Tag Archives: US

MNA International Desk: The United States announced sanctions on two North Korean officials behind their country’s ballistic missile program on Tuesday, while Russia reiterated an offer to mediate to ease tensions between Washington and Pyongyang. The new US steps were the latest in a campaign aimed at forcing North Korea – which has defied years of multilateral and bilateral sanctions – to abandon a weapons program aimed at developing nuclear-tipped missiles capable of hitting the United States. The US Treasury named the officials as Kim Jong Sik and Ri Pyong Chol. It said Kim was reportedly a key figure in ...

MNA International Desk: An Amtrak passenger train traveling on a new route for the first time derailed Monday in Washington state, killing at least three people as cars plunged off a bridge onto a busy highway at the height of morning rush hour, officials said. The train, which was carrying 77 passengers and seven crew, derailed in DuPont about halfway between Tacoma and the state capital Olympia on a curve that passes over busy Interstate 5 at about 7:40 am (1540 GMT). Several other carriages of the 14-car train also ended up on the highway, shutting down a key section ...

MNA Business Desk: Turnout at U.S. retailers was relatively subdued on Black Friday, with many shoppers flocking to stores to eye items in person and enjoy the festive atmosphere while waiting to do their actual bargain hunting online. There were few signs of the over-the-top frenzy that had been a hallmark of the start to the U.S. shopping season in years past, and some stores appeared to be getting creative with gimmicks beyond heavy discounts to lure shoppers through their doors. The day after Thanksgiving is traditionally when retailers offer “doorbuster” deals attracting bargain hunters. Many department and big-box stores ...

MNA Business Desk: US and Chinese companies signed nearly 20 deals worth a total $9 billion on Wednesday at the start of president Donald Trump’s state visit to Beijing. US commerce secretary Wilbur Ross and Chinese vice premier Wang Yang oversaw a signing ceremony at the Great Hall of the People but they did not immediately give details about the 19 deals. Wang said the agreements were merely a “warmup” before Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping oversee their own ceremony on Thursday involving bigger deals, including in exports of natural gas and soybeans. Trump plans to use the three-day ...

MNA International Desk: A black-clad gunman armed with an assault rifle opened fire on a small-town Texas church during Sunday morning services, killing 26 people and wounding 20 in the last mass shooting to shock the United States. Authorities did not identify the gunman, saying only that he was a “young white male, maybe in his early 20s,” who was wearing a bulletproof vest and found dead in his vehicle after being confronted by a local resident. Governor Greg Abbott warned the toll may rise. “There are 26 lives that have been lost. We don’t know if that number will ...

MNA International Desk: The United States accused Myanmar Thursday of the ethnic cleansing of minority Rohingya Muslims, saying the bloodshed in Rakhine state had shamed Aung Sang Suu Kyi’s government. Speaking at a United Nations Security Council meeting, US Ambassador Nikki Haley pressed for members of Myanmar’s military to face action from the global body in response to the violence and expressed sharp criticism of the civilian government. “We cannot be afraid to call the actions of the Burmese authorities what they appear to be: a brutal, sustained campaign to cleanse the country of an ethnic minority,” said Haley. “And ...

MNA National Desk: Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, now in United States on an official visit, undergoes a successful surgery at 8:00pm on September 25. It said the prime minister was taken to hospital after she complained of stomach pain. After a diagnosis, the doctors decided to perform the surgery. The prime minister is in good health, said PM’s Press Secretary Ihsanul Karim. PM’s younger sister Sheikh Rehana and son Sajeeb Wazed Joy were present at the hospital during her operation. A day after the surgery, she was taken to the resident. Now the Prime Minister is out of danger, said ...

MNA International Desk: The United States is providing an additional nearly $32 million in humanitarian assistance to address the urgent needs of Rohingya fleeing violence in Rakhine State of Myanmar to Bangladesh, as well as internally displaced persons in Rakhine State, and host communities in Bangladesh. The United States announced this support during the 72nd Session of the UN General Assembly in New York, reports news agency. Among other priorities, one of the primary themes of this year’s General Assembly is bolstering support for humanitarian assistance to ongoing emergencies, in particular for refugees and the communities that host them. The ...

Kaushik Ahmed Sixteen years have passed but it is still fresh in our memory today – the attacks of 9/11. There was multiple airplane attacks on World Trade Center, the Pentagon and Pennsylvania. These attaacks led to the famous ‘War on Terror’ by the US government which changed the scenario of the world, specially the Muslim world. No single figure since the Second World War has made so weighty an impact on world events as Osama bin Laden. Had the world responded to his 9/11 attack on America with control he would probably have disappeared, expelled from Afghanistan or killed ...

