DHAKA: Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who won a third straight term with an overwhelming majority in last month’s election, sought the people’s support at a victory rally Saturday amid international calls for an investigation into alleged irregularities during the polls.
The opposition is demanding a new election, saying the Dec. 30 polls were rigged, an allegation the Election Commission and Hasina have rejected.
On Saturday, Hasina told tens of thousands of her supporters in a park in Dhaka, the capital, that she would “work for all” amid criticism that she could become increasingly authoritarian.
A Hasina-led alliance won 288 seats in the 300-seat Parliament in the election. The opposition-led alliance won only seven seats, with all of its lawmakers refraining from taking their oaths to protest the results.
More than a dozen people were killed in election-related violence on the day of the polls, and the election campaign was dogged by allegations of arrests and the jailing of thousands of Hasina’s opponents.
Hasina’s archrival, former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, has been in jail since February last year for corruption and was deemed ineligible to run for office because of a case that her supporters say was politically motivated.
The Election Commission and other departments were also accused of overlooking complaints of irregularities by the opposition. Ahead of the election, a new digital security law was enacted that raised concerns it would curb speech and media freedoms.
Hasina, who had asked her supporters to avoid any immediate celebration after the election, thanked all political parties for contesting and termed the polls “fair.”
But she would not utter a single word Saturday about the opposition demand for a new election or global calls for an investigation into the allegations of irregularities.
“I want cooperation from the people ... let’s get united and build Bangladesh,” she told her cheering supporters, many of whom waved small red-and-green national flags.
“The (people’s) verdict in the Dec. 30 polls came against terrorism, corruption and drugs,” she said. “I will uphold their mandate, if necessary, by sacrificing my life.”
While New York-based Human Rights Watch urged an independent investigation into the alleged irregularities, the US, the EU and the UN all expressed their concerns. But powerful countries including the US pledged to continue to work with the Hasina-led government and the opposition for democratic advancement in the South Asian nation of 160 million people, which is a parliamentary democracy.
Congratulatory messages to the new government came from India, China, Saudi Arabia, Japan and many other countries, giving Hasina confidence that her development agenda has attracted nations, many of which are directly involved in trade and big infrastructure development schemes in Bangladesh. Before the election, Hasina drummed up support for her development schemes ranging from a nuclear power plant to a new seaport.
On Saturday, Hasina promised to curb poverty as she painted a scene of “a developed country in South Asia” by 2041.
Bangladesh PM Hasina seeks people’s support at victory rally
Bangladesh PM Hasina seeks people’s support at victory rally
- The opposition is demanding a new election, saying the Dec. 30 polls were rigged
- The Election Commission and Hasina have rejected the allegation
Australian accused in mushroom murders recounts fatal lunch
- Erin Patterson is accused of using poisonous mushrooms to murder three elderly relatives of her estranged husband
- Prosecution accuses her of knowingly serving the guests lethal death cap mushrooms in a Beef Wellington pastry dish
Erin Patterson, 50, is charged with the July 2023 murders of her mother-in-law Gail Patterson, father-in-law Donald Patterson and Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, along with the attempted murder of Ian Wilkinson, Heather’s husband.
The prosecution accuses her of knowingly serving the guests lethal death cap mushrooms in a Beef Wellington pastry dish at her home in Leongatha, a town of about 6,000 some 135 km (84 miles) from Melbourne.
She denies the charges, with her defense calling the deaths a “terrible accident,” but faces a life sentence if found guilty.
She wept repeatedly on Wednesday as she told the court she might have accidentally included foraged mushrooms in the meal she served.
“Now I think there was a possibility there were foraged ones in there,” she said in questioning by her lawyer, Colin Mandy.
The court also heard that Patterson, who began giving evidence on Monday as the first witness for her own defense, had invented medical issues partly to elicit sympathy from her estranged husband’s relatives, as she felt they were growing apart.
“I didn’t want their care of me to stop, so I kept it going. I shouldn’t have done it,” she told the court.
