SEOUL, 04 June 2022, (TON): President Joe Biden’s special envoy for North Korea said “the United States is preparing for all contingencies in close coordination with its South Korean and Japanese allies as it monitors North Korean arrangements for a possible nuclear test explosion that outside officials say could be imminent.”

South Korean and US intelligence officials have said “they detected North Korean efforts to prepare its northeastern testing ground for another nuclear test, which would be its seventh since 2006 and the first since September 2017, when it claimed to have detonated a thermonuclear bomb to fit on its intercontinental ballistic missiles.”

Sung Kim, the US special representative for North Korea, was in Seoul for a trilateral meeting with his South Korean and Japanese counterparts to discuss the growing threat posed by North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missiles programs.

Kim, using the initials of North Korea’s formal name said “the US assesses that the DPRK is preparing at its Punggye-ri test site for what would be its seventh nuclear test. This assessment is consistent with the DPRK’s own recent public statements.”

JEDDAH, 04 June 2022, (TON): The Red Wave 5 of the Western Fleet, implemented by the Royal Saudi Naval Forces, has concluded off the Saudi Red Sea coast of Jeddah.

Countries bordering the Red Sea, including Jordan, Egypt, Sudan, Djibouti and Yemen, all participated in the joint naval exercise, which was also attended by observers from Somalia.

The Royal Saudi Land Forces, the Royal Saudi Air Force and naval units of the Saudi Border Guards also took part in the exercise.

Yahya bin Mohammed Al-Asiri, who led the drill, said “Red Wave 5 maneuver witnessed the implementation of a number of combat trainings, including the clearance of fortified sites, intrusion and live fire shooting in support of combat aircraft and helicopters to carry out tactical tasks aiming to achieve the joint task principle.”

He said “the drill is to enhance military cooperation, unify concepts, raise combat preparedness and exchange experience that would contribute to upgrading the security abilities to protect the seas and regional and international water passages and guarantee maritime navigation in the Red Sea.”

TAIPEI, 04 June 2022, (TON): US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said “efforts of the victims of China’s bloody crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in and around Tiananmen Square 33 years ago will not be forgotten.”

Saturday marks the 33rd anniversary of Chinese troops opening fire to end the student-led unrest in and around the square. Chinese authorities ban any public commemoration of the event on the mainland.

In a statement on Saturday Asia time, Blinken termed the crackdown a brutal assault.

He added “the efforts of these brave individuals will not be forgotten. Each year, we honor and remember those who stood up for human rights and fundamental freedoms.”

“While many are no longer able to speak up themselves, we and many around the world continue to stand up on their behalf and support their peaceful efforts to promote democracy and the rights of individuals.”

Speaking on Thursday at a routine news conference in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian reiterated the government’s standard line about those events.

JEDDAH, 04 June 2022, (TON): The secretary-general of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, Hissein Brahim Taha, emphasized the importance of coordinated and inclusive economic recovery strategies in member states amid the ongoing social and economic impact of the pandemic.

Taha was speaking at the opening session of the 47th annual meeting of the Islamic Development Bank Group, which is being held in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh until June 4.

Drawing on the experiences of the OIC and its relevant institutions, including the IDB Group, in supporting national development efforts, Taha called for enhanced cooperation to ensure inclusive and resilient economic recovery of OIC member states.

He highlighted the need to support the most affected and vulnerable parts of society, increase support for the 22 least-developed OIC member states, boost the capacity in some selected OIC member states to produce vaccines.

In the face of a looming global food crisis, the secretary-general urged member states to implement the OIC decisions on establishing food reserves and rolling out OIC programs on strategic food commodities such as wheat, rice, and cassava.

By TON Bangladesh

For a long Bangladesh has upheld its macroeconomic constancy through judicious economic and balance controlling along with the growth of its communal safety net and investment in substructure schemes. Economic far-sightedness, export industrialization, and policies such as the empowerment of women and girls have put Bangladesh to be ahead of its per capita GDP of other south Asian countries, particularly India.

The economic growth of Bangladesh has been steady over the past four decades and gross domestic product growth has been outstripping South Asia’s with the region contracting by 6.58 percent as a whole and Bangladesh growing by 3.5 percent in 2020. Agriculture used to add help a third of Bangladesh’s GDP but fell to less than 15 percent between 2010 and 2018, while industry’s contribution rose from less than a fifth to more than a third.

Since the 1990s production’s influence on GDP has folded, and distributes has grown 20-fold to more than US$40 billion. High payments of US$16.4 billion in 2019 from low-wage labor have also supported the country's economy. Bangladesh is expected to maintain its per capita GDP lead over India ahead also owing to strong remittances, exports, and agricultural growth.

