A new Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) regional hub opened in Dhaka on Sunday will support the bank’s expanding range of projects in Bangladesh.
The regional office will also oversee IsDB’s operations in 19 countries, including India, Singapore, Thailand and Australia.
Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina inaugurated the office alongside Dr. Bandar M.H. Hajjar, president of the IsDB Group.
The hub will support projects in Bangladesh in agriculture, education, energy, industry and mining, transport, water, sanitation and urban services.
The IsDB operates in 57 countries, with Bangladesh the largest beneficiary — the group’s financing to the country has totaled more than $21.7 billion.
Speaking at the opening, Al-Hajjar said: “The IsDB has long had a close relationship with Bangladesh. Our Dhaka regional office will focus on partnering with local stakeholders to drive socioeconomic development in the country and provide a platform for Bangladeshi people to build a prosperous future.”
Describing Bangladesh as a “shining beacon” among member states, Al-Hajjar said that “women have played a vital role in the country’s socioeconomic development.
“Bangladesh ranked first among South Asian countries in the gender gap index in 2017 and has consistently done well over the years in this metric,” he said.
To implement the “President Five-Year Program” (P5P), IsDB has adopted new initiatives focusing on “delivery and adoption of a more dynamic, proactive and result-oriented approach.”
Al-Hajjar said: “Decentralization is one if the key elements of P5P with the aim of increasing bank’s footprints across member countries. These decentralized offices will work together with the host governments to develop and implement important and high impact projects that have the highest socioeconomic impact in the country.”
Speaking at the inaugural ceremony, Prime Minister Hasina urged the international community to put pressure on Myanmar to repatriate more than 1 million Rohingya refugees who fled the persecution in Rakhine state.
“Bangladesh and Myanmar have signed agreements for the safe and permanent repatriation of the displaced Myanmar nationals. I urge the international community to continue to pressure Myanmar to implement the agreements,” she said.
“We’re giving shelter and food to the Rohingyas on humanitarian ground. Now we want them to go back to their own land.”
Praising IsDB’s role as a development partner, Hasina said: “The establishment of the new office in Dhaka is a joint step forward in strengthening the partnership between Bangladesh and IsDB.”
Bangladesh’s Finance Minister, A.M.A Muhith, and Economic Relations Division Secretary Kazi Shofiqul Azam also spoke at the ceremony.
Islamic bank expands role with new Dhaka hub
Islamic bank expands role with new Dhaka hub
Philippines to send halal trade mission to Saudi Arabia this month
- Philippine businesses participate at 2024 halal expo in Riyadh
- Halal trade delegation also includes tourism, agriculture officials
MANILA: The Philippines is preparing to send a halal trade mission to Saudi Arabia later this month as the Southeast Asian nation seeks to deepen trade relations with the Kingdom.
Organized by the Philippine Department of Trade and Industry, the activities will cover Riyadh and Jeddah from Oct. 27 to Nov. 5.
Philippine officials have been working to expand their domestic halal industry, while also seeking to boost trade relations with Saudi Arabia.
“This Philippine halal mission to Saudi Arabia aims to effectively promote the burgeoning Philippine halal trade industry and further strengthen trade relations between the Philippines and Saudi Arabia,” Rommel Romato, charge d’affaires of the Philippine Embassy in Riyadh, told Arab News on Sunday.
“The Philippine delegation is composed of government agencies and private sector entities or representatives who will take part in the Saudi International Halal Expo 2024 in Riyadh.”
The mission will also include tourism and agriculture officials, as well as members of the National Commission on Muslim Filipinos, the body governing Muslim affairs in the Southeast Asian nation, Romato added.
The predominantly Catholic Philippines — where Muslims constitute about 10 percent of the nearly 120 million population — has plans to double the number of its halal-certified products and services, raise 230 billion pesos ($4 billion) in investments and generate around 120,000 jobs by 2028 by tapping into the global halal market, which is estimated to be worth more than $7 trillion.
Earlier this year, the DTI sent a business-matching mission to Saudi Arabia, comprising food, beverage and personal care exporters.
Manila recorded a rise in Philippine-Saudi trade volume from 2022 to 2023, following President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s visit to Riyadh last October, during which a $4.26 billion investment agreement was signed with Saudi business leaders.
Teenager 'stabbed 50 times', burned alive in Marseille: prosecutors
Speaking to reporters, Marseille prosecutor Nicolas Bessone said the teenager was murdered on Wednesday, describing the case as one of "unprecedented savagery."
Marseille, France's second-largest city but also one of its poorest, is plagued by drug-related violence.
