Latest news with #Zia
Newsweek
15 hours ago
- Politics
- Newsweek
Kids of Afghan Translator Taken at Green-Card Check Living in Fear—Brother
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. The children of an Afghan man who served with U.S. troops and entered the U.S legally are terrified to play outside after their father was detained at a green-card appointment, the man's brother said. Zia S., a 35-year-old father of five and former interpreter for the U.S. military, was apprehended by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents outside a United States Citizenship and Immigration Services office in East Hartford, Connecticut, on July 16, his lawyer told reporters on a press call. The brothers requested that their names be withheld over safety concerns. "His kids don't even go out to play because they're scared. And I didn't even go out to work because I'm watching his kids," Zia's brother, who also served as interpreter, told Newsweek in an exclusive interview on July 30. An agent watches migrants coming for their hearings at an immigration court in New York. An agent watches migrants coming for their hearings at an immigration court in New York. Andrea Renault/STAR MAX/IPx Why It Matters Following the end of the U.S. military's 20-year presence in Afghanistan in 2021, many Afghans who had assisted American forces were allowed entry into the United States through refugee programs, Special Immigrant Visas (SIVs) or Temporary Protected Status (TPS). However, policy changes under the Trump administration resulted in the termination of TPS for some people, raising concerns about potential deportations. The U.S. ended TPS for Afghans effective July 14, 2025, according to a Department of Homeland Security notice published in May. President Donald Trump has vowed to remove millions of migrants without legal status. The White House said in January that anyone living in the country unlawfully is considered to be a "criminal." What To Know Zia arrived in the U.S. on humanitarian parole in October 2024 and had been living in Connecticut, his lawyer told reporters during a press call. He assisted U.S. troops in Afghanistan for about five years and fled the country with his family in 2021. Although they had received Special Immigrant Visa approvals and were pursuing permanent residency, Zia was placed in expedited removal proceedings. A federal judge has issued a temporary stay on his deportation. After his initial detention in Connecticut, Zia was transferred to an immigration detention center in Plymouth, Massachusetts. A senior Department of Homeland Security official told Newsweek on July 23 that the Zia "is currently under investigation for a serious criminal allegation." Newsweek has requested more details from DHS surrounding the alleged wrongdoing. Zia's brother denied that he was involved in any criminality and said the allegations are "baseless." Both brothers served the U.S. military as interpreters. Zia's brother came to the U.S. more than a decade ago through the same SIV program and eventually obtained U.S. citizenship, he said. The detention has taken a toll on his wife, Zia's brother said. "His wife is suffering anxiety since he's been detained," he said. "And nobody sleeps. The family is awake all night." In a message to Trump, Zia's brother said the family followed all legal procedures and expected the U.S. to honor commitments to its Afghan allies. "We were promised wartime allies," he said. "For our job, like when we have served with the U.S. and we helped the U.S. Army and our home country, and we were promised that you all would be going to the U.S. on legal pathways. "They should stand on their promise. They should not betray us. They should not betray those who put their lives at risk and their families' lives at risk for them." What People Are Saying Senator Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, previously told Newsweek: "The Trump administration's decision to turn its back on our Afghan allies who risked their lives and the lives of their families to support American troops in Afghanistan is unconscionable." A senior DHS Official told Newsweek: Zia is "a national of Afghanistan, entered the U.S. on October 8, 2024, and paroled by the Biden administration into our country." Zia's attorney, Lauren Cundick Petersen, told reporters on a press call on July 22: "Following the rules are supposed to protect you. It's not supposed to land you in detention. If he is deported, as so many of the people have articulated today, he faces death." What Happens Next Zia is being held in a Massachusetts detention center and will remain in ICE custody, pending further investigation by DHS.
