logo
Angry protests in Bangladesh as plane crash toll mounts

Angry protests in Bangladesh as plane crash toll mounts

Police have used tear gas to disperse angry students in Bangladesh who demanded answers from the interim government after an air force fighter jet crashed into a Dhaka school and killed 31 people, at least 25 of them children.
The children, many aged under 12, were about to return home from class on Monday when the Chinese-manufactured F-7 BGI Bangladesh Air Force jet ploughed into their school and burst into flames, trapping pupils in the fire and debris.
The military said it had suffered mechanical failure.
Students from the school and others from nearby colleges protested as two government officials visited the crash site, demanding an accurate death toll and shouting, "Why did our brothers die? We demand answers!"
Elsewhere in the capital, hundreds of protesting students, some of them waving sticks, broke through the main gate of the federal government secretariat, demanding the resignation of the education adviser, according to local TV footage.
Police baton-charged them, fired tear gas and used sound grenades to disperse the crowd, leaving dozens injured, witnesses said. Dhaka Metropolitan Police Deputy Commissioner Talebur Rahman said they had to use tear gas to disperse the protesters. He said he did not have information on the number of injured.
Rescue workers continued to scour the charred buildings for debris on Tuesday as distressed residents of the area looked on. Some parents were inconsolable.
Abul Hossain broke down as he spoke about his nine-year-old daughter, Nusrat Jahan Anika, killed in the crash. "I took her to school yesterday morning like every day. I had no idea it would be the last time I would be seeing her," he said.
She was buried on Monday night.
Rubina Akter said her son Raiyan Toufiq had a miraculous escape after his shirt caught fire when he was on a staircase.
"He sprinted to the ground floor and jumped on the grass to douse it," she said. "He tore his shirt and vest inside, which saved him from severe burns."
The jet had taken off from a nearby air base on a routine training mission, the military said. After experiencing mechanical failure the pilot tried to divert the aircraft away from populated areas, but it crashed into the campus. The pilot was among those killed.
On Tuesday, the military said in a statement that 31 people had died and 165 had been admitted to hospitals in the city. The health ministry said 68 remained in hospital and the condition of 10 of them was critical.
STUDENT DEMANDS
The government announced a day of mourning, with flags at half-mast and special prayers at all places of worship.
Pope Leo said he was deeply saddened to learn of the loss of life in the crash and prayed that families and friends may be consoled in their grief, and for the healing and comfort of the injured, according to a Vatican statement.
The protesting students called for those killed and injured to be named, the decommissioning of what they said were old and risky jets, and a change in air force training procedures.
A statement from the press office of Muhammad Yunus, the country's interim administrator, said that the government, the military, school and hospital authorities were working together to publish a list of victims.
It also said the air force will be told not to operate training aircraft in populated areas.
The F-7 BGI is the final and most advanced variant in China's Chengdu J-7/F-7 aircraft family, according to Jane's Information Group. Bangladesh signed a contract for 16 aircraft in 2011 and deliveries were completed by 2013.
The Chengdu F-7 is the licence-built version of the Soviet era MiG-21.
The incident comes as neighbour India is still grappling with the world's worst aviation disaster in a decade after an Air India plane crashed into a medical college hostel in Ahmedabad last month, killing 241 of the 242 people on board and 19 on the ground.
Bangladesh has faced months of political uncertainty after then Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was forced to flee the country last August following weeks of deadly student protests.
The interim government of Nobel laureate Yunus has promised to hold elections next year amid mounting demands from political parties to advance them.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Never mind the tariffs, NZ must prepare for the Chinese consumer rebound
Never mind the tariffs, NZ must prepare for the Chinese consumer rebound