In 2020, India’s per capita GDP fell to US$1,929 from US$2,098, and economic production fell to US$2.66 trillion from US$2.87 trillion. During a similar year, Bangladesh, a US$355 billion economy, passed India with a per capita GDP of US$1,961 afterward achieving 6 percent growth over the past 15 years.

Since 2004, Bangladesh’s GDP growth has been picking up but it was only in 2017 when India’s growth started falling, that it managed to outperform its bigger neighbor. Bangladesh’s per capita GDP mounted at half of India’s before the 2008 debt crisis, but by 2014 that figure had grown to 70 percent. Covid-19 caused India’s economy to contract by 7.3 percent in 2020, while Bangladesh’s grew by 3.5 percent.

Today, Bangladesh outclasses India in economic shortfall, retail trade balance, occupation, public debt, and investment-to-GDP ratios. Its human development programs, particularly in girls’ education, have brought potency rates by rejecting premature weddings.

Bangladesh has achieved well than India in numerous social development such as life expectancy, fertility, and child nourishment. The benefits of its economic rise reach a wider base, compared with India’s slanted delivery. This comprehensive development has elevated living values, which in turn has led to improved tutelage and healthcare.

Contrary to Bangladesh these big milestones, India has done poorly on human development, especially in economically retrograde states. For example, its female work participation rate was 19 percent last year, as compared to it Bangladesh's figure is 35 percent.

India’s core continues with adolescent marriages and early pregnancies in different states, the infant mortality rate is 47 per 1,000 live births with adverse effects on the well-being of a large majority. Bangladesh’s success lies in having addressed the fertility issue through struggles in education and women’s enablement.

Due to macroeconomic constancy, Bangladesh’s economy has grown around 270-fold in the past 5 decades in local money footings, and its budget deficit has stayed at 5 percent of GDP. It has become the world’s second-largest costume exporter, owing to its growth stratagem of export-oriented industrial development.

It is a fact that the textiles, garments, and footwear industries of Bangladesh are labor conducive to training and supervising unskilled and semi-skilled labor further boost-up Bangladesh’s exports. With its beneficial position in free trade agreements, and its innovation, many Indian purchasers have moved there to remain viable in the worldwide economic market.

Bangladesh is India’s sixth-largest dealing partner with bilateral trade worth US$10.8 billion in 2020-21, up from US$9.5 billion in 2019-20. Sensing the economic strides of Bangladesh India is also giving preference to Bangladesh to boost its trade.

India has taken initiatives to strengthen bilateral cooperation including boosting trade in commodities, services, and energy, infrastructure development, and encouraging cross-border investment.

As a south Asian country Bangladesh continues to surge ahead from many of its neighboring countries to get the economic gains as well as economic prominence in South Asia.

By Afshain Afzal

In the latest development, India forcing Hindu Pandits to migrate from Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir. There are speculation that either Pandits are being forced to migrate to pave way for Muslims’ genocide or Indian Armed Forces have plans to occupy Hindu Pandits lands and orchards. Interestingly. in September 2021, hundreds of abandoned homes owned by Kashmiri Hindus Pandits, were witnessed being undergoing repairs with the hope that Pandits will finally return to their ancestral homeland. But New Delhi has some other plan, bulk of these house are being allotted secretly to the Indian Armed Forces personnel or the foreign investors. Sensing Indian conspiracy many Hindu Pandits are returning to Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir but in the recent days they are being expelled by Indian security forces.

As per the Indian official record 44617 Hindu Pandits were forced by Indian Army to leave troubled Jammu and Kashmir State after an armed rebellion by the Kashmiris against New Delhi’s rule on disputed State in 1990s. If we recall, in her speech in parliament on 14 March 2019, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman claimed how the abrogation of the region’s autonomy helped bring “real normalcy” and fulfil promises to the Pandit community with jobs and transit accommodations. However, many people employed under the prime minister’s package for the region as well as the Kashmiri Pandits who did not migrate remain critical of the government’s moves after August 2019, which they say have derailed their resettlement. In the recent attempt Kashmiri Pandits’ organisation has moved the Supreme Court seeking a probe by CBI/NIA or any other court-appointed agency into the alleged mass murders and genocide of Kashmiri Pandits in Jammu and Kashmir during 1989-90. Many Kashmiri Pandits are looking towards Indian security forces with suspicion that they were actually behind the massacre of Hindu Pandits in Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir in 1989/1990 but name of Kashmiri Mujahideen was propagated to derail the movement.

