Dhaka kicks off jubilee celebrations with world record

Bangladesh set a Guinness World Record with the largest crop field portrait of its founder, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, on Tuesday. (Photo by National Agri Care)
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Updated 18 March 2021
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Dhaka kicks off jubilee celebrations with world record

  • Giant ‘crop portrait’ honors Bangladesh founder’s fight for independence

DHAKA: Bangladesh has set a world record for a giant portrait of its founding leader, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, as it kicked off celebrations to mark the centenary year of Rahman’s birthday and its 50th anniversary of independence on Wednesday.

Nearly 150 people completed the 400-meter-long portrait of Rahman — the father of Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina — by planting purple and green rice on 13 hectares of paddy fields in Bogura, nearly 196 kilometers from the capital Dhaka.

“It’s an initiative to observe Rahman’s birth centenary. About 130 women and 20 men were employed for the portrait, which took more than two weeks to make,” A.F.M. Bahauddin Nasim, ruling Awami League Party (ALP) leader and convenor of the project, told Arab News.

“We have taken the land on lease for seven months to build the unique portrait on the auspicious occasion of his birth centenary and the golden jubilee of our independence,” he added.

Sheikh Mujib, as he is known, was born on March 17, 1920, in the Gopalganj district, 210 kilometers from Dhaka.

He was given the title of Bangabandhu (Friend of Bengal) for his role during the struggle leading up to Bangladesh’s independence in 1971.

A year later, he became the first president of the war-torn country, governing Bangladesh for three years until he was killed in an army revolt on Aug. 15, 1975.

Sheikh Hasina, one of his two daughters, took over the helm of the ALP after being appointed prime minister in 1996, and declared Aug. 15 as a holiday and national day of mourning to honor her father’s memory.

The government has pulled out all the stops to celebrate Rahman’s centenary year, with Nasim dedicating the portrait to the country’s 170 million residents.

“We wanted to project the importance of the father of the nation to the world in a different way. This initiative will reignite the spirit of freedom and independence,” Nasim said.

The Guinness Book of World Records recognized the effort on Tuesday.

“The crop mosaic depicts the father of the nation of Bangladesh, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, and was to commemorate the 100th anniversary on March 17,” it said on its website.

Historians in the country described the honor as “unique.”

“Bangabandhu was born in a middle-class farming family. So, on his birth centenary, the country’s farmers portrayed his image through the crops in the field. There is no better way to convey our respects to the great leader,” Ajoy Dasgupta, a journalist and historian, told Arab News.

“It was his dream to make an independent Bangladesh that would be also recognized as a rich nation. Soon, we are going to be a middle-income range country. So, with this record, the world will see once again what a great leader he was,” Dasgupta added.

Muntasir Mamoon, a historian and Dhaka University professor, said it was Rahman’s dream to build a “secular nation.”

“On Rahman’s birth centenary, we should uphold the spirit of secularism. If we fail, all of our achievements in the last 50 years will be severely limited,” Mamoon told Arab News.

He said that the record-breaking portrait will “reunite” the nation and keep the spirit of independence alive.

Bangladesh marked the start of 10 days of celebrations on Wednesday with Maldives President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih’s two-day visit to the country.

Solih, the first foreign leader to join the celebrations, will be joined by heads of state from Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan and India in coming days.

Bilateral talks are expected to yield a string of agreements during the regional leaders’ visits, Foreign Minister A.K. Abdul Momen told reporters on Monday.


North Korea troops suffered more than 6,000 casualties in Ukraine war, UK defense intelligence says

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, center, meets soldiers who took part in a training in North Korea, on March 13, 2024. (AFP)
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North Korea troops suffered more than 6,000 casualties in Ukraine war, UK defense intelligence says

SEOUL: North Korean troops have suffered more than 6,000 casualties fighting for Russia in the war against Ukraine, more than half of the about 11,000 soldiers initially sent to the Kursk region, the British Defense Ministry said in a post on X on Sunday.

 


Trump directs ICE to expand deportations in Democratic-run cities, undeterred by protests

Updated 5 min 2 sec ago
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Trump directs ICE to expand deportations in Democratic-run cities, undeterred by protests

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump on Sunday directed federal immigration officials to prioritize deportations from Democratic-run cities after large protests have erupted in Los Angeles and other major cities against the Trump administration’s immigration policies.
Trump in a social media posting called on ICE officials “to do all in their power to achieve the very important goal of delivering the single largest Mass Deportation Program in History.”
He added that to reach the goal officials ”must expand efforts to detain and deport Illegal Aliens in America’s largest Cities, such as Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York, where Millions upon Millions of Illegal Aliens reside.”
Trump’s declaration comes after weeks of increased enforcement, and after Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff and main architect of Trump’s immigration policies, said US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers would target at least 3,000 arrests a day, up from about 650 a day during the first five months of Trump’s second term.
At the same time, the Trump administration has directed immigration officers to pause arrests at farms, restaurants and hotels, after Trump expressed alarm about the impact aggressive enforcement is having on those industries, according to a US official familiar with the matter who spoke only on condition of anonymity.


