DHAKA, 19 July 2021, (TON): Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina today said that the aim of her government is to develop a fully service-oriented administration to ensure the welfare of people.

she said at a function marking the signing of the Annual Performance Agreement that our aim is to build an administration that will serve people and ensure its accountability to people.

The programme was arranged at Osmani Memorial Auditorium. The prime minister joined the event from her official residence Gono Bhaban.

Hasina said "we have our responsibilities to the people. Our responsibilities are to ensure their welfare and their interests, and to change their fate."

She mentioned that the government, from the beginning of the pandemic, initiated stimulus packages, announced 28 packages worth Tk 131,641 crore and implemented those.

The PM thanked all for their sincere efforts which resulted in keeping the national economy moving since March 2020.

JOHANNESBURG, 19 July 2021, (TON): South African President Cyril Ramaphosa was due to join post-riot clean-up efforts on Sunday as his government warned against vigilantism and sought to avert racial conflict following the unrest.

The country was gripped by more than a week of chaos that claimed more than 200 lives as looters ransacked shopping centres and unidentified groups torched key industrial infrastructure and blocked trade routes.

The violence was the worst in post-apartheid South Africa and erupted after former president Jacob Zuma was sentenced to 15 months in jail for snubbing a corruption inquiry.

His trial for graft in a separate case is due to resume on Monday.

Ramaphosa is under mounting pressure as only one of the suspected masterminds of what officials have called an attempted “insurrection”, which caused an estimated $1 billion of damage, has been arrested.

Access to basic necessities like food has become a pressing issue in the areas affected by looting, arson and violence as many stores were destroyed while others remain closed.

Many in the worst-hit KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) province are now going hungry.

MALE, 19 July 2021, (TON): President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih said that the ownership and management of the airport being built in HDh. Hanimaadhoo will reside solely with the Maldivian government, and provided assurance foreign soldiers will not be allowed to station at the airport.

He made the statement during a meeting with residents of Hanimaadhoo to discuss public opinion on the airport development project afternoon.

At the meeting, President Solih said “his government will not allow any action that may hinder Maldives’ sovereignty in any way, and that he does not believe any succeeding government would allow for it either.”

He said that the loan to build Hanimaadhoo Airport is taken by the government. The management and ownership of the airport will reside with the government. Soldiers from a foreign nation will not be stationed there. And my government will not take any action that may hinder Maldives’ sovereignty in any way.

President Solih spoke of the benefits of having an international airport on the island; not just for the local community in Hanimaadhoo, but for the entire region.

Some of the Hanimaadhoo residents who took part in the meeting said “they welcomed the airport development project, and thanked the President for discussing the project with them.”

COLOMBO, 19 July 2021, (TON): Sri Lanka Navy managed to seize about 103kg and 750g of Kerala cannabis, during a special operation conducted in northern waters off Kankesanthurai, Jaffna in the dark hours on 15th July 2021. The operation also led to the apprehension of 03 suspects and a dinghy in connection to the racket.

Sri Lanka Navy has been conducting regular operations in island-waters to curb wide-ranging illegal activities, including the smuggling of drugs, taking place via sea routeConsequently, the Fast Attack Craft P 415 of 04th Fast Attack Craft Flotilla (4 FAF) attached to the Northern Naval Command with the Inshore Patrol Craft P 166 and P 015 conducted a special operation off Kankesanthurai, where they spotted several packages being thrown overboard from a dinghy heading landward, as it was about to be searched.

Incidentally, P 015 intercepted the suspicious dinghy and held 03 suspects aboard. In the meantime, P 166 and P 415 carried out further search in the sea area and recovered 03 packages containing about 103kg and 750g of Kerala cannabis cast away by the smugglers.

It is suspected that the smugglers might have retrieved the stock of Kerala cannabis to the dinghy at the International Maritime Boundary Line (IMBL) to smuggle it into the island. Meanwhile, the street value of the seized stock of Kerala cannabis is believed to be over Rs. 31 million.

DAMASCUS, 19 July 2021, (TON): Syrian regime artillery fire killed at least five civilians including two children in the country’s last major rebel bastion of Idlib.

Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said “the shelling took place in the village of Ehsim, in the south of Idlib region.”

A family member told Media that visitors had gathered to congratulate a male relative on getting married when the shelling hit their home.

Earlier in the day, rockets fired by pro-government forces killed six people in the village of Sarja, including three children and a rescue worker, meaning at least 11 were killed in total in Idlib.

The shelling at Ehsim came hours after President Bashar al-Assad took the oath of office for a fourth term, pledging to “liberate” areas still beyond government control.

The deaths are the latest violations of a ceasefire deal agreed by Turkey and Russia in March 2020 to stem a regime offensive on the jihadist-dominated stronghold.

Rescue workers under floodlights cut through a collapsed ceiling to retrieve the body of a woman.

Bundling her body up in a blanket, they then gently lowered it down a ladder and carried it into an ambulance.

Bordering Turkey, the northwestern Idlib region is home to around three million people, more than half displaced by fighting in other parts of war-torn Syria. Many rely on humanitarian aid to survive.

KATHMANDU, 19 July 2021, (TON): Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba won the vote of confidence in the House of Representatives.

