ANKARA, 27 November 2022, (TON): In the Syrian Kurdish city of Kobane, gripped by fear of a Turkish offensive, Saleh Abdo Khalil passes an open-air museum of buildings reduced to rubble.
The local baker said “Daesh destroyed these buildings."
That danger has passed, but now, he said “Turkiye wants to destroy the rest of the city.”
Since Sunday, Turkiye has carried out airstrikes against the semi-autonomous Kurdish zones in north and northeastern Syria, and across the border in Iraq.

DHAKA, 27 November 2022, (TON): Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen advised the opposition leaders to reach out to people at the grassroots instead of seeking favour from foreigners, saying that foreigners have their own interests.
He mentioned that people in a number of countries, including in Afghanistan, suffered due to foreigners' role there.
Momen told reporters “don't listen to foreigners, listen to your leaders. After all, this is our own country. We don't want to harm our country."
Recalling some foreigners' role in the past, the Foreign Minister said, “I have much confidence in the people of this country.”

BANGKOK, 27 November 2022, (TON): Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s visit to Bangkok last week has opened not only a new chapter in Saudi-Thai ties but also new horizons in which officials and the people see a promising future for both kingdoms.
Relations between Saudi Arabia and Thailand were officially restored in January this year, during Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha’s trip to Riyadh, when the two countries agreed to appoint ambassadors for the first time in over three decades.
The crown prince arrived in Bangkok as a guest of honor at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit hosted by Thailand on Nov. 18-19 and became the first Saudi official to make such a trip.

LONDON, 27 November 2022, (TON): Amnesty International has applauded the establishment of a fact-finding mission to investigate human rights violations in Iran as long overdue given the dire situation in the country.
Amnesty’s Secretary-General Agnes Callamard said “the cries of the people in Iran for justice have finally been heard. It not only enhances international scrutiny of the dire situation, but puts in place a process to collect, consolidate and preserve crucial evidence for future prosecutions."

DHAKA, 27 November 2022, (TON): Education Minister Dr Dipu Moni held a meeting with the President of the Asian Development Bank Masatsugu Asakawa at the latter's office in the Philippines.
During the meeting, the minister and the ADB president discussed ongoing projects in the education sector of Bangladesh funded by ADB.
They also discussed future projects to be funded by ADB in Bangladesh's education sector.

CAIRO, 27 November 2022, (TON): Egyptian MPs and politicians have rejected what they are calling the European Parliament’s blatant interference in Egypt’s domestic affairs.
In a statement issued, the European Parliament called for the immediate and unconditional release of dozens of human rights defenders, lawyers, journalists, activists, politicians and social media influencers currently sitting in Egyptian prisons and for the reversal of the excessive use of arbitrary pre-trial detention in Egypt.
The European Parliament also appealed to the member states of the EU “to support the call for the creation of an international mechanism for monitoring and reporting gross violations of human rights in Egypt at the UN Human Rights Council, as well a deep and comprehensive review of the EU’s relations with Egypt in light of the very limited progress in Egypt’s human rights record.”

NEW DELHI, 27 November 2022, (TON): Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday commended the Department of Information Technology and Telecom Bhutan and ISRO on the successful launch of the jointly developed satellite by both countries.
According to Prime Minister's office "Prime Minister Narendra Modi commended the Department of Information Technology and Telecom Bhutan and ISRO on the successful launch of this jointly developed satellite and said that the India-Bhutan satellite is a testament to our special relationship with the people of Bhutan."
The Prime Minister said in response to a tweet by the Prime Minister of Bhutan who presented a message from His Majesty The King on the successful launch of India-Bhutan SAT.

DHAKA, 27 November 2022, (TON): Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen on Saturday again expressed dissatisfaction regarding foreign ambassadors commenting on Bangladesh's internal affairs.
He warned the ambassadors that action will be taken against them when time comes.
After an event at the Foreign Service Academy, the foreign minister said that countries like the United States were unhappy with Russia for interfering in their last election.
They expelled 20 to 21 diplomats.
He added “they (US) are strong, that's why they did it."

