DHAKA: Bangladesh will seek the extradition of ousted former prime minister Sheikh Hasina who was toppled in a revolution in August and fled to India, interim leader Muhammad Yunus said.
Dhaka has already issued an arrest warrant for 77-year-old Hasina — last seen arriving in neighboring India after fleeing by helicopter as crowds stormed her palace.
Hasina has been summoned to appear in court in Dhaka on Monday to face charges of “massacres, killings, and crimes against humanity,” but she remains in exile in India.
Yunus said his administration was focused on ensuring those guilty of cracking down on the protests to oust Hasina faced justice.
Several of her former government ministers, who were detained and held in custody, are expected in court to face similar charges.
“We have already taken initiatives to try those responsible for enforced disappearances, murders, and the mass killings during the July-August uprising,” Yunus said on Sunday.
The 84-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner was appointed to lead the government as “chief adviser” on August 9, days after the end of Hasina’s 15 years of iron-fisted rule.
Yunus, in a speech to the nation marking 100 days in power since a student-led revolution, said he had spoken to Karim Khan, chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court.
“We will seek the extradition of the ousted autocrat from India,” Yunus said, referring to Hasina.
Earlier this month, Bangladesh said it would request an Interpol “red notice” alert for fugitive leaders of Hasina’s regime.
Red notices issued by the global police body alert law enforcement agencies worldwide about fugitives.
India is a member of Interpol, but the red notice does not mean New Delhi must hand Hasina over.
Member countries can “apply their own laws in deciding whether to arrest a person,” according to the group, which organizes police cooperation between 196 member countries.
Yunus, a microfinance pioneer, is leading a temporary administration to tackle what he has called the “extremely tough” challenge of restoring democratic institutions in the South Asian nation of around 170 million people.
He also begged the country’s “patience” to prepare for the much-awaited poll, vowing an election commission would be formed “within a few days.”
But Yunus said he could not give a timeframe for the elections, saying it was dependent on a raft of reforms.
“I promise that we will hold the much-anticipated election once the necessary and essential reforms are complete,” he said in the broadcast.
“I request your patience until then. We aim to build an electoral system that will endure for decades. For this, we need some time.”
Crisis Group analyst Thomas Kean has called the challenge facing Yunus “monumental,” warning of that “cracks are emerging in the fragile alliance” that pushed him into power.
“For now, Yunus and his colleagues have widespread support, but popular expectations are double-edged,” the thinktank said in a report on Thursday.
“If the interim administration falters in making reforms, the outcome is likely to be an early election with little progress; in the worst-case scenario, the military could assume power.”
Bangladesh to seek extradition of ousted Sheikh Hasina — government
https://arab.news/bhp8e
Bangladesh to seek extradition of ousted Sheikh Hasina — government
- Ex-PM Sheikh Hasina fled to India in August via helicopter as crowds stormed her palace
- Hasina has been summoned to appear in court in Dhaka to face charges of “massacres, killings”
China considers exempting some goods from US tariffs
- A Ministry of Commerce taskforce is collecting lists of items that could be exempted from tariffs
- Bloomberg first reported China was considering tariff exemptions on Friday.
DUBAI: China is considering exempting some US imports from its 125 percent tariffs and is asking businesses to provide lists of goods that could be eligible in the biggest sign yet that Beijing is worried about the economic fallout from its trade war with Washington.
A Ministry of Commerce taskforce is collecting lists of items that could be exempted from tariffs and is asking companies to submit their own requests, according to a source who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Financial news magazine Caijing reported on Friday citing sources that Beijing was preparing to include eight semiconductor-related items, although no memory chips.
A list of 131 categories of products eligible for exemptions was circulating widely on social media and among businesses and trade groups on Friday. Reuters could not verify the list, whose items ranged from vaccines and chemicals to jet engines.
Repeated phone calls to China’s customs department were not answered. Customs and the Ministry of Commerce did not immediately respond to faxed questions.
Bloomberg first reported China was considering tariff exemptions on Friday.
The exemptions signal that, like Washington, Beijing is deeply concerned about the economic pain rippling across the country as the world’s two largest economies decouple.
While Washington has said the current status quo is economically untenable and already offered tariff exemptions to some electronic goods, China has repeatedly said it is willing to fight to the end unless the US lifts its tariffs.
