https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VaG07sTJENxyeTTfph1G *INTERNATIONAL NEWS* *06 February 2025* *NEWS HEADLINES* *Protestors set fire to Bangladesh founder Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s house in Dhaka* *Antarctic skull sheds light on ancient birds 69 million years ago* *M23, Rwandan troops launch fresh attack on DR Congo* *NEWS IN DETAIL* *Protestors set fire to Bangladesh founder Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s house in Dhaka* A group of protestors vandalised and set fire to the residence of Bangladesh’s founder Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in Dhaka on Wednesday while his daughter and deposed Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was giving an online speech, PTI reported. Rahman is a key figure in Bangladesh’s independence movement. The protest, which began at around 8 pm, followed a call for a “bulldozer procession” towards Dhanmondi-32, which had earlier been converted into the Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Memorial Museum, reported Prothom Alo. Protestors had also simultaneously announced a “March to Dhanmondi-32”. Subsequently, they broke the entrance and entered the premises of Dhanmondi-32. Several videos shared on social media showed the residence ablaze. Witnesses said that the Army arrived at the site to persuade the protestors to refrain from vandalising, PTI reported. Hasina fled to India on August 5 after widespread student-led protests against her Awami League government, which killed 560 persons. She had been the prime minister of Bangladesh for 16 years. Nobel laureate economist Muhammad Yunus took over as the head of the country’s interim government on August 8. In her speech organised by the Awami League’s now-disbanded student wing Chhatra League on Wednesday, Hasina urged the citizens of Bangladesh to organise a resistance against the current regime, PTI reported. “They are yet to have the strength to destroy the national flag, the constitution and the independence that we earned at the cost of lives of millions of martyrs with a bulldozer,” PTI quoted Hasina as saying in an apparent reference to Yunus’ regime. “They can demolish a building, but not the history,” she added. “But they must also remember that the history takes its revenge.” Earlier in the day, Sharif Osman Bin Hadi, convener of Inqilab Mancha and a member of the Jatiya Nagorik Committee, called students marching to Dhanmondi in a series of posts on Facebook, Prothom Alo reported. Hasnat Abdullah, convener of the anti-discrimination student movement, at 7 pm also wrote on Facebook: “Tonight, Bangladesh will be free from the pilgrimage site of fascism.” Hasina’s house had become an iconic symbol in the history of Bangladesh as he had largely led the pre-independence autonomy movement for decades from there. It was turned into a museum during Hasina’s regime and would be visited by heads of state or dignitaries in line with state protocol. The house was also set on fire on August 5. Rahman was assassinated on August 15, 1975. His sons and their wives, his brother’s family, and other close colleagues and associates were also killed on the same night by the Army as part of a coup. ‘All efforts being taken to bring back Hasina’ Earlier in the day, Bangladesh Home Adviser Md Jahangir Alam Chowdhury said the interim government was making all efforts to bring back Hasina and others from India under the extradition treaty, PTI reported. “We are arresting those who are staying in the country,” the news agency quoted Chowdhury as saying. “The main person [Hasina] is not in the country. How we would arrest them who are abroad?” He added that legal processes were underway to bring them back to Bangladesh. “We are trying to bring back those who are under trial on charges of crimes against humanity at the International Crimes Tribunal,” Chowdhury added. On January 6, the International Criminal Tribunal in Bangladesh issued arrest warrants against Hasina and 11 others, including former military generals and an ex-police chief, for their alleged role in enforced disappearances during the 16-year reign of the Awami League. More than 60 complaints related to enforced disappearances, murders and mass killings had been filed at the tribunal against Hasina and leaders of the Awami League, among others. This was the second warrant the tribunal had issued against the deposed prime minister. The first one was issued on October 17 against Hasina and 45 others on charges of committing crimes against humanity during the protests between July 15 and August 5. On January 7, the interim government also revoked the passports of Hasina and 96 others for their alleged role in the crackdown on protestors during the protests against the Awami