NZ Herald

time6 hours ago

  • NZ Herald

Never mind the tariffs, NZ must prepare for the Chinese consumer rebound

Tourism has been a bigger problem. Chinese visitors to New Zealand remain well down on pre-Covid numbers, and it's not clear that this will be easy to turn around. Then, as we look forward, China will play an increasing role in driving the technology in our lives: think electric vehicles. Two leading international experts on China's economic outlook – Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Andrew Browne and ANZ China chief economist Raymond Yeung – attended Auckland's China Business Summit this month to unpick what's going on. Their conclusions offered some real hope for New Zealand businesses in the years ahead. First the bad news There's no question Chinese consumer sentiment is low and there is slowing economic growth. 'The number one issue dragging the Chinese sentiment down is the property market,' says ANZ's Yeung. 'We definitely need to see a recovery of the property market in order to see a sustainable recovery in sentiment and consumer spending because of the wealth effect.' The latest numbers show the property market is still dropping month on month, he says. A report from Goldman Sachs last month estimated prices have fallen 20% over the past four years and could decline another 10% before bottoming out in 2027. That matches ANZ's estimates. 'I believe it will be another 18 to 24 months of contraction of the property market,' Yeung says. 'That sounds bad. But that is a national strategy to turn the country from a property-led economy to a tech and renewable energy-led economy. 'There is a view from the top that China simply has to go through this transition,' he says. It's one of the features of the Chinese system that its leadership can look through often painful periods of transition and focus on bigger, longer-term goals. As Chinese Ambassador to New Zealand, Wang Xiaolong (also speaking at the summit) put it: 'No matter how turbulent the global landscape is, or will be, China remains unremittingly committed to development to deliver better lives for the Chinese people, in the historic process of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. 'There is a firm, unshakeable national consensus that has not changed and will not change.' Trade war showdown The ability to absorb more short-term economic pain is one of the big advantages China has in its current trade war showdown with the US, says Browne. 'I think it is important to know that Xi Jinping thinks he is winning! And he may not be wrong,' Browne says. 'Obviously, China has problems in its economy. We're in the third year of a real estate meltdown. Youth unemployment is high, it is crushing the dreams of an entire generation of college graduates and their families. 'Xi Jinping is enormously concerned about all of this but he is focused on a different prize,' Browne says. That prize is technology. China is laser-focused on developing a high-tech manufacturing industry to enable China to escape the American choke hold, he says. '[Xi] sees what he says are changes 'unseen in a century' ... meaning the rise of China and relative decline of the USA. 'This, from Xi's perspective, is China's moment to seize.' When it comes to tariffs and the trade war, both Yeung and Browne see China having the upper hand. Yeung believes it's likely the present US/China tariffs (currently sitting at 30%) will fade into insignificance in the coming years. ANZ China chief economist Raymond Yeung. 'I expect this tariff will be gone very soon,' he says. 'There is too much stakeholder interest.' Basically, the US needs China's rare earth metals, and China needs access to US semiconductor chip technology. Vietnam is the most highly vulnerable to US tariffs, with 8.3% of its GDP exposed to the US, Yeung says. 'For China it is just 3%. They can give it up, just let it go.' He notes that China is also currently suffering from deflation – something that helps mitigate any inflationary impact from tariffs. Browne isn't so convinced Trump will back down further on tariffs. However, he does believe the US got outplayed by China in the showdown earlier this year. 'Nobody knows how this is going to play out. We haven't seen this since the 1930s. So I still wouldn't rule out an inflationary surge.' We can't even exclude the 'possibility that Trump isn't stark raving mad', he says. We may see some positive outcomes emerge from the tariff policies. 'We've already seen a few. It has galvanised Germany, and it has galvanised Europe. It is possible Europe might get its act together and launch a unified capital market and start issuing bonds, and compete with the US and China. 'It's equally possible that the US could convince China to shift its economic model further to consumption.' Or, it could all end up relatively benign for the US economy. Trump might continue to reduce tariffs, and a combination with 'cutting taxes, slimming the government and cutting red tape may usher in a golden era for the US ... we don't know.' Another possible outcome is that the world economy 'bifurcates' around the US and China, and countries like New Zealand are caught in the middle, he warns. But regardless of what happens next, Trump has made the fundamental cardinal mistake in his second term of underestimating China, Browne says. '[Former US President Joe] Biden, whether you like him or not, had the measure of China, so when he wanted to put export controls on chip-making materials, his team worked very hard with governments in the Netherlands and Japan. 'At one point in the Biden administration, he decided to get rid of all of the cranes in all of the ports in the US because there were fears they'd be counting things like military equipment going in and out. 'Unfortunately for the US they don't make cranes anymore. The Japanese do so he put in place a technology transfer agreement with Japan. Biden understood the challenge.' The US is the world's financial superpower but China is the world's manufacturing superpower, Browne says. 