Teacher dies saving students from inferno in Bangladesh jet crash

Teacher dies saving students from inferno in Bangladesh jet crash
Firemen work at the site of a Bangladesh Air Force training aircraft that crashed into a school campus shortly after takeoff in Dhaka, July 21, 2025. (AP)
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Teacher dies saving students from inferno in Bangladesh jet crash

Teacher dies saving students from inferno in Bangladesh jet crash
  • The 46-year-old English teacher went back again and again into a burning classroom to rescue her students
  • Maherin died on Monday after suffering near total burns on her body

DHAKA: When a Bangladesh Air Force fighter jet crashed into her school and erupted in a fireball on Monday, Maherin Chowdhury rushed to save some of the hundreds of students and teachers facing mortal danger, placing their safety before her own.

The 46-year-old English teacher went back again and again into a burning classroom to rescue her students, even as her own clothes were engulfed in flames, her brother, Munaf Mojib Chowdhury, told Reuters by telephone.

Maherin died on Monday after suffering near total burns on her body. She is survived by her husband and two teenaged sons.

“When her husband called her, pleading with her to leave the scene and think of her children, she refused, saying ‘they are also my children, they are burning. How can I leave them?’” Chowdhury said.

At least 29 people, most of them children, were killed when the F-7  BGI crashed into the school, trapping them in fire and debris. The military said the aircraft had suffered mechanical failure.

“I don’t know exactly how many she saved, but it may have been at least 20. She pulled them out with her own hands,” he said, adding that he found out about his sister’s act of bravery when he visited the hospital and met students she had rescued.

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.

“When the plane crashed and fire broke out, everyone was running to save their lives, she ran to
save others,” Khadija Akter, the headmistress of the school’s primary section, told Reuters on phone about Maherin.

She was buried on Tuesday in her home district of Nilphamari, in northern Bangladesh.


Tunisia leader shows Trump adviser images of starving Gaza children

Tunisia leader shows Trump adviser images of starving Gaza children
Updated 4 min 58 sec ago

Tunisia leader shows Trump adviser images of starving Gaza children

Tunisia leader shows Trump adviser images of starving Gaza children
  • Tunisian President Kais Saied presented US counterpart Donald Trump’s senior Africa adviser with photographs of starving children in Gaza
TUNIS: Tunisian President Kais Saied presented US counterpart Donald Trump’s senior Africa adviser with photographs of starving children in Gaza, official video of their meeting posted late Tuesday showed.
Saied told US envoy Massad Boulos, who is also the father-in-law of Trump’s daughter Tiffany, that “it is time for all of humanity to wake up and put an end to these crimes against the Palestinian people.”
“I believe you know these images well,” Saied was seen telling the envoy as he showed a photograph of what he described as “a child crying, eating sand in occupied Palestine.”
Saied showed Boulos several more images, saying that Palestinians in Gaza were subjected to crimes against humanity.
Israel is facing mounting international pressure over the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Palestinian territory, where more than two million people have endured 21 months of devastating conflict.
“It is absolutely unacceptable,” Saied was heard saying as Boulos stood silently, occasionally nodding. “It is a crime against all of humanity.”
More than 100 aid organizations warned on Wednesday that “mass starvation” was spreading across the Gaza Strip and that their own colleagues were suffering acutely from the shortages.
The head of Gaza’s largest hospital said on Tuesday that 21 children had died from malnutrition and starvation in the Palestinian territory in the previous three days.
Israel says humanitarian aid is being allowed into Gaza and accuses Hamas of exploiting civilian suffering, including by stealing food handouts to sell at inflated prices or shooting at those awaiting aid.
Following his visit to Tunisia, Boulos flew on to the Libyan capital Tripoli on Wednesday, Tunisian media reported.

Teacher dies saving students from inferno in Bangladesh jet crash

Teacher dies saving students from inferno in Bangladesh jet crash
Updated 6 min 59 sec ago

Teacher dies saving students from inferno in Bangladesh jet crash

Teacher dies saving students from inferno in Bangladesh jet crash
  • At least 29 people, most of them children, were killed when the F-7  BGI crashed into the school, trapping them in fire and debris

