DHAKA,Bangladesh: Bangladesh’s central bank has filed a lawsuit in a New York court against a Philippine bank over the heist of $81 million from its account with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in 2016.
Abu Hena Mohd. Rajee Hassan, head of Bangladesh Bank’s Finance Intelligence Unit, told The Associated Press Friday that the case was filed in the Southern District Court of New York against Rizal Commercial Banking Corp.
Court documents say hackers from North Korea used fraudulent orders on the SWIFT payments system to steal the money. The money was sent to accounts at the Philippines’ bank and then vanished into the casino industry in the Philippines. The complaint says the funds’ ultimate destination remains unclear.
Bangladesh Bank is seeking the $81 million plus damages and legal costs.
Bangladesh sues Manila-based bank in NY over heist
Bangladesh sues Manila-based bank in NY over heist
- The money was sent to accounts at the Philippines’ bank and then vanished into the casino industry in the Philippines
- Bangladesh Bank is seeking the $81 million plus damages and legal costs
Israel deports a dozen Malawians sent to work on farms
- Israeli farms, a valuable part of the economy, have lost thousands of laborers since the October 7 Hamas attacks triggered the Gaza war
- Israel has killed more than 34,700 Palestinians in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory
LILONGWE, Malawi: Malawi on Tuesday said Israel had deported 12 workers who had walked off farms and orchards, left deserted by the Gaza conflict, that they had been sent to work on.
The workers “in breach of their contracts... abandoned their lawful employment at the farms to start working at the bakery,” Malawi’s government spokesman Moses Kunkuyu said in a statement.
Since November, hundreds of Malawians have flown to Israel as part of a government labor export program aimed at finding jobs for young people and generating desperately needed foreign exchange.
Many Malawians remain without work as the country has been gripped by an economic crisis that has seen massive government spending cuts.
Israeli farms, a valuable part of the economy, have lost thousands of laborers since the October 7 Hamas attacks triggered the Gaza war.
Dozens of foreign workers were among about 240 people that Israel says were kidnapped in the attacks.
Lilongwe cautioned the remaining workers, many of them young men and women, that a breach of contract would “not be tolerated.”
Kunkuyu urged workers to “desist from such behavior as it puts this country into disrepute.”
After being processed, four of the 12 workers arrived back in the southern African country on Tuesday while the other eight would arrive on Wednesday, the state said.
The labor deal has been criticized by rights group and Malawi’s opposition.
In November, the country’s opposition leader Kondwani Nankhumwa as “an evil transaction” because of the threat from the war that has left tens of thousands dead.
“The two governments will ensure the labor export to Israel operates within the prevailing regulatory frameworks,” the Malawian government said.
Two weeks ago, Malawi opened an embassy in Tel Aviv, which its foreign minister Nancy Tembo said reaffirmed the government’s commitment to “long-standing” bilateral relations between the two nations.
She said the labor deal would provide 3,000 workers initially.
Scenes from Israel and Gaza reflect dashed hopes as imminent ceasefire seems unlikely
- Israel has killed more than 34,700 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry
- Hundreds of thousands in Gaza have been displaced, many sheltering in nylon tents in Gaza’s south, as “a full-blown famine” develops in the north of the enclave, according to the United Nations
JERUSALEM: An announcement by Hamas late Monday that it had accepted a ceasefire proposal sent people in the streets of Rafah into temporary jubilation, as Palestinian evacuees in the jam-packed town felt their first glimmer of hope the war could end.
For families of Israeli hostages held in Gaza, the announcement raised the possibility that their long wait was coming to an end — that they might soon see their loved ones.
But the fervor was short-lived.
A few hours after Hamas’ announcement, Israel rejected the proposal — which was different from one the two sides had been discussing for days — and said it was sending a team of negotiators for a new round of talks.
By Tuesday morning, Israeli tanks had rolled into Rafah, cementing the dashed hopes among Israelis and Palestinians of any imminent ceasefire.
In Rafah, disillusioned Palestinians spent Tuesday packing up their belongings and preparing to evacuate.
Families of Israeli hostages were incensed, too, and thousands of protesters demonstrated late into the night across the country.
GAZA: PALESTINIANS EVACUATE, CONDEMN COLLAPSE OF DEAL
Across Gaza, Palestinians have been demanding a ceasefire for months, hoping that a stop to the fighting will bring an end to the suffering.
Over 34,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed by Israeli fire and airstrikes since the war erupted on Oct. 7., according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry. That day, Hamas militants killed about 1,200 in Israel and took around 250 hostages.
An estimated 100 hostages and the remains of 30 others are still held by Hamas, which insists it will not release them unless Israel ends the war and withdraws from Gaza.
Hundreds of thousands in Gaza have been displaced, many sheltering in nylon tents in Gaza’s south, as “a full-blown famine” develops in the north of the enclave, according to the United Nations.
