Bangladesh’s parliament dissolved, clearing way for elections to replace ousted leader

Bangladesh’s parliament dissolved, clearing way for elections to replace ousted leader

Bangaldesh’s president dissolved the country’s parliament on Tuesday, clearing the way for new elections to replace Sheikh Hasina as prime minister, a day after she resigned and left the country following weeks of violent unrest.

President Mohammed Shahabuddin’s office announced the decision as student protest leaders called for Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus, 84, to act as the chief adviser to an interim government.

Yunus, who is currently in Paris for the Olympics, called Hasina’s resignation the country’s “second liberation day.”

A longtime opponent of the ousted leader, he was accused of corruption by her government and tried on charges he said were motivated by vengeance. He received the Nobel in 2006 for work pioneering micro-lending.

Student organizer Nahid Islam said the protesters would propose more names for the cabinet, and suggested that it would be difficult for those in power to ignore their wishes.

Military chief Gen. Waker-uz-Zamam said Monday he was temporarily taking control of the country, as soldiers tried to quell the unrest. The military wields significant political influence in Bangladesh, which has faced more than 20 coups or coup attempts since gaining independence in 1971.

Shahabuddin, the country’s figurehead president, said after meeting with Waker-uz-Zamam and opposition politicians that a national government would be formed as soon as possible, leading to fresh elections.

The streets of Dhaka appeared calmer Tuesday, with no reports of new violence.

Amid celebrations, student Juairia Karim said it was a historic day: “Today we are getting what we deserve,” she said. “Everyone is happy, everyone is cheerful.”

Jubilant protesters still thronged the ousted leader’s residence, some posing for selfies with the soldiers guarding the building. Just a day earlier, angry protesters had looted furniture, paintings, flower pots and chickens.

Fears of more instability

However, the country is still reckoning with the aftermath of weeks of violent unrest, which produced some of the worst bloodshed since the 1971 war of independence. Many fear that Hasina’s departure could lead to even more instability in the densely populated South Asian nation, which is already dealing with crises from high unemployment to corruption to climate change.

Violence just before and after Hasina’s resignation left at least 109 people dead, including 14 police officers, and hundreds of others injured, according to media reports, which could not be independently confirmed.

Amid security concerns, the main airport in Dhaka, the capital, suspended operations for eight hours.

In the southwestern district of Satkhira, 596 prisoners and detainees escaped from a jail after an attack on the facility Monday evening, the United News of Bangladesh agency reported, as police stations and security officials were attacked across the country. 

Police in Dhaka mostly left their stations and assembled in a central barracks in fear of attacks after several stations were torched or vandalized.

The main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party Tuesday urged people to exercise restraint in what it said was a “transitional moment on our democratic path.”

“It would defeat the spirit of the revolution that toppled the illegitimate and autocratic regime of Sheikh Hasina if people decide to take the law into their own hands without due process,” Tarique Rahman, the party’s acting chair, wrote on the social media platform X.

In a statement Monday, the United Nation’s human rights chief, Volker Turk, said the transition of power in Bangladesh must be “in line with the country’s international obligations” and “inclusive and open to the meaningful participation of all Bangladeshis.”

Hasina landed at a military airfield near New Delhi on Monday after leaving Dhaka and met India’s National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, the Indian Express newspaper reported. The report said Hasina was taken to a safe house and is likely to travel to the United Kingdom.

The 76-year-old was elected for a fourth consecutive term in a January vote that was boycotted by her main opponents. Thousands of opposition members were jailed before the polls, and the U.S. and the U.K. denounced the result as not credible, though the government defended it.

Published at Tue, 06 Aug 2024 11:15:15 +0000

At least 4 killed as tropical storm Debby slams into southeastern U.S.

Tropical storm Debby slammed Florida with torrential rain and high winds, contributing to at least four deaths as it turned menacingly toward the Eastern Seaboard’s low-lying regions and threatened to flood some of America’s most historic Southern cities.

Record-setting rain was expected to cause flash flooding, with up to 76 centimetres possible in some areas, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. The potential for high water threatened the historic cities of Savannah, Ga., and Charleston, S.C. Up to 46 centimetres was forecast in central and north Florida.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis warned that just because the storm is moving into Georgia, it doesn’t mean the state won’t continue to see threats as waterways north of the state border fill up and flow south.