By Usman Khan
On Thursday, the European Commission continued its ban on Nepali airlines for not meeting international safety standards. Nepal Airlines remain on the updated EU Air Safety List which means they are still barred from EU skies even after nearly 10 years. On September 14, 2022, the European Commission representatives as part of its incessant checking activities met with the representatives of the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN).
On that instance, the CAAN provided the commission with evidence regarding the safety oversight in Nepal and notably their reviewed concerns about the functional parting of the regulatory and service supplier roles which is an enduring issue recognized during the commission discussions with Nepal, as well as by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Universal Safety Oversight Audit Programme. This means the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal has connected it will not be split into regulator and service provider. Though the civil aviation body has offered no robust reason why it doesn’t want this functional departure.
The European Commission added in its report, “as a follow-up to that meeting, on November 10, 2022, the CAAN submitted to the commission the information and documentary evidence about the adoption of a new CAAN regulation, which in CAAN’s view safeguards the functional separation of CAAN’s regulatory and service provider roles, namely by preventing the transfer of staff between regulatory and service provider sections of the CAAN.”
The report identified, “that the application of this new regulation and progress in aligning the CAAN’s safety oversight with the relevant international safety standards would allow the commission to consider whether a European Union on-site assessment visit to Nepal should be prepared in 2023. On the basis of evidence gathered during such a visit, the commission could assess if a removal of air carriers certified in Nepal would be reasonable. Following the September 2012 crash of Sita Air Flight 601 at the Manohara River which killed 19 people, including seven British citizens, the European Commission imposed a blanket ban on Nepali airlines from flying into the 27-nation bloc in December 2013.
The European Commission has said at this time there are no grounds for modifying the list of air carriers which are focus to an operating ban within the Union with respect to air carriers from Nepal. Member states should continue verifying the effective obedience of air carriers certified in Nepal with the relevant international safety standards through prioritization of inspections of those air carriers.
It is being alleged that the civil aviation body has been misusing its authority but no one wants to speak against it. The chief of the civil aviation body has been repeatedly saying to Nepali media that they will work from two offices in its place of splitting the organization. There is larger politics to avert the organization from being parted. It is also being alleged that once it is broken up, some top position holders will lose the dual benefits they have been enjoying.
The existing system permits the director general of the Civil Aviation Authority to issue tenders for multi-billion-dollar projects. The same person also has the plum job of overseeing compliance with the project and the aviation regulations governing the issuance of licenses to airlines and crews.
No one wants to lose this influence. That’s why, despite intense pressure, it has become hard to detached the civil aviation body for a long time. It’s highly disappointing that Nepal is still on the air safety list even after nearly 10 years. It is impacting Nepal’s tourism industry and the economy in the long run.
The Civil Aviation Authority has been repeatedly issuing reassurances that the European Commission will remove Nepal from the air safety list, citing ICAO's audit report which shows that the country's safety standard has improved some. However, ICAO’s final audit report shows that Nepal’s performance on organization, which defines the organizational structure required to meet safety standards, remains poor. The effective implementation score on organization, one of the eight critical elements, has been abridged to 45.45 percent from the earlier 50 percent. The global average is 71.1 percent.
In its final audit report, United Nations aviation watchdog ICAO formally asked Nepal to split the civil aviation body into two entities—service provider and regulator. The request has come in written form after Nepal showed no readiness to separate the organization.
Splitting the organization is a crucial organizational reform agenda which has been a work in progress for the last one and a half decades. The reluctance to listen to the aviation watchdogs will cost Nepal in the long run. Although Nepali airlines don’t fly directly to the EU, tourists, particularly in the high-end segment, are disinclined to visit to countries that have been marked by the aviation watchdog. Nepal remains red-flagged in international aviation because of its poor safety record. Passing legislation to split the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal into two entities will achieve a main condition of the European Commission. This will hasten Nepal’s elimination from its air safety list, allowing Nepali airlines to fly to Europe and bring more travelers.
However, the government is unwilling to break up the aviation agency which can loosen its grip on it. Nepal’s tourism and aviation sectors lamented that Parliament’s five-year term ended on September 18 without passing long-pending civil aviation bills to separate the civil aviation body, which could harshly hinder their growth and do long-term harm.The hospitality industry has been pouring billions into new properties amid post-Covid optimism that tourist arrivals would take off. Nonetheless, failure to pass the bills is stopping recovery on sound its tracks.