India Today
a day ago
- Politics
- India Today
Khaleda Zia set to contest general election, confirms party leader
Khaleda Zia, the chairperson of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and former premier, will contest the upcoming general election, her party leader said on Vice Chairman Abdul Awal Mintoo said the 79-year-old party chief is doing well and she will contest the election, the Daily Star newspaper reported."She will be elected from Feni because she is now in good health," Mintoo told reporters after a views-exchange meeting organised by the Feni district On his discussions with Zia's son and acting BNP chairman Tarique Rahman, who is in London, Mintoo said that they believe the election will be held in the first week of February."I think, considering the current situation of the country, the election may be held even before February. Because there is a pending case in the Supreme Court regarding the caretaker government. If a caretaker government is introduced, the election must be held within 90 days," he was quoted as saying by the returned to Dhaka from London in May after four months of medical treatment. She went to London in January for advanced medical care and was admitted to The London has long suffered from liver cirrhosis, kidney disease, heart problems, diabetes, and BNP chairperson was lodged in the Old Dhaka Central Jail on February 8, 2018, after the Dhaka court sentenced her in the Zia Orphanage Trust corruption the COVID-19 outbreak, the then-Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League government temporarily released Zia from jail after 776 days through an executive order, suspending her sentence on March 25, 2020, with conditions that she would stay in her house and not leave the August 6 last year, after the ouster of the Hasina regime, Zia was freed by an order of President Mohammed March, Bangladesh's Supreme Court upheld a High Court ruling that acquitted Zia in a corruption case in which she was sentenced to seven years in jail by a lower now stands acquitted in both the Zia Orphanage Trust and Zia Charitable Trust cases, in which she had previously been convicted and served as the prime minister of Bangladesh from March 1991 to March 1996, and again from June 2001 to October 2006.- Ends
Indian Express
2 days ago
- Health
- Indian Express
BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia to contest general election, says party leader
Khaleda Zia, the chairperson of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and former premier, will contest the upcoming general election, her party leader said on Wednesday. BNP Vice Chairman Abdul Awal Mintoo said the 79-year-old party chief is doing well and she will contest the election, the Daily Star newspaper reported. 'She will be elected from Feni because she is now in good health,' Mintoo told reporters after a views-exchange meeting organised by the Feni district administration. On his discussions with Zia's son and acting BNP chairman Tarique Rahman, who is in London, Mintoo said that they believe the election will be held in the first week of February. 'I think, considering the current situation of the country, the election may be held even before February. Because there is a pending case in the Supreme Court regarding the caretaker government. If a caretaker government is introduced, the election must be held within 90 days,' he was quoted as saying by the paper. Zia returned to Dhaka from London in May after four months of medical treatment. She went to London in January for advanced medical care and was admitted to The London Clinic. Zia has long suffered from liver cirrhosis, kidney disease, heart problems, diabetes, and arthritis. The BNP chairperson was lodged in the Old Dhaka Central Jail on February 8, 2018, after the Dhaka court sentenced her in the Zia Orphanage Trust corruption case. During the COVID-19 outbreak, the then Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League government temporarily released Zia from jail after 776 days through an executive order, suspending her sentence on March 25, 2020, with conditions that she would stay in her house and not leave the country. On August 6 last year, after the ouster of the Hasina regime, Zia was freed by an order of President Mohammed Shahabuddin. In March, Bangladesh's Supreme Court upheld a High Court ruling that acquitted Zia in a corruption case in which she was sentenced to seven years in jail by a lower court. Zia now stands acquitted in both the Zia Orphanage Trust and Zia Charitable Trust cases, in which she had previously been convicted and sentenced. She served as the prime minister of Bangladesh from March 1991 to March 1996, and again from June 2001 to October 2006.
News18
2 days ago
- Health
- News18
BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia to contest general election, says party leader
Dhaka, Jul 30 (PTI) Khaleda Zia, the chairperson of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and former premier, will contest the upcoming general election, her party leader said on Wednesday. BNP Vice Chairman Abdul Awal Mintoo said the 79-year-old party chief is doing well and she will contest the election, the Daily Star newspaper reported. 'She will be elected from Feni because she is now in good health," Mintoo told reporters after a views-exchange meeting organised by the Feni district administration. On his discussions with Zia's son and acting BNP chairman Tarique Rahman, who is in London, Mintoo said that they believe the election will be held in the first week of February. 