“It is a very saturating, wet storm,” he said during an afternoon briefing at the state’s emergency operations centre. “When they crest and the water that’s going to come down from Georgia, it’s just something that we’re going to be on alert for not just throughout today, but for the next week.”

Debby made landfall along the Gulf Coast of Florida early Monday as a Category 1 hurricane. It has since weakened to a tropical storm and is moving slowly, covering roads with water and contributing to at least four deaths.

Children among the dead

A truck driver died on Interstate 75 in the Tampa, Fla., area after he lost control of his tractor-trailer, which flipped over a concrete wall and dangled over the edge before the cab dropped into the water below. Sheriff’s office divers located the driver, a 64-year-old man from Mississippi, in the cab 12 metres below the surface, according to the Florida Highway Patrol.

A 13-year-old boy died Monday morning after a tree fell on a mobile home southwest of Gainesville, Fla., according to the Levy County Sheriff’s Office.

And in Dixie County, just east of where the storm made landfall, a 38-year-old woman and a 12-year-old boy died in a car crash on wet roads Sunday night. The Florida Highway Patrol said a 14-year-old boy who was a passenger was hospitalized with serious injuries.

Power outages, flight delays

More than 300,000 customers remained without power in Florida and Georgia on Monday afternoon, down from a peak of more than 350,000, according to PowerOutage.us and Georgia Electric Membership Corp.

DeSantis said some 17,000 linemen were working to restore electricity. He warned residents in affected areas to stay off the roads until conditions are safe.

Airports were also affected. More than 1,600 flights had been cancelled across the U.S., many of them to and from Florida airports, according to FlightAware.com. One out of every five flights scheduled to leave Orlando International Airport was cancelled Monday. Nearly 30 per cent of flights scheduled to depart Tampa International Airport were cancelled.

Twice as much rain as predicted

Sarasota, Fla., a beach city popular with tourists, was one of the hardest hit by flooding.

“Essentially, we’ve had twice the amount of the rain that was predicted for us to have,” said Sarasota County Fire Chief David Rathbun in a social media update.

The storm made landfall near Steinhatchee, a tiny community in northern Florida of less than 1,000 residents.

Taylor County, where Steinhatchee is located, closed several roads due to flooding, Sheriff Wayne Padgett said. Trees and power lines had also fallen across some roads.

Padgett advised anyone who had evacuated from low-lying or coastal areas to wait before returning to their homes because the tide had not come in, and it was unclear how deep floodwaters might get later.

U.S. President Joe Biden was briefed on Debby’s progress while at his home in Wilmington, Del., the White House said.

Vice-President Kamala Harris has postponed a scheduled trip to Georgia amid the ongoing effects of tropical storm Debby. Harris’ presidential campaign said her stop planned in Savannah, Ga., on Thursday, was being put off due to the storm.

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Local leaders in Savannah said flooding could happen in areas that don’t usually get high water if Debby stalls out over the city.

“This type of rain hovering over us, coming with the intensity that they tell us it is coming, it’s going to catch a whole lot of people by surprise,” said Chatham County Chairman Chester Ellis.

‘Historic and potentially unprecedented’

In South Carolina, Charleston County interim emergency director Ben Webster called Debby a “historic and potentially unprecedented event” three times in a 90-second briefing Monday morning.

The city of Charleston has an emergency plan in place that includes sandbags for residents, opening parking garages so residents can park their cars above floodwaters, and an online mapping system that shows which roads are closed due to flooding.

North Carolina and South Carolina have dealt with three catastrophic floods from tropical systems in the past nine years, all causing more than $1 billion US in damage.

In 2015, rainfall fed by moisture as Hurricane Joaquin passed well offshore caused massive flooding.

In 2016, flooding from Hurricane Matthew caused 24 deaths in the two states and rivers set record crests. Those records were broken in 2018 with Hurricane Florence, which set rainfall records in both Carolinas, flooded many of the same places and was responsible for 42 deaths in North Carolina and nine in South Carolina.

In Savannah, Jim Froncak piled sandbags into his pickup truck on Monday, as rain was already falling. He said a recent thunderstorm caused so much flooding that he and a friend were able to kayak down a street.

“That was just a thunderstorm,” he said. “So, who knows what could happen with this?”

Published at Mon, 05 Aug 2024 22:46:05 +0000