Bangladesh Restores Internet as Students Call off Job-Quota Protests 

People shop at a market as the curfew is relaxed after the anti-quota protests, in Dhaka on July 25, 2024. (AFP)
People shop at a market as the curfew is relaxed after the anti-quota protests, in Dhaka on July 25, 2024. (AFP)
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Bangladesh Restores Internet as Students Call off Job-Quota Protests 

People shop at a market as the curfew is relaxed after the anti-quota protests, in Dhaka on July 25, 2024. (AFP)
People shop at a market as the curfew is relaxed after the anti-quota protests, in Dhaka on July 25, 2024. (AFP)

Bangladesh said it had restored internet services as conditions return to normal after students called off protests against reforms to job quotas that killed nearly 150 people this month.

The agitation, which began in universities and colleges last month, flared into nationwide protests that injured thousands as security forces cracked down, leading to curfew, army patrols on the streets and internet suspension to rein in the violence.

"The broadband and mobile internet connectivity has been restored with full functionality by now," the foreign ministry said in a statement on Sunday.

"Other forms of communications, including land-based and mobile telecommunications, were functional through the entire period of unrest and violence."

It added, "The government wishes to assure all international partners that the overall situation is turning back to normal, thanks to the timely and appropriate measures taken by the government and the people."

The United Nations, international rights groups, the US and Britain were among critics of the use of force against protesters while asking Dhaka to uphold the right to peaceful protest.

Rights groups and critics say Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has grown more autocratic during 15 years in power, marked by mass arrests of political opponents and activists, forced disappearances and extrajudicial killings, charges she denies.

Protests led by students broke out in June when a high court ordered the restoration of quotas in government jobs, including reservations for families of veterans of the 1971 war for independence from Pakistan.

Police fired rubber bullets, tear gas and lobbed sound grenades to disperse tens of thousands who flooded the streets.

Students agreed to pause their agitation after the Supreme Court scrapped most quotas on July 21, opening 93% of jobs to candidates selected on the basis of merit.

The "mostly peaceful and issue-specific students' movement" were not involved in violence, Hasina's government said, but blamed the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and the Jamaat-e-Islami party, which denied the assertion.

The students called off the protests, which had fallen off after the Supreme Court ruling.

"Our main demand for logical reforms to the government job quota system has been met," student coordinator Nahid Islam said in a video message on Sunday from police headquarters, calling for educational institutions to re-open.

He was among three protesters held by police while being treated in hospital, his younger brother told Reuters, in a step police said was aimed at ensuring security for protesters.



Ukraine Keeps Pounding Russia's Kursk Region with Drones, Russian Officials Say

Ukrainian tanks of the 28th Separate Mechanized Brigade take part in the training of fighters of the Shkval special battalion, created from ex-convicts, in an unspecified place in the Donetsk region on July 26, 2024, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (Photo by Anatolii STEPANOV / AFP)
Ukrainian tanks of the 28th Separate Mechanized Brigade take part in the training of fighters of the Shkval special battalion, created from ex-convicts, in an unspecified place in the Donetsk region on July 26, 2024, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (Photo by Anatolii STEPANOV / AFP)
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Ukraine Keeps Pounding Russia's Kursk Region with Drones, Russian Officials Say

Ukrainian tanks of the 28th Separate Mechanized Brigade take part in the training of fighters of the Shkval special battalion, created from ex-convicts, in an unspecified place in the Donetsk region on July 26, 2024, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (Photo by Anatolii STEPANOV / AFP)
Ukrainian tanks of the 28th Separate Mechanized Brigade take part in the training of fighters of the Shkval special battalion, created from ex-convicts, in an unspecified place in the Donetsk region on July 26, 2024, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (Photo by Anatolii STEPANOV / AFP)

Kyiv launched more than two dozen drones on the Russian region of Kursk in several waves of attacks that started Saturday night and damaged an oil depot, Russian officials said on Monday.
Nineteen drones launched from Ukraine were destroyed by Russia's air defense systems overnight, Russia's defense ministry said on the Telegram messaging app.
That follows 19 drones that Andrei Smirnov, Kursk's governor, said defense systems destroyed over the region on Sunday.
Neither Smirnov nor the Russian defense ministry said how many drones in total Ukraine had launched, reported Reuters.
Firefighters were still trying to put out an oil depot fire in the region, sparked by Ukraine's drone attack on Saturday night, Smirnov said.
He said the attacks caused minor damage to several residential buildings. Russian officials rarely disclose the full extent of damage inflicted by Ukrainian attacks.
The Russian defense ministry said that in total, its air defense systems destroyed 39 drones that Ukraine launched targeting Russia's territory overnight.
Nine drones were destroyed over the Belgorod region, five over the Bryansk region, and three each over the Voronezh and Leningrad regions, all in Russia's west.
The ministry did not list the Oryol region, where according to the governor of the southwestern Russian region, a power plant was damaged in a Ukraine-launched drone attack overnight.
Ukraine has been systematically targeting Russian transport, energy and military infrastructure to disrupt the Kremlin's economy and its ability to fund the war, which Russia launched with a full-scale invasion on its smaller neighbor in 2022.
Kyiv also says the drone attacks are in response to Russia's continued bombing of Ukraine.