The Hindu Pandits are friends of Muslims and no one can snatch their rights to be Kashmiri State subjects. If we recall, Bhim Singh, who is well-wisher of Pakistan and even at the time of execution of Pakistani Prime Minister, he tried to plead the case but he was not allowed. Earlier, in a statement he said, “I was not allowed to visit Pakistan to plead Bhutto’s case. But I condemned it in the J&K Assembly. I was an MLA at that time.” As a spokesperson of Kashmir Pandits, many times he raised voice to stop injustices by New Delhi but he was not listened. Interestingly, despite Supreme Court direction to Indian government asking the government to provide ration and relief on the pattern the Kashmiri Hindu Pandits migrants but Indian authorities continue to deprive of their rights. Bhim Singh has a genuine point that even remaining as State Subjects Kashmiris are entitled to purchase land anywhere in India, “The law related to ‘State Subjects’ was enacted by Maharaja Hari Singh in 1927, when Permanent Residents of the State were given special status concerning land ownership. The law for Permanent Residents is unchangeable. The Constituent Assembly of India, in its declaration, had made it clear that the law will not be changed.” No doubt, the Jammu and Kashmir is disputed state as per the pending Resolutions of United Nations Security Council and United Nations General Assembly but if New Delhi is double playing with Kashmiris it should not forget that all the Kashmiris including living across the Line of Control (LoC) are entitled to purchase the land anywhere in India.

Since Kashmiri Pandits are determined to take over their ancestral properties in Jammu and Kashmir, the Indian intelligence agencies have made a concrete plan to massacre some of the Pandits, followed by genocide of Muslim Kashmiris. Intelligence inputs from ACIO Intelligence Bureau, Jammu reveal that in a couple of months targeted killings of Pandits and Sikhs by suspected Kashmiri rebels will commence, who are actually Indian Special Police Officers and were given jobs to create terrorism in Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir. Indian media has already been instructed to propagate that it is in reaction to reclaim of Pandit-owned properties by the Kashmiri militants. The media has also been instructed to project the Pandits have sold their properties. The fact cannot be denied that only very few Kashmiri Pandits sold their properties in distress and New Delhi must process the complaints aby Pandits. Interestingly, judgement in Sushil Kumar Dhar vs Union Of India & Anr. on 16 February 2022 reflects that “threat to the lives of the Kashmiri Pandits from the regional militants still persists in the Kashmir Valley even after many years of exodus by the Kashmiri Pandits. It is not advisable for the Kashmiri Pandits to go back to Srinagar to their native place”. The court has extended the time for the reconsideration of return of Pandits for another three years.

The only solution to the problem lies in allowing the people of Kashmir to exercise their unrestricted right to self-determination to decide their destiny. One wonders why India is taking such actions in haste like forcing Hindu Pandits to leave Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir; is some serious threat evident? We should not forget that the fate of Article 370 and 35 A is pending before the Supreme Court of India. New Delhi cannot run away by issuing a new Executive Order and divert the attention from the War Crime and Genocide of the Kashmiris that has taken place in the past and still continuing. The latest massacre plot of Hindu Pandits and as follow up genocide of Kashmiri Muslims must be prevented. It is time that UNO and Human Rights organizations must intervene.

By TON Bangladesh

For a long Bangladesh has upheld its macroeconomic constancy through judicious economic and balance controlling along with the growth of its communal safety net and investment in substructure schemes. Economic far-sightedness, export industrialization, and policies such as the empowerment of women and girls have put Bangladesh to be ahead of its per capita GDP of other south Asian countries, particularly India.

The economic growth of Bangladesh has been steady over the past four decades and gross domestic product growth has been outstripping South Asia’s with the region contracting by 6.58 percent as a whole and Bangladesh growing by 3.5 percent in 2020. Agriculture used to add help a third of Bangladesh’s GDP but fell to less than 15 percent between 2010 and 2018, while industry’s contribution rose from less than a fifth to more than a third.

Since the 1990s production’s influence on GDP has folded, and distributes has grown 20-fold to more than US$40 billion. High payments of US$16.4 billion in 2019 from low-wage labor have also supported the country's economy. Bangladesh is expected to maintain its per capita GDP lead over India ahead also owing to strong remittances, exports, and agricultural growth.

In 2020, India’s per capita GDP fell to US$1,929 from US$2,098, and economic production fell to US$2.66 trillion from US$2.87 trillion. During a similar year, Bangladesh, a US$355 billion economy, passed India with a per capita GDP of US$1,961 afterward achieving 6 percent growth over the past 15 years.

