Bangladesh PM Hasina reaches Canada to attend Global Fund conference

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has arrived in Canada's Montreal on a four-day official visit at the invitation of her Canadian counterpart Justin Trudeau.

She will be attending the Fifth Replenishment Conference of the Global Fund at Montreal.
 
Canada is hosting this year's two-day conference that will discuss global strategies to fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, at Hyatt Regency hotel starting fromFriday.
 
An Air Canada flight carrying Hasina and her entourage landed at Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport around 4:22pm on Thursday local time, state-run BSS news agency reports.
 
Bangladesh High Commissioner in Ottawa Mizanur Rahman and Canadian foreign ministry officials received the prime minister at the airport.
 

From there, Hasina was escorted to Hotel Omni Mont-Royal where she will be staying during her visit, reports BSS.

She is scheduled to attend the opening session of the conference on Friday afternoon.

Later, Hasina will join the Ministerial Pledging Moment with other heads of the states.

She will finish the day by joining a dinner hosted by Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau.

On the next day, she will participate in panel discussions titled 'Removing Barriers to Health through Empowering Women and Girls and Reaching the Most Marginalised' and 'Engaging the Youth to meet the Sustainable Development Goals'.

Then she is scheduled to join a lunch hosted by the Canada's Governor General David Johnston.

She will also have a bilateral meeting with Trudeau before attending a concert organised by the Global Fund.

During her stay in Canada, the prime minister is also expected to hand over the 'Friends of Liberation War Honour' award to Justin Trudeau, the BSS report said.

Bangladesh government posthumously awarded the honour to his father Pierre Elliott Trudeau, the then Canadian prime minister, for his support and contribution during the 1971 Liberation War.

Hasina left Dhaka for London on Wednesday morning on a 12-day visit to Canada and the US.
 
After a 22-hour stopover in London, she left for Montreal.
 
After the conference, on Sep 18, the prime minister will take an Air Canada flight to New York to attend the 71st session of the UN General Assembly.
 
She will be staying at Hotel Waldorf Astoria during her stay in New York.
 
The next day, Hasina will deliver a speech at the UN General Assembly plenary on refugee rehabilitation.
 
After that, she will have a bilateral meeting with Myanmar's State Counsellor and Foreign Minister Aung Sang Suu Kyi.
 
Later in the day, Hasina as the co-chair will join a round table on global migration that will seek to focus on human rights for migrants in the context of 2030 agenda for sustainable development.
 
On Sep 20, she will participate in the inaugural session of the UN General Assembly. Later, she will participate in an Asian Leaders Forum meeting on counter-terrorism organised by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at Hotel Marriot Eastside.
 
On the same day, she will attend a meeting on refugee issues organised by US President Barack Obama that will be followed by a reception.
 
On Sep 22, she is scheduled to engage the Swiss President Johann Schneider-Ammann and later attend the inaugural session of the Global Deal Initiative organised by the Swedish prime minister.
 
Later that afternoon, Hasina will address the UN General Assembly before attending a reception hosted by Bangladeshi expatriates in the evening.
 
She will also address a press conference in the Bangladesh mission in New York on that day.
 
On the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, she is scheduled to meet the heads of several other states, the Commonwealth secretary general, the World Economic Forum executive chairman and the World Bank president.
 
The prime minister will leave New York for Virginia on Sep 22.
 
She will take an Emirates flight from Washington DC on Sep 25 and reach Dhaka the next day.​