DHAKA: When a Bangladesh Air Force fighter jet crashed into her school and erupted in a fireball on Monday, Maherin Chowdhury rushed to save some of the hundreds of students and teachers facing mortal danger, placing their safety before her own.
The 46-year-old English teacher went back again and again into a burning classroom to rescue her students, even as her own clothes were engulfed in flames, her brother, Munaf Mojib Chowdhury, told Reuters by telephone.
Maherin died on Monday after suffering near total burns on her body. She is survived by her husband and two teenaged sons.
“When her husband called her, pleading with her to leave the scene and think of her children, she refused, saying ‘they are also my children, they are burning. How can I leave them?’” Chowdhury said.
At least 29 people, most of them children, were killed when the F-7  BGI crashed into the school, trapping them in fire and debris. The military said the aircraft had suffered mechanical failure.
“I don’t know exactly how many she saved, but it may have been at least 20. She pulled them out with her own hands,” he said, adding that he found out about his sister’s act of bravery when he visited the hospital and met students she had rescued.
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.
“When the plane crashed and fire broke out, everyone was running to save their lives, she ran to save others,” Khadija Akter, the headmistress of the school’s primary section, told Reuters on phone about Maherin.
She was buried on Tuesday in her home district of Nilphamari, in northern Bangladesh.


UK sanctions 25 in new strategy to deter migrant Channel crossings

UK sanctions 25 in new strategy to deter migrant Channel crossings
Updated 23 July 2025

UK sanctions 25 in new strategy to deter migrant Channel crossings

UK sanctions 25 in new strategy to deter migrant Channel crossings

LONDON: The UK on Wednesday sanctioned more than two dozen people, groups and suppliers from China, the Middle East and Balkans accused of helping to smuggle migrants across the Channel, in what it called a “landmark” first use of new powers.
The move comes as Britain’s government faces growing domestic pressure to stem the migrant arrivals on small boats from northern France, as numbers hit record levels this year.
The asset freezes and travel bans announced target individuals and entities “driving irregular migration to the UK,” and include four “gangs” and “gangland bosses” operating in the Balkans, the Foreign Office said.
They also hit a small boat supplier in China, so-called “hawala” money movers in the Middle East, and seven alleged people-smugglers linked to Iraq.
Foreign Secretary David Lammy called it “a landmark moment in the government’s work to tackle organized immigration crime” impacting the UK.
“From Europe to Asia we are taking the fight to the people-smugglers who enable irregular migration, targeting them wherever they are in the world,” he added.
“My message to the gangs who callously risk vulnerable lives for profit is this: we know who you are, and we will work with our partners around the world to hold you to account.”

Prime Minister Keir Starmer took power a year ago promising to curb the journeys by “smashing the gangs” facilitating the crossings, but has struggled to deliver on the pledge.
Nearly 24,000 migrants have made the perilous journey across the Channel so far in 2025, the highest ever tally at this point in a year.
The issue has become politically perilous in the UK, blamed for helping to fuel the rise of the far-right and violence at anti-migrant demonstrations.
Protests have erupted sporadically outside hotels believed to house asylum-seekers, with a recent demonstration outside one in Epping, east of London, descending into clashes that injured eight police officers.
The riots sparked by the Southport attacks in July 2024 also saw suspected asylum-seeker hotels attacked and anti-migrant sentiment on display.
Wednesday’s designations represent the UK’s first use of its new “Global Irregular Migration Sanctions Regime.”
It claims the regime is a “world first,” empowering the Foreign Office to target foreign financiers and companies as well as individuals allegedly involved in facilitating people-smuggling to the UK.
In all, it sanctioned 20 individuals, four gangs — two Balkan groups and two of North African origin operating in the Balkans — as well as the Chinese company.
Among those facing curbs was Bledar Lala, described as an Albanian controlling “the ‘Belgium operations’ of an organized criminal group” involved in the crossings.
The UK also targeted Alen Basil, a former police translator it accused of now leading a large smuggling network in Serbia, “terrorizing refugees, with the aid of corrupt policemen.”

miLondon hit alleged “gangland boss” Mohammed Tetwani with sanctions, noting he was dubbed the “King of Horgos” over his brutal running of a migrant camp in the Serbian town Horgos.
Tetwani leads the Tetwani people-smuggling gang, which the UK branded “one of the Balkans’ most violent” and accused of holding migrants for ransom and sexually abusing women unable to pay the fees demanded.
The sanctions package targets three people accused of using the ancestral “hawala” banking system, which allows cash transfers without money actually moving, for irregular migration.
The sanctioned company in China — Weihai Yamar Outdoor Product Co. — has advertised its small boats online “explicitly for the purpose of people-smuggling,” according to the Foreign Office.
Tom Keatinge, of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), said the sanctions were “a new front in the UK’s efforts to control a business model that brings profit to the enablers” and misery to victims.
“However, I would caution against overpromising,” he told AFP. “Talk of freezing assets and using sanctions to ‘smash the gangs’ seems far-fetched and remains to be seen.
“History suggests that such assertions hold governments hostage to fortune.”


