DHAKA, 15 June 2022, (TON): The flood situation is likely worsen in some part of the country as the water levels at all the major rivers are rising except for the Padma.

According to a 24-hour bulletin of the Flood Forecasting and Warning Centre, medium to heavy rainfall is likely at some places in the northern and north-eastern regions of the country along with adjoining states of Assam, Meghalaya and Sub-Himalayan West Bengal of India in the next 48 hours.

The bulletin said “the water at the Brahmaputra-Jamuna, the Dharla, and the Ganges-Padma is likely to continue rising.”

DHAKA, 15 June 2022, (TON): Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has directed to build a museum near the Padma Bridge site.

The prime minister plans to display photos of everyone who was involved in the construction of the bridge at the museum, said “State Minister for Planning Shamsul Alam after Monday’s Executive Committee of the National Economic Council meeting.”

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina during the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council meeting at the Secretariat Monday, June 14, 2022 Focus Bangla

He added “aside from that, the museum will display everything related to the Padma Bridge.”

KABUL, 15 June 2022, (TON): The Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN said “the World Bank contributed $150 million to provide critical livelihood and life-saving assistance to the most vulnerable rural populations in Afghanistan.”

The FAO said “it will focus on wheat production, supporting about 2.1 million people.”

The Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock welcomed the World Bank’s financial support and said it will help Afghan farmers. 

Musbahuddin Mustayeen, a spokesman for the ministry said “in normal years, we import 1 to 1.5 million tons of wheat. In the years of drought, we import 2 to 2.5 million tons.” 

The Chamber of Agriculture and Livestock urged the Islamic Emirate to invest the money in infrastructure.

Mirwais Hajzada, a member of the chamber said “our proposal to the Islamic Emirate is to spend the money on Afghanistan’s infrastructure.” 

DHAKA, 15 June 2022, (TON): The Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen urged Kuwait to recruit more medical professionals including nurse and medical technicians from Bangladesh.

A press release of the ministry said “he made the remarks while outgoing Kuwati Ambassador to Bangladesh Adel Mohammed A H Hayat paid a courtesy call on him at his foreign ministry office here.”

During the meeting, Dr Momen thanked the Kuwaiti government for providing free vaccines and treatments to Bangladeshi expatriates living in the oil-rich Middle Eastern nation during the pandemic.

He also thanked the Kuwait government for extending humanitarian support for Rohingyas.

The foreign minister highlighted “the Bangladesh and Kuwait enjoy excellent bilateral relations in the fields of manpower, trade and commerce, defense and energy sectors.”

DHAKA, 15 June 2022, (TON): Bangladesh Government and the Asian Development Bank signed an agreement for a US$250 million policy-based loan to further improve the social protection system in Bangladesh for supporting the vulnerable population against socioeconomic challenges.

A press release said “Fatima Yasmin, Secretary, Economic Relations Division, and Edimon Ginting, Country Director, ADB, virtually signed the agreement on behalf of Bangladesh and ADB, respectively.”

The programme aims to accelerate reforms in increasing the coverage and efficiency of the social protection, improving the financial inclusion of disadvantaged people, and strengthening the response to diversified protection needs.

The loan is the second subprogram of the Strengthening Social Resilience Program (SSRP) approved in 2021, which helped implement institutional and policy reforms that strengthened the inclusiveness and responsiveness of social protection in Bangladesh.

DHAKA, 15 June 2022, (TON): Bangladesh has called upon the special envoy of the United Nations’ secretary general to Myanmar to work towards an early implementation of the bilateral return arrangements for the Rohingyas.

Ambassador Rabab Fatima said “the most durable solution to the Rohingya crisis lies in their safe, sustainable and dignified return to Myanmar.”

She urged the UN to scale up its programmes in Rakhine State to support the Rohingyas on their return.

Ambassador Fatima was addressing the General Assembly on Monday following the briefing by Dr. NoeleenHeyzer, the Special Envoy of the Secretary General on Myanmar.

‘Five years have passed since the Rohingyas fled home in one of the largest exoduses in recent history. The promise of safe return remains unfulfilled. Not a single Rohingya has been able to return home. 1.2 million of them remain in a state of uncertainty in Bangladesh.

Ambassador Fatima said “those remaining in Myanmar are either languishing in IDP camps or under constant threat of forced displacement and insecurity.”

By Osman Khan

Myanmar is seeing the brutal campaign of military regime destroying homes, villages, communities which engulfing an entire country in the aftermath of the 2021 coup. The Myanmar military has fiercely responded a widespread armed resistance movement in the Sagaing and Magwe regions, Chin State, and the Yaw Valley with a vicious assault of burning reminiscent of past pacification campaigns in other parts of the country.

The shocking destructions completely shows the Myanmar military mindset and utter disregard for the laws of the country and the laws of war. In these 16 months since the military seized the state and sparked a war against each person.

From February 1, 2021, until the end of May this year, the military has destroyed a total of 18,886 structures in 435 locations in Myanmar. The maximum number has been seen in Sagaing Region, with 13,840, 3,055 in Magwe, and 1,316 in Chin State, comprised religious buildings and schools as well as houses.

