DHAKA, 18 August 2022, (TON): UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet has applauded Bangladesh’s success in economic sector saying that the country is making significant development in recent years.

She was speaking at a press conference to brief the media on her four-day visit at a hotel in Dhaka.

The high commissioner also praised Bangladesh’s achievement in education, health, immigration, and climate change.

She said “Bangladesh has made strides in socio-economic development, poverty eradication, access to education and health, women’s and children’s mortality, access to food, water and sanitation.”

DHAKA, 18 August 2022, (TON): Awami League general secretary Obaidul Quader said “the United Nations has no jurisdiction to investigate any internal issue of Bangladesh.”

He said “the UN has no jurisdiction to investigate the complaint that BNP made to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights over alleged mass murder.”

He was addressing a protest organized by Dhaka South Awami League Unit marking the 17th anniversary of the serial bomb blasts across the country during the regime of the BNP-Jamaat alliance in 2005.

He also called upon Awami League leaders and workers to unite as the party will have to work hard to realize the dreams of Badbangabandhu and uphold the spirit of the Lberation War.

DHAKA, 18 August 2022, (TON): Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said “Bangladesh had witnessed gross violation of human rights during the long military regimes after 1975 carnage.”

She said while UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet paid a courtesy call “we’re even barred from seeking justice.”

PM’s Press Secretary Ihsanul Karim briefed the media after the meeting.

The premier said “Father of the Nation and then President Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman along with most of his family members were brutally assassinated on August 15 in 1975.”

By TON Nepal

On Sunday evening President Bidya Devi Bhandari head of Nepal’s state returned the Citizenship Act amendment bill to the House of Representatives for a review on the 15th day she received it from the Speaker for authentication. The Speaker had sent the bill to the president house (Sheetal Niwas) on July 31 for authentication after the lower house endorsed it on July 22 and the upper house. On July 28 the President sent the bill back to the House for a review.

The President has sent the Citizenship Act amendment bill to the House of Representatives as per Article 113(3) of the constitution, along with a note that it needs an appraisal. A bill, passed by both the houses, becomes a law only after receiving the President’s seal.

The delay in validating the bill by the President had raised anxieties among segments of people. The constitution. However, permits the President to take up to 15 days to study the bill before approving it or referring it back for a review. President has attached 15 concerns and proposals while sending the bill back to the House.

On July 8, the government had made a new amendment bill to the Citizenship Act after withdrawing an old one which was confirmed by the State Affairs and Good Governance Committee of Parliament after considering on it for 22 months. The new bill was not sent to the House committee for discussions.

Since the bill created in the lower house, it has been sent back to the lower house for a review, but it has to be sent to the upper house as well. As per Article 113(4) of the constitution, both the houses need to appraisal the bill and they can send it back to the President in its current form or after a review.

If the upper house does a review, the lower house has to accept it. Once the bill is resent to the President, in its existing form or after a review, it must be authenticated within 15 days from the date of receiving it. Thousands of children who were born to the parents who got their citizenship by birth have been waiting for the presidential permission to the bill to get citizenship by descent.

All eligible Nepal’s born before September 20, 2015, the day the Constitution of Nepal was promulgated, were granted naturalized citizenship. However, their children are unsuccessful to get citizenship in the lack of a law as the constitution said the provision to give them citizenship would be guided by a federal law. Some 190,000 persons had attained naturalized citizenship by birth.

The presidential approval would have paved the way for one born to a Nepali woman in Nepal and whose father is unidentified to get citizenship by descent. The bill, however, has a provision that the applicant’s mother must make a self-declaration that the father is not identified. The bill says she will be answerable for action if it is found that her claim that the father is not identified turns out to be wrong.

The President has showed her concern over this provision of self-declaration. She has said the provision is varying with Article 39 of the constitution connected to necessary rights of the children and Article 38 that guarantees women safe motherhood and generative rights.

The president has said the provision demanding the self-declaration by a mother will not only force her to disclose her identity but will also tantamount to an attack on her self-respect. The provision needs to be reconsidered. As motherhood and reproduction are chastely the rights of a mother guaranteed in the constitution, the self-declaration doesn’t match the constitutional facility.

The President has also found the provision contradictory to Article 16 of the constitution which safeguards the right to live with dignity. On concerns that she was quick to issue an ordinance by the former government with similar necessities but has deferred the bill even after it was permitted by the House, the President has said the making of laws through an ordinance and through a bill are two different procedures.

There is always a scope for review of an ordinance in Parliament but that is not the case with the bill endorsed by Parliament. She has said that the constitution itself has preserved the President with the right to send any bill for an amendment if necessary.

When the earlier bill was moved in the House, the major bone of contention was whether to give or not the naturalized citizenship to foreign women married to Nepali men once they start the process to reject the citizenship of the country of their origin. The committee in June 2020 had endorsed the earlier bill with a facility that foreign women married to Nepali men will have to wait for seven years for naturalization. The new bill, however, removed that provision.

During her consultations with leaders from different parties as well as civil society members, she was offered different views, some suggesting immediate authentication while others urging her to send it for a review.

The President has said in her message that there is a need to have a historical overview of the drafting processes of citizenship laws. The President has requested a study of the historical aspects and practices before amending the law.

She has suggested for reading the very first law on citizenship issued in 1952, old constitutions and modifications to them to vary the provisions associated to providing citizenship, the citizenship law that was not legitimated by the former King.