MNA International Desk: The United States warned an angry Pakistan on Tuesday that it could lose its status as a privileged military ally if it continues giving safe haven to Afghan militant groups, reported news agency. One day after President Donald Trump unveiled a new strategy to force the Taliban to negotiate a political settlement with the Kabul government, his top diplomat upped the heat on Islamabad. Trump had warned that Pakistan’s support for the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani extremist network would have consequences, and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has now spelled these out. “We have some leverage,” ...

MNA International Desk: The South Korean and US militaries on Monday began their first major annual military drills amid threats from North Korea, reported news agency. The Ulchi Freedom Guardian (UFG) exercise will conclude on August 31. It is focusing on a ‘tailored joint deterrence strategy’ based on the Operational Plan 5015 of the Combined Forces Command, officials said. In an unusual gesture, three top U. military commanders—Pacific Command chief Admiral Harry Harris, Strategic Command head Gen. John Hyten and Missile Defence Agency Director Lt. Gen. Samuel Greaves—will observe the command-post exercise in person. It involves tens of thousands of ...

MNA International Desk: President Donald Trump will have the chance to turn a key campaign promise into reality with this week’s start of official talk to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). After threatening during the campaign to rip up the agreement, Trump has softened his stance a bit and spoken more recently of renegotiating the agreement as the most efficient course for the US, Canada and Mexico. But talks to redo the controversial 1994 agreement, which eliminated trade barriers among the three countries, are expected to be thorny. The first round takes place from Wednesday to Sunday ...

MNA Culture & Entertainment Desk: US country music legendary singer Glen Campbell has died Tuesday at 81 after struggling with Alzheimer’s disease for years. Campbell died Tuesday around 10:00 a.m. local time in a Nashville facility for Alzheimer’s patients, reported news agency. Campbell was born on April 22, 1936 in Billstown, Arkansas, the United States. He was one of the most famous rock and country music singers in the 1960s and 1970s in the country, best known for songs such as ‘Rhinestone Cowboy,’ ‘Gentle on My Mind,’ ‘Wichita Lineman,’ and ‘Country Boy’ among others, and also known for hosting a ...

MNA International Desk: At least 16 people were killed when a US military plane crashed in rural Mississippi on Monday evening, a regional emergency management official said. No official details were immediately available on the circumstances of the crash in northern Mississippi’s LeFlore County, about 100 miles (160 km) north of Jackson, the state capital. Captain Sarah Burns, a spokeswoman for the Marine Corps, said only that a US Marines KC-130 Hercules transport aircraft had “experienced a mishap,” with news media initially reporting five confirmed deaths. Several hours later, Fred Randle, LeFlore County director of emergency management, told Reuters that ...

MNA Feature Desk: On May 1, hundreds of thousands of immigrants and their allies are expected to take to the streets in US show of power. Immigrants have been marching on May Day for a decade now, first in 2006, when 1.5 million people took to the streets across the country to demand immigration reform. Until that year, May Day had been associated solely with International Workers’ Day; now immigrants have made it a day to demand their rights, too. 2006 marked a watershed moment; it was the first time immigrants and their loved ones took to the streets in ...

MNA Business Desk: U.S. oil and gas company Chevron Corp said on Monday it has agreed to sell its three gas producing fields in Bangladesh to Chinese firm Himalaya Energy, reported news agency. “The agreement is for the sale of Chevron`s Bangladesh companies, which hold our interests in Bangladesh,” a company spokesman told media, declining to share the deal value or any timeline. The spokesman said Himalaya Energy is owned by a consortium of China ZhenHua Oil and CNIC Corp Ltd. ZhenHua is a state-owned oil company while CNIC is an investment corporation established in Hong Kong. Chevron explores for, ...

MNA National Desk: A Dhaka court on Wednesday acquitted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s special emissary and former president Hussain Muhammad Ershad and two others in the radar purchase graft case. Dhaka Metropolitan Sessions Judge Md Kamrul Hossain Molla gave the verdict in afternoon. The two others are  former air force chief and retired air vice-marshal Sultan Mahmud and former air force chief Momtaj Uddin Ahmed. Investigation officers Manjur Ahmed and Abdus Sattar Sarker submitted the charge sheet against Ershad and the three others on October 27, 1994. The charges were framed by the court on August 12, 1995. In the ...

MNA International Desk: A groundbreaking black jurist who became the first Muslim woman to serve as a US judge was found dead in New York’s Hudson River on Wednesday, police said. Sheila Abdus-Salaam, a 65-year-old associate judge of New York’s highest court, was found floating off Manhattan’s west side at about 1:45 p.m. EDT (1545 GMT), a police spokesman said. Police pulled Abdus-Salaam’s fully clothed body from the water and she was pronounced dead at the scene. Her family identified her and an autopsy would determine the cause of death, the spokesman said. Abdus-Salaam, a native of Washington, DC, became ...

