Haque Specialized Group's News

The Trump administration has issued tough guidelines to widen the net for deporting illegal immigrants from the US, and speed up their removal. Undocumented immigrants arrested for traffic violations or shop-lifting will be targeted along with those convicted of more serious crimes. The memos do not alter US immigration laws, but take a much tougher approach towards enforcing existing measures. There are an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the US. White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said on Tuesday the new guidelines would not usher in mass deportations, but were designed to empower agents to enforce laws already on the books. "The president wanted to take the shackles off individuals in these agencies," Mr Spicer said. "The message from this White House and the Department of Homeland Security is that those people who are in this country, who pose a threat to our safety, or who have committed a crime, will be the first to go." WHAT'S CHANGED FROM THE OBAMA ERA? The Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) new blueprint leaves in place Obama-era protections for immigrants who entered the US illegally as children, affecting about 750,000 young people known as Dreamers. But it expands the more restricted guidance issued under the previous administration, which focused its policy on immigrants convicted of serious crimes, threats to national security or those who had recently crossed the border. Donald Trump's immigration order marks a sharp break with those Obama-era policies. Instead - according to the Department of Homeland Security implementation memos - the Trump administration essentially will "prioritise" the deportation of almost all undocumented immigrants, everywhere. The Homeland Security Department's list of prioritised "removable aliens" is so broad as to include just about every class of undocumented immigrant - with only a carve-out for individuals who entered the US as children. All this will require more money and manpower - and the Trump administration is going to ask Congress for the former and go on a hiring spree to address the latter. Local and state law-enforcement officials will also be allowed to arrest unauthorised immigrants. While Mr Obama aggressively enforced immigration law and ramped up deportations in some areas and at some times, there were notable instances where he de-emphasised action. In the Trump era immigration authorities are now being given the power to make a sea-to-sea, border-to-border push. WHAT'S IN THE NEW ORDERS? The two memos released on Tuesday by the agency also allow Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement to deport people immediately. During Mr Obama's presidency, expedited removals were applied to people who had been in the country for no more than 14 days and were within 100 miles of the border. Under the new guidance, agents can expedite deportations for undocumented immigrants who are unable to prove they have been in the country for more than two years, located anywhere in the US. SOME OF THE NEW PRIORITIES INCLUDE: Expanding deportations to undocumented immigrants who have been charged with a crime, misrepresented themselves, pose a risk to public safety, or "have abused any program related to receipt of public benefits" - effectively allowing agents to arrest any illegal immigrant they encounter Ending US policy to release those caught on the border and instead placing them into detention centres until their cases are resolved Calling for authorities to prosecute parents who help smuggle their children into the country Allowing plans to begin on an expansion of the border wall along the US southern border The DHS plans to hire an extra 10,000 agents for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and 5,000 more border patrol officers to enforce the new guidance. Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly wrote in one of the memos: "The surge of illegal immigration at the southern border has overwhelmed federal agencies and resources and has created a significant national security vulnerability to the United States." Mr Kelly's memo also includes instructions to enforce an existing provision of the US Immigration and Nationality Act that allows authorities to send some people caught illegally at the border back to Mexico, regardless of where they are from. It is unclear whether the US has authority to force Mexico to accept foreigners. WHERE'S THIS GUIDANCE COME FROM? It is a blueprint to implement executive orders that Mr Trump signed on 25 January, days after taking office. The new guidelines did not explain how Mr Trump's border wall would be funded and where undocumented immigrants apprehended in the crackdown would be detained. The memos instruct agents to use "all available resources to expand their detention capabilities and capacities", but Congress would probably need to allocate money to build new detention centres.   ....