The President said that Article 10(2) has unsuccessful to include the constitutional facility of single federal citizenship with provincial identity. Article 10(2) states that “facility of single federal citizenship with provincial identity has been made in Nepal.

She has stated that it is sad that an issue like citizenship was a medium to make division in society, she pressed the House to steer clear of disagreements and focus on the subject matter.

The President has said a lasting solution should be found to the issue of naturalized citizenship. In her message, the President has also said the concerns of Madhesh should be decided in an enduring way. She has said that the citizenship issue is not an issue limited to Madhesh only.

Stating that the Madheshi communities have been watching the developments relating to naturalized citizenship seriously, the President has asked the Parliament to find a permanent solution.

The issue relating to granting citizenship through mother and citizenship by descent to those born to parents with citizenship by birth is prevalent in 53 districts, as per Home Ministry statistics. From the new Act, the number of beneficiaries in the eight districts of Madhesh stands at 35,000-40,000 while around 700,000 to 800,000 people across the country are predictable to advantage from this Act.

The President has also stressed that there should not be any delay in giving citizenship and urged the federal parliament to discuss and decide on the bill without stay and re-send it for confirmation. Now the process of the bill will review. It’s now up to the Parliament whether to deliberate the concerns raised by the President and review the bill or send it back to her for authentication in its current form.

WASHINGTON, 17 August 2022, (TON): President Joe Biden signed Democrats’ landmark climate change and health care bill into law, delivering what he has called the final piece of his pared-down domestic agenda, as he aims to boost his party’s standing with voters less than three months before the midterm elections.

The legislation includes the most substantial federal investment in history to fight climate change some $375 billion over the decade and would cap prescription drug costs at $2,000 out-of-pocket annually for Medicare recipients.

It also would help an estimated 13 million Americans pay for health care insurance by extending subsidies provided during the coronavirus pandemic.

The measure is paid for by new taxes on large companies and stepped-up IRS enforcement of wealthy individuals and entities, with additional funds going to reduce the federal deficit.

ANKARA, 17 August 2022, (TON): Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan will pay a one-day working visit to Lviv on August 18, 2022, upon the invitation of the president of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky.

According to a statement made by the Presidency's Directorate of Communications “all aspects of the strategic partnership-level Turkiye-Ukraine relations will be evaluated during President Erdogan's meetings with his Ukrainian counterpart.”

During the visit, it is also expected that a trilateral meeting will be held with the participation of Zelenskiy and United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

According to the statement “at the meeting, the steps that can be taken to end the Ukraine-Russia war through diplomatic means, by increasing the activities of the mechanism established for the export of Ukrainian grain to the world markets, will be discussed.”

BERLIN, 17 August 2022, (TON): Germany has deployed troops with the European Union’s peacekeeping mission in Bosnia for the first time in a decade as concerns mount instability from the Ukraine war could spread to the Western Balkans.

A German military spokesman said “the first German troops to return to the country were greeted in a ceremony at the Sarajevo headquarters of the EUFOR force that marked the start of their mission.”

Germany will deploy some 30 troops in total to Bosnia by mid-September, returning to the force that it had left at the end of 2012.

Bosnia is hundreds of miles from the fighting in Ukraine but faces an increasingly assertive Bosnian Serb separatist movement that analysts say has at least tacit support from Moscow.

LOS ANGELES, 17 August 2022, (TON): Water supplies to some US states and Mexico will be cut to avoid catastrophic collapse of the Colorado River, Washington officials said Tuesday, as a historic drought bites.

More than two decades of well below average rainfall have left the river the lifeblood of the western United States at critical levels, as human-caused climate change worsens the natural drought cycle.

Despite years of warnings and a deadline imposed by Washington, states that depend on the river have not managed to agree on a plan to cut their usage, and the federal government said it was stepping in.

Tanya Trujillo said “in order to avoid a catastrophic collapse of the Colorado River System and a future of uncertainty and conflict, water use in the Basin must be reduced.”

Arizona’s allocation from the river will fall by 21 percent in 2023, while Nevada will get eight percent less.

BEIRUT, 17 August 2022, (TON): Turkish troops and US-backed Kurdish fighters exchanged heavy shellfire in the northern Syrian border town of Kobani, leaving one civilian dead as the conflict between the warring parties escalated.

According to residents and the semi-autonomous local administration governing the town “the artillery fire hit within the town and around its edges, starting overnight and intensifying throughout the day.”

The administration said “in an online statement that at least one child died due to the shelling and others were wounded.”

Ankara sees the semi-autonomous system spearheaded by Kurdish factions and governing swathes of northern and eastern Syria as a national security threat on its border.

LONDON, 17 August 2022, (TON): Human Rights Watch has called on Israel to release 37-year-old French-Palestinian human rights lawyer Salah Hamouri and reinstate his residency status in his home city of Jerusalem.

HRW said “hamouri was arrested on March 7 at his home in East Jerusalem based on secret evidence, and has had no charges brought against him since.”

His residency was revoked on Oct. 17 last year on grounds of breaching allegiance to Israel, and for his alleged association with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

He was accused of hostile, dangerous and significant activity against the state of Israel.

HRW said “under international law, occupying countries are forbidden from compelling occupied peoples to swear allegiance to them.”