<div style="text-align: justify; "><b style="font-size: 1rem;">Awami League President and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina today made a call to world leaders not to provoke Ukraine-Russia war and end it immediately.</b><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">“I will urge the world leaders, stop the Ukraine-Russia war, stop provoking them. We want peace,” she said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The ruling party chief was delivering her inaugural speech at the 22nd national council of the country’s oldest political party, aiming to elect new leadership.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The theme of this year's council is “Development journey under the leadership of Sheikh Hasina with the determination to build a developed, prosperous, and smart Bangladesh of Bangabandhu’s dream”.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Sheikh Hasina said that all countries are independent and all have the right to act independently.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Saying that Bangladesh does not want war, she added that the country also does not want sanctions.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“We do not want war, we do not want sanctions… war causes suffering for humanity,” she added.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In this regard she recalled the experience during the Liberation War in 1971.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“We know the adversity of war, we experienced that in 1971,” she said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Sheikh Hasina mentioned that women are affected the most during wars and children are also negatively impacted.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“Their (women and children) human rights are violated, children are suffering from the cold winter… We do not want war,” she said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The PM said that Bangladesh was just coming out from the adverse impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“This war is just demolishing all our advancements,” she said. UNB</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">bnbd24/kh</div>