Seminar in New York Urges for Secure Banking Channels for Expatriates’ Remittances

"The prices of food items are so high. For example, a kilogram of Radish now costs nearly one hundred Taka, which was only twenty Taka," Sonia said, adding that they would die of starvation shortly if the government did not control the price hikes of necessary food items.   More than four million people, primarily needy women hailing from different remote areas of Bangladesh, are working in the country's main exporting sector, the readymade garment industry. Around 3,500 garment factories in the South Asian Delta nation of nearly 170 million people account for about 85 percent of the country's $55 billion annual exports. Hundreds of thousands of female garment workers in Bangladesh carry almost the same humanitarian stories as Sonia. They are somehow trying to survive depending on the country's booming RMG sector. 

A member of the police and an opposition political leader were killed while over a hundred, including opposition activists, law enforcers, and journalists, were injured in hours-long clashes during anti-government grand rallies in Bangladesh's capital Dhaka Saturday evening, flaring the prevailing political tensions in the country ahead of the national elections scheduled to be held in January 2024. The diseased policeman has been identified as Amirul Parvez, a constable of Dhaka Metropolitan Police's Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit. On the other hand, the opposition leader killed during Saturday's violence has been identified as Shamim Mia, a leader of the main opposition political party, Bangladesh Nationalist Party's (BNP) associate organization, Jubo Dal, in the capital Dhaka's Mugda area. The clashes first occurred in Dhaka's Kakrail area and rapidly spread to other parts of the mega city of nearly 20 million people. Police fired tear gas shells and rubber bullets targeting the opposition protesters. In retaliation, the opposition political activists threw stones and brickbats at the law enforcers and set many vehicles on the streets, including motorbikes, on fire.

The New York Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-NY) today denounced the blanket condemnation made by New York City Mayor Eric Adams against a pro-Palestinian rally that took place in Times Square yesterday. On Sunday, Mayor Adams responded to the rally with a tweet, stating that the protestors were “spreading hatred” and that he found it “deeply troubling this group of extremists express support for terrorism.”

In a groundbreaking move aimed at expanding access to abortion care, New York City Mayor Eric Adams and NYC Health + Hospitals have launched telehealth abortion services through Virtual ExpressCare, making NYC the first public health system in the nation to offer this service. Beginning this week, individuals in New York City seeking abortion care can schedule Virtual ExpressCare appointments for on-demand video or phone consultations with licensed healthcare professionals, providing assessments and counseling. If deemed clinically appropriate, patients can receive medication abortion kits delivered to their New York City addresses within days.

The COP28 President-Designate, Dr. Sultan Al Jaber, has made a significant commitment to prioritize the intersection of climate and health at COP28, marking a historic turning point for the global community. Speaking alongside prominent figures such as Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), and Dr. Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera, President of Malawi, Dr. Al Jaber announced groundbreaking initiatives aimed at fostering equitable and climate-resilient health systems.

The Naib Amir of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, internationally acclaimed mufassire Qur'an, and former Member of Parliament, Allama Delawar Hossain Saeedi, breathed his last today. He passed away while undergoing treatment at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU) in the capital on Monday night. He was 84 years old.

The U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO), representing a wide spectrum of national, regional, and local Muslim associations in America, has issued a strong condemnation against the savage mob killing of 19-year-old scholar Maulana Saad and the torching of Anjuman Jama mosque, where he served as an imam, on August 1 in India.

The Mayor’s Public Engagement Unit (PEU) has launched an important new resource for New Yorkers: a live operator Tenant Helpline. The implementation of live calls represents a permanent commitment to maintain and scale tenant support structures established during the pandemic. The new live call system, along with increased funding for the PEU’s Tenant Support Team, will be a critical resource for New York tenants who face potential eviction, landlord harassment, or unacceptable living conditions. 

President Biden chose Nusrat Jahan Choudhury to be a federal judge in New York. On Thursday, the Senate agreed, making her the first Muslim woman to serve on a federal bench. Choudhury will serve the Eastern District of New York in Brooklyn. He is also the first Bangladeshi-American to be approved as a federal judge.

After the sudden withdrawal of special security facilities and permanent police escort, this is the first time the US Ambassador to Dhaka, Peter D. Haas, has participated in any of the foreign ministry's demands. Yesterday, he attended a lunch-cum-diplomatic briefing at the State Guest House Padma at the invitation of Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Shahriar Alam.