Published at: 2017-02-22 00:00:06

A young man reportedly strangulated his three younger siblings to death and hacked his elder brother at Alukbali Purbapara village in Sadar upazila under Narsingdi on Tuesday night. Officer-in-charge of Narsingdi Sadar Police Station Golam Mostafa said Rubel Hossain, 24, son of Abul Kalam, a resident of Alukbali Purbapara village, entered the room of his three siblings Yasin, 12, Mariam, 7, and Marzia, 3, at night. Rubel strangulated the trio one by one around 10pm as they were asleep. Later, he went to the house of his elder brother Atiqur Rahman, a local madrasah teacher, and hacked him with a sharp weapon indiscriminately, leaving him injured. However, Rubel fled the scene when the neighbours rushed in after hearing Atiqur's screams. Meanwhile, local people caught Rubel from an abandoned place, adjacent to the village, on Wednesday morning and handed him over to police, OC Golam Mostafa said. However, it is not still clear what prompted Rubel to kill his siblings, the OC added. Dipu Sarkar, chairman of Alukbali UP, said Rubel might have a connection with any militant group.  ....

Published at: 2017-02-22 00:00:06

US President Donald Trump has shown little patience for dissent, but that trait is likely to be tested by his new national security adviser, Army Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster. McMaster is joining the White House staff with views on Russia, counterterrorism, strengthening the military and other major security issues that diverge not only from those of the Trump loyalists, but also from those the president himself has expressed. A military intellectual whose ideas have been shaped more by experience than by emotion, more by practice than by politics, and more by intellect than by impulse may also find himself in political terrain that may be as alien, and perhaps as hostile, to him as the sands and cities of Afghanistan and Iraq were. McMaster will not be alone, however. His prominent administration allies include Defense Secretary Jim Mattis; Marine General Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and Senator John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee; as well as many of the soldiers who have served with him. White House press secretary Sean Spicer said on Tuesday that Trump told McMaster "he's got full authority to structure the national security team the way he wants." Trump, however, already has taken the unusual step of adding Steve Bannon, his chief strategic adviser known for right-wing ideological views, to the White House National Security Council. "The real potential for flashpoints is with some of the people that Steve Bannon has brought into the administration ... people who see things very ideologically," said Andrew Exum, a former Army officer and Defense Department Mideast policy official and McMaster friend for more than a decade. Trump's early missteps on immigration and other issues "have strengthened the leverage available to not only H.R. McMaster, but also Defense Secretary Mattis and Secretary (of State Rex) Tillerson potentially," Exum said. One of the first tests of McMaster's influence will be the administration's review of US policy in Syria, and more broadly against Islamic militancy. The review's results are due early next week, Pentagon officials said on Tuesday. Bannon said last June that the United States and its European allies are fighting a "global existential war" against Islam. McMaster's approach to defeating Sunni Muslim militants has been more nuanced, resting largely on separating extremists from the vast majority of the local population.As commander of the Army's 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, then-Colonel McMaster prepared his troopers for retaking the city of Tal Afar on the Iraqi-Syrian border in 2005 by having some of them dress in traditional Arab dishdashas, recruiting Arab-Americans to play the part of locals, and teaching his troops how to determine if a household was Sunni or Shiite by looking at the pictures hung on the walls.McMaster ordered his soldiers never to call the Iraqis they encountered "hajjis," which many Americans used as a derogatory term for the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca. Writing in the journal Military Review, he warned that emphasizing force, as Trump has done in his vows to bomb Islamic State into oblivion, could backfire."In Iraq, an inadequate understanding of tribal, ethnic, and religious drivers of conflict ... sometimes led to military operations (such as raids against suspected enemy networks) that exacerbated fears or offended the sense of honor of populations in ways that strengthened the insurgency," he wrote. That is not to say McMaster is a shaved-headed intellectual hesitant to use force. Twenty-one of his troopers were killed in action in Tal Afar, and one unit suffered 40 per cent casualties. RUSSIA TEST A second early test for McMaster will be Russia policy. Unlike his predecessor, Michael Flynn, and Trump himself, McMaster regards Moscow as an adversary rather than a potential partner.Last May, at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank, McMaster cited Russia's annexation of Crimea and support for rebels in eastern Ukraine as evidence of a broader effort "to collapse the post-World War Two, certainly the post-Cold War, security, economic, and political order in Europe and replace that order with something that is more sympathetic to Russian interests."A third area where McMaster's thinking differs from the president's rhetoric is the size and shape of the US military. Trump has promised to add tens of thousands more soldiers, expand the Navy to 350 ships from 282, and "provide the Air Force with the 1,200 fighter aircraft they need," according to his campaign website.In his scholarly 2015 Military Review article, which has 39 footnotes, including one citing Greek historian Thucydides' account of the Peloponnesian War, McMaster argued that "promising victory delivered rapidly from stand-off range, based on even better surveillance, intelligence, information, and precision strike capabilities" is a fallacy that "confuses targeting enemy organizations with strategy."The question now is whether McMaster's views will have sufficient force to alter the course of US policy set by the president and his closest aides. "The real challenges he's going to confront, I think, are not the challenges of strategy and the global responsibilities of the world's only superpower," said John Nagl, a retired Army colonel who helped rewrite US counterinsurgency doctrine for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. "He knows how to deal with those things." Nagl continued. "The challenges he's going to confront are moral, dealing with an administration that has not always been clear in its support for American values." Whatever his odds, McMaster took the job not simply because his commander-in-chief could order him to do it. "Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it," he once said. "Those who ignore them are doomed to watch."  ....