Since 2004, Bangladesh’s GDP growth has been picking up but it was only in 2017 when India’s growth started falling, that it managed to outperform its bigger neighbor. Bangladesh’s per capita GDP mounted at half of India’s before the 2008 debt crisis, but by 2014 that figure had grown to 70 percent. Covid-19 caused India’s economy to contract by 7.3 percent in 2020, while Bangladesh’s grew by 3.5 percent.

Today, Bangladesh outclasses India in economic shortfall, retail trade balance, occupation, public debt, and investment-to-GDP ratios. Its human development programs, particularly in girls’ education, have brought potency rates by rejecting premature weddings.

Bangladesh has achieved well than India in numerous social development such as life expectancy, fertility, and child nourishment. The benefits of its economic rise reach a wider base, compared with India’s slanted delivery. This comprehensive development has elevated living values, which in turn has led to improved tutelage and healthcare.

Contrary to Bangladesh these big milestones, India has done poorly on human development, especially in economically retrograde states. For example, its female work participation rate was 19 percent last year, as compared to it Bangladesh's figure is 35 percent.

India’s core continues with adolescent marriages and early pregnancies in different states, the infant mortality rate is 47 per 1,000 live births with adverse effects on the well-being of a large majority. Bangladesh’s success lies in having addressed the fertility issue through struggles in education and women’s enablement.

Due to macroeconomic constancy, Bangladesh’s economy has grown around 270-fold in the past 5 decades in local money footings, and its budget deficit has stayed at 5 percent of GDP. It has become the world’s second-largest costume exporter, owing to its growth stratagem of export-oriented industrial development.

It is a fact that the textiles, garments, and footwear industries of Bangladesh are labor conducive to training and supervising unskilled and semi-skilled labor further boost-up Bangladesh’s exports. With its beneficial position in free trade agreements, and its innovation, many Indian purchasers have moved there to remain viable in the worldwide economic market.

Bangladesh is India’s sixth-largest dealing partner with bilateral trade worth US$10.8 billion in 2020-21, up from US$9.5 billion in 2019-20. Sensing the economic strides of Bangladesh India is also giving preference to Bangladesh to boost its trade.

India has taken initiatives to strengthen bilateral cooperation including boosting trade in commodities, services, and energy, infrastructure development, and encouraging cross-border investment.

As a south Asian country Bangladesh continues to surge ahead from many of its neighboring countries to get the economic gains as well as economic prominence in South Asia.

DHAKA, 04 June 2022, (TON): Washington briefed Dhaka on the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, a new trade deal launched by US President Joe Biden with the aim of strengthening ties with countries in the region.

Nations joining the US in the IPEF are Australia, Brunei, India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. Along with the US, they represent 40% of world GDP.

According to a joint statement issued by the US and Bangladesh governments “Bangladesh welcomed additional information on the supply chain resilience and decarbonization pillars of the IPEF and sought US technical assistance to sustainably explore its ocean resources and further develop its blue economy.”

The statement said “the second US-Bangladesh High-Level Economic Consultation was co-chaired and convened by US Under Secretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment Jose W Fernandez and Private Industry and Investment Advisor to the Prime Minister of Bangladesh Salman F Rahman in the US capital.”

DHAKA, 04 June 2022, (TON): Malaysian Human Resources Minister M Saravanan said “Issues related to the welfare of migrant workers was discussed between Malaysia and Bangladesh.”

Saravanan also described a fruitful meeting with his Bangladeshi counterpart Imran Ahmad that took place in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

He said in a Facebook post "the discussion revolved around various issues on the welfare and well-being of migrant workers from Bangladesh to Malaysia.”

Saravanan reiterated the pledge by both countries in safeguarding workers in Malaysia.

KABUL, 04 June 2022, (TON): The Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation signed a contract for Aviation Security Services for four Afghan airports with the UAE’s GAAC company.

The contract includes the airports of Kabul, Herat, Mazar-e-Sharif, and Kandahar provinces.

A Joint Press Release of the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan and GAAC Holding SPV LTD said “GGAC Holding SPV LTD shall provide the services in accordance with the Standards and Recommended Practices of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO annex-17) and national regulations.”

The statement said “the services will include the necessary investments, training, and coaching to Afghan professionals to meet the international standards in this important field of civil aviation.”

Imamuddin Ahmadi, a spokesman for the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation said “a contract for Aviation Security Services for Kabul, Mazar-e-Sharif, Herat, and Kandahar has been signed with the UAE’s company of GAAC.”