“Did you lie to them?” Mandy asked.
“I did lie to them,” she replied, through tears.
The prosecution accuses Patterson of having invented the medical issues to lure the victims to her home for the meal, a claim she denies.
Investigation panic
Previously the court heard that shortly after the lunch, Patterson disposed of a food dehydrator found to contain traces of death cap mushrooms, while mobile phones she owned were reset to factory status three times.
On Wednesday, Patterson said she had disposed of the dehydrator before a visit from child protection workers investigating her living arrangements.
“I was scared of the conversation that might flow about the meal and the dehydrator,” she said. “I was scared they would blame me for it, for making everyone sick. I was scared that they would remove the children.”
The phones were reset either due to damage or because she panicked during the police investigation, she told the court.
The prosecution rested its case on Monday, after a month of evidence from witnesses, including relatives and medical, forensic and mushroom experts.
The trial, which began on April 29, has drawn intense media interest, with podcasters, journalists and documentary-makers descending on the town of Morwell, about two hours east of Melbourne, where it is being held.
State broadcaster ABC’s daily podcast about the proceedings is currently Australia’s most popular, while many domestic newspapers have run live blogs.
The trial, set to conclude this month, continues.
Madrid’s ghost towns revived as Spain’s housing crisis escalates
- Sesena, a development near Madrid, gained notoriety as one of the so-called ‘ghost towns’ created when Spain’s property bubble burst in 2008
- Sesena has been adopted as a commuter town as Madrid overflows, even though it is located in the neighboring Castile-La Mancha region
SESENA, Spain: The first call came two minutes after estate agent Segis Gomez posted a listing in Sesena, a development near Madrid that gained notoriety as one of the so-called “ghost towns” created when Spain’s property bubble burst in 2008.
Half-built and half-empty for more than a decade, these days the squatters have gone from this development 40 kilometers south of the capital and middle-class families, driven out of the city center by an acute housing crisis, are moving in. Construction, meanwhile, has restarted.
Demand is so strong in Sesena that Gomez has a waiting list of 70 people for each property. Property prices have recovered their original value after plunging to less than half during the crisis, he said.
As anger grows over the cost of housing in Spain, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has made providing affordable homes one of his main goals – even as he encourages population growth through immigration. The size of the challenge is clear in Madrid, which grew by 140,000 people in 2024, but only registered permits to build 20,000 new homes.
Short supply is being exacerbated by a boom in holiday lets, record migration and onerous planning laws.
“The problem is that we can’t match supply and demand quickly enough. So prices go up, or people have to trade price for distance,” said Carles Vergara, a real estate professor at IESE Business School in Madrid.
Sesena has been adopted as a commuter town as Madrid overflows, even though it is located in the neighboring Castile-La Mancha region and still lacks good transport links to the capital and public services, which caused homebuyers to reject it in the past.
Its founder and original developer, Francisco Hernando, had a vision of 13,000 affordable apartments with gardens and swimming pools on the Spanish plain where author Cervantes set his best-known work Don Quixote, but the project became a byword for speculative greed and corruption. Only 5,000 homes ended up being built. Hernando, who began his project in 2004, failed to tell homebuyers he hadn’t secured access to water or that the town had no public transport or schools. Hernando died in 2020.
When the market collapsed, initial investors saw the value of their property plummet, while many homes ended up in the hands of banks.
Madrid’s expansion
Today, Sesena teems with life as parents drop children at its three schools, drink coffee in its bars and visit recently-opened gyms and pharmacies. Impact Homes, a developer, is constructing 156 one-to-four bedroom apartments it expects to complete this year. Next door, another building has already pre-sold 49 percent of its units, it said in an email. “Sesena is at 100 percent,” said Jaime de Hita, the town’s mayor.
Nestor Delgado moved to Sesena in 2021 with his family from Carabanchel in south Madrid because an apartment cost 20 percent less to rent. In May, he bought a house with his wife for €240,000 ($272,808).