But beneath the bombast, China’s economy is entering the trade war flirting with deflation. Demand is weak and consumer spending and sentiment have never properly recovered from the pandemic levels.
The government is pushing tariff-hit exporters to pivot to local markets, but companies say profits are lower, demand weaker and customers less reliable.
Exemptions are a bigger gesture of support, although by allowing some trade to resume, they also reduce the pain for the US economy and take some pressure off the White House.
At least 5 dead in Thai police plane crash
- The plane was conducting a test flight to prepare for parachute training in Hua Hin district before it crashed around 8 a.m.
BANGKOK: A small police plane crashed into the sea near a popular beach town in Thailand, killing at least five people on board, officials said.
The plane was conducting a test flight to prepare for parachute training in Hua Hin district before it crashed around 8 a.m., said Royal Thai Police spokesperson Archayon Kraithong.
Officials did not immediately share the model of the propeller plane, but photos from the scene appear to show a Viking DHC-6 Twin Otter. The plane crashed near Hua Hin Airport, said the public relations department of Prachuab Kiri Khan province.
The photos show the plane in the sea about 100 meters offshore. The body of the plane appeared to be broken in two.
There were six people on board, all police officers, Archayon said. He initially said that five people died at the scene and one died at the hospital, but later revised the death toll to five, saying the officer who was sent to the hospital remained in critical condition but alive.
The cause of the crash was not immediately known. Archayon said officials are gathering evidence including data from the plane’s black box.
Trump says Boeing ‘should default China’ for not taking planes
- Chinese customers started rejecting Beoing jet deliveries amid a trade war sparked by Trump
- Boeing poised to resell rejected jets, with Air India in talks with the planemaker to take 10 Max 737s
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump on Thursday criticized China for backing out of a deal to buy new Boeing planes due to tariffs imposed in the rivals’ trade war.
“Boeing should default China for not taking the beautifully finished planes that China committed to purchase,” Trump wrote on social media, without giving more details.
“This is just a small example of what China has done to the USA, for years,” he added.
US aviation giant Boeing’s CEO Kelly Ortberg said Wednesday confirmed that Chinese customers had stopped taking delivery of aircraft due to the “tariff environment.”
His remarks signaled growing disruption caused by tit-for-tat levies exchanged between the world’s largest economies this month.
New US tariffs have reached 145 percent on many Chinese products, while Beijing has responded with fresh 125 percent duties on imports from the United States.
The tariff blitz — which Trump says is retaliation for unfair trade practices, as well as a bid to restore US manufacturing prowess — has rattled markets and raised fears of a global recession.
Beijing on Thursday threw cold water on Trump’s apparent optimism about a US-China deal to lower tariffs, saying that suggestions of ongoing talks were “groundless.”
Trump told reporters on Wednesday that his country would have a “fair deal with China,” adding when asked if Washington was talking to Beijing that “everything’s active.”
Industry sources said the comments were seen as a signal to Beijing and Washington that the tariff conflict between the world’s two largest economies risked damage as Chinese airlines scramble for capacity and Boeing is left with a new stockpile.
Washington had previously signalled openness to de-escalating the trade war, stating earlier this week that high tariffs between the US and China were not sustainable.
Boeing is one of the largest US exporters and historically sent a quarter of its planes to China, though the share of Chinese airlines in its order backlog now stands at 10 percent after European rival Airbus increased market share.
Airbus has been in on-off negotiations for at least a year to try to grab a huge order of up to 500 jets, though China usually treads carefully over all major purchase decisions at times of geopolitical uncertainty, industry sources said.
Airbus said it never comments on commercial discussions that may or may not be happening.
Potential alternative markets for Boeing jets include India, Latin America and Southeast Asia but discussions have barely begun because of their complexity and uncertainty over who might blink in the tariff standoff, industry sources said.
Reselling
Amid the delivery standoff, Boeing said it is looking to resell potentially dozens of planes locked out of China by tariffs.
The move to prevent a repeat of the costly build-up of undelivered jets seen during past safety and trade crises comes as the planemaker seeks to prevent tensions undercutting its efforts to save cash and pay down debts.
Boeing took the rare step of publicly flagging the potential aircraft sale during an analyst call on Wednesday, saying there would be no shortage of buyers in a tight jet market.