By Ali Husnain
fifty years ago, a weak, resource-constrained nation with a major portion of the population uneducated and unskilled was seen by many as an impossible situation. Since Bangladesh was filled with political unrest and the involvement of other parties, some of them even made the dire prediction that it would not exist as an independent and sovereign nation in the long term. Although it appears that these individuals were of assistance to Bangladesh, they actually forced it into a more difficult situation where it halted its advancements and growth after having just undergone dissolution 23 years prior. Bangladesh was referred to be a "global basket case," which denoted that it was an unreliable or decaying nation.
The early natural and man-made disasters in Bangladesh also gave proponents of the "basket case" some instruments with which to spread their propaganda. The country's economy experienced a number of internal and foreign shocks from 1972 to 1975, or three years and eight months, to be precise. These include escalating inflation, the global oil shock, a loss in trade, the need for foreign assistance and food aid, a rise in smuggling, an outbreak of hunger, cyclones, floods, and growing inflation. Then there was ineffectiveness, corruption, and poor administrative management. The "basket case" propagandists failed to take the shocks into account.
Bangladesh has advanced steadily by periodically altering and updating economic policies as well as by adopting new policies, regardless of the projections and predictions made by experts and economists in the early years of the country. Policy creation and execution did not always result in the best or most favorable results. However, even though it occasionally slowed down, economic growth never came to a standstill.
Political progress and adjustments to political agreements go hand in hand with Bangladesh's economic growth. Despite the nation's move toward a market-oriented strategy, state-sponsored capitalism created the door for rent-seeking, which has persisted in various forms over the years. Additionally, it strengthened cronyism—more specifically, crony capitalism. As a result, there was a tighter link between politics and business. The growing income is the outcome, although socioeconomic inequality is also present. The biggest issue currently facing Bangladesh is finding a way to overcome the failures while maintaining the five decades of success. By the conclusion of the sixth decade of its existence, Bangladesh's economy is likely to reach the "drive to maturity" or the next stage in Rostow's growth model. The high optimism is subject to properly addressing inequality, ensuring social justice, and establishing good governance,
However, many people view Bangladesh as a country with many opportunities, and many commitments have been made to take advantage of this potential for the nation and its citizens. Despite making progress and development albeit sluggish, the nation's development has been and still is constrained by issues brought about by those in power, regardless of their political affiliations. It was felt that political liabilities are more important than nation-building. As corruption continues to eat away at the country's foundation, it gives all power brokers a clear path to instant wealth. Democracy has been unable to alter qualitatively due to the existing two-party domination, their struggle for power, and social decay. As long as inadequate governance-related unhappiness persists, exploitation by powerful groups has not lessened.
Moreover, the external entities got a full chance to interfere in the domestic politics of Bangladesh because of its poor conduct in politics and political unrest within the state by the politicians who either have governed Bangladesh or are in power in Bangladesh.
The current political atmosphere in Bangladesh posed to take the country into a devastating phase where it could meet the economic imbalance, lack of resources available for the individuals, and involvement of external entities very closely where they could monitor the administration of Bangladesh very closely and furthermore the sovereignty of the state could be threatened.
However, to save the state from any upcoming calamity, political harmony in the state is very much crucial and important. Bangladesh, following the four principles of Bangabandhu’s policy, should step ahead and the next forthcoming elections must be held under a caretaker government which could be claimed as fair and free to decide the future of Bangladesh. Moreover, state-centric policies should be adopted by the political leader and relations with the other state should be established for the betterment of the state collectively. This is how Bangladesh could progress and restore democracy by applying democratic values and policies which are meant to reconstruct the damages which have been done to the state.