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In this episode of Head to Head , Mehdi Hasan challenges Gowher Rizvi, the adviser to the prime minister of Bangladesh on  international affairs , on the state of the country’s democracy and whether it is heading towards authoritarianism. Once one of the poorest countries in the region, Bangladesh’s economy has been booming over the last decade, with economic growth faster than its neighbours India and Pakistan. It also boasts lower infant mortality and longer life expectancy than its peers. Just because a party has been elected three times, it is not a one-party state. Gowher Rizvi However, human rights groups warn that the country is becoming increasingly autocratic, accusing the government of clamping down on any form of dissent and hounding and locking up its political rivals. In recent general  elections, Bangladesh’s ruling party, the Awami League, reasserted its power following a landslide victory. The opposition rejected the results amid violence which ...

London, United Kingdom – In an industrial park in north London, artisans from Poland, Italy, England, Mauritius, and elsewhere painstakingly stitch mattresses for Savoir Beds, a British luxury brand. Like the craftsmen and women, most of the materials are from the European Union or from around the world via Europe: plywood from Latvia, wool from Spain, horsetail from South America via Switzerland. Savoir Beds only makes about 900 mattresses a year, with customers willing to pay an average of £14,000 ($18,300) – and up to £150,000 ($197,000) – for their custom-made products. To avoid disrupting the supply chain of materials because of border delays, should there be a no-deal Brexit , the manufacturer has stockpiled £250,000 ($328,400) worth of the materials it needs to ensure production doesn’t grind to a halt. It is feared that should the UK quit the EU without a deal, or without an agreement that is useful for small businesses, there would be additional red tape and transport r...

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Great Britain’s women take silver as Australia hold on for gold in a thrilling finish to the team pursuit final at the 2019 Track Cycling World Championships in Poland. WATCH MORE: GB take silver as Australia smash team pursuit world record Available to UK users only. Read More from Trendy News Viral https://ift.tt/2EDezF8

Evidence suggests  Israel committed crimes against humanity in responding to 2018 protests in Gaza , as snipers targeted people clearly identifiable as children, health workers and journalists, according to a United Nations report. Santiago Canton, the chair of the UN Independent Commission of Inquiry on the protests in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, said in a statement on Thursday that “Israeli soldiers committed violations of international human rights and humanitarian law. Some of those violations may constitute war crimes or crimes against humanity.” The inquiry, set up by the UN Human Rights Council, investigated possible violations from the start of the protests on March 30, 2018, through to December 31. “More than 6,000 unarmed demonstrators were shot by military snipers, week after week at the protest sites,” it said. “The Commission found reasonable grounds to believe that Israeli snipers shot at journalists, health workers, children and persons with ...

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Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit has obtained documents that reveal the wider use of encrypted “self destruct” messaging systems by US law enforcement agencies, raising serious questions about accountability and transparency. The documents, obtained through public record requests, show Missouri State Highway Patrol equipped their officers in 2014 with a secret messaging application called “Silent Phone” which systematically destroys text messages. Their patrol officers were on the front line, policing the public unrest that shook the town of Ferguson, near St Louis, after the shooting of an unarmed African American by a white police officer. Following the protests in Ferguson, Black Lives Matter became internationally recognised for its campaign against the killing of African-Americans by police. “It’s particularly alarming that any police entity would, in a systemic and organised manner, use a burner app for their communications,” explained Mark Pedroli, a lawyer with the Missour...

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Kabul, Afghanistan – A return to peace is not possible in Afghanistan if its government continues to conduct air strikes which have resulted in countless civilian casualties, a former Taliban official has said. In a press conference in Kabul on Wednesday, Syed Mohammad Akbar Agha, who is the current leader of Rah-e-Nejat (High Council of Salvation), said President Ashraf Ghani ‘s government is sabotaging peace talks being held in Qatar between Taliban representatives and US officials. “The government doesn’t want peace. They are still targeting civilian areas while claiming to have targeted Taliban hideouts,” Agha told Al Jazeera, adding that air raids are being carried out “almost every day”. “We are all positive about peace and very serious, especially now that Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar is directly involved in the talks in Qatar,” he said. “We are expecting positive results for peace in Afghanistan.” Taliban and United States  officials are meeting for the third day on...

Senior White House adviser Jared Kushner met Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) on Tuesday for the first time since the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi . The talks in the Saudi capital Riyadh, part of Kushner’s tour of the Middle East , focused on ways of “increasing cooperation” between the United States and Saudi Arabia as well as efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict , a White House statement said. “Building on previous conversations, they discussed increasing cooperation between the United States and Saudi Arabia, and the Trump administration’s efforts to facilitate peace between the Israelis and Palestinians,” the statement said. “Additionally, they discussed ways to improve the condition of the entire region through economic investment,” it said. This was the first face-to-face meeting between Kushner, who is also US President Donald Trump ’s son-in-law, and MBS since the murder of Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul o...

The recent political crisis in Iran , triggered by Foreign Minister Javad Zarif’s attempt to resign, reflects a long-time rivalry between hardliners and moderate factions that is poisoning Iran’s politics, according to Iran experts. Despite President Hassan Rouhani ‘s rejection of  Zarif’s resignation , observers believe that the foreign minister’s unexpected move was the result of an  intensifying internal power struggle  in Iran that is far from over. “Zarif’s resignation has exposed the political faultline between competing political factions in the country,” said Luciano Zaccara, p rofessor in Gulf Politics at the Qatar University Gulf Studies Center.   The confrontation is between moderate forces within the government, including Zarif, and hardliners who dominate Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a military force directly under the control of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Zarif has been the top Iranian official working to improve r...