League government in July and August. The passports were revoked weeks after the interim government said on December 23 that it had sent a note verbale, or an unsigned diplomatic communique, to India formally seeking Hasina’s extradition. _Scroll_ *Antarctic skull sheds light on ancient birds 69 million years ago* A 69-million-year-old skull found in Antarctica belonged to what scientists say is the oldest known modern bird. An early relative of the continent’s ducks and geese, it lived off the Antarctic coast during the Cretaceous Period, at around the same time as the famous Tyrannosaurus rex. “This fossil underscores that Antarctica has much to tell us about the earliest stages of modern bird evolution,” Dr. Patrick O’Connor, a professor at Ohio University and the director of Earth and Space Sciences at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, said in a statement announcing the finding. It was found during an expedition in 2011 by the Antarctic Peninsula Paleontology Project. Understanding how the region helped to shape modern ecosystems is currently being researched. “Antarctica is in many ways the final frontier for humanity’s understanding of life during the Age of Dinosaurs,” said co-author Dr. Matthew Lamanna, of Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Museum of Natural History. The skull itself is long, with a pointed beak and a brain shape that is unique among all known birds previously discovered from the Mesozoic Era, which includes the Cretaceous Period. The features, the researchers said, belong to an extinct bird named Vegavis iaai — and place it in the group that includes all modern birds. A digital reconstruction of 69 million-year-old Vegavis iaai shows its long beak. The bird’s features are what set it apart from modern day waterfowl (Joseph Groenke (Ohio University) and Christopher Torres (University of the Pacific), 2025) Vegavis was first reported 20 years ago by University of Texas at Austin co-author Dr. Julia Clarke. It was proposed to be an early member of modern waterfowl like ducks and geese. But, such birds are exceptionally rare before the end-Cretaceous extinction event and this study is the first with a nearly complete skull. The skull has preserved its powerful jaw muscles, unlike today’s waterfowl, and its features are consistent with clues suggesting that Vegavis used its feet to propel itself underwater. “Few birds are as likely to start as many arguments among paleontologists as Vegavis,” says lead author Dr. Christopher Torres, a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at Ohio University’s Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine, said. “This new fossil is going to help resolve a lot of those arguments. Chief among them: where is Vegavis perched in the bird tree of life?” _NewsScience_ *M23, Rwandan troops launch fresh attack on DR Congo* The M23 and Rwandan forces on Wednesday launched a new attack on the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, seizing a mining town in South Kivu province, as they resumed their advance towards the regional capital Bukavu. A few days after capturing the strategic city of Goma in neighbouring North Kivu, the M23 armed group had declared a unilateral humanitarian ceasefire to take effect from Tuesday. The anti-government group announced at the same time it also had no intention of taking control of Bukavu or other localities. However, it was gathered that intense clashes broke out at dawn on Wednesday between the M23 with its Rwandan allies and Congolese armed forces. DAILY POST reports that the M23 fighters and Rwandan forces seized the mining town of Nyabibwe, about 100 kilometres from Bukavu and 70 kilometres from the province’s airport. “This is proof that the unilateral ceasefire that has been declared was, as usual, a ploy,” Congolese government spokesman Patrick Muyaya said. In more than three years of fighting between the Rwanda-backed group and the Congolese army, half a dozen ceasefires and truces have been declared, before being systematically broken. Local and military sources said in recent days that both the DRC army and the M23 and its Rwandan allies were in the process of reinforcing troops and equipment in the region. Recall that last week’s capture of Goma was a major escalation in the mineral-rich region, scarred by relentless conflict involving dozens of armed groups over three decades. According to the UN’s humanitarian body, no fewer than 900 people were killed in the Goma clashes and 2,880 wounded. The fears that the violence could trigger a wider conflict have galvanised regional bodies, mediators such as Angola and Kenya, as well as the United Nations, European Union and other countries in diplomatic efforts for a peaceful resolution. _Daily Post, Nigeria_