Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at political upheaval in Bangladesh, the United Kingdom’s worst rioting in 13 years, and Middle East tensions on the rise.
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Hasina Steps Down
Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned on Monday after weeks of deadly mass protests over the country’s controversial job quota system. Local media reported that she has since fled to India, though it is unclear if she intends to remain there or travel to a third country. The Bangladesh Army announced that it will oversee the formation of a caretaker government in the coming days. Hasina was reelected for her fourth straight term in January after the main opposition movement, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, boycotted the vote.
“The country is going through a revolutionary period,” said Gen. Waker-Uz-Zaman, the army chief, adding that he will soon meet with President Mohammed Shahabuddin to discuss future leadership. In the interim, he called for peace and promised justice for those killed in the nation’s weekslong demonstrations.
Under the contentious quota policy, 30 percent of public sector jobs were reserved for families of those who fought in Bangladesh’s 1971 war for independence against Pakistan. (Quotas were also in place for minorities and people with disabilities, though those were not considered as controversial.) Amid high inflation rates—and with nearly one-third of youth unemployed—many young people in Bangladesh felt that the quota system favored allies of Hasina’s ruling Awami League. Hasina held power for 20 of the last 30 years, making her one of the world’s longest-ruling female leaders. Some have accused her of trying to form a one-party state.
In 2018, violent demonstrations forced Dhaka to scrap the quota policy. But in June of this year, a Bangladeshi court revived the system, sparking a new wave of protests. The Supreme Court cut the quota down to 5 percent in July to meet marchers’ demands, but demonstrations continued—largely calling for Hasina to step down over the violence.
Around 300 people have been killed, including at least 32 children, and thousands more have been injured since the protests began, with almost 100 people killed on Sunday alone. Vandalism, arson, and violent attacks have targeted government buildings tied to the Awami League, and protesters stormed the prime minister’s official residence in Dhaka on Monday after Hasina fled the country.
“The shocking violence in Bangladesh must stop,” Volker Türk, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said on Sunday. Rights groups have accused Bangladeshi authorities of using excessive force against demonstrators, though the government denies such actions. Hasina had reportedly told police to “[resist] anarchists with iron hands.”
On Sunday, the government declared an indefinite nationwide curfew starting at 6 p.m. as well as a three-day holiday, to begin Monday, to try to maintain order. However, the military then announced on Monday that the curfew would end at dawn on Tuesday and schools and businesses would reopen.
“Hasina’s critics hope that a new kind of leadership will emerge from this moment—not from the traditional political parties, but from the young citizens who spearheaded the movement,” Bangladesh expert Salil Tripathi wrote for Foreign Policy last month. Since Hasina returned to power in 2009, her victories have been marred by voter intimidation, charges of corruption and nepotism, and violence against political opponents. On Monday, the country’s president ordered the release of jailed former prime minister and opposition leader Khaleda Zia.
Today’s Most Read
The World This Week
Tuesday, Aug. 6: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin meet with their respective Australian counterparts, Penny Wong and Richard Marles.
Wednesday, Aug. 7: The Thai Constitutional Court rules on a case seeking to dissolve the opposition Move Forward Party.
Thursday, Aug. 8: India’s central bank determines its interest rate.
Sunday, Aug. 11: The 2024 Olympic Games in Paris conclude.
What We’re Following
Far-right riots. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer convened an emergency cabinet meeting on Monday to address violent far-right protests. He ordered a “standing army” of specialist police to deal with the rioting and said the justice system would ramp up efforts to handle the nearly 400 arrests made this past week. “This is not protest. It is pure violence, and we will not tolerate attacks on mosques or our Muslim communities,” Starmer said.
Last Monday, a 17-year-old allegedly attacked a Taylor Swift-themed dance and yoga class near Liverpool, stabbing three children to death and injuring 10 others. Online misinformation accused the suspect of being a Muslim asylum-seeker; the man was actually born in Cardiff, Wales, to Rwandan parents.
Far-right rioters have used the incident to attack mosques and call for harsher immigration policies. This weekend, protesters targeted hotels that house asylum-seekers, looted immigrant-owned businesses, shattered the windows of mosques, set cars on fire, and assaulted ethnic minorities. This is the country’s worst rioting in 13 years.
Efforts to de-escalate. Tensions across the Middle East remain high as Iran prepares to retaliate against Israel for a slew of high-profile assassinations last week that targeted senior members of Hamas and Hezbollah, both of which are backed by Tehran. Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi conducted a rare visit to Iran on Sunday to urge for “peace, security, and stability.” But Tehran, through Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto, told Israel on Monday that it still vows revenge. It is unclear what a response might look like, but Blinken told G-7 foreign ministers on Sunday that such an attack could happen this week.
Meanwhile, an Israeli drone strike killed Ali Abd Ali, a Hezbollah operative, in the southern Lebanese town of Bazourieh on Saturday. His death was “a significant blow to the functioning of the Southern Front and the Hezbollah terror organization in the region,” the Israeli military said. In response, Hezbollah launched a drone strike into northern Israel on Monday that injured two soldiers.
Another Israeli airstrike on Sunday targeted two schools in Gaza City that the Israeli military claimed housed a Hamas military compound. And earlier that day, an Israeli attack hit a tent camp inside a hospital in central Gaza. At least 44 Palestinians were killed on Sunday in total.
Financial meltdown. Global markets tumbled this weekend as stock prices around the world took a nosedive. On Monday, Japan logged its worst single day for Nikkei since 1987’s “Black Monday.” Losing 4,451.28 points (or 12.4 percent), this was the media company’s largest points loss in the index’s history. Tokyo’s struggles were not the only ones to hit the Indo-Pacific. The Taiwan Weighted Index fell more than 8 percent, Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 slid 3.7 percent, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was down 1.62 percent, and mainland China’s CPI dropped 1.21 percent.
Across the ocean, Wall Street did not fare much better. The U.S. Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped by nearly 900 points on Monday, the S&P 500 shed 2.5 percent, and the Nasdaq fell 2.4 percent.
Global sell-offs began last week after Japan raised interest rates to 0.25 percent, its first positive level since 2007. The announcement, alongside suggestions that Tokyo’s interest rates may continue to rise, caused the yen’s value to spike against the U.S. dollar. A U.S. Labor Department announcement on Friday detailing a weaker-than-expected jobs report for July only exacerbated concerns. “This is not the recession train; it’s just a good old-fashioned market panic,” Joe Brusuelas, the chief economist for RSM US, told the Washington Post. “It’s about a larger regime change, where investors are adjusting to the end of easy money globally.”
Odds and Ends
With one week left to go, the United States is leading the Paris Olympic medal count at 77 wins. But roughly a third of competing countries and territories have still never made it to the Olympic podium. This weekend, however, that changed for two Caribbean nations. On Saturday, St. Lucia took home the gold for the women’s 100-meter sprint, and Dominica won the top spot in the women’s triple jump. “It means a lot to the small islands,” Julien Alfred, the St. Lucian runner, said, “seeing how we can come from a small place but also be on the biggest stage of our career.”
The post Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Flees Amid Deadly Mass Protests appeared first on Foreign Policy.