'It now has an industrial base that is equal to the US, plus Germany, plus Japan, plus South Korea, and then some.' That gives China a critical advantage in all the technologies that are coming of age at the same time. That came to the fore during the recent trade negotiations, where Browne says US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant also underestimated China. 'He said, 'When China exports five times as much to the US as we export to them, we have all the cards'. 'He said the Chinese were 'playing with a pair of twos ... It turned out that when he turned the cards over that China had a couple of aces.' One of those aces was rare earths. 'China threatened to choke off the supply of rare earths to the US and in doing so would have closed down vast swathes of the manufacturing industry, the defence industry, the entire car industry.' The US attempted to retaliate, denying China exports for jet engines and threatening to close down China's civilian airline project. The tariff war morphed into a supply chain war that was far more serious, Browne says. 'It turns out the Chinese had played the US, and they completely caved. 'Trump brought the tariffs down from 145% to 30%. Still high but no longer prohibitive. That's where we are now. We have a truce.' Browne says he doesn't see Trump completely abandoning tariffs. 'We were warned about recession and inflation and we haven't seen that yet,' he says. 'Tariffs are raking record amounts of revenue for the US Government. In Trump's mind, this is a substitute for taxation.' It may be that the lack of negative consequences actually emboldens Trump. 'I would not count out that possibility, that he really does come through with the big tariffs he's promised on August 1.' Tech wars Technology is at the heart of US-China competition now, Browne says. 'A lot of people got the socialist market economy wrong,' he says. 'There was this idea that it would collapse under its own contradictions and an enormous amount of waste. 'And look, the waste in the Chinese system is spectacular but it is also spectacularly well co-ordinated.' It's a whole-of-nation approach, he says. 'Private/public partnerships, centralised R&D, centralised marketing and bottomless supplies of capital and this incredible winnowing process through dog-eat-dog capitalism in the marketplace. What emerges are these apex predators.' There's the rapid rise of car manufacturers like BYD and the big advances China is making in battery technology. But even in the media space, in the most highly censored economy in the world, China produced TikTok, which now has greater insight into the minds of young Americans than Meta, he says. 'They have a system for producing world-beating companies in sector after sector.' Tariffs are mostly a bad thing, Browne says. If they are well-targeted, however, they can sometimes do some good by protecting the industries that a country seeks to develop. 'The Biden administration identified semiconductors, clean tech, batteries and so on,' he says. 'When I talked to investors and asked, 'what are you interested in?' number one was the US. They were attracted by all of the money going into these sectors.' All of that is now being dismantled. 'The big beautiful tax bill doesn't just eliminate the subsidies and incentives in these areas, it actually penalises companies operating in these areas,' Browne says. The US is essentially handing the entire landscape over to China, he says. 'If you want to do your green transition now, whether you're in Africa or Latin America, you want Chinese technologies. And the United States will never catch up.' Can the US and China be friends? Browne says he's very sceptical that there is such a thing as a US-China grand bargain. 'I think the relationship is defined by a core tension. At a high level, there is an almost complete absence of trust,' he says. The idea China is a threat and must be treated as competition is one of the few areas of bipartisan political consensus in the US, he says. 'But these two economies are deeply enmeshed; they are joined at the hip. It creates all kinds of mind-bending paradoxes. 'The Chinese hypersonic Carrier Killer missile cannot find its target without high-end chips manufactured by TSMC in Taiwan, using US tech,' Browne says. 'By the same token, the American Patriot missile cannot defend against Chinese rockets without magnets that come from Chinese rare earth materials.' This is a relationship that is best described as 'weaponised interdependency', he says. Never mind the tariffs ... Yeung and Browne agree on a lot. But Browne still sees China as an exporting nation – as evidenced by its US$114 billion ($188.3b) trade surplus with the world. Yeung believes focusing on this can lead to a misunderstanding of what's really driving China's economic policy. He sees China as an importing nation, based on the fact 88% of its total GDP is domestic now. 'It's domestic growth that will drive China's development,' he says. Here in New Zealand we shouldn't pay too much attention to whether China hits 5.3% GDP or 5.1%, he says. 'If China is going to transition, it's not about how many percentage points of GDP, it is about the changes in lifestyle, the quality of life.' In order for New Zealand to make the most of the Chinese market we need to speed up our ability to adapt, he says. 'You really need to think about the Chinese speed. Maybe we talk about annual planning but even within one year the Chinese business cycle changes a lot.' New Zealand needs to be ready and to position itself for when Chinese consumer confidence eventually rebounds, he says. 'This tariff issue is not the core issue. 'I don't need to reiterate, this is a US$18 trillion economy. There is also US$36 trillion in household deposits sitting in bank accounts in China, ready to unlock and unleash. 'Once consumer sentiment comes back, that will be a massive wave of consumption power waiting for you guys to tap. 'Consumption is the future of China, supported by technological change. And China is going through this with or without the US.' Liam Dann is business editor-at-large for the New Zealand Herald. He is a senior writer and columnist, and also presents and produces videos and podcasts. He joined the Heraldin 2003.