Recently, the United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Refugees reported that the number of internally displaced people in Myanmar had passed one million, with 700,000 displaced since the coup.

Furthermore, the UN Fact-Finding Mission projected over 725,000 people had escaped to Bangladesh, and 392 villages had been subject to deliberate annihilation, including 37,700 individual structures, the 40 percent of all settlements in northern Rakhine State and 80 percent of the destruction occurred in the “bloody operation”.

The Myanmar military has been rampaging the sites of civilian resistance and rushing an enormous retaliations against locally raised People’s Defense Forces. Their main concern is to harass the civilian populace to frighten the support for the armed confrontation. The burning of villages by Myanmar regime stands blatantly against the civilians and at odds with the international community’s drive to bring peace in Myanmar.

Just in May, clearly coordinated arson attacks took place against the Kale, Khin-U, Mingin, Yinmabin, and Kantbalu townships in Sagain by the repeated attacks of regime. In many cases attacks are followed by an internet cut-off, and troops travel by river to burn settlements on the banks.

In the same manner, a number of homes burned down in Thantlang, Chin State is highly shocking, from August 2021 when military commanders warned the town elders that they would raze the town to deter local armed resistance. More than 1,000 buildings and religious places have been destroyed.

In the intensive fighting between the Arakan Army and the Myanmar military in Rakhine between 2019 and late 2020, the military destroyed more than 1,000 homes in tactics they had used against Rohingya civilians a few years prior. Tin Mar Gyi village in Kyauktaw Township saw most of its 700 homes destroyed, allegedly by artillery, possibly airstrikes.

Homes are destroyed including the structure, the garden, the food stocks, pots and pans and tools and toys, books, and religious artifacts that are destroyed. The people lose in the flames their belonging and statelessness: birth and wedding certificates, citizenship papers, identity cards, and passports, land tenure documents, tax and loan receipts.

There are intangible memories and milestones which nobody could comprehend as the loss is great, horrifying and shocking and cannot be described convey in words alone.

So many civilians live in incessantly conflict-wracked areas such as Karen. Many people displaced by conflict in Kachin and Shan states remain close to their old homes but are unable to return due to continued instability and landmine contamination that may make the area uninhabitable for many years.

Over 100,000 Rohingya have been confined in squalid camps on the outskirts of the Rakhine capital Sittwe for a decade, just a few kilometers from their former homes in town. Shelters are often unable to be maintained due to a lack of funds or governments not wanting to support prolonged displacement and looking for ‘durable solutions’ that fail to eventuate.

Myanmar also experiences widespread forced evictions throughout the country, in rural areas, urban slums and working-class areas as military-connected capital seeks prime real estate without fair compensation. In the past this has even included forced evictions of cemeteries: even the dead aren’t spared in Myanmar.

The combination of poverty and conflict, repression, and desperation has caused millions of people to leave Myanmar for many decades, an estimated four million to work as migrant workers in Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, and the Middle East.

In fields, fishing boats and factories, hotel lobbies, hospitals, and shopping malls, often harried by predatory police, corrupt brokers, and sadistic criminal opportunists who may often be your employer, using underground banking systems to wire monthly wages to family in Mon State or Mandalay, dedication, and devotion to a home you might not see for many years, your children being raised by grandparents.

This widespread collective punishment strategy in upper Myanmar should be etched into the institutional memory of all foreign interlocutors from now, in ways that past human rights atrocities never were. UN and international NGO workers, diplomats, and the private sector were all complicit in downplaying past war crimes and crimes against humanity and finding ways to ‘contextualize’ the crimes of the past decade.

The regret feeling of dislocation and the desire to return home is highly painful for Myanmar people and the memoirs of friends and family are there in the armed struggle with the losses of homes in Myanmar in similar ways.

RIYADH, 14 June 2022, (TON): Prince Faisal bin Farhan, Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister received a phone call for Turkmenistan’s foreign minister Raşit Meredow.

They discussed ways to enhance bilateral relations in all fields and exchanged views on the latest regional and international developments.

The Saudi Press Agency reported “they also discussed coordination and the two nations’ efforts to establish peace regional and globally.”

JERUSALEM, 14 June 2022, (TON): Israel s Foreign Minister Yair Lapid urged citizens in Turkey to leave as soon as possible over threats that Iranian operatives are actively planning attacks on Israelis in Istanbul.

Lapid told a meeting of lawmakers from his Yesh Atid party “it s a real and immediate danger."

Lapid said “if you are already in Istanbul, return to Israel as soon as possible.”

He added “if you have planned a flight to Istanbul  cancel. No vacation is worth your life.”

WASHINGTON, 14 June 2022, (TON): U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland endorsed a bipartisan Senate gun-safety proposal as meaningful progress as he announced new gun-trafficking charges in an effort to crack down on the gun violence plaguing America.

Garland said at a news conference "we do think that at least the framework that I read about this morning with respect to the bipartisan negotiations would be meaningful progress in that direction.”

Garland's comments came one day after a bipartisan group of senators announced a gun safety bill designed to win approval by Republicans and Democrats alike.

President Joe Biden's administration is facing mounting pressure to take action in the wake of last month's mass-shootings at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, and a supermarket in Buffalo, New York.