Bessone said that victims and perpetrators of such violence were getting increasingly younger.
The city has in recent years witnessed a turf war for control of the highly profitable drug market between various clans including DZ Mafia.
The teenager had been hired by a 23-year-old prisoner to intimidate a competitor by setting fire to his door, the prosecutor said, adding he had been promised 2,000 euros.
The teenager had however been spotted by members of a rival gang who repeatedly stabbed him then set him on fire, he added.
The same prisoner then recruited a 14-year-old minor to carry out a revenge attack and kill a member of the Blacks gang, promising to pay him 50,000 euros.
The 14-year-old hired a 36-year-old driver who angered the minor and ended up being killed.
The two latest cases mean that the number of drug-related killings in Marseille has risen to 17 since the start of the year.
By comparison, a total of 49 people were killed in drug related violence in Marseille in 2023.
san-ol-as/rlp
1 dead as Russia strikes Ukraine with drones and missiles
KYIV: One person has died after Russian forces attacked Ukraine overnight with 87 Shahed drones and four different types of missiles, officials said Sunday.
A 49-year-old man was killed in the Kharkiv region after his car was hit by a drone, said regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov. A gas pipeline was also damaged and a warehouse set alight in the city of Odesa, Ukrainian officials reported.
Ukraine’s air force said in a statement that air defenses had destroyed 56 of the 87 drones and two missiles over 14 Ukrainian regions, including the capital, Kyiv.
Another 25 drones disappeared from radar “presumably as a result of anti-aircraft missile defense,” it said.
The barrage comes a day after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Saturday that he will present his “victory plan” at the Oct. 12 meeting of the Ramstein group of nations that supplies arms to Ukraine.
Zelenskyy presented his plan to U.S. President Joe Biden in Washington last week. Its contents have not been made public but it is known that the plan includes Ukrainian membership in NATO and the provision of long-range missiles to strike inside Russia.
In a statement Sunday, the Ukrainian leader paid tribute to the country’s troops, which he also described as “preparing (for) the next Ramstein.”
“They demonstrate what Ukrainians are capable of when they have enough weapons and sufficient range,” he said in a statement on social media. “We will keep convincing our partners that our drones alone are not enough. More decisive steps are needed — and the end of this war will be closer.”
Teenager ‘stabbed 50 times’, burned alive in Marseille: prosecutors
MAREILLE: A 15-year-old boy was “stabbed 50 times” and burned alive this week in the southern French city of Marseille in an apparent case of drug-related violence, prosecutors said on Sunday.
Speaking to reporters, Marseille prosecutor Nicolas Bessone said the teenager was murdered on Wednesday, describing the case as one of “unprecedented savagery.”
Indian villagers kill last wolf from man-eating pack
LUCKNOW: Villagers in India have beaten to death a wolf believed to be the last of a six-member pack that killed nine people, eight of them children, wildlife officials said on Sunday.
The grey wolves sparked hysteria among residents in Bahraich district of the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, where the animals were said to have attacked more than 40 people.
More than 150 armed personnel and dozens of government forestry officials were deployed to capture the wolves last month.
Five of the animals were trapped, with drones and surveillance cameras suggesting only one remained free.
Government forest officer Ajit Singh said villagers had contacted his team on Sunday after they killed a prowling wolf.
"We were informed about a dead animal in the village, and upon reaching the scene, we found a wolf with clear signs of physical injuries," Singh told AFP.
"It seems it is part of the same pack of wolves," Singh said.
Further investigations were needed to verify that no more wolves remained in the area, he said.
Experts say wolves attack humans or livestock only as a last resort when they are starving, preferring less dangerous prey such as small antelopes.
However, wildlife officials say heavy flooding from extreme torrential rains had swamped the wolves' usual territory, depriving them of hunting grounds, and driving them into areas of more populated farmland.
Some of those killed or injured were attacked while sleeping on the veranda of their homes, a common practice during the hot and humid days of the monsoon rains.
The grassland plains of Bahraich district lie about 50 kilometres (30 miles) south of the border with Nepal, where thick forests cover Himalayan foothills.
The majority of India's roughly 3,000 wolves survive outside protected areas, often in close proximity to people.
Numbers have been dwindling due to the loss of habitat and a lack of wild prey, experts say.
The animals, also known as the plains wolf, are smaller than the stronger Himalayan wolf and can be mistaken for other species such as jackals.
In Rudyard Kipling's 1894 novel The Jungle Book, the "man-cub" Mowgli was raised in the jungle by grey wolves.
