to dig even deeper into complex topics and another tool that will produce graphical presentations of sports and finance data.
Google is also introducing its equivalent of a VIP pass to all its AI technology with an “Ultra” subscription package that will cost $250 per month and include 30 terabytes of storage, too. That’s a big step beyond Google’s previous top-of-the-line package, which is now called “AI “Pro,” that costs $20 per month and includes two terabytes of storage.
‘Serious problem’: Afghan capital losing race against water shortages
- The Taliban authorities have launched projects ranging from recycling water to building hundreds of small dams across the country, but larger interventions remain hampered by financing and technical capacity
KABUL: Every week, Bibi Jan scrapes together some of her husband’s meagre daily wage to buy precious water from rickshaw-drawn tankers that supply residents of Afghanistan’s increasingly parched capital.
Kabul faces a looming water crisis, driven by unruly and rapid urbanization, mismanagement over years of conflict, and climate change, meaning people like Bibi Jan are sometimes forced to choose between food and water.
“When my children have only tea for a few days, they say, ‘You bought water and nothing for us’,” the 45-year-old housewife told AFP, describing reusing her supplies for bathing, dishes and laundry.
Experts have long sounded the alarm over Kabul’s water problems, which are worsening even as many international players have backed off big infrastructure projects and slashed funding to Afghanistan since the Taliban government took power in 2021.
“There could be no ground water in Kabul by 2030” without urgent action, the UN children’s agency UNICEF warned last year.
Other experts are more cautious, citing limited consistent and reliable data, but say the situation is clearly deteriorating.
A 2030 cliff is a “worst-case scenario,” said water resources management expert Assem Mayar.
But even if slated development projects are completed in a few years, it “doesn’t mean the situation would become better than now,” Mayar said.
“As time goes on, the problems are only increasing,” he added, as population growth outstrips urban planning and climate change drives below-average precipitation.
The Taliban authorities have launched projects ranging from recycling water to building hundreds of small dams across the country, but larger interventions remain hampered by financing and technical capacity.
They remain unrecognized by any country since they ousted the Western-backed government and imposed their severe interpretation of Islamic law, with restrictions on women a major sticking point.
They have repeatedly called for non-governmental groups to reboot stalled projects on water and climate change, as Afghanistan faces “some of the harshest effects” in the region, according to the United Nations.
The water and energy ministry wants to divert water from the Panjshir river to the capital, but needs $300 million to $400 million. A dam project near Kabul would ease pressures but was delayed after the Taliban takeover.
For now, Kabul’s primary drinking water source is groundwater, as much as 80 percent of which is contaminated, according to a May report by Mercy Corps.
It is tapped by more than 100,000 unregulated wells across the city that are regularly deepened or run dry, the NGO said.
Groundwater can be recharged, but more is drawn each year than is replenished in Kabul, with an estimated annual 76-million-cubic-meter (20-billion-gallon) deficit, experts say.
“It’s a very serious problem... Water is decreasing day by day in the city,” said Shafiullah Zahidi, who heads central Kabul operations for the state-owned water company UWASS.
Water systems designed decades ago serve just 20 percent of the city’s population, which has exploded to around six million over the past 20 years, said Zahidi.
At one of Kabul’s 15 pumping stations, maintenance manager Mohammad Ehsan said the seven-year-old well is already producing less water. Two others nearby sit dry.
“The places with shallower water levels are dried out now,” said 53-year-old Ehsan, who has worked in water management for two decades, as he stood over an old well.
It once produced water from a depth of 70 meters (230 feet), but a newer well had to be bored more than twice as deep to reach groundwater.
At one of the two large stations in the city, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) recently procured four new pumps where only one had been functioning.
“If that pump collapsed for any reason, that means stopping the service for 25,000 beneficiary households,” which now have uninterrupted water, said Baraa Afeh, ICRC’s deputy water and habitat coordinator.
Everyone in Kabul “should have 24-hour service,” said Zahidi, from the state water company.
But in reality, Bibi Jan and many other Kabulis are forced to lug water in heavy jugs from wells or buy it from tankers.
These suppliers charge at least twice as much as the state-owned utility, with potable water even more pricy in a country where 85 percent of the population lives on less than a dollar a day.
Bibi Jan said she has to police her family’s water use carefully.
“I tell them, ‘I’m not a miser but use less water.’ Because if the water runs out then what would we do?”