Putting my poor prediction record on the line
Putting my poor prediction record on the line

Otago Daily Times

time6 hours ago

  • Otago Daily Times

Putting my poor prediction record on the line

"I hope I am wrong. My gut tells me we [the US and China] will fight in 2025," wrote General Mike Minihan, head of US Air Mobility Command, in a private memo two years ago. There's still five months to go, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say he's wrong. Don't take my word for it, because my recent record in these matters is bad. I didn't think Russia's Vladimir Putin was crazy enough to invade Ukraine although I knew he was largely detached from reality, and I was wrong. For a long time I would not use the word "genocide" to describe what Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu was doing in Gaza, and I was wrong again. In my defence, I had not spent quality time with either man and I was reluctant to predict their actions based entirely on other people's estimates of their characters (especially since most of those people didn't know them personally either). I still felt compelled to weigh the pros and cons of the case, on the mistaken assumption facts had some influence on their decisions. The possibility of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan is a far greater threat to the peace of the world (such as it is) than the relative sideshows in Ukraine and Israel/Palestine. Aircraft carriers and nuclear weapons on both sides. A few poorly planned displays of "determination" and the US is in a war with China — with the two Koreas and Japan not far behind. China's President Xi Jinping will never rule out using force to "recover" Taiwan, but the story he has set a 2027 deadline for that terrifying gamble is just a Washington think-tank special. He does harp on about it a lot though. Successive American administrations have practised strategic ambiguity (i.e., maybe the US would fight to defend Taiwan and maybe it wouldn't), and the fickle enthusiasms of Donald Trump muddy the waters even further. He is widely seen as a strategic coward (TACO), but he is sufficiently erratic that his response is really incalculable. As for Taiwan, President Lai Ching-te of the cautiously pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) serves up the usual word salad: "The message of history is clear. Today we share the same values and face similar challenges as many of the democracies that participated in the European war [1939-45]." Evasiveness as policy, so as not to rile China. Hou Yu-ih of Taiwan's largest opposition part, the Kuomintang (KMT), is even fuzzier: "The current status quo is that the Taiwan Strait is on the brink of war. So, to maintain close ties with the United States while also making peace with China is the solution to the problem." And although very few ordinary citizens want to be part of China, most people are not bothered by all this. Yes, Taiwan's military is a poorly trained, under-equipped shambles, but the public doesn't seem worried about a Chinese invasion. The United States is willing to sell Taiwan more and better weapons, but some parties don't want to spend the money. So I will risk my reputation as a soothsayer once again and assume both Xi Jinping and Lai Ching-te are rational men. In that case, it is unlikely either man will risk everything on one roll of the dice. Xi will not set the machinery in motion for a sea- and airborne invasion of Taiwan, and Lai will certainly not declare independence for Taiwan. No government of Taiwan, even back in the decades when the KMT (now reformed) was the tyrannical and maniacally anti-communist single ruling party, has ever seriously considered abandoning the sacred fiction that there is only one China including Taiwan. There is just a persistent non-violent dispute over which government is legitimate, Beijing or Taipei. As for Xi, who is effectively president-for-life, he faces no special deadline to claim his prize. "Reunification" is his legacy project, but he has just turned 72 and there's lots of time yet. And always before him is the nightmare example of Putin's three-day "special military operation" to bring Ukraine back under the rule of the Russian "motherland". Above all, there is Taiwan's "silicon shield". The island state manufactures 47% of the world's advanced semiconductor chips, including all of the most advanced ones. Even the United States is one generation behind, and so is China, despite its Deep Seek triumph in producing much cheaper high-performance AIs (on Nvidia chips made in Taiwan). Invade Taiwan and all that is gone. It might be irrational, but even the Trump administration might feel Taiwan is a treasure it must defend come what may. The game is not worth the candle, and Xi will not invade for at least three years. He probably never will. There! I said it! Now we wait and see. — Gwynne Dyer is an independent London journalist.

