A Closer Look | The Daily Star

  • The prodigal son’s return and the uncertain future of Lebanon

    In a scene reminiscent of last year’s massive protests that had led to the downfall of Saad Hariri, Lebanon’s prodigal son, the streets of Beirut were filled with protestors on October 17, 2020.

  • Sexual violence and the misfortune of our children

    Sexual violence against women, unfortunately, has always been a pressing concern for our society.

  • Rohingya: The people with no land

    They were once the residents of Rakhine state. Then they became victims of persecution. Then they turned into refugees, desperately crossing the Naf river to seek refuge in Bangladesh.

  • Who cares what happens to the children of Yemen!

    The world today is grappling with an unprecedented crisis. More than 900,000 people have already fallen to the scythe of the grim reaper and more are feared to become its victim as winter approaches.

  • Peace in the time of pandemic

    In a time of an unprecedented global health crisis that is only spiralling from one peak to another, one would expect all parties—warring or not—to join hands and work together to establish peace.

  • The exodus of the helpless

    Since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in Bangladesh, the country’s flourishing economy had taken a hit. With the government-announced general holidays leading to closures of businesses, offices, educational institutions, shops, eateries, factories and other livelihood-generating opportunities—both formal and informal—life came to a halt in the nation.

  • PK Halder and the incredible landscape of our financial system

    Prashanta Kumar Halder’s financial misadventures and subsequent escape from the country with Tk 3500 crore, which made the headlines recently, has brought into the fore Bangladesh’s struggles with systemic irregularities in its financial sector.

  • Delinquent youths of a delinquent society

    Children, like adults, can get embroiled in conflicts with the law. When juveniles commit criminal offences, they are placed in Juvenile Development Centres (JDC) rather than jails, where constructive counselling is supposed to be provided so that they realise their mistakes and come out of these centres better human beings. The reality of these JDCs, as perhaps one would expect, is pretty different.

  • Our heritage sites need our help to stem the ravages of time and negligence

    The dilapidated condition of the lonely ruins scattered across the country can be attributed to many reasons.

  • A tale of a tragedy and a farce

    For the people of Lebanon, it was business as usual on Tuesday, August 4, 2020. Post-Eid holidays, the desperate people—struggling to feed themselves and their loved ones—were out in search of livelihood and subsistence. As the day neared its end, little did they know that it was going to be the last for many of them.

  • How do we address human trafficking during a pandemic?

    Bangladesh has recently been rocked by several international human trafficking scandals, one of them involving a lawmaker trafficking individuals to Kuwait.

  • Caught in the middle of nowhere

    The British Court of Appeal has recently ruled that “ISIS bride” Shamima Begum should be allowed to return to the United Kingdom to challenge the revocation of her British citizenship.

  • What do we do with the refuse of our Covid-19 afflicted healthcare system?

    Management of medical waste has remained a persistent problem for Bangladesh. Proper disposal of these wastes—general, infectious, hazardous, radioactive, and often containing pathogens—has never seemed to be taken seriously by the authorities, resulting in rampant mishandling by all concerned.

  • In search of refuge

    Hundreds and thousands of refugees and migrants are preyed upon every year by human traffickers with false promises of a better future, a home.

  • Covid-19 has increased children’s exposure to traffickers

    With Covid-19 bringing economic activities across nations to a halt, more and more people are being pushed into poverty. Job losses, business losses and farming losses, leading to economic stress, are pushing many to the fringes of poverty. And as families are being rendered helpless, the worst sufferers are invariably the children.

  • Global locust population surge: Should we be worried?

    While the world grapples to contain the spread of the coronavirus, a different breed of pesky pestilence is threatening the food security of many regions, including some parts of Asia—locusts!

  • Strengthening digital economy is the way to go

    China and South Korea were the early frontlines in our pitched battle against Covid-19. Both countries had taken the hardest hit during the initial phase of the outbreak, but both were quick to rebound from the initial shock of it and soon cornered the mortal enemy with the swift stroke of their digital weapons.

  • May Day in Bangladesh

    How will the new normal for our migrant workers look like?

    The world watched in paralysed horror as oil prices plummeted to below zero: the price of West Texas Intermediate oil grade went negative to –USD 37.63 per barrel (pb), for the first time in history. The shock of the collapse was intense, leading to traders naming the day “Black Monday”.

  • Online Exclusive: While Bangladesh grapples with a pandemic, measles remains below the radar

    According to newspaper reports, 10 children have already died in the CHT since the outbreak began on February 26, when the first death was reported. Another 300 children have been infected.

  • Covid-19: Can this be the war to end all wars?

    Wars and epide-mics make the perfect bedfellows. Wars create the perfect wombs where murky diseases can gestate and then combust, wiping out entire populations as they spread around the world.

  • Covid-19, Iran sanctions, and how politics aids a pandemic

    These are unprecedented times, times that call for unprecedented measures, humane measures.

  • Coronavirus: A pitched battle against a mortal enemy

    The coronavirus, now declared a pandemic by WHO, has created panic around the world, and Bangladesh is no exception. As soon as the Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR) confirmed the first cases of coronavirus in the country on March 8,

  • Allies, alliances and turncoats

    At 92, Mahathir Mohamad, the world’s oldest serving president, came into the limelight recently, but for all the wrong reasons. On February 22, without any prior notice, Mahathir suddenly tendered his resignation as the prime minister of the country, less than two years into his tenure.

  • Where does India go from here?

    What was supposed to be the celebration of friendship between two of the largest democracies in the world—India and America—turned out to be a sideshow to a bloodbath of communal hatred, exposing the undemocratic underbelly of BJP’s India.

  • The Syrian civil war: Confused battle-lines and countless lives lost

    Turkey and the Russia-backed Syrian government led by Bashar al-Assad are in a tight jostle for full control of the north-western Syrian province of Idlib. The province—the last of the four de-escalation zones agreed by Turkey, Iran and Russia in 2017, which is yet to be taken over by the Assad government—is important to all the warring actors for diverse and awkward reasons.

  • Yemen’s collateral damage

    The five year long bloody civil war that spiralled out of control soon after it broke out in 2015, has claimed the lives of “tens and thousands” of civilians.

  • A tale of two cities

    Activist-turned-politician Arjun Kejriwal has had smooth sailing at the recently held Delhi legislative polls, with his Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) being handed a strong mandate by the Delhiwalas, winning a sweeping 62 out of 70 seats. This is his third straight term in office.

  • When economics prevails over genocide

    Two days after the Interna-tional Court of Justice (ICJ) approved emergency “provisional measures” asking Myanmar to stop persecution of the Rohingya in all forms— including killing, raping, and destroying homes and villages—two Rohingya women died in Rakhine State when the Myanmar army shelled a village. One of them was pregnant.

  • Bangladesh caught in the crosscurrents of Middle East posturing

    Tensions that saw a renewed escalation in the Middle East after the US unilaterally withdrew from the Iran Nuclear Deal in 2018, on grounds that can be at best termed flimsy and unconvincing, are only intensifying by the day.

  • What Soleimani’s assassination means for the IS

    The US assassination of General Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC’s) Quds Force

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