“We chose (Sesena) because we can afford it,” Delgado, 34, said.
The trade-off is rising before 5 a.m. (0300 GMT) to be among the first in the queue for the 6.30 a.m. bus to Madrid to arrive at his construction job by 8 a.m. or face an hour’s wait for the next bus.
Back to life
Other ghost towns are also coming back to life. Valdeluz, a development 75 km east of Madrid originally envisioned to house 30,000 people, was abandoned a quarter of the way through when the property bubble burst.
Mayor Enrique Quintana told Reuters the town’s 6,000-strong population is swelling with people from Madrid and could expand by 50 percent in the next four years.
A development on the edge of the village of Bernuy de Porreros, 100km north of Madrid, which as recently as six years ago was mostly abandoned, is now bustling with activity as handymen put the finishing touches on homes.
Lucia, a 37-year-old state employee, bought her house in April. Her daily commute to Madrid involves a 15-minute drive to the train station in Segovia and 28 minutes on the high-speed train, which costs her 48 euros for 30 trips thanks to a frequent traveler discount.
The development began to revive when Spain’s so-called bad bank Sareb, which was set up to take bad loans from the financial crisis, in 2021 began selling the homes for as little as €97,000. Four years later, one property was resold for double that, said resident Nuria Alvarez.
Until recently a relatively compact city, Madrid is on the way to becoming a metropolis like Paris or London, with commuter zones stretching beyond its administrative boundaries, said Jose Maria Garcia, the regional government’s deputy housing minister.
The metropolitan area’s population of 7 million will grow by a million in the next 15 years, the government estimates. Madrid has a deficit of 80,000-100,000 homes that’s growing by 15,000 homes a year and plans to build 110,000 homes by 2028, Garcia said.
Sesena, meanwhile, is once again dreaming big.
Its mayor, de Hita, said the town is securing permits for a new project dubbed Parquijote, with a proposed investment of €2.3 billion to build a logistics park that will create local jobs, along with 2,200 homes.
It’s no quixotic fantasy, de Hita said.
“This time we have learned from what happened,” he said. “It is fundamental that we look for growth by learning from the past.”
Scientists long ago envisioned the end of climate cooperation
- Scientists are currently updating SSP projections and crafting a new set of climate narratives
PARIS: They warned it could happen: a world of surging nationalism, stalling economic development and the unravelling of decades of international cooperation on climate change and other global challenges.
Long before Donald Trump lurched away from diplomatic norms and the international rules-based order, scientists mapped out different potential futures to understand the possible implications for greenhouse gas emissions.
Developed a decade ago, five of these "pathways" became crucial to the work of the United Nations' IPCC climate expert panel.
These are not predictions for the 21st century. Rather, they envision what could happen with various societal changes including for trade, economic development, technological innovation and global population.
The most optimistic narrative foresees sustainable growth and improved equality. A second "middle-of-the-road" scenario is an extension of current trends.
The third is a world riven by rivalries, a fourth is blighted by increasing inequality, and the fifth assumes supercharged economic growth grounded in expanding fossil fuel use.
Keywan Riahi, of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, who coordinated the development of the so-called Shared Socioeconomic pathways (SSPs), said the world has largely developed in line with the third scenario in recent years.
While it is certainly not a perfect fit, what we see now "is a much more fragmented world," Riahi told AFP. "Collaboration is more difficult, economic development is actually also not so optimistic."
Scientists' original description of the SSP3 scenario was: "A resurgent nationalism, concerns about competitiveness and security, and regional conflicts push countries to increasingly focus on domestic or, at most, regional issues."
This "rocky road" is arguably the worst of all the hypothetical futures.
Planet-heating emissions are second only to economic expansion driven by oil, gas and coal.
But the fractured SSP3 world ranks first when it comes to damages from climate change, showing the largest population boom, and the weakest economic growth.
This scenario "reflects a current strain of populist isolationist politics that is ascendent today", climate scientist Zeke Hausfather noted in a recent newsletter post.