Friends say Minnesota shooting suspect was deeply religious and conservative

Updated 16 June 2025
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Friends say Minnesota shooting suspect was deeply religious and conservative

  • Friends told the AP that they knew Boelter was religious and conservative, but that he didn’t talk about politics often and didn’t seem extreme

NEW YORK: The man accused of assassinating the top Democrat in the Minnesota House held deeply religious and politically conservative views, telling a congregation in Africa two years ago that the US was in a “bad place” where most churches didn’t oppose abortion.
Vance Luther Boelter, 57, was at the center of a massive multistate manhunt on Sunday, a day after authorities say he impersonated a police officer and gunned down former House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, in their home outside Minneapolis. Democratic Gov. Tim Walz described the shooting as “a politically motivated assassination.”
Sen. John Hoffman, also a Democrat, and his wife, Yvette, were shot earlier by the same gunman at their home nearby but survived.
Friends and former colleagues interviewed by The Associated Press described Boelter as a devout Christian who attended an evangelical church and went to campaign rallies for President Donald Trump. Records show Boelter registered to vote as a Republican while living in Oklahoma in 2004 before moving to Minnesota where voters don’t list party affiliation.
Near the scene at Hortman’s home, authorities say they found an SUV made to look like those used by law enforcement. Inside they found fliers for a local anti-Trump “No Kings” rally scheduled for Saturday and a notebook with names of other lawmakers. The list also included the names of abortion rights advocates and health care officials, according to two law enforcement officials who could not discuss details of the ongoing investigation and spoke to AP on condition of anonymity.
Both Hortman and Hoffman were defenders of abortion rights at the state legislature.
Suspect not believed to have made any public threats before attacks, official says
Drew Evans, superintendent of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, said at a briefing on Sunday that Boelter is not believed to have made any public threats before the attacks. Evans asked the public not to speculate on a motivation for the attacks. “We often want easy answers for complex problems,” he told reporters. “Those answers will come as we complete the full picture of our investigation.”
Friends told the AP that they knew Boelter was religious and conservative, but that he didn’t talk about politics often and didn’t seem extreme.
“He was right-leaning politically but never fanatical, from what I saw, just strong beliefs,” said Paul Schroeder, who has known Boelter for years.
A glimpse of suspect’s beliefs on abortion during a trip to Africa
Boelter, who worked as a security contractor, gave a glimpse of his beliefs on abortion during a trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2023. While there, Boelter served as an evangelical pastor, telling people he had first found Jesus as a teenager.
“The churches are so messed up, they don’t know abortion is wrong in many churches,” he said, according to an online recording of one sermon from February 2023. Still, in three lengthy sermons reviewed by the AP, he only mentioned abortion once, focusing more on his love of God and what he saw as the moral decay in his native country.
He appears to have hidden his more strident beliefs from his friends back home.
“He never talked to me about abortion,” Schroeder said. “It seemed to be just that he was a conservative Republican who naturally followed Trump.”
A married father with five children, Boelter and his wife own a sprawling 3,800-square-foot house on a large rural lot about an hour from downtown Minneapolis that the couple bought in 2023 for more than a half-million dollars.
Seeking to reinvent himself
He worked for decades in managerial roles for food and beverage manufacturers before seeking to reinvent himself in middle age, according to resumes and a video he posted online.
After getting an undergraduate degree in international relations in his 20s, Boelter went back to school and earned a master’s degree and then a doctorate in leadership studies in 2016 from Cardinal Stritch University, a private Catholic college in Wisconsin that has since shut down. While living in Wisconsin, records show Boelter and his wife Jenny founded a nonprofit corporation called Revoformation Ministries, listing themselves as the president and secretary.
After moving to Minnesota about a decade ago, Boelter volunteered for a position on a state workforce development board, first appointed by then-Gov. Mark Dayton, a Democrat, in 2016, and later by Democratic Gov. Tim Walz. He served through 2023.
In that position, he may have crossed paths with one of his alleged victims. Hoffman served on the same board, though authorities said it was not immediately clear how much the two men may have interacted.
Launching a security firm
Records show Boelter and his wife started a security firm in 2018. A website for Praetorian Guard Security Services lists Boelter’s wife as the president and CEO while he is listed as the director of security patrols. The company’s homepage says it provides armed security for property and events and features a photo of an SUV painted in a two-tone black and silver pattern similar to a police vehicle, with a light bar across the roof and “Praetorian” painted across the doors. Another photo shows a man in black tactical gear with a military-style helmet and a ballistic vest with the company’s name across the front.
In an online resume, Boelter also billed himself as a security contractor who worked oversees in the Middle East and Africa. On his trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo, he told Chris Fuller, a friend, that he had founded several companies focused on farming and fishing on the Congo River, as well as in transportation and tractor sales.
“It has been a very fun and rewarding experience and I only wished I had done something like this 10 years ago,” he wrote in a message shared with the AP.
But once he returned home in 2023, there were signs that Boelter was struggling financially. That August, he began working for a transport service for a funeral home, mostly picking up bodies of those who had died in assisted living facilities — a job he described as he needed to do to pay bills. Tim Koch, the owner of Metro First Call, said Boelter “voluntarily left” that position about four months ago.
“This is devastating news for all involved,” Koch said, declining to elaborate on the reasons for Boelter’s departure, citing the ongoing law enforcement investigation.
Boelter had also started spending some nights away from his family, renting a room in a modest house in northern Minneapolis shared by friends. Heavily armed police executed a search warrant on the home Saturday.
‘I’m going to be gone for awhile’
In the hours before Saturday’s shootings, Boelter texted two roommates to tell them he loved them and that “I’m going to be gone for a while,” according to Schroeder, who was forwarded the text and read it to the AP.
“May be dead shortly, so I just want to let you know I love you guys both and I wish it hadn’t gone this way,” Boelter wrote. “I don’t want to say anything more and implicate you in any way because you guys don’t know anything about this. But I love you guys and I’m sorry for the trouble this has caused.”


