LONDON: UK police said Saturday two people had died after they were attacked in separate incidents at or near last weekend’s Notting Hill Carnival, one of the world’s largest street festivals.
The victims — a mother who was at the annual west London event with her young child, and a chef who previously worked under culinary celebrity Gordon Ramsay — had been in hospital since the attacks.
London’s Metropolitan Police have charged two people suspected of carrying out each assault.
The force revealed earlier this week that eight people were stabbed and hundreds arrested during the celebration of British Afro-Caribbean culture, held each year on the streets of Notting Hill and surrounding districts.
Cher Maximen, 32, was stabbed in the groin in broad daylight last Sunday after she tried to intervene in a fight that erupted. She died on Saturday morning.
She had been attending with her three-year-old daughter and other family and friends.
A London court remanded a 20-year-old man in custody Wednesday after he was charged with her attempted murder. The Met said that charge would now be “reviewed” by prosecutors following Maximen’s death.
Separately, chef Mussie Imnetu died late Friday after he was found unconscious late Monday with a head injury outside a west London restaurant which was busy with carnival-goers.
The Sweden-born 41-year-old had been visiting the UK on business from Dubai where he lives and works, but is not believed to have been at the carnival, according to police.
A 31-year-old appeared in court Friday charged with causing grievous bodily harm with intent but that charge will also now be reviewed, police said.
“Carnival is about bringing people together in a positive celebration,” Met Commander Charmain Brenyah said in a statement.
“That it has ended with the tragic loss of life, among other incidents of serious violence, will sadden everyone involved.”
Two dead, including Dubai-based chef, after separate attacks at Notting Hill Carnival
https://arab.news/y638h
Two dead, including Dubai-based chef, after separate attacks at Notting Hill Carnival
- London’s Metropolitan Police have charged two people suspected of carrying out each assault
- Chef Mussie Imnetu died late Friday after he was found unconscious late Monday
Only 4% women on ballot as Bangladesh prepares for post-Hasina vote
- Women PMs have ruled Bangladesh for over half of its independent history
- For 2026 vote, only 20 out of 51 political parties nominated female candidates
DHAKA: As Bangladesh prepares for the first election since the ouster of its long-serving ex-prime minister Sheikh Hasina, only 4 percent of the registered candidates are women, as more than half of the political parties did not field female candidates.
The vote on Feb. 12 will bring in new leadership after an 18-month rule of the caretaker administration that took control following the student-led uprising that ended 15 years in power of Hasina’s Awami League party.
Nearly 128 million Bangladeshis will head to the polls, but while more than 62 million of them are women, the percentage of female candidates in the race is incomparably lower, despite last year’s consensus reached by political parties to have at least 5 percent women on their lists.
According to the Election Commission, among 1,981 candidates only 81 are women, in a country that in its 54 years of independence had for 32 years been led by women prime ministers — Hasina and her late rival Khaleda Zia.
According to Dr. Rasheda Rawnak Khan from the Department of Anthropology at Dhaka University, women’s political participation was neither reflected by the rule of Hasina nor Zia.
“Bangladesh has had women rulers, not women’s rule,” Khan told Arab News. “The structure of party politics in Bangladesh is deeply patriarchal.”
Only 20 out of 51 political parties nominated female candidates for the 2026 vote. Percentage-wise, the Bangladesh Socialist Party was leading with nine women, or 34 percent of its candidates.
The election’s main contender, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, whose former leader Zia in 1991 became the second woman prime minister of a predominantly Muslim nation — after Pakistan’s Benazir Bhutto — was the party that last year put forward the 5 percent quota for women.
For the upcoming vote, however, it ended up nominating only 10 women, or 3.5 percent of its 288 candidates.
The second-largest party, Jamaat-e-Islami, has not nominated a single woman.
The 4 percent participation is lower than in the previous election in 2024, when it was slightly above 5 percent, but there was no decreasing trend. In 2019, the rate was 5.9 percent, and 4 percent in 2014.
“We have not seen any independent women’s political movement or institutional activities earlier, from where women could now participate in the election independently,” Khan said.
“Real political participation is different and difficult as well in this patriarchal society, where we need to establish internal party democracy, protection from political violence, ensure direct election, and cultural shifts around female leadership.”
While the 2024 student-led uprising featured a prominent presence of women activists, Election Commission data shows that this has not translated into their political participation, with very few women contesting the upcoming polls.
“In the student movement, women were recruited because they were useful, presentable for rallies and protests both on campus and in the field of political legitimacy. Women were kept at the forefront for exhibiting some sort of ‘inclusive’ images to the media and the people,” Khan said.
“To become a candidate in the general election, one needs to have a powerful mentor, money, muscle power, control over party people, activists, and locals. Within the male-dominated networks, it’s very difficult for women to get all these things.”