In 2021, Hausfather got blowback for calling SSP3 "Trump World". But "the actions in his second term around energy and trade seem to be playing out much more closely to SSP3 than other pathways", he said.
The US has ditched the Paris climate treaty, turned its back on global cooperation on science, trade and health, and eviscerating its international development budget.
Washington has lambasted UN sustainable development goals, especially related to climate change and women's rights.
Domestically, the world's second biggest carbon polluter has undermined progress on low-carbon technology, cancelled climate research, and even stymied weather data collection.
World leaders have expressed their disquiet.
"The global economy thrived on a foundation of openness and multilateralism underpinned by US leadership... but today it is fracturing," said European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde in late May.
Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney declared the global trade system in place for 80 years "over", and China's Xi Jinping urged the preservation of "the international order based on international law, and global fairness and justice".
There are important ways in which today's reality differs from the hypothetical SSP3 world.
World population projections are significantly lower, for instance.
And the development of climate tech has been "much more successful", Riahi said.
A dramatic drop in the cost of solar and wind power, as well as electric vehicles and batteries, has boosted the growth of low-carbon technologies.
Carbon dioxide emissions have also slowed, while predicted warming for the end of the century is lower than a decade ago -- albeit still reaching catastrophic levels.
Scientists are currently updating SSP projections and crafting a new set of climate narratives.
They have much to unpack.
Riahi said that even if there was a "complete collapse of climate policies globally", the previous worst-case emissions projections will likely not materialise because clean energy has become so cheap.
At the same time, he said, the world will almost certainly overshoot the Paris deal's aspirational goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels in the coming years.
This has forced scientists to consider a new set of questions.
What is the new best-case scenario for bending emissions down to zero?
If current policies persist, will emissions stay high for a longer period, causing temperatures to keep rising in the coming decades?
"What are the implications climatically of this high overshoot, which is unfortunately a more and more likely scenario if you extrapolate what we see at the moment?" said Riahi.
More than 200,000 Afghans have left Pakistan since April: Islamabad
- Millions of Afghans have poured into Pakistan over the past several decades, fleeing successive wars
- Over one million Afghans have left Pakistan since Islamabad launched its repatriation program in 2023
ISLAMABAD: More than 200,000 Afghans have left Pakistan since the government renewed a deportation drive in April, Islamabad’s ministry of interior said.
More than 135,000 Afghans left Pakistan in April, while the number dropped to 67,000 in May and more than 3,000 were sent back in the first two days of June, according to the ministry.
Millions of Afghans have poured into Pakistan over the past several decades, fleeing successive wars. Hundreds of thousands have come since the return of the Taliban government in 2021.
But over one million Afghans have left Pakistan since Islamabad launched its repatriation program in 2023, the ministry added.
The UN’s International Organization for Migration on Tuesday voiced concern over a surge in Afghan families being deported from Iran, recording 15,675 crossing in May, a more than two-fold increase from the previous month.
The influx across both borders threatens to strain Afghanistan’s already “fragile reception and reintegration systems,” IOM said in a statement.
South Korea’s new president Lee Jae-myung vows to pursue talks with North and bolster ties with US and Japan
- Lee Jae-myung’s government to deal with North Korean nuclear threats and its potential military aggressions with ‘strong deterrence’
- But he would ‘open a communication channel with North Korea and establish peace on the Korean Peninsula through talks and cooperation’
SEOUL: South Korea’s new President Lee Jae-myung vowed Wednesday to restart dormant talks with North Korea and bolster a trilateral partnership with the US and Japan, as he laid out key policy goals for his single, five-year term.
Lee, who rose from childhood poverty to become South Korea’s leading liberal politician vowing to fight inequality and corruption, formally began his term earlier Wednesday, hours after winning a snap election that was triggered in April by the removal of then-President Yoon Suk Yeol over his ill-fated imposition of martial law late last year.
