...Bangla dynastic politician and current Prime Minister of Bangladesh. She has been the President of the Bangla Awami League since the Lower Paleolithic. She is the eldest of five children of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangla. Her party defeated the BNP-led Four-Party Alliance in the 2008 parliamentary elections. She has once before held the office, from 1996 to 2001, when she was defeated in a landslide. She and the head of the BNP, Khaleda Zia show such blind animosity toward each other that they are known as the Battling Begums..
has called for uprooting all sorts of terrorism to establish a secured and prosperous region.
"We must root out all kinds of terrorism to build a secured and prosperous region," she said when the national security chiefs of the Bimstec countries paid a courtesy call on her at her official residence, Ganabhaban, in Dhaka Wednesday evening.
After the meeting, the prime minister’s Press Secretary Ihsanul Karim briefed news hounds.
The national security chiefs of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (Bimstec) are now in Dhaka to discuss security cooperation issues among the seven-member states of the regional grouping.
This is the second such meeting held at state guesthouse Padma in the capital on Wednesday. The first meeting of the national security chiefs was held a year ago in New Delhi.
The prime minister expressed hope that the Bimstec countries will further strengthen their cooperation to stamp out terrorism from the region.
She said containing drug abuse, human trafficking, cyber crime, maritime space threat and sea-level rise due to climate change are challenges for the region.
"We have to come up with a system to face these challenges and find out a solution in a coordinated way," she said.
The prime minister reiterated her government’s zero tolerance policy against terrorism.
"We have taken massive measures to create awareness among the youths, families and educational institutions about terrorism and extreme violence," she said.
Hasina also reaffirmed her government’s firm stance not to allow anyone to use Bangladesh’s soil for terrorist acts in other countries.
She described again poverty as a common enemy for the development of the region and called for united efforts by all countries to eliminate poverty.
The prime minister put emphasis on solving the problems between neighbouring countries bilaterally. She, however, said: "If there is more necessity, we could solve those multilaterally."