Bangladesh’s ousted leader Sheikh Hasina sentenced to death

A Bangladesh court sentenced ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina to be hanged for crimes against humanity on Monday, with cheers breaking out in the packed court as the judge read out the verdict. Hasina, 78, defied court orders that she return from India to attend her trial about whether she ordered a deadly crackdown against a student-led uprising last year that eventually ousted her. The highly anticipated ruling, which was broadcast live on national television, came less than three months before the first polls in the South Asian country of 170 million people since her overthrow in August 2024. “All the… elements constituting crimes against humanity have been fulfilled,” judge Golam Mortuza Mozumder read to the court in Dhaka. The former leader was found guilty on three counts: incitement, order to kill, and inaction to prevent the atrocities, the judge said. “We have decided to inflict her with only one sentence — that is, sentence of death.” Crowds waved the national fl...

Around 30 people killed in Congo copper mine incident, officials say

Around 30 people were killed at a semi-industrial copper mine in southeastern Congo on Saturday after a bridge collapsed, the country’s artisanal mining agency said.

An agency official told Reuters there were 49 deaths and 20 people had been taken to hospital in a critical condition as a result of the incident, which occurred on Saturday at the Kalando mining site in Lualaba province.

Artisanal mining employs an estimated 1.5 to 2 million people in Congo and supports more than 10 million indirectly.

The collapse was “caused by panic, reportedly triggered by gunfire from military personnel securing the site,” said Congo’s Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining Support and Guidance Service, known by its French acronym SAEMAPE.

Miners then “piled on top of each other, causing injuries and death”, SAEMAPE added in a statement on Sunday.

The Initiative for the Protection of Human Rights called for an independent investigation into the military’s role in the deaths, citing reports of clashes between miners and soldiers.

A military spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Roy Kaumba, the provincial interior minister, said in a televised statement that 32 people had been confirmed dead.

Mining accidents are common in unregulated artisanal mines, with dozens of deaths every year at sites where often ill-equipped diggers burrow deep underground.

SOURCE: REUTERS AND AGENCIES



from The Times Of Earth https://ift.tt/eiW7wFY

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