In his inaugural address at the National Assembly, Lee said that his government will deal with North Korean nuclear threats and its potential military aggressions with “strong deterrence” based on the solid South Korea-US military alliance. But he said he would “open a communication channel with North Korea and establish peace on the Korean Peninsula through talks and cooperation.”
He said he’ll pursue pragmatic diplomacy with neighboring countries and boost trilateral Seoul-Washington-Tokyo cooperation based on the robust South Korea-US alliance.
“Through pragmatic diplomacy based on national interests, we will turn the crisis posed by the major shift in global economic and security landscapes into an opportunity to maximize our national interests,” Lee said.
Security and economic challenges lie ahead
It was unclear whether Lee’s election would cause any major, immediate shift in South Korea’s foreign policy. Lee, previously accused by critics of tilting toward China and North Korea and away from the US and Japan, has recently repeatedly stressed South Korea’s alliance with the US as the foundation of its foreign policy and avoided any contentious remarks that would raise questions on his views on the US and Japan.
“We’ll have to now see if the pressures of office will cause Lee Jae-myung to govern from the center — at least when it comes to matters of national security and the alliance with the United States,” said Ankit Panda, an expert with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
The toughest external challenges awaiting Lee are US President Donald Trump’s tariff policy and North Korea’s expanding military partnerships with Russia. But experts earlier said whoever becomes president can’t do much to secure major progress in South Korea’s favor on those issues.
During his inauguration speech, Lee didn’t directly mention trade issues with the US
US and Japan react
The US and Japan said they congratulated Lee’s election and expressed their commitments to developing three-way cooperation.
Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said he wants to hold summit talks with Lee “as early as possible,” saying he hopes to further promote bilateral ties, both public and commercial. The US State Department said that Seoul and Washington share “an ironclad commitment” to the alliance grounded in their mutual defense treaty, shared values and deep economic ties.
It’s unclear how North Korea would react to Lee’s speech, as it has shunned any talks with South Korea since 2019. North Korea in recent years has supplied weapons and troops to support Russia’s war against Ukraine, and South Korea, the US and their partners suspect Russia might in return transfer high-tech technologies to North Korea to help it perfect its nuclear weapons program.
Russia’s Tass news agency said Wednesday that one of President Vladimir Putin’s top security officials, Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu, has arrived in Pyongyang for a meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, in the latest sign of the countries’ alignment over Putin’s war in Ukraine.
Lee said revitalizing a slowing domestic economy would be his top priority and that his government would immediately launch an emergency task force to wage a “head-on battle” against the threats of recession. He also promised more aggressive government spending to help spur economic activity.
South Korea’s central bank last week cut its key interest rate and sharply lowered its growth outlook for 2025 to 0.8 percent, as it moved to counter Trump’s tariff hikes and weak domestic demand worsened by recent political turmoil.
South Korea still faces political divide
Lee also called for unity to address the country’s stark political divide deepened after Yoon’s martial law debacle, saying that he will “answer the people’s solemn call to let hope bloom over deep and painful wounds.” Lee still promised a thorough investigation into the circumstances surrounding Yoon’s martial law imposition, describing it as a “rebellion that seized people’s sovereignty with arms.”
Yoon and some of his top military and police officers already stand trial on high-stakes rebellion charges in connection with martial law. Lee’s push to bring those involved in Yoon’s martial law stunt accountable has subsequently caused speculations among his opponents that he would launch political revenge against Yoon associates and senior prosecutors whom he previously accused of fabricating evidence to initiate criminal charges against him.
Lee faces five trials on corruption and other allegations, but experts say those trials will likely stop during his term because the South Korean constitution gives a sitting president immunity from most criminal prosecutions.
Lee also reiterated his campaign vows to reduce inequality and pledged to address the imbalance between the greater Seoul capital area and less developed regions. He said that “the polarization fueled by inequality is now hindering further growth.”
Lee’s term began immediately without the usual two-month transition period after the National Election Commission formally confirmed his election victory.