US President Donald Trump ‘s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen accused him of breaking the law while in office and said for the first time that Trump knew in advance about a WikiLeaks dump of stolen emails that hurt his 2016 election rival Hillary Clinton. In a dramatic televised hearing in Congress on Wednesday, Cohen said Trump approved hush payments to cover up extra-marital sexual relationships in violation of campaign finance laws, and signed a personal check for $35,000 in 2017 to reimburse Cohen for at least one of those payments. Cohen, 52, was a close aide of Trump for years and his testimony could increase the legal and political pressure on the Republican president, but he did not appear to reveal a “smoking gun” that would sink his former boss. Cohen told a House of Representatives committee he had no direct evidence that Trump or his campaign colluded with Moscow during the election campaign. Possible collusion is a key theme of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Ru...

Hanoi, Vietnam –  With a few taps of their smartphone screens, hungry officials gathered in Hanoi for a summit between the leaders of  the  United States  and  North Korea   this week can send delivery drivers racing through honking motorbike traffic. A bowl of hot noodles or a fresh Big Mac could be minutes away. The growth in Vietnam’s tech startups, including food delivery apps, is among the many signs showing how far Vietnam has come in the three decades since it launched its bold Doi Moi – renovation – economic reform programme. Poverty has plunged and its economy has become one of the fastest growing in Asia. But today, the Southeast Asian powerhouse faces both opportunities and challenges posed by the trade dispute between its economic giant to the north, China , and its former enemy, the US, which is becoming increasingly assertive in the region. Rapidly changing technology also presents Vietnam’s policymakers with potential risks and rewards....

Bethnal Green, London, United Kingdom – Shamima Begum has been in the headlines ever since she gave a series of interviews earlier this month, saying she would like to come home.   The British teenager, who is now 19 and has recently given birth, travelled to Syria to join the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant ( ISIL or ISIS) group in February 2015.   Bethnal Green, where Begum grew up and attended school, is a multicultural locality in the heart of London’s East End and, today, its residents feel under scrutiny.   “It’s everywhere,” says Salma Rahman, a 35-year-old housewife who lives in Bethnal Green.   “As a Muslim and especially as a British Bangladeshi (the same background as Begum), you fear you might all be tarred with the same brush.”  The attention the area has received in recent weeks is nothing new.   Since 2015, the Bethnal Green Academy, the school Begum attended, has changed its name twice: first to Green Spring Academy Shoreditch ...

At least 25 people have been killed and 50 injured after a train smashed into a barrier at Cairo’s main train station, state television and witnesses have said. Photographs on social media showed clouds of black smoke billowing from the building in central Cairo. Footage also showed fire engulfing the train and a nearby platform and people rushing to help the injured. Ambulances and rescue teams have been dispatched to the site, medical sources said. Egypt ‘s National Railway Authority confirmed the accident, saying several people were killed and injured. In a statement, the authority said the fire broke out after a train derailed and collided with a concrete barrier at the station, without giving further details. Security sources told Reuters news agency that there was no indication the crash was deliberate. عاجل | التلفزيون المصري: 20 قتيلا 40 جريحا جراء حريق #محطة_مصر برمسيس في #القاهرة . #مصر pic.twitter.com/mC4QtGt4cc — الجزيرة مباشر (@ajmubasher) February 27, 2019 ...

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Hanoi, Vietnam – Days before US President Donald Trump reached Hanoi for his meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un , another Donald was making waves in the Vietnamese capital. That was “Billionaire Donald”, as he calls himself, or Russell White, the other name the 61-year-old Canadian gave himself because searching for Donald on Google would bring up the US president. As Hanoi geared up this week to host the second United States – North Korea summit, the Trump impersonator had been walking around the city alongside a Kim lookalike, posing for photos and attracting media attention – before the latter was held and then deported by the Vietnamese authorities. Hours before Trump meets Kim on Wednesday, Al Jazeera caught up with Billionaire  Donald to find out about the reaction in Hanoi, his next steps and what he thinks of his famous lookalike. Al Jazeera : How did all of this come about? Billionaire Donald : Well, I owned bars in Canada and I was doing fine until I h...

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Kabul, Afghanistan –  On September 5 last year, a Wednesday, coach Ghulam Abbas, 58, heard gunfire at the Maiwand Wrestling club  in Dash-e-Barchi, a neighbourhood in Kabul’s west home to a sizeable Hazara community. A guard yelled “suicide attacker!” and Abbas ran towards the emergency exit door, slamming it shut behind him. But the attacker’s foot was trapped in the door. A few seconds later, Abbas was on the ground, crying out in pain. He lost consciousness.   The suicide bomber had detonated his explosives. Abbas lost his left arm. A second car bomb exploded a few minutes later just outside the club.   In total, at least 20 people were killed and 70 wounded in the assault  claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant ( ISIL or ISIS) group. Coach Ghulam Abbas lost his arm when a suicide bomber attacked the wrestling gym [Sorin Furcoi/Al Jazeera] Abbas describes it as an attack on the ethnic Hazara minority – a group accounting fo...

London, United Kingdom – In a speech to the House of Commons, British Prime Minister Theresa May  has made a u-turn on extending Article 50, the part of the Treaty on the European Union that allows member states to leave the bloc. May on Tuesday told the MPs they would get the last word on whether the UK  leaves the EU without a deal, in case her agreement with the EU is rejected by parliament for a second time. She also told the House that while her priority remained working with the EU to achieve a deal that parliament can support, her deadline to achieve that is going to be March 12 at the latest. If she loses another “meaningful vote” to be held by then, she will hold a vote on leaving the EU without a withdrawal agreement in place on March 29. Should MPs vote against a no deal, which is a likely outcome in that scenario, a vote will be held on March 14 to seek a short extension “not beyond the end of June”, the embattled PM said. “An extension beyond the end of Ju...