BORNHOLM, Denmark: When the Nord Stream gas pipelines ruptured near the island of Bornholm last month, residents felt the Ukraine war move a lot closer, exposing the isolation of Denmark’s easternmost point and renewing fears of Russian aggression.
The rocky Baltic Sea island of about 40,000 people has a strategically important location between Denmark’s capital Copenhagen and the Russian city of Kaliningrad.
“The situation with Nord Stream 1 and 2, it renewed our crisis awareness, and there are many residents who might think it came a little bit close,” said Ulrik Skytte, Chief of Bornholm’s Home Guard, a volunteer branch of the Danish military.
World leaders called damages to the pipelines, which connect Russia and Germany under the sea, an act of sabotage, but it still remains unclear who might be behind the detonations.
“The seriousness has dawned on all of us, and therefore Bornholm’s location in the Baltic Sea has become much clearer and much more important,” Skytte told Reuters on Almegard military base near Ronne, Bornholm’s largest town.
’NEW SECURITY SITUATION’
Since the Ukraine war, there have been more volunteers to the Home Guard. “I’m not saying we should fear the Russians coming, but we just have to prepare, and we have to plan, train and keep the powder dry,” Skytte said.
Lasse Rasmussen, 21, a volunteer for three years and former military conscript, said there had been an anxious atmosphere on the day of the gas pipeline ruptures.
“It got really, really close, especially for my friends on the east coast, who could almost see the ships out there, and the planes and helicopters in the sky,” he said.
Following the pipeline ruptures, Sweden and Danish authorities cordoned off the area and launched investigations, both finding that powerful explosions had been the cause.
Bornholm’s mayor Jacob Trost says dealing with security issues quickly became part of his job after he took office in January. Denmark’s military placed two F-16 fighter jets on the island this year and naval activity has increased in the area.
“There’s a new security situation on Bornholm because of the war,” Trost said. “Most people on Bornholm are pretty calm about what is going on, but it is in the back of our minds.”
Danes vote on Tuesday in a parliamentary election where geopolitical uncertainty and economic turmoil are likely to impact voting.
Danes on Baltic Sea island feel Russia-Ukraine war creeping closer
https://arab.news/6uguc
Danes on Baltic Sea island feel Russia-Ukraine war creeping closer
- The rocky Baltic Sea island of about 40,000 people has a strategically important location between Denmark and Russia
- “The situation with Nord Stream 1 and 2, it renewed our crisis awareness,” said Ulrik Skytte, Chief of Bornholm's Home Guard
Bangladesh mourns Khaleda Zia, its first woman prime minister
- Ousted ex-premier Sheikh Hasina, who imprisoned Zia in 2018, offers condolences on her death
- Zia’s rivalry with Hasina, both multiple-term PMs, shaped Bangladeshi politics for a generation
DHAKA: Bangladesh declared three days of state mourning on Tuesday for Khaleda Zia, its first female prime minister and one of the key figures on the county’s political scene over the past four decades.
Zia entered public life as Bangladesh’s first lady when her husband, Ziaur Rahman, a 1971 Liberation War hero, became president in 1977.
Four years later, when her husband was assassinated, she took over the helm of his Bangladesh Nationalist Party and, following the 1982 military coup led by Hussain Muhammad Ershad, was at the forefront of the pro-democracy movement.
Arrested several times during protests against Ershad’s rule, she first rose to power following the victory of the BNP in the 1991 general election, becoming the second woman prime minister of a predominantly Muslim nation, after Pakistan’s Benazir Bhutto.
Zia also served as a prime minister of a short-lived government of 1996 and came to power again for a full five-year term in 2001.
She passed away at the age of 80 on Tuesday morning at a hospital in Dhaka after a long illness.
She was a “symbol of the democratic movement” and with her death “the nation has lost a great guardian,” Bangladesh’s interim leader Muhammad Yunus said in a condolence statement, as the government announced the mourning period.
“Khaleda Zia was the three-time prime minister of Bangladesh and the country’s first female prime minister. ... Her role against President Ershad, an army chief who assumed the presidency through a coup, also made her a significant figure in the country’s politics,” Prof. Amena Mohsin, a political scientist, told Arab News.
“She was a housewife when she came into politics. At that time, she just lost her husband, but it’s not that she began politics under the shadow of her husband, president Ziaur Rahman. She outgrew her husband and built her own position.”
For a generation, Bangladeshi politics was shaped by Zia’s rivalry with Sheikh Hasina, who has served as prime minister for four terms.
Both carried the legacy of the Liberation War — Zia through her husband, and Hasina through her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, widely known as the “Father of the Nation,” who served as the country’s first president until his assassination in 1975.
During Hasina’s rule, Zia was convicted in corruption cases and imprisoned in 2018. From 2020, she was placed under house arrest and freed only last year, after a mass student-led uprising, known as the July Revolution, ousted Hasina, who fled to India.
In November, Hasina was sentenced to death in absentia for her deadly crackdown on student protesters and remains in self-exile.
Unlike Hasina, Zia never left Bangladesh.
“She never left the country and countrymen, and she said that Bangladesh was her only address. Ultimately, it proved true,” Mohsin said.
“Many people admire Khaleda Zia for her uncompromising stance in politics. It’s true that she was uncompromising.”
On the social media of Hasina’s Awami League party, the ousted leader also offered condolences to Zia’s family, saying that her death has caused an “irreparable loss to the current politics of Bangladesh” and the BNP leadership.
The party’s chairmanship was assumed by Zia’s eldest son, Tarique Rahman, who returned to Dhaka just last week after more than 17 years in exile.
He had been living in London since 2008, when he faced multiple convictions, including an alleged plot to assassinate Hasina. Bangladeshi courts acquitted him only recently, following Hasina’s removal from office, making his return legally possible.
He is currently a leading contender for prime minister in February’s general elections.
“We knew it for many years that Tarique Rahman would assume his current position at some point,” Mohsin said.
“He should uphold the spirit of the July Revolution of 2024, including the right to freedom of expression, a free and fair environment for democratic practices, and more.”