Taliban says detained British couple receiving medical care

Taliban says detained British couple receiving medical care
Updated 23 July 2025

Taliban says detained British couple receiving medical care

Taliban says detained British couple receiving medical care
  • Peter and Barbie Reynolds, 80-years-old and 75-years-old, had lived in Afghanistan for 18 years 
  • They were arrested in February, UN experts warn elderly couple face irreversible harm after months in detention

KABUL: An elderly British couple detained for months in Afghanistan are receiving medical care, the Taliban government’s top diplomat said Wednesday, after UN experts warned they were at risk of dying.

Peter and Barbie Reynolds, 80-years-old and 75-years-old, had lived in Afghanistan for 18 years when they were arrested in February along with Chinese-American friend Faye Hall, who has since been released, and an Afghan translator.

“All their human rights are being respected,” Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi told a news conference in the capital Kabul.

“They are being provided with medical care. They are in occasional contact with their families.”

Muttaqi said “efforts are underway to secure their release, but the process is not complete,” echoing similar comments by the government in April.

Independent United Nations experts warned on Monday of the “rapid deterioration” of their physical and mental health, stating that they “risk irreparable harm or even death.”

The couple, against whom no charges have been brought, were held “in a high-security facility for several months, then in underground cells, without daylight, before being transferred last week” to the intelligence services in Kabul, according to the UN.

The experts said Peter Reynolds requires heart medication following a stroke in 2023.

Since his detention, he has suffered two eye infections and intermittent tremors in his head and left arm.

His wife, who is anemic, is “weak and fragile” and has reported numbness in her feet, the experts said.

The couple, who married in Kabul in 1970, had been running education programs in Afghanistan and held Afghan passports.

Taliban officials have refused to detail the reasons for their arrest but a source familiar with the case told AFP in April that the couple were in possession of several non-Islamic books.


Columbia University suspends, expels students who participated in pro-Palestine protests

Columbia University suspends, expels students who participated in pro-Palestine protests
Updated 23 July 2025

Columbia University suspends, expels students who participated in pro-Palestine protests

Columbia University suspends, expels students who participated in pro-Palestine protests
  • A student activist group said nearly 80 students were told they have been suspended for one to three years or expelled
  • Sanctions issued by a university judicial board also include probation and degree revocations, Columbia said in a statement

NEW YORK: Columbia University announced disciplinary action Tuesday against students who participated in a pro-Palestinian demonstration inside the Ivy League school’s main library before final exams in May and an encampment during alumni weekend last year.

A student activist group said nearly 80 students were told they have been suspended for one to three years or expelled. The sanctions issued by a university judicial board also include probation and degree revocations, Columbia said in a statement.

The action comes as the Manhattan university is negotiating with President Donald Trump’s administration to restore $400 million in federal funding it has withheld from the Ivy League school over its handling of student protests against the war in Gaza. The administration pulled the funding, canceling grants and contracts, in March because of what it described as the university’s failure to squelch antisemitism on campus during the Israel-Hamas war that began in October 2023.

Columbia has since agreed to a series of demands laid out by the Republican administration, including overhauling the university’s student disciplinary process and adopting a new definition of antisemitism.

“Our institution must focus on delivering on its academic mission for our community,” the university said Tuesday. “And to create a thriving academic community, there must be respect for each other and the institution’s fundamental work, policies, and rules. Disruptions to academic activities are in violation of University policies and Rules, and such violations will necessarily generate consequences.”

It did not disclose the names of the students who were disciplined.

Columbia in May said it would lay off nearly 180 staffers and scale back research in response to the loss of funding. Those receiving nonrenewal or termination notices represent about 20 percent of the employees funded in some manner by the terminated federal grants, the university said.

A student activist group said the newly announced disciplinary action exceeds sentencing precedent for prior protests. Suspended students would be required to submit apologies in order to be allowed back on campus or face expulsion, the group said, something some students will refuse to do.

“We will not be deterred. We are committed to the struggle for Palestinian liberation,” Columbia University Apartheid Divest said in a statement.

Columbia was at the forefront of US campus protests over the war in spring 2024. Pro-Palestinian demonstrators set up an encampment and seized a campus building in April, leading to dozens of arrests and inspiring a wave of similar protests nationally.

Since returning to the White House in January, Trump has cut funding to several top US universities he viewed as too tolerant of antisemitism.

The administration has also cracked down on individual student protesters. Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, a legal US resident with no criminal record, was detained in March over his participation in pro-Palestinian demonstrations.

He is now suing the Trump administration, alleging he was falsely imprisoned, maliciously prosecuted and smeared as an antisemite.