G7 leaders gather in Canada for a summit overshadowed by Israel-Iran crisis and trade wars

Updated 16 June 2025
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G7 leaders gather in Canada for a summit overshadowed by Israel-Iran crisis and trade wars

  • Israel’s strikes on Iran and Tehran’s retaliation, which appeared to catch many world leaders unawares, is the latest sign of a more volatile world

KANANASKIS, Alberta: Leaders of some of the world’s biggest economic are arriving in the Canadian Rockies on Sunday for a Group of Seven summit, overshadowed by an escalating conflict between Israel and Iran and US President Donald Trump’s unresolved trade war.
Israel’s strikes on Iran and Tehran’s retaliation, which appeared to catch many world leaders unawares, is the latest sign of a more volatile world.
Trump in recent days vetoed an Israeli plan to kill Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a US official told The Associated Press, in an indication of how far Israel was prepared to go.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he had discussed efforts to de-escalate the crisis with Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as other world leaders and said he expected “intense discussions” would continue at the summit.
Trump is summit’s wild card
As summit host, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has decided to abandon the annual practice of issuing a joint statement, or communique, at the end of the meeting.
With other leaders wanting to talk to Trump in an effort to talk him out of imposing tariffs, the summit risks being a series of bilateral conversations rather than a show of unity.
Trump is the summit wild card. Looming over the meeting are his inflammatory threats to make Canada the 51st state and take over Greenland. French President Emmanuel Macron visited Greenland on Sunday for a highly symbolic stop on his way to Canada. Macron warned that Greenland is “not to be sold” nor “to be taken.”
“Everybody in France, the European Union thinks that Greenland is not to be sold, not to be taken,” he said during a news conference, applauded by the local crowd.
“The situation in Greenland is clearly a wakeup call for all Europeans. Let me tell you very directly that you’re not alone,” Macron added.
Trump is scheduled to arrive late Sunday in Kananaskis, Alberta. He will have a bilateral meeting with Carney on Monday morning before the summit program begins.
‘He tends to be a bully’
Leaders who are not part of the G7 but have been invited to the summit by Carney include the heads of state of India, Ukraine, Brazil, South Africa, South Korea, Australia, Mexico and the UAE. Avoiding tariffs will continue to be top of mind.
“Leaders, and there are some new ones coming, will want to meet Donald Trump,” said Peter Boehm, Canada’s counselor at the 2018 G7 summit in Quebec and a veteran of six G7 summits. “Trump doesn’t like the big round table as much he likes the one-on-one.”
Bilateral meetings with the American president can be fraught as Trump has used them to try to intimidate the leaders of Ukraine and South Africa.
Former Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien told a panel this week that if Trump does act out, leaders should ignore him and remain calm like Carney did in his recent Oval Office meeting.
“He tends to be a bully,” Chrétien said. “If Trump has decided to make a show to be in the news, he will do something crazy. Let him do it and keep talking normally.”
Last month Britain and the US announced they had struck a trade deal that will slash American tariffs on UK autos, steel and aluminum. It has yet to take effect, however, though British officials say they are not concerned the Trump administration might go back on its word.
Starmer’s attempts to woo Trump have left him in an awkward position with Canada, the UK’s former colony, close ally and fellow Commonwealth member. Starmer has also drawn criticism — especially from Canadians — for failing to address Trump’s stated desire to make Canada the 51st state.
Asked if he has told Trump to stop the 51st state threats, Starmer told The Associated Press: “I’m not going to get into the precise conversations I’ve had, but let me be absolutely clear: Canada is an independent, sovereign country and a much-valued member of the Commonwealth.”
Zelensky expected to meet Trump
The war in Ukraine will be on the agenda. President Volodymyr Zelensky is due to attend the summit and is expected to meet with Trump, a reunion coming just months after their bruising Oval Office encounter which laid bare the risks of having a meeting with the US president.
Starmer met with Carney in Ottawa before the summit for talks focused on security and trade, in the first visit to Canada by a British prime minister for eight years.
German officials were keen to counter the suggestion that the summit would be a “six against one” event, noting that the G7 countries have plenty of differences of emphasis among themselves on various issues.
“The only the problem you cannot forecast is what the president of the United States will do depending on the mood, the need to be in the news,” said Chrétien.