Deuba received 165 votes in the 271-member strong lower house. He needed 136 votes to win the House confidence, as four lawmakers remain suspended.

Only 249 lawmakers, however, were present during Sunday’s House.

As many as 83 lawmakers voted against and one remained neutral.

Speaker Agni Sapkota said “I hereby declare that the motion of the vote of confidence tabled by Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba has been endorsed with a majority.”

The proposal for the vote of trust was registered in the Parliament Secretariat, the very first day of the session of the House after it was reinstated by the Supreme Court on July 12.

With Deuba winning the vote of confidence, he is set to remain prime minister for a year and a half, until periodic elections are held.

The Nepali Congress president was appointed prime minister on July 13 as per the Supreme Court order a day before to that effect to the Office of the President.

The Supreme Court on July 12 overturned then prime minister KP Sharma Oli’s May 21 House dissolution and ordered Deuba’s appointment as prime minister under Article 76 (5) of the Constitution of Nepal.

KATHMANDU, 19 July 2021, (TON): Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has extended a congratulatory message to Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba.

Modi forwarded his best wishes to Deuba minutes after the latter emerged victorious in his parliamentary floor test.

In his tweet that followed reports of Deuba's trust vote win, the Indian PM wished his Nepali counterpart a successful tenure "I look forward to working with you to further enhance our unique partnership in all sectors, and strengthen our deep-rooted people-to-people ties."

JOHANNESBURG, 19 July 2021, (TON): The dragging corruption trial of South Africa’s jailed ex-president Jacob Zuma resumes on Monday despite deadly violence that swept the nation after his imprisonment in an unrelated case.

Zuma faces 16 charges of fraud, graft and racketeering related to a 1999 purchase of fighter jets, patrol boats and military gear from five European arms firms when he was South Africa’s deputy president.

He is accused of pocketing four million rand ($277,000) in bribes from one of the firms, French defence giant Thales, which has been charged with corruption and money laundering. The trial started in May after numerous postponements and delays, as Zuma’s legal team worked fervently to have the charges dropped.

The 79-year-old Zuma appeared in person for the opening and said he was innocent. Thales also pleaded not guilty, and the next hearing was set for July 19. But things took a nasty turn when on June 29, Zuma was found guilty of contempt of South Africa’s top court for snubbing graft investigators probing his tenure as president. He was jailed a week later.

The incarceration sparked protests in his home province of KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), which snowballed into a week of deadly outbreak of looting and arson that spread to the economic hub Johannesburg, claiming over 200 lives.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, who came to office promising to curb graft, said “the riots were a coordinated and well-planned attack on the country’s young democracy.

WASHINGTON, 19 July 2021, (TON): One of America’s former military commanders in Afghanistan said Sunday that the situation there is falling apart even before the United States completes its withdrawal from the embattled Asian nation.

Speaking on “Fareed Zakaria GPS” Gen. David Petraeus said “the situation on the ground has become increasingly dire with each passing week.”

Earlier this year, President Joe Biden announced that U.S. troops would be withdrawn from Afghanistan, and he recently moved up the date of the final departure.

“I fear we will look back and regret the decision to withdraw,” Petraeus said. “Sadly, we may regret that sooner than I had originally thought when I said that right after the decision was announced.”

Petraeus, who retired from the Army to become director of the CIA in 2011, added “beyond that, I think we will also look back and regret the hasty way in which we seem to be doing this.”

American, British and other international forces invaded Afghanistan late in 2001 in response to the 9/11 attacks and rapidly ousted the Taliban regime that had supported Osama bin Laden and provided him refuge. Bin Laden fled to neighboring Pakistan and was assassinated there by U.S. forces in 2011.

ISLAMABAD, 19 July 2021, (TON):  Prime Minister Imran Khan praised the courage and valour of the Kashmiri youth, particularly those gallantly facing atrocities in India-held Kashmir, and said they could not accept any “cowardly, gutless, corrupt and liar” as their leader.

He expressed these views at his first election-related public meeting in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), held on the premises of a college in Bagh.

He said that I want to give a special message to the great people of occupied Kashmir, Pakistani nation appreciates and feels proud of you for the way you are showing self-respect while braving atrocities as well as the way youngsters like Burhan Wani are sacrificing their lives.

PM Khan said that Muslims across the world were also looking towards the Kashmiris and praying for the continuity of their indomitable spirit to refuse to be coerced and suppressed by India.

Highlights initiative of Kamyab Pakistan at first election-related public meeting in AJK

Mr Khan maintained that when [Indian Prime Minister] Narendra Modi intensified atrocities in held Kashmir after Aug 5, 2019, the world might have believed that the Kashmiris would bow down. But no such thing happened because the Kashmiris have powerful faith.

While quoting a verse from the Quran, he expressed the hope that good times for the struggling Kashmiris were just round the corner and reassured them that he would keep on taking up their case across the globe as their ambassador and advocate.

The prime minister pointed out that the BJP and RSS ideology posed the biggest threat to India itself because it [ideology] did not target the Muslims alone, but also the Sikhs, Christians and scheduled castes, whom it did not consider as equal citizens.