“Customers are calling, asking for additional airplanes,” CFO Brian West said. Such negotiations are usually kept tightly under wraps.
Two sources, who declined to be named as the discussions are private, said Air India was seeking around 10 narrowbody planes from Boeing for its budget carrier Air India Express, which has a fleet of more than 100 aircraft.
Air India, Air India Express and Boeing did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
“Air India is very interested ... if the deal goes through, the planes are expected to be added to the fleet by end of the year,” the first person said, adding the talks were in early stages.
Air India Express has previously taken white tail aircraft — or jets manufactured for one customer but acquired by another.
A third source familiar with talks between Air India and Boeing said any difference in jet configuration between its fleet and the incoming planes meant for Chinese customers may be factored into price negotiations.
The move could be a boost to Air India’s expansion plans as the group’s growth has been constrained by a lack of new aircraft.
Last month, Air India CEO Campbell Wilson said the airline was a “victim of circumstance,” referring to delivery delays plaguing Boeing and Airbus.
Complex negotiations
However, experts warned that carrying out the threat to divert jets to other buyers would not involve a simple switch.
Finding new customers after planes have been built “can be a costly endeavour,” industry publication Leeham News said.
Experts say many components, such as cabins, are picked by airlines and switching configurations could cost millions of dollars. Doing so may also create a tangle of contractual commitments and need the co-operation of the original buyer.
For its part, China has urged Washington to abandon the tariffs but its airlines are seen as hungry for new planes to meet demand and stay within domestic aircraft age restrictions.
“This will be extremely complicated. Everyone is flexing muscle but nobody completely has the upper hand,” said a senior aircraft finance industry source who requested anonymity.
Boeing’s public stand follows a threat from tariffs to the aerospace industry’s decade-old duty-free trading status. Senior industry officials say, however, there is no clear evidence of a reported official Chinese government ban on US jets.
The move to repatriate and re-market jets stands in contrast to a build-up seen during an almost five-year import freeze on 737 MAX jets into China and previous trade tensions.
“We’re not going to continue to build aircraft for customers who will not take them,” Ortberg told analysts.
Two jets ferried to China in March for delivery to Xiamen Airlines returned to Boeing in Seattle in the past week.
A third 737 MAX flew from Boeing’s Zhoushan completion center near Shanghai to the US territory of Guam on Thursday, Flightradar24 data showed. Guam is one of the stops Boeing delivery flights make on the journey across the Pacific.
The third plane was initially built for Air China , according to Aviation Flights Group. The flag carrier did not respond to a request for comment.
Boeing had planned to deliver around 50 new planes to China over the rest of this year, West said. It is studying options for re-marketing 41 that are already built or in production.
Rulings coming fast and furious in lawsuits over Trump’s policies on immigration, elections and DEI
- The legal disputes playing out across the country are far from over though as administration attorneys are pushing back
WASHINGTON: The Trump administration was handed a rapid-fire series of court losses Wednesday night and Thursday in lawsuits filed over its policies on immigration, elections and its crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion programs in schools.
But the legal disputes playing out across the country are far from over, and administration attorneys pushed back, asking the federal appellate courts and the US Supreme Court to overturn some of the unfavorable decisions.
Here’s a look at the latest developments in some of the more than 170 lawsuits filed over President Donald Trump’s executive orders.
DEI
Judges blocked the administration from enforcing its diversity, equity and inclusion crackdown in education in at least two lawsuits Thursday. The decisions came ahead of a Friday deadline that the Education Department set for states to sign a form certifying they would not use “illegal DEI practices.”
A federal judge in New Hampshire blocked a series of directives from the Education Department, including a memo ordering an end to any practice that differentiates people based on their race, and another asking for assurances that schools don’t use DEI practices deemed discriminatory.
Judges in Maryland and Washington, D.C., also halted portions of the department’s anti-DEI efforts.
Elections
A federal judge blocked the Trump administration from immediately enacting certain changes to how federal elections are run, including adding a proof-of-citizenship requirement to the federal voter registration form. Still, the judge allowed other parts of Trump’s sweeping executive order on US elections — including a directive to tighten mail ballot deadlines — to go forward for now.
US District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly in Washington sided with voting rights groups and Democrats, saying that the Constitution gives the power to regulate federal elections to states and Congress — not the president. She noted federal lawmakers are currently working on their own legislation to require proof of citizenship to vote.