World faces new nuclear arms race, researchers warn

Updated 16 June 2025
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World faces new nuclear arms race, researchers warn

  • Israel — which does not acknowledge its nuclear weapons — is also believed to be modernizing its arsenal, which SIPRI estimated was about 90 warheads at the start of the year
  • SIPRI counted a total of 12,241 warheads in January 2025, of which 9,614 were in stockpiles for potential use

STOCKHOLM: Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, researchers warned Monday.
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said nuclear powers including the United States and Russia — which account for around 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions.”
Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads.
But SIPRI warned that the trend was likely to be reversed in the coming years.
“What we see now, first of all, is that the number of operational nuclear warheads is beginning to increase,” SIPRI Director Dan Smith told AFP.
This was especially the case with China, which SIPRI said had about 600 nuclear warheads and had added 100 new warheads in 2023 and 2024.
“China is increasing its nuclear force steadily,” Smith said, adding that the country could reach 1,000 warheads in seven or eight years.
While that would still be well short of Russian and US arsenals it would make China “a much bigger player,” said Smith.
He said the world faced new threats “at a particularly dangerous and unstable moment” for geopolitics, adding: “We see the warning signs of a new nuclear arms race coming.”

SIPRI counted a total of 12,241 warheads in January 2025, of which 9,614 were in stockpiles for potential use.
The institute noted in its report that both Russia and the United States had “extensive programs under way to modernize and replace their nuclear warheads.”
The United Kingdom was not believed to have increased its number of warheads in 2024, but SIPRI said that given the country’s 2021 decision to raise its limit on the number of warheads from 225 to 260, it was likely to increase in the future.
Similarly, while France’s arsenal was believed to have remained steady at around 290, “its nuclear modernization program progressed during 2024.”
India and Pakistan both “continued to develop new types of nuclear weapon delivery systems in 2024.”
India had a “growing stockpile” of about 180 nuclear weapons at the start of 2025, the institute said, while Pakistan’s arsenal remained steady at about 170 warheads.

SIPRI also noted that North Korea’s nuclear weapons program remained “central to its national security strategy,” estimating that it had around 50 warheads and was believed to possess “enough fissile material to reach a total of up to 90 warheads.”
Israel — which does not acknowledge its nuclear weapons — is also believed to be modernizing its arsenal, which SIPRI estimated was about 90 warheads at the start of the year.
Smith stressed that the looming nuclear arms race would not just be about “the numbers of warheads.”
“It’s an arms race which is going to be highly technological,” Smith said.
He added that it would be both in “outer space and in cyberspace” as the software directing and guiding nuclear weapons would be an area of competition.
The rapid development of artificial intelligence will also likely begin to play a part, at first as a complement to humans.
“The next step would be moving toward full automation. That is a step that must never be taken,” Smith said.
“If our prospects of being free of the danger of nuclear war were to be left in the hands of an artificial intelligence, I think that then we would be close to the doomsday scenarios.”