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30 May 2013
The World News Headlines Muslim inmates ‘involved in prison disturbance’
This Week Minister’s home bombed
Three small homemade bombs exploded after being hurled at the house of Bangladesh’s foreign minister early on Tuesday but no one was injured. Foreign Minister Dipu Moni is currently in London but her family was at home when the bombs were thrown at the residence, her spokesman Monirul Islam Kabir told AFP.
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wo Muslim inamtes were reportedly involved in a prison officer being taken hostage and attacked by three inmates at a maximumsecurity jail near York. The incident on Sunday at Full Sutton prison in East Yorkshire lasted four hours, the Prison Service said. The male officer suffered a broken cheekbone and has been discharged from hospital. A female colleague who tried to help him suffered cuts to her arm. The North East Counter Terrorism Unit, which is investigating, said two of the suspects were aged 25 and the other 26. The men are not in prison for terror-related offences, a spokesperson for the unit said. In a statement, the unit said it would take time to establish the full details of what had happened, It added: “Searches by specialist teams are underway within the prison for any evidence which may assist the police inquiry.” Police had been called to a report of a “hostage situation” at the facility at 16:30 BST on Sunday. The BBC’s Ed Thomas said prison officers in riot gear were brought in to end the incident. The Prison Officers Association (POA) said it was sending a national representative to the jail to determine exactly what happened. Steve Gillan, POA general secretary, said: “The POA are aware of the attack on two prison officers at HMP Full Sutton including a hostage incident. “Until the full facts of the incident are known, we do not wish to comment further for fear of compromising any police investigation.”
EU could arm Syrian rebels
Only 12 countries in the world have more than 100m active subscribers – and Bangladesh is one of them. Photo by Mahmud Hossain Opu/Dhaka Tribune
100m Bangladeshis now use mobile telephones B
Muhammad Zahidul Islam angladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission on Tuesday officially announced to cross the 100m active mobile connection subscribers’ landmark. The industry has made this achievement on April with 101.205m subscribers. BTRC claimed that the mobile penetration is 66.36% among the whole population with a growth of 10% per annum. Grameenphone led the market with 42.37m mobile phone subscribers, compared with 41.79m a month earlier. Banglalink’s customer base inched up to 26.3m from 25.92m subscribers, while Robi ended April with 21.69m, up
from 21.40m users in March. Airtel’s customer base was 7.47m in March, and after April it reached to 7.55m. Teletalk’s, the state-owned and the only 3G operator in the country, ended April with 18.44m subscribers which includes 1.831m subscribers than the previous month. Citycell, the oldest and now the lowest subscriber base operator contains 1.425m subscribers from 1.451m earlier. The number of Citycell subscribers have been declining
for the last couple of months. Along with Bangladesh, only 12 countries in the world have more than 100m active subscribers. l Meanwhile, political turmoil continues to engulf Bangladesh. Police say opposition activists have set off homemade bombs and damaged several vehicles in Bangladesh’s capital as they launched a general strike demanding resignation of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina before general elections,
Grameenphone led the market with 42.37m mobile phone subscribers, compared with 41.79m a month earlier
which are due early next year. Police official Monirul Islam said no one had been injured in Sunday’s incidents, and more than 10,000 security forces were deployed in the face of massive protests. Many stores and schools were closed in Dhaka and few vehicles were plying the roads, following a call by an alliance of 18 opposition parties for a nationwide dawn-to-dusk shutdown. The opposition wants Hasina to hand over power to a non-partisan caretaker administration before the elections, set for January 2014. The government says the demand is unconstitutional. The opposition says polls under Hasina’s government would not be free or fair.
Mosque offers tea and a game of football to EDL protest
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mosque has been praised for serving tea and biscuits to English Defence League supporters after the far-right group arranged a demonstration there. About six people turned up to protest at the mosque in Bull Lane, York, on Sunday and were invited inside to play football with worshippers.
More than 100 supporters of the mosque had gone there after learning of the planned EDL protest. Archbishop of York Dr John Sentamu said the mosque’s response was “fantastic”. He said: “Tea, biscuits, and football are a great and typically Yorkshire combination when it comes to disarming
hostile and extremist views.” Father Tim Jones, who went to the Bull Lane mosque, which is situated in his parish, said: “I’ve always known they were intelligent and compassionate people and I think this has demonstrated the extent to which they are people of courage – certainly physical courage and also a high degree of moral courage.”
Hull Road ward councillor Neil Barnes said it had been a “proud moment for York”. Fears over a demonstration grew after Yorkshire EDL Scarborough Division posted a message on its Facebook page calling for supporters to gather outside the mosque. Imam Abid Salik said: “We did have a few people who did
come to protest but when they came some of the members of the mosque went over and they engaged in a conversation. “Some people went over with cups of tea and biscuits, they were talking for about 30 or 40 minutes and then they came inside, which was a really, really beautiful thing,” he added.
Several countries have warned the EU against arming Syrian rebels, saying more weapons will lead to more deaths as the conflict spreads to neighbouring countries. Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird said that there would be “more violence, more deaths and more destruction” in Syria as a result of the lifting an EU arms embargo.
Taliban pops balloon idea
The official Taliban website has published an article criticising an art project in which 10,000 pink balloons were given away for free in Kabul, saying the event encouraged un-Islamic behaviour. Under the headline “Was it a balloon show or a mini-skirt show?”, the piece said that the conceptual artwork was a trick to promote Western values among the young Afghan volunteers who helped hand out the balloons.
Maoists kill 27 in India
Heavily-armed Maoist rebels have killed at least 27 people, including Congress Party leaders, after ambushing a convoy in a remote tribal belt of central India. The head of the party in the state of Chhattisgarh, Nand Kumar Patel, and his son, who were kidnapped by the rebels after the attack on Saturday, have also been found dead.
Bashir warns South Sudan
Omar al-Bashir, Sudan’s president, has said he will order the flow of oil from South Sudan to be cut off if it backs rebels in the insurgencyhit Sudanese states of South Kordofan and Darfur. He said on Monday he would “completely close the pipeline” that carries oil from South Sudan to ports on Sudan’s Red Sea coast.