Published at: 2017-02-22 00:00:06

Oil prices held near multi-week highs on Wednesday after OPEC signalled optimism over its deal with other producers to curb output to clear a glut that has weighed on markets since 2014. The US West Texas Intermediate April crude contract CLc1, the new front-month future, was up 18 cents at $54.51 a barrel at 0228 GMT.  On Tuesday, the March contract expired up 66 cents, or 1.2 per cent, at $54.06, after peaking at $54.68, the highest since Jan. 3. Brent crude LCOc1 was up 24 cents at $56.90. On Tuesday, it reached its highest since Feb. 2 at $57.31, before closing at $56.66, up 0.9 per cent. The data is set to be released on Thursday, a day later than normal, following a US public holiday on Monday. Last week's numbers showed US output helped boost crude and gasoline inventories to record highs, amid faltering demand growth for the motor fuel.  That has kept a lid on prices after they climbed following an agreement by the OPRC and other producers to cut output by about 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd). Mohammad Barkindo, OPEC secretary general said that January data showed conformity from member countries participating in the output cut had been above 90 per cent.  Oil inventories would decline further this year, he added. Russia and the other outside producers have so far delivered a smaller percentage of cuts, but Barkindo said this would increase. It was too early to say if the supply cut, which lasts for six months from Jan. 1, would need to be extended or deepened at the next OPEC meeting in May, he said, according to Reuters.....

Published at: 2017-02-22 00:00:06

The board of directors of Prime Insurance Company has recommended 13 per cent cash dividend for the year ended on December 31, 2016, said an official disclosure on Wednesday. The final approval of this dividend will come during the annual general meeting (AGM) scheduled to be held on March 30 at 11:00am at Bangladesh Institute of Administration and Management (BIAM), 63, New Eskaton in Dhaha. The record date for entitlement of dividend is on March 14, 2017. The insurer has also reported earnings per share (EPS) of Tk 1.82, net asset value (NAV) per share of Tk 16.39 and net operating cash flow per share (NOCFPS) of Tk (1.36) for the year ended on December 31, 2016 as against Tk 2.11, Tk 15.83 and Tk (1.73) respectively for the same period of the previous year. There will be no price limit on the trading of the shares of the company today (Wednesday) following its corporate declaration. Each share price of company, which was listed on the Dhaka bourse in 2001, closed at Tk 20.20 on Monday. The company disbursed 12.50 per cent cash dividend for the year ended on December 31, 2015. The company’s paid-up capital is Tk 1.0 billion and authorised capital is Tk 409 million, while the total number of securities is 40,877,498. The sponsor-directors own 45.10 per cent stake in Prime Insurance, while institutional investors 25.10 per cent and the general public 29.80 per cent as on January 31, 2017, the DSE data shows. -bb/rmc//....

Published at: 2017-02-22 00:00:06