Hong Kong issues arrest warrants for 19 overseas activists
Hong Kong issues arrest warrants for 19 overseas activists

Otago Daily Times

time2 days ago

  • Otago Daily Times

Hong Kong issues arrest warrants for 19 overseas activists

Hong Kong's national security police announced arrest warrants for 19 activists based overseas, accusing them of subversion under a stringent national security law, marking the largest such tally yet. They are accused of organising or participating in the "Hong Kong Parliament", a group that authorities in the Asian financial hub say aimed to subvert state power, under the law Beijing imposed in 2020 following months of pro-democracy protests in 2019. The activists are accused of having launched a referendum or run as candidates in the unofficial "Hong Kong Parliament" group, which authorities say aims at achieving self-determination and drafting a "Hong Kong constitution". Police, who said the organisation sought to overthrow the governments of China and Hong Kong by unlawful means, said they are still investigating and further arrests may follow. Among those named are businessman Elmer Yuen, commentator Victor Ho, and activists Johnny Fok and Tony Choi. Four of them are subject to previous arrest warrants, each carrying a bounty of HK$1 million (NZ$211,000). Among the remaining 15, for each of whom police are offering a bounty of HK$200,000, are those said to have organised or run in the election and sworn in as its councillors. None of the accused could be reached for comment. The UK's Foreign and Home Secretaries condemned the move in a joint statement, calling the arrests "another example of transnational repression" and saying it damages Hong Kong's international reputation. "(The UK) will not tolerate attempts by foreign governments to coerce, intimidate, harass or harm their critics overseas," it said in a statement on Friday. In response, the Chinese embassy in the UK said the British government's remarks "constitute a gross interference" in China's internal affairs and the rule of law in Hong Kong. "China urges the UK to abandon its colonial mentality, stop interfering in Hong Kong shielding criminals," it said. The former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997 with the guarantee of a high degree of autonomy, including freedom of speech, under a "one country, two systems" formula. Critics of the national security law say authorities are using it to stifle dissent. Chinese and Hong Kong officials have repeatedly said the law was vital to restore stability after the city was rocked for months by sometimes violent anti-government and anti-China protests in 2019. Police reiterated that national security offenses were serious crimes with extraterritorial reach and urged the wanted individuals to return to Hong Kong and surrender. "If offenders voluntarily give up continuing to violate the crime, turn themselves in, truthfully confess their crimes, or provide key information that helps solve other cases, they may be eligible for reduced punishment," they said in a statement. Police also warned that aiding, abetting, or funding others to participate in the "Hong Kong Parliament" could be a criminal offense.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store