Latest news with #DailyRepublic
United News of India
5 days ago
- Politics
- United News of India
Former B'desh PM Hasina announces 21-point demand for rebuilding nation
Dhaka, Aug 11 (UNI) Former Bangladesh Prime Minister and leader of the Awami League party Sheikh Hasina has declared a 21-point demand to rebuild the nation in order to tackle the socio-political and economic crisis that has gripped it, and restore the country's democratic structure. The party, taking to social media today, wrote: 'The Bengali nation — victorious in the Great Liberation War under the leadership of the Father of the Nation, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman—is today ravaged and imperilled by the monstrous rampage of extremist communal-terrorist forces and foreign agents. It is as if the land has become a wounded, blood-soaked battlefield.' The now-banned political party accused the interim government of Chief Advisor Mohammed Yunus of turning all of Bangladesh into a prison, an execution ground, a valley of death, as per the party's media-wing, the Daily Republic. 'The beloved, fertile land of rivers and crops has been discoloured by the all-devouring demonic activities of the public enemy—murderer, fascist, usurer, money-launderer, embezzler, looter, and corrupt, power-hungry Yunus,' the party stated. Alleging that ever since Bangabandhu's daughter – who had successfully transformed the country into a rising power – was overthrown by 'meticulous design' by CA Yunus and his 'anti-national' cohorts, 'the people of the country have faced extreme oppression, brutality, and a reign of terror. 'Democracy is now in exile, human rights are trampled, media freedom is gone, and there is rampant violence against women, assaults, and rapes. People's lives and property are unsafe; religious minorities continue to face persecution; and law and order have collapsed.' The party added that the rule of law has all but collapsed, from the furthest rural corners to the most polished of urban areas, with religious extremism rising rampantly, mob lynchings, extortions, and chaos becoming the new norm, as extremists continue their harassment of minorities unchecked. 'In this extreme crisis, the entire nation must unite under the spirit of the Liberation War to remove the foreign-serving murderer-fascist Yunus and his puppet government. At any cost, brave Bengalis must restore and protect the Constitution written in the blood of '71, independence, sovereignty, and democracy.' Urging all democratic, progressive, non-communal individuals and organisations to stand together to build a liberal, democratic, humane welfare state and strongly resist the anti-national activities of 'public enemy Yunus and his clique', the Awami League called for the complete reconstruction of the country and all its institutions, in keeping with the spirit of the Liberation War. The 21-demand calls for protection of religious minorities, revocation of all cases against Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's family, resignation of Yunus and investigation into his power seizing, ending violence in education, unconditional release of all Awami League leaders, activists, or other dissenting political voices in detention, abolition of the International Crimes Tribunal, stopping the slander of Bangabandhu, restoring press freedom, stop the handover of St. Martin's Island to foreign powers, lower prices on essentials, guarantee women security etc. UNI ANV SSP
Yahoo
26-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Gov. Moore should convene the legal ads forum he promised
A worker poses by the presses of the Daily Republic in Fairfield, California, in this 2018 file photo. (Photo by Staff Sgt. Amber Carter/U.S. Air Force) Maryland law mandates that estate beneficiaries pay hundreds of dollars, plus transaction costs, to place legal ads in a local newspaper announcing an estate's opening. In 2024 and 2025, Maryland's legislature introduced bills to revoke that mandate and instead allow such notices to be posted for free on a more publicly accessible government website. Experts knowledgeable about estate legal ads know that virtually no potential beneficiaries and creditors learn about a deceased person via such ads. But the mandate is politically impregnable because it benefits one of Maryland's most politically powerful industries at the expense of the politically weak; that is, monopoly local newspapers receive millions of dollars per year while the average Marylander only pays hundreds of dollars per lifetime. This incentive structure of concentrated industry benefits and diffuse public costs constitutes the classic incentive structure of special interest politics. The problem is compounded by the local newspaper lobby's unique power, as reflected in the politicians' motto: 'Never pick a fight with anyone who buys ink by the barrel.' Maryland Matters welcomes guest commentary submissions at editor@ We suggest a 750-word limit and reserve the right to edit or reject submissions. We do not accept columns that are endorsements of candidates, and no longer accept submissions from elected officials or political candidates. Opinion pieces must be signed by at least one individual using their real name. We do not accept columns signed by an organization. Commentary writers must include a short bio and a photo for their bylines. Views of writers are their own. Today, Maryland mandates some 190 separate statutory legal ad subsidies for the local newspaper industry, of which the estate subsidy is only one. But the industry worries that revoking even one of these subsidies will cause a domino effect, so fights accordingly. The case against the obsolete estate legal ad mandate was so compelling that the 2024 legislation revoking it passed both the Maryland House and Senate unanimously (175-0). (Assisting such support, when the bill was introduced, Maryland's leading newspaper chain was owned by an unpopular, out-of-state hedge fund.) But Gov. Wes Moore then vetoed the legislation, justifying his veto on the basis that the issue needed more study: 'This veto should not be seen as the end of the conversation, and in fact the administration believes we need a broader conversation about public notices rather than a conversation focused solely on estate notices. Our administration looks forward to engaging with … all of the advocates on that topic during the interim,' he wrote. This year the same bill was introduced in the legislature and again passed unanimously (132-0) in the House. But it wasn't allowed even a vote in the Senate's Judiciary Committee, whose chair, as is said in Annapolis, 'placed the bill in his desk.' The chair didn't respond to my written query asking him to explain his opposition. I first got a sense of how dirty newspaper legal ad politics was when decades ago I tried to gather data to study them. I had worked at a D.C. think tank studying media public policy and knew that legal ads were the newspaper industry's largest government subsidy. No scholarly data existed on this subject because other scholars who had tried to study such subsidies had run up against the same brick wall I had; that is, I could find no industry data because national and state newspaper organizations, while aggressively lobbying for such subsidies, had refused to provide authoritative data on them, and politicians were too terrified of the industry's political power to ask how much their subsidies cost the public. So most Maryland legislative sessions some legislation passes that expands legal ad newspaper subsidies without accountability provisions. I was curious: Did the governor fulfill his veto statement's promises? The answer is no. In the year between the end of the 2024 and 2025 legislative sessions, neither the Governor nor his staff participated in, let alone orchestrated, such a public discussion. My sense is that the best hope to eliminate Maryland's obsolete estate legal ad laws would be to shame the governor into acting consistent with his own stated values, as he has promised to support the poor and politically weak, and that's whom estate legal ads most hurt. On the other hand, since the media have negligible incentive to expose this hypocrisy, such hope appears quixotic. Moreover, the governor's politically astute aides have undoubtedly counseled him not to risk the newspaper industry's wrath, given its power to shape his and his opponents' public image. Conversely, recall that the governor won a Bronze Star for bravery. Accordingly, the governor should convene his promised public forum to discuss the merits of newspaper legal ads. Until then, he should instruct his staff to stop lobbying to kill legislation that only reduces but not expands legal ad subsidies. (The largest new newspaper subsidy last session reduced newspapers' legal ad costs). If the governor's policy is only to call for public discussion when reducing but not increasing newspaper industry subsidies, that double standard should be called out.
