Hundreds of university students in Bangladesh erupted in fury on Monday against Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina after she equated those who wanted to end quotas for independence heroes’ families with Pakistan army collaborators during the independence war.
About one-fifth of Bangladesh’s ready-made garment factories do not meet fire, electrical and structural safety standards 11 years after the collapse of Rana Plaza that left more than 1,100 garment workers dead, according to an industry monitoring body.
Religious tensions were high in a central Bangladesh district as hundreds of demonstrators started fires and blocked roads on Wednesday to protest last week’s deadly beating of two Muslims by a mob, allegedly of Hindus, police said.
Three people severely burned in an explosion at a shop in Bangladesh earlier this week had to be taken for treatment 18 miles (29 km) away to the capital Dhaka because there were no health facilities in Savar, the site of the blaze.
Social media influencers in Bangladesh are claiming they succeeded in slicing the price of watermelon in half by organizing a two-week boycott and are now targeting another pricey product: beef.
Prices for several essential food items continue to rise in Bangladesh ahead of Ramadan, with consumers mostly blaming the government for not keeping costs in check in time for the Islamic fasting month that begins next week.
Bangladesh’s health department in mid-January began efforts to shut down more than 700 hospitals and clinics operating without proper accreditation, following an order from the country’s new health minister, officials said Thursday.
Bangladesh goes to the polls next week with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her ruling Awami League all but assured victory, and with the opposition boycotting an election that analysts say is likely to cement autocratic rule.
Freedom House, a Washington-based NGO, said the harassment and persecution back home of family members of exiled government critics and journalists is a widespread tactic in transnational repression carried out by authoritarian governments across the globe.
Bangladesh’s birth as a nation in 1971 was violent, coming out of a war partly ignited by the then-Pakistani military government’s refusal to honor the results of a democratic election.