So when the news came out that Hamas had accepted a ceasefire proposal put forward by Egypt and Qatar, Palestinians poured onto the streets, carrying children on their shoulders and banging pots and pans in excitement. For a moment, it seemed life would get easier.
But in the early hours of Tuesday, Israeli tanks entered the edge of Rafah and took control of one of the key border crossings between Israel and Gaza. Palestinians in the city loaded their belongings onto large trucks and fled.
“They kept giving us hope and telling us tomorrow, or after tomorrow, a truce will take place,” said Najwa Al-Siksik as drones buzzed over her tent camp. “As you can hear,” she said, “this was happening all night long.”
El-Sisik said she had lost all hope of an eventual deal.
“(Israel) doesn’t care about us or our children,” she said. “It only cares about its people. And (Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu only cares about being at the top.”
Raef Abou Labde, who fled to Rafah from the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis earlier in the war, rode atop a car packed with belongings, headed to what was sure to be yet another temporary refuge. Labde said he had little faith that Netanyahu’s far-right government sincerely wanted a ceasefire deal.
“I hope to God that the truce happens,” he said. “But what I see is that Netanyahu doesn’t want a ceasefire. He wants to displace the Palestinian people to Sinai, destroy Gaza and occupy it.”
ISRAEL: PROTESTS GROW, DEMANDING NEW DEAL NOW
In Israel, the Hamas announcement did not provoke the kind of immediate celebrations seen in Gaza. Many relatives of hostages held in Gaza, who have seen what feels like countless rounds of ceasefire negotiations end with no deal, have grown jaded.
“We won’t believe there’s a deal until we start to see some hostages return home,” said Michael Levy, whose 33-year-old brother, Or Levy, remains in captivity.
Still, the back and forth between Israel and Hamas led to boisterous and sustained protests Monday night. Protesters, led by hostage families, blocked the main highway into Tel Aviv, lighting fires on the road.
Demonstrations also broke out in Jerusalem, Haifa, and Beersheba.
Hostage families slammed the government’s inaction on a possible deal in a hearing at Israel’s parliament Tuesday.
“We see all sorts of explanations — this isn’t the deal that we gave them, Hamas changed it,” said Rotem Cooper, whose father Amiram Cooper was kidnapped Oct. 7. He questioned whether military pressure was an effective bargaining tactic to force Hamas to release additional hostages.
For some, the news indicated that a deal was closer than ever before.
Sharone Lifshitz, whose father, Oded, is a hostage, said she believed the differences between the proposal Hamas had accepted and Israel’s “core demands” were not so wide.
“Hamas are shrewd operators,” she said. “Now it’s going to be hard for Israel to just say ‘no.’”
Others said they hoped Israel’s movement into Rafah Tuesday was a tactic to pressure Hamas into a mutually agreeable deal.
“This is a way to show that Israel is serious about its demands,” said Levy. “Hamas can’t just declare they have agreed to a deal with changed terms.”
Two suspected Kashmir rebels killed in clash with Indian forces
SRINAGAR, India: Two suspected rebels were killed in Indian-administered Kashmir during a firefight with soldiers, police said Tuesday, at a time when campaigning for national elections is underway in the disputed territory.
Scores of soldiers besieged a residential area in southern Kulgam district, some 70 kilometers (43 miles) from Kashmir’s biggest city Srinagar, on Monday after armed militants were suspected to be present inside a house.
Two bodies of the suspected rebels “were recovered so far” from the site, police said in a statement posted Tuesday on social media platform X.
Images from the area showed smoke billowing from a house after it caught fire during the skirmish.
Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since their independence in 1947, with both claiming the Himalayan territory in full.
Rebel groups opposed to Indian rule have for decades waged an insurgency in Indian-controlled Kashmir, demanding either independence or a merger with Pakistan.
The conflict has left tens of thousands of civilians, soldiers and militants dead.
Violence and anti-India protests have drastically reduced since 2019, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government canceled the Muslim majority region’s limited autonomy.
But clashes between security forces and rebel groups have increased since voting began last month in India’s six-week election.
Three suspected rebels were killed and a police officer and three soldiers wounded in three separate clashes across the territory in April.
Militants ambushed a military convoy in Kashmir’s south on Sunday, killing one Indian air force corporal and wounding four other troops.
Powerful Iraqi pro-Iran group says US troops must leave
- “We also haven’t seen the necessary seriousness from the Iraqi government to remove them,” the spokesman, Abu Ali Al-Askari, added in a statement
BAGHDAD: Iraq’s powerful Kataeb Hezbollah on Tuesday renewed its call for US troops to withdraw from Iraq, months after the Iran-backed armed group suspended attacks against American forces.
Washington and Baghdad have been engaged in talks over the presence of US troops in Iraq, who are stationed there as part of an international anti-jihadist coalition.