MNA Sports Desk: The United States, Mexico and Canada are going to announce a joint bid for the 2026 World Cup on Monday. The Confederation of North and Central America and Caribbean Association Football is moving ahead with the bid that was widely expected before Donald Trump was elected president. There has been concern the plan was unworkable under Trump’s anti-immigrant policies, but even if he serves a second term Trump would not be president in 2026. The confederation made the final decision to go ahead with the bid at its meeting Saturday in Aruba, the person said, speaking on ...

MNA National Desk: Donald Trump on Friday greeted President Abdul Hamid and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on the occasion of Bangladesh’s Independence Day that falls on March 26. Trump says he looks forward to advancing relations between the United States and Bangladesh to ensure continuing peace and prosperity for both countries Message to President Abdul Hamid Dear Mr. President: I am pleased to congratulate you and the people of Bangladesh as you commemorate Bangladesh’s Independence Day on March 26.  I am also honored to convey the best wishes of the people of the United States. The United States’ friendship with ...

MNA International Desk: The United States and Britain banned larger electronic devices from the passenger cabin on flights from some airports in Turkey, the Middle East and North Africa. American officials warned that extremists are seeking ‘innovative’ ways to attack airliners with smaller explosive devices hidden in consumer electronics bigger than smart phones. The UK government has also announced a sweeping cabin ban on laptops and tablets on inbound flights from six countries. The UK ban on any electronic item larger than a normal Smartphone applies to all direct passenger flights from Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia and Saudi Arabia. ...

MNA Business Desk: Bangladesh sought a fair trade deal from the United States once again. During a meeting with US Republican Congressman George Holding on Tuesday, Ambassador to Washington Mohammad Ziauddin placed his argument in favour of getting DFQF market access, according to a press release forwarded by the Bangladesh Embassy in US yesterday. They also discussed issues of mutual interest including women empowerment and counter terrorism. The ambassador briefed the US lawmaker about the sense of discrimination that 14 countries out of 48 LDCs (least developed country) feel that they are not getting the DFQF access to US market ...

MNA International Desk: The Army approved the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline on Tuesday, paving the way for an infrastructure project that has been surrounded by protest and controversy. Robert Speer, the acting secretary of the Army, announced the decision to Congress, saying he was ready to offer the pipeline’s owner a 30-year easement on a disputed patch of land. The move drew outrage from opponents, including the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, whose reservation in North Dakota sits less than a mile from the proposed pipeline route. And it drew cheers from supporters, who said the planning process for ...

MNA International Desk: President Donald Trump nominated federal appellate judge Neil Gorsuch to the US Supreme Court Tuesday, as the new Republican leader seeks to tilt the balance of the court back in the conservatives’ favor. In a prime-time address that was part jurisprudence and part reality TV, Trump tapped the 49-year-old Gorsuch from Denver, Colorado to fill the bench slot made vacant by the death of Antonin Scalia nearly a year ago. Like Scalia, Gorsuch is considered to be an “originalist”—guided in his legal reasoning by what he believes to be the constitution’s original intent and meaning. The elegant, ...

MNA Editorial Desk: US president Donald Trump fired the federal government’s top lawyer Sally Yates on Monday after she took the extraordinarily rare step of defying the White House and saying the Justice Department would not defend his new travel restrictions targeting seven Muslim-majority nations. The White House said on Twitter that Dana Boente, US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, would fired Yates, an appointee of former Democratic President Barack Obama, as acting US attorney general. Yates on Monday told Justice Department lawyers in a letter that they would not defend in court Trump’s directive that put a ...

MNA Editorial Desk: US green card holders will require additional screening before they can return to the United States, the White House said on Saturday. Earlier, a Department of Homeland Security official said people holding green cards, making them legal permanent US residents, were included in President Donald Trump’s executive action temporarily barring people from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States. “It will bar green card holders,” Gillian Christensen, acting Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman, said in an email. A senior White House official later sought to clarify the situation, saying green card holders who had left the ...

MNA International Desk: A federal judge blocked on Saturday part of President Donald Trump’s temporary immigration ban, ordering authorities to stop deporting refugees and other travelers stuck at US airports. The judge’s ruling blocked part of the president’s actions, preventing the government from deporting some arrivals who found themselves ensnared by the presidential order. But it stopped short of letting them into the country or issuing a broader ruling on the constitutionality of Mr. Trump’s actions. ‘Victory!!!!!!’ the American Civil Liberties Union, whose lawyers sued the government to stop the executive order Trump signed Friday, tweeted after US District Judge ...