• NCP chief says final list of candidates to be announced on Monday.
• Tasnim Jara, several other leaders quit NCP in protest.
• Critics of NCP’s move say it undermined party’s founding ideals.
  

DHAKA: The student-led Bangladeshi party born out of the protest movement that toppled Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has forged an electoral alliance with Jamaat-e-Islami ahead of February’s parliamentary election, stirring internal rifts.

Since last year’s uprising, the National Citizen Party (NCP) has cast itself as a centrist, reformist alternative to nepotism and two-party dominance, but as the election nears, it is struggling to turn street power into voter support.

NCP chief Nahid Islam said on Sunday the party had decided to enter into the alliance for greater unity, adding that the final list of candidates would be announced on Monday. Other NCP figures have described the alliance as a pragmatic step in a fragmented political landscape.

But the decision to join forces with JI has already prompted internal ructions.

Tasnim Jara, a doctor who left a career in Britain to join the NCP, becoming a leader in the party, resigned on Saturday and said she would contest the election as an independent candidate. Several other members have also quit.

BNP regains momentum 

Critics of the NCP’s move said it undermined the party’s founding ideals.

“The moral support I had for the NCP will no longer exist due to this ideological mismatch,” said one university student, asking not to be named.

The partnership comes amid broader political realignments, with the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) — aligned with ailing former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia and effectively led by her son, acting chair Tarique Rahman — regaining momentum following Rahman’s return after nearly 17 years in exile.

The February 12 election will be held under an interim administration headed by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, who took charge after Hasina’s ouster and is seen as crucial to restoring political stability after nearly two years of turmoil.

A row over the disappearance of a famous river surfing wave in Munich escalated on Sunday as authorities removed a beam inserted over Christmas to recreate the attraction.

The Eisbach wave on a side branch of the Isar River had been a landmark in the Bavarian city since the 1980s but it vanished in October after annual cleanup work along the riverbed.

Activists had placed a beam in the water early on December 25 to partially recreate the wave, according to German media reports, and hung a banner above the water that read “Merry Christmas”.

But a spokesman for the Munich fire service told AFP the “installation was removed” on Sunday at the request of city authorities.

Activists have made several attempts to reinstate the wave in the city’s Englischer Garten park since October — only to see them reversed.

The local surfers’ association IGSM on Thursday posted a statement on its website saying it had abandoned its campaign to save the wave, accusing city authorities of dragging their feet.

The Eisbach wave was considered the largest and most consistent river wave in the heart of a major city and had become a tourist attraction in Bavaria’s state capital.

Franz Fasel, head of the IGSM, told AFP in July that 3,000 to 5,000 local surfers were using it.

Access to the wave was cut off for several months earlier this year after the death of a 33-year-old Munich woman who became trapped under the surface while surfing at night.

• Iranian scientists produce satellites despite sanctions: envoy.
• Three satellites are for low-earth orbit, says state news agency.
• Iran increasingly relies on Russia to put satellites in orbit.

DUBAI: Three more Iranian satellites were sent into space on Russia’s Soyuz launchers on Sunday, Iranian state media said, as the two US-sanctioned nations extend their space collaboration.

Iran has increasingly relied on its ally Russia to put satellites in orbit in recent years, with the latest three intended to help with monitoring agriculture, natural resources and the environment.

“These satellites were designed and produced by Iranian scientists … despite all the sanctions and threats,” Iran’s ambassador to Russia Kazem Jalali told state TV in reference to Western measures over Tehran’s nuclear programme.

“We are working together (with Russia) in different areas. Some are evident and some we don’t like to clarify.”

Iran’s official IRNA news agency said the three satellites – Paya, Zafar 2,and a second Kowsar – were for low-earth orbit.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Iran and Russia have deepened ties, with Western countries accusing Iran of providing missiles and drones for Russian attacks.