Tasneem Tayeb

The central bank has found itself in a bit of a quandary. The bank recently gave the remittance award to 36 individuals, including a loan defaulter—a top defaulter of Bangladesh Commerce Bank Ltd. (BCBL)— who also happens to be a money launderer, having laundered Tk 200 crore through the bank. This tragicomic episode neatly sums up the situation of our banking sector, especially with regard to loan defaults and the treatment afforded to them.

Donald Trump pulling out US forces from northeast Syria and exposing the region and its major ally—in the fight against Islamic State (IS)—the Kurds to Turkish offensive comes as no surprise given the litany of backstabbing the Kurdish people have suffered over the decades.

Emperors and kings and even queens have traditionally aspired for boys—male heirs to the thrones, who would govern their nations in the future. Very few, if at all ever envisaged or expected their daughters to succeed them. While the birth of a boy brought joy and celebrations, the birth of a girl has often been treated with less enthusiasm.

The recent protests in Egypt, sparked by the allegation of financial misappropriations by a government contractor against the country’s current president and former army chief, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, have died down almost as soon as they came to life.

Bangladesh is still reeling from the worst dengue outbreak in its history, even though the initial shock has passed.

In 2014, United Nations tweeted, “Peace means dignity, well-being for all, not just absence of war”. The statement couldn’t have been closer to the truth: peace is not just the absence of war, it is the building of inclusive societies, where people can live with dignity and coexist in harmony with each other.

The recent surge in teen gang violence has become a major concern for the citizens. The murder of 17-year-old Mohsin Ali in the capital’s Mohammadpur area on September 4, 2019 had haunting echoes of the gruesome killing of Adnan Kabir (14) in 2017—which

Bangladesh continues to grow at an impressive rate. According to World Bank projections, the country’s GDP growth for 2019 is 7.3 percent.

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it really fall? If another tree follows it, and then another, followed by a million others, and no one is around to hear the sound of their fall, do they really fall?

The recent fire incident at the Chalantika slum in Mirpur has perhaps been the kindest to the victims: claiming no lives, only their life’s possessions. The fire that broke out around 7:20pm on August 16, 2019, engulfed more than a thousand shanties, leaving thousands of people homeless. It took 24 firefighting units hours to reign in the insatiable flames. A lot of the slum dwellers had been away to their native villages to celebrate Eid-ul-Azha, serendipitously escaping the blazing fires. Concerned authorities have also been quick to contain the situation and provide relief to the affected people, with DNCC operating treatment facilities for the victims.

A French animal-rights activist recently said that mosquitoes should be allowed to drink human blood, since they do it to get protein for their eggs. Aymeric Caron, an anti-specist TV presenter, further added that mosquitoes, in fact, should be allowed to bite humans, except in Africa, where people might get infected with malaria.

A recent report published by a local newspaper had us sitting up on our proverbial chairs. Titled “Study finds carcinogenic element creating whitening agents in detergents,” it was about a research study that said that almost all the detergent brands available in the market contain a fabric whiter, called fluorescent whitening agent (FWA), which can lead to severe health repercussions for the users. The agent can cause allergy, skin diseases, kidney diseases, gene-related complications and even lead to carcinogenic reactions in human bodies!

History was made on this day in 2015, when Iran agreed to the landmark nuclear deal, better known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

Jared Kushner, the US president’s senior adviser and son-in-law, recently unveiled in Manama an economic proposal to settle the decades-long Israel-Palestine conflict. He billed it as the “opportunity of the century”.

On June 17, 2019, Mohammed Morsi, Egypt’s first and only democratically elected president, died inside a glass cage, in an Egyptian courtroom, during the course of an espionage trial. The 67-year-old former president apparently suffered for a full 20 minutes before

On the morning of June 3, the world woke up to the news of a harrowing, bloody crackdown on peaceful civilian protesters on the streets of Khartoum by the RSF (Rapid Support Forces, a newfangled name of the notorious Janjaweed militia)—under the command of the infamous Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemeti, the mastermind behind the genocide in Darfur. The fault of the protesters? Demand for a civilian transitional governing body, following the fall of Omar al-Bashir, Sudan’s president of 30 years.

Rfugee. Although the word is relatively new, appearing in the English language for the first time circa late 17th century, its story is as old as time itself.

The recent general election in Indonesia had a touch of déjà vu. In both 2014 and 2019, it was Joko Widodo taking on Prabowo Subianto; in both the elections, Widodo, also known as Jokowi, was declared the winner by the Indonesian General Elections Commission (KPU); in both the elections, hardliner former general Subianto rejected the election results and declared himself the winner; and in both the elections, he challenged the results at the Constitutional Court of Indonesia.

Afghanistan is a dangerous place for women. According to a new global index developed by Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security, and the Peace Research Institute of Oslo, Afghanistan is the second worst country for women in the world, after war-ravaged Syria,

The first half of May saw the South African general elections making headlines in all of the major international news channels. From political analysts to economists, everyone was having their say about the difficult path the African National Congress (ANC), especially its leader Cyril Ramaphosa, was having to navigate to win people’s vote. The reason?