Bulletins and News Discussion from July 22nd to July 28th, 2024 - Fracas in Dhaka - COTW: Bangladesh

Image is of vehicles set aflame by protestors near a government building.

Since July 1st, students have protested the unpopular proposal in which 30% of government jobs would be reserved for veterans of the 1971 War of Independence and their relatives. In a country with a youth unemployment rate of around 20% and a population of 170 million, a large number of otherwise eligible and competent people would have been forced out due to favouritism for veterans. As with basically every country on the planet over the last couple years, Bangladesh is suffering from inflation and an increasing cost-of-living, further exacerbating tensions.

The student protests have been met with significant violence by the government - local newspapers report that over a hundred protestors have been killed, and thousands have been injured. Guns and tear gas have been used. Additionally, the government has completely cut internet access throughout Bangladesh to prevent organizing, which has had some success in dividing protestors, but has also only further angered various parts of the country due to the massive impact to Bangladesh's online industries and various startups. And a national curfew has been in place to limit movement, with the population told to remain home if they want to be safe.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court of Bangladesh relented, stating that now, only 5% of government jobs would be reserved for veterans and their families. 2% would be allocated to members of minorities, with the remaining 93% distributed on merit. A period of tentative calm has arrived, but Hasnat Abdullah, a coordinator of the Anti-Discrimination Student Movement, has stated that unless the government restores the internet, removes the curfew, releases detainees, and forces certain ministers to resign within a few days, then the protests will resume.

The COTW (Country of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific country every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied nations. If you've wanted to talk about the country or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don't worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any country.

The Country of the Week is Bangladesh! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.

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Genuinely insane that Netanyahu can just give a speech on the Palestinian people that is the 2024 version of a “White Man’s Burden” and people will still argue that Israel is not an apartheid state. This MF literally was talking about “Israel’s vision of Palestine” like ok well who said that you get to have a vision on Palestine? That’s like… supposed to not be your place to have a say if you aren’t an apartheid state.
- This MF literally was talking about “Israel’s vision of Palestine” like ok well who said that you get to have a vision on Palestine?
  Netanyahu could bring out the blueprints of how he's gonna construct the biggest theme park in the world over the ruins of Gaza and it wouldn't really make it not the mutters of a deranged idiot. The Israeli economy is experiencing as big a cataclysm as their army is. They're in just as much a position to dictate terms as Ukraine is over Russia.
  The economic indicators speak of nothing less than an economic catastrophe. Over 46,000 businesses have gone bankrupt, tourism has stopped, Israel’s credit rating was lowered, Israeli bonds are sold at the prices of almost “junk bonds” levels, and the foreign investments that have already dropped by 60% in the first quarter of 2023 (as a result of the policies of Israel’s far-right government before October 7) show no prospects of recovery. The majority of the money invested in Israeli investment funds was diverted to investments abroad because Israelis do not want their own pension funds and insurance funds or their own savings to be tied to the fate of the State of Israel. This has caused a surprising stability in the Israeli stock market because funds invested in foreign stocks and bonds generated profit in foreign currency, which was multiplied by the rise in the exchange rate between foreign currencies and the Israeli Shekel. But then Intel scuttled a $25 billion investment plan in Israel, the biggest BDS victory ever.
  These are all financial indicators. But the crisis strikes deeper at the means of production of the Israeli economy. Israel’s power grid, which has largely switched to natural gas, still depends on coal to supply demand. The biggest supplier of coal to Israel is Colombia, which announced that it would suspend coal shipments to Israel as long as the genocide was ongoing. After Colombia, the next two biggest suppliers are South Africa and Russia. Without reliable and continuous electricity, Israel will no longer be able to pretend to be a developed economy. Server farms do not work without 24-hour power, and no one knows how many blackouts the Israeli high-tech sector could potentially survive. International tech companies have already started closing their branches in Israel.
  Israel’s reputation as a “startup nation” depends on its tech sector, which in turn depends on highly educated employees. Israeli academics report that joint research with universities abroad has declined sharply thanks to the efforts of student encampments. Israeli newspapers are full of articles about the exodus of educated Israelis. Prof. Dan Ben David, a famous economist, argued that the Israeli economy is held together by 300,000 people (the senior staff in universities, tech companies, and hospitals). Once a significant portion of these people leaves, he says, “We won’t become a third world country, we just won’t be anymore.”
  If they start shit with Hezbollah, and Hezbollah deigns to strike Israeli electricity generation and other civilian facilities, it is over. Hell, if Yemen decides that they want to do that, it is over. The only problem is how many thousands, hundreds of thousands, or perhaps even millions of people Israel will kill as the temple columns fall around them. Perhaps that's why Hezbollah seems to be content to bide their time and wait for the Israelis to engage first; time is not on Israel's side, it is on the Resistance's. In a purely military sense, of course, though. In a civilian sense, every month that the Resistance continues the current pace, tens of thousands more Gazans perish. They have decades of experience fighting Israel though, so I trust that they know what they're doing.
  
  Honestly after the idf strike on that oil refinery, yemen can justify hitting target israeli natural resourses operations like oil, gas and mines which would crash their economy even faster

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