India’s film industry, Bollywood, is becoming notorious for inciting hate against Muslims by producing films that stereotype and depict Muslims as dangerous and as threats to India’s national security. It has clearly become lucrative for the film industry to boost Hindu nationalism by reinforcing the ruling BJP party’s narrative that Muslims are a threat to Hindus. A recent box office movie, The Kashmir Files, enjoyed immense popularity amongst Hindutva fans. A large number of film critics, Kashmiri Muslims, and others have described it as propaganda that inflames hatred against Muslims and distorts events to suit the ruling party’s Islamophobic agenda. The movie falsely depicts Kashmiri Muslims as complicit in an ill-perceived unproven genocide of the region’s Hindu Pandits. After viewing the movie, Hindutva fans chanted anti-Muslim slogans and promised to wreak vengeance against India’s Muslims.

“Almost six years have passed since the Rohingya minorities were expelled from their ancestral land in Myanmar. The Security Council took no effective action to remedy the situation. Rather the Council has remained a mute witness to its continued deterioration,”- said Ambassador Muhammad Abdul Muhith, Permanent Representative of Bangladesh to the United Nations in New York, while speaking today at the Security Council open debate on “Futureproofing Trust for Sustaining Peace” held at the United Nations Headquarters.

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and World Bank Group President David Malpass commemorated 50 years of partnership between Bangladesh and the World Bank at the institution’s headquarters today. The partnership has helped lift millions of Bangladeshis out of poverty and supported the country’s economic growth and development. The World Bank has provided Bangladesh with $2.25 billion of financing over the last year to improve regional connectivity, boost disaster preparedness to address inland flooding, transition to green and climate-resilient development, strengthen environmental management and green investment, and help the micro-enterprise sector become less polluting and more climate-resilient. 

Bangladeshi American Rumaisa Ansary won the Magnet School of America 2023 poster art competition. Rumaisa, a fifth-grade student of PS 349, The Queens School for Leadership and Excellence, became the champion in the national competition held among the students of 3,497 magnet schools in the United States. Rumaisa Ansary is the first Bangladeshi student to win the competition.

Preparations for Eid ul-Fitr celebrations are in full swing across New York City. About three hundred Eid prayers are scheduled to be held this time. If it is not raining, the Eid congregation is contained in the nearby school playground or on the nearby main road. Most New Yorkers celebrate Eid on Friday, April 21, 2023.

The detention of journalist Samsuzzaman Shams and his presentation in the court after long 30 hours as well as the filing of a case against him under the Digital Security Act, is a violation of the constitutional right to security of life of any citizen and the constitutional obligation of free media. It sets a dangerous precedent of controlling and intimidating the media, said Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) in a press statement of deep concern that also strongly condemned the incident. The organization demanded the unconditional release of Shams and immediate repeal of the draconian Digital Security Act to uphold democratic principles. 

The one-house budget proposals released last week by both houses of the New York State Legislature include a fare freeze at $2.75, and free bus pilot for 2 routes per borough (10 in total).

State legislators Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani, NYS Senate Deputy Leader Michael Gianaris, Assembly Member Jeffrey Dinowitz, Senator Nathalia Fernandez, Assembly Member Kenny Burgos, Senator Andrew Gounardes and Senator Gustavo Rivera, along with Derrick Holmes, Digital Strategist at Riders Alliance also joined the press event.

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News had just broken of the catastrophe in Turkiye and Syria around the time Zakat Foundation of America’s founder and executive director, Halil Demir, got a call from his sister in Gaziantep, Turkiye.

The United States is designating eight Iranian individuals in leadership roles at Paravar Pars, an Iranian firm that produces unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Aerospace Force.  Iranian UAVs are being transferred to Russia for use in its brutal and unprovoked war against Ukraine. 

Monday, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is designating Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Cooperative Foundation and five of its board members, the Deputy Minister of Intelligence and Security, and four senior IRGC commanders in Iran under human rights authorities. Today’s action, in coordination with both the United Kingdom and European Union, targets a key economic pillar of the IRGC, which funds much of the regime’s brutal suppression; as well as senior security officials coordinating Tehran’s crackdown at the national and provincial levels.

I was deeply saddened to hear this morning’s terrible news from Brovary, Ukraine. On behalf of the United States, I offer my sincere condolences to the family and loved ones of all of those killed in the helicopter crash, including our friends Minister of Internal Affairs Denys Monastyrskyy, First Deputy Minister Yevhen Yenin, and State Secretary Yuri Lubkovych. We mourn these heartbreaking deaths, a tragic loss beyond words.

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Bangladeshi American Dr. Nina Ahmad has announced her run for the post of 'Council at-Large' of the City of Philadelphia in the United States.In the 2020 Dr. Nina could not win the post of Pennsylvania State Auditor General as a Democrat candidate with 3.129 thousand 131 votes. Timothy Lionel DeFoor of the Republican Party won with 3.3 million 38 thousand 9 votes.

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