'I think, considering the current situation of the country, the election may be held even before February. Because there is a pending case in the Supreme Court regarding the caretaker government. If a caretaker government is introduced, the election must be held within 90 days," he was quoted as saying by the paper. Zia returned to Dhaka from London in May after four months of medical treatment. She went to London in January for advanced medical care and was admitted to The London Clinic. Zia has long suffered from liver cirrhosis, kidney disease, heart problems, diabetes, and arthritis. The BNP chairperson was lodged in the Old Dhaka Central Jail on February 8, 2018, after the Dhaka court sentenced her in the Zia Orphanage Trust corruption case. During the COVID-19 outbreak, the then Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League government temporarily released Zia from jail after 776 days through an executive order, suspending her sentence on March 25, 2020, with conditions that she would stay in her house and not leave the country. On August 6 last year, after the ouster of the Hasina regime, Zia was freed by an order of President Mohammed Shahabuddin. In March, Bangladesh's Supreme Court upheld a High Court ruling that acquitted Zia in a corruption case in which she was sentenced to seven years in jail by a lower court. Zia now stands acquitted in both the Zia Orphanage Trust and Zia Charitable Trust cases, in which she had previously been convicted and sentenced. She served as the prime minister of Bangladesh from March 1991 to March 1996, and again from June 2001 to October 2006. PTI ZH ZH ZH (This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed - PTI) view comments First Published: July 30, 2025, 21:15 IST Disclaimer: Comments reflect users' views, not News18's. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
India Today
4 days ago
- Business
- India Today
AI is not replacing our IT engineers, it is making them more productive: Zoho CEO
In the middle of chatter about AI replacing jobs in the tech sector, there is one company that is sounding a note of optimism for software engineers. This one is Zoho. When asked if AI can replace engineers at Zoho, the company CEO Mani Vembu says that the answer for now is No. That is because even though Vembu sees productivity gains coming from AI tools he doesn't believe that AI can replace engineers and software developers at his company. advertisementIn a conversation with India Today Tech, Zoho CEO Mani Vembu clarified that job cuts due to AI are not on the horizon at Zoho because it is not yet capable enough. 'If you ask the (AI) system to summarise a deal or generate content, it can do that pretty well. But replacing someone's role entirely? I don't think AI is ready for that yet,' he to emphasise his points, the Zoho CEO adds, 'To be clear, we haven't reduced any headcount due to AI. In fact, we are planning to hire more support engineers because our support volumes are increasing.' Vembu made his comments at Zoholics in Bangalore recently. At the event Zoho unveiled its very own large language model (LLM) called Zia. This new AI model is pitched as India's first enterprise-focused, home-grown AI system. While it's not meant for the general public, the model is pitched to businesses and it comes integrated with Zoho's productivity and enterprise platforms. Available in three parameter sizes (1.3B, 2.6B, and 7B), the LLM is designed to handle tasks like structured data extraction, summarisation, and prompt-based is becoming part of the workflowVembu believes that AI can be an enabler at work, helping employees do more. But it is not capable enough to do the entire A-Z of tasks. 'So far (at Zoho) we definitely haven't seen AI replacing employees,' he says. 'What we are seeing instead is that it's (helping) some of the roles. For instance, say a support rep typically handles 20 tickets a day, can we help them manage 25 instead? That's a 20 per cent productivity increase.'This is a point further explained by Ramprakash Ramamoorthy, director of AI at Zoho, in an exclusive conversation with India Today Tech. He says that Zoho not only uses the AI tools internally before releasing them to its customers, the company is also finding that productivity gains due to AI are real. 'We dogfood all the AI projects that we are about to launch,' says Ramamoorthy. 'A lot of impactful areas are in summarisation or finding relevant information. For example at Zoho, a new recruit comes in and wants to find out which form to fill for a night care request. Previously, you'd have to ask somebody or your boss. Now, we have (internal) HRMS products with these bots that can guide them.'advertisementAccording to Zoho, a similar impact is also being seen in customer-facing roles. 'Even for a salesperson, aggregating information across the system is crucial. This is where we see the most impact,' says asked if AI had in any way impacted Zoho's hiring practices, Ramamoorthy categorically says no. 'For Zoho, not yet,' he says, and highlights that the company continues to hire actively and sees AI as a tool for augmentation, not challenges remain for Indian companiesWhile AI is helping Zoho to grow its business and make employees more productive, the company admits that Indian tech firms still face big challenges in building advanced AI systems such as Zia. Though impressive, in its capabilities Zia does not seem comparable to the likes of ChatGPT or Gemini. Ramamoorthy shares that for Indian companies like Zoho there are mostly three major challenges in the AI space: compute, data, and expectation management.'The first challenge is compute. It's an expensive affair, and even if you put the dollars on the table, there's a six-month lead time to it. And then there are import caps (on GPUs) for countries like India,' says Ramamoorthy. 'The second is the availability of data. Consumer AI models work on consumer data, which is abundant. But in the enterprise, you can't replicate that because businesses can't just give away sensitive information. The third challenge is the over-hyping of technology. It's not artificial, it's not intelligence. Managing expectations is just as critical.' - Ends