A spokesman for Kataeb Hezbollah said in a statement that the group “did not perceive the American enemy’s seriousness in withdrawing the troops and dismantling its spy bases in Iraq.”
“We also haven’t seen the necessary seriousness from the Iraqi government to remove them,” the spokesman, Abu Ali Al-Askari, added in a statement.
The United States considers Kataeb Hezbollah a “terrorist” group and has repeatedly targeted its operations in recent strikes.
During more than three months, as regional tensions soared over the devastating Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, US troops were targeted more than 165 times in the Middle East, mainly in Iraq and neighboring Syria.
The Islamic Resistance of Iraq, a loose alliance of Iran-backed groups including Kataeb Hezbollah, had claimed the majority of the attacks.
But a deadly drone attack in late January triggered retaliation, with US forces launching dozens of strikes against Tehran-backed groups, including Kataeb Hezbollah.
Three US personnel were killed in the January 28 drone strike in Jordan, near the Syrian border.
Two days later, Kataeb Hezbollah said it was suspending its attacks on US forces.
In February the United States and Iraq resumed talks on the future of the US-led coalition’s presence in Iraq, following a request by Iraqi Prime Minister Mohamed Shia Al-Sudani who has been calling for an end to the coalition’s mission.
The United States has some 2,500 troops in Iraq and 900 in Syria as part of the international coalition against the Islamic State (IS) group.
The coalition was deployed to Iraq at the government’s request in 2014 to help combat IS, which had taken over vast swathes of Iraq and neighboring Syria.
Europe student Gaza protests spread, sparking clashes, arrests
AMSTERDAM: Student protests to demand that universities sever ties with Israel over the Gaza war spread in Europe on Tuesday, sparking clashes and arrests as fresh protests broke out in the Netherlands, Germany, France, Switzerland and Austria.
Students at various European universities, inspired by ongoing demonstrations at US campuses, have been occupying halls and facilities, demanding an end to partnerships with Israeli institutions because of Israel’s punishing assault on Gaza.
Several hundred protesters resumed a demonstration on Tuesday evening around the University of Amsterdam campus, where police the previous night were filmed baton-charging them and smashing up their tents after they refused to leave the campus.
As protests resumed on Tuesday night, demonstrators erected barriers to access routes watched over by a heavy police deployment.
Police said in a statement that a total of 169 people had been arrested when officers broke up Monday night’s protests.
All had been released apart from two who remain in custody on suspicion of public disorder offenses.
Violence had briefly erupted on Monday evening when a small group of counter-protesters wielding flares stormed the main protest.
Around 50 demonstrators were also protesting on Tuesday outside the library in Utrecht University and a few dozen at the Technical University of Delft, according to local news agency ANP.
In the eastern German city of Leipzig, the university said in a statement that 50 to 60 people occupied a lecture hall on Tuesday afternoon, waving banners that read: “University occupation against genocide.”
Protesters barricaded the lecture hall doors from the inside and erected tents in the courtyard, according to the university.
The university called in the police in the afternoon, and filed a criminal complaint.
A pro-Israeli counter-protest also took place in the area, involving about 40 people, police said.
Criminal proceedings have been initiated against 13 people who were in the lecture hall on suspicion of trespassing. No arrests have been made so far.
Earlier, at Berlin’s Free University, police cleared a demonstration after up to 80 people erected a protest camp in a courtyard of the campus.
The protesters, some of whom wore the keffiyeh scarf that has long been a symbol of the Palestinian cause, sat in front of tents and waved banners.
They later tried to enter rooms and lecture halls and occupy them, according to the university, which said it then called in the police to clear the protest.
The university said property was damaged while classes in some buildings were suspended for the day.
Berlin police said they made some arrests for incitement to hatred and trespassing.
In Paris, police on Tuesday twice intervened at Paris’s prestigious Sciences Po university to disperse about 20 students who had barricaded themselves in the university’s main hall.
Police moved in to allow other students to take their exams and made two arrests, according to Paris prosecutors. The university said the exams were able to proceed without incident.
Police have intervened several times over the past week at Sciences Po, where protesters are demanding the university reveal its partnerships with Israeli institutions. Some 13 students are on a hunger strike, according to the university.
At the nearby Sorbonne university building, police moved on Tuesday evening to eject about a hundred students who had occupied an amphitheater for two hours to protest about Gaza, police sources said.
In Switzerland, protests on Tuesday spread to three universities in Lausanne Geneva and Zurich.
The University of Lausanne said in a statement that it “considers that there is no reason to cease these relations” with Israeli universities as protesters demand.
In Austria, dozens of protesters have been camped on the campus of Vienna University, putting up tents and stringing up banners since late on Thursday.
The war in the Gaza Strip was sparked by an unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel by the Palestinian group Hamas, which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Vowing to destroy Hamas, Israel launched a retaliatory offensive that has killed at least 34,789 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