Immigration
The Trump administration is appealing a judge’s order barring it from deporting people from Colorado under a rarely used 1798 law.
Attorneys for the administration filed the appeal in the 10th US Circuit Court, arguing that Denver-based US District Judge Charlotte N. Sweeney lacks jurisdiction and that it is legally sound to invoke the Alien Enemies Act against the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.
In another case out of Maryland, the Trump administration was ordered to facilitate the return of a man who was deported to El Salvador last month despite having a pending asylum application. US District Judge Stephanie Gallagher in Maryland said the government violated a 2019 settlement agreement when it deported the 20-year-old man, a Venezuelan native identified only as Cristian in court papers. Gallagher cited another federal judge’s order for the government to facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who had been living in Maryland and was accidentally deported the same day as Cristian.
In a Texas lawsuit, a court document from an Immigration and Customs Enforcement official was unsealed, revealing that migrants subject to removal under the Alien Enemies Act are only getting about 12 hours to decide if they want to contest their planned deportation to a prison in El Salvador. Earlier this week, government attorneys in a different Alien Enemies Act lawsuit told a judge in Colorado that migrants were being given 24 hours to make the decision.
The American Civil Liberties Union says the time period violates a Supreme Court order that allowed the Trump administration to continue deportations but required the government give detainees a “reasonable time” to argue to a judge that they should not be removed.
Yet another federal judge based in San Francisco barred the Trump administration from denying federal funds to “sanctuary” cities that limit immigration cooperation.
US Judge William Orrick said the temporary ban is appropriate because the executive orders are unconstitutional, just like they were in 2017 when Trump announced a similar order. Orrick said the administration can’t freeze any federal funds in San Francisco and more than a dozen other municipalities until the lawsuit brought by those cities is resolved.
Transgender rights
The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to allow enforcement of a ban on transgender people in the military, while lawsuits over the ban move forward in court. The high court filing follows a brief order from a federal appeals court that kept in place a court order blocking the policy nationwide.
Trump signed an executive order a week into his term that claims the sexual identity of transgender service members “conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life” and is harmful to military readiness. In response, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a policy that presumptively disqualifies transgender people from military service.
But in March, US District Court Judge Benjamin Settle in Tacoma, Washington, ruled for several long-serving transgender military members who say the ban is insulting and discrimin
More than 1,800 migrants expelled from Algeria into Niger, rights group says
- The UK government is struggling to stop undocumented migrants embarking on dangerous boat journeys across the Channel from France
- Ukrainian and Afghan migrants face uncertainty under new policies
ALGIERS: Algerian authorities rounded up more than 1,800 migrants and left them at the Nigerien border in a record expulsion earlier this month, a Niger-based migrant rights group said Thursday.
Alarmphone Sahara, which monitors migration across the region, said the migrants were bused to a remote desert area known as “Point Zero” after being apprehended in Algerian cities.
Abdou Aziz Chehou, the group’s national coordinator, told The Associated Press on Thursday that 1,845 migrants without legal status in Algeria had been counted, arriving in Niger’s border town of Assamaka after the April 19 mass expulsion.
That pushed the total number of expelled migrants arriving in Assamaka this month beyond 4,000, he said.
The figure does not include those who may attempt to return north into Algeria, Chehou added.
The mass deportations come amid rising tensions between Algeria and its southern neighbors, all now led by military juntas that ousted elected governments previously aligned with Algiers. Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger withdrew their ambassadors from Algeria earlier this month over border security disputes.
For migrants fleeing poverty, conflict or climate change, Algeria serves as a transit point en route to Europe. Many cross vast stretches of the Sahara en route before attempting dangerous journeys across the Mediterranean. But reinforced maritime patrols have stranded increasing numbers in transit countries with checkered human rights records and limited humanitarian aid.
In 2024, Alarmphone Sahara recorded more than 30,000 migrants expelled from Algeria. Similar pushbacks have also been reported in neighboring Morocco, Tunisia and Libya.
Neither Algerian nor Nigerien officials have commented on the latest expulsions, which are rarely reported in Algerian press. In the past, Nigerien authorities have said such actions appear to violate a 2014 agreement that allows only Nigerien nationals to be deported across the border.
