Category World News

The son of toppled Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has warned that a special tribunal will likely sentence her to death, but that she remains safe in her Indian exile, as he threatened her supporters will block next year’s election unless a ban on her party is lifted.

Sajeeb Wazed made the comments to the Reuters news agency on Sunday, a day before the Dhaka court was due to deliver a televised verdict against Hasina on charges of crimes against humanity for carrying out a deadly crackdown on protesters in 2024.

The threats are likely to further stoke tensions in Bangladesh, where a wave of bombings and arson attacks has gripped the capital ahead of the ruling and February’s planned election.

“We know exactly what the verdict is going to be. They’re televising it. They’re going to convict her, and they’ll probably sentence her to death,” said Wazed, in the United States capital, Washington, DC.

“What can they do to my mother? My mother is safe in India. India is giving her full security.”

Hasina, 78, has lived in exile in New Delhi since fleeing Bangladesh in August 2024, when the student-led protests forced an end to her 15 years in power.

A United Nations report estimated that up to 1,400 people were killed during the demonstrations that year, most by security forces firing live ammunition.

The former leader faces trial at Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal over the deadly crackdown. She denies wrongdoing and calls the proceedings politically motivated.

‘We will not allow elections’

Wazed told Reuters that supporters of the Awami League – the nominally centre-left, secular party that has dominated Bangladeshi politics since independence – would prevent elections from going ahead if the party remains banned.

“We will not allow elections without the Awami League to go ahead,” he said. “Our protests are going to get stronger and stronger, and we will do whatever it takes.”

He added that “unless the international community does something, eventually there’s probably going to be violence in Bangladesh before these elections”.

The interim government, led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, suspended the party’s registration in May and banned its political activities, citing national security threats and war crimes investigations into senior leaders.

A government spokesperson rejected Wazed’s warnings.

“The interim government regards any incitement to violence – especially by exiled political figures – as deeply irresponsible and reprehensible,” the spokesperson was quoted by Reuters as saying.

In an earlier interview with The Associated Press news agency, Wazed said the “ban has to be lifted, the elections have to be inclusive and free and fair. What is happening now really is an attempt to keep my mother and our political leaders from running in elections”.

Escalating violence

Violence has intensified in Dhaka in recent days.

On Sunday, crude bombs exploded across the city, following 32 blasts reported on November 12 alone. Dozens of buses have been torched, and authorities have detained Awami League activists over alleged sabotage.

Schools in the capital Dhaka and other major cities went online last week.

Bangladesh has deployed more than 400 border guards to reinforce security, strengthened checkpoints and restricted public gatherings.

Hasina remains “a lightning rod in Bangladeshi politics”, Michael Kugelman, a South Asia analyst, told Al Jazeera.

“She can deliver an online speech in India and trigger a violent reaction, as happened earlier this year,” he said.

“With Sheikh Hasina’s son threatening to block the election, it makes almost overt the party’s intention to use violence in the context of the upcoming election,” Kugelman added.

The violence occurs against a backdrop of broader concerns about the Yunus government’s record.

A report by Bangladeshi rights group Odhikar documented at least 40 extrajudicial killings between August 2024 and September 2025, despite promises to end state violence.

The same security forces accused of abuses under Hasina – including the paramilitary Rapid Action Battalion – remain operational.

Ecuadoreans are voting on whether to lift a constitutional ban on foreign military bases as right-wing President Daniel Noboa pushes for help from the United States in confronting spiralling drug-fuelled violence.

Nearly 14 million people cast ballots on Sunday in a referendum that also asks whether to reduce the number of lawmakers.

The vote comes as Ecuador grapples with unprecedented bloodshed, with the country’s homicide rate projected to hit 50 per 100,000 people this year, the highest in Latin America.

Polls suggest more than 61 percent of voters back allowing foreign bases, which would likely see the US return to the Manta airbase on the Pacific coast.

US forces operated from Manta between 1999 and 2009 as part of anti-narcotics efforts, until leftist President Rafael Correa held a referendum on foreign troops, resulting in their constitutional ban.

Ecuador, once considered one of the more stable countries in the region, has in recent years faced a sharp rise in violence, with drug cartels, including powerful ones from Mexico, exploiting porous borders and weak institutions to expand their influence.

Noboa, a 37-year-old heir to a prominent banana-exporting fortune, who took office in November 2023, has responded with militarised crackdowns, deployed soldiers to the streets and prisons, launched raids on gang strongholds, declared states of emergency and tightened security at key infrastructure hubs.

The first half of this year saw 4,619 murders, the highest on record, according to Ecuador’s Organized Crime Observatory.

As voting opened, Noboa announced the capture in Spain of Wilmer Geovanny Chavarria Barre, known as Pipo, leader of the notorious Los Lobos gang, who had faked his death and fled to Europe.

He was arrested in the Spanish city of Malaga after Ecuadorean authorities worked with their Spanish counterparts to track him down.

Interior Minister John Reimberg linked Chavarria to more than 400 killings and said he had run criminal networks from behind bars for eight years until 2019.

Noboa said the Los Lobos chief had overseen illicit mining schemes and maintained trafficking connections with Mexico’s Jalisco New Generation Cartel, all whilst hiding in Europe under a false identity.

The US designated Los Lobos and Los Choneros, another Ecuadorian crime syndicate, as “terrorist” organisations in September.

Critics question whether military force alone can address the crisis.

Former President Correa has described the return of foreign forces as “an insult to our public forces and an assault to our sovereignty”, adding: “We do not need foreign soldiers. We need government.”

The referendum also includes questions on a constituent assembly that opposition groups fear could allow Noboa to consolidate power.

In August, Noboa led a demonstration against Constitutional Court justices, with officials calling them “enemies of the people” after they limited expansive security laws.

Critics of the president also argue that a constitutional rewrite will not solve problems like insecurity and poor access to health and education services.

Ecuador became a major cocaine transit hub after the 2016 peace deal in Colombia demobilised guerrillas from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), with international trafficking organisations quickly filling the void.

The country’s Pacific ports, proximity to coca-producing Peru and Colombia, and weak institutions have made it central to the global cocaine supply chain.

Rights activists warn of possible ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.

Israel is engaged in a last-ditch bid to change the wording of a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution on the next phase of United States President Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan that was recently amended to mention a “credible pathway” to Palestinian statehood.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his cabinet on Sunday that his opposition to a Palestinian state had “not changed one bit”, one day before the UNSC votes on the US-drafted resolution, which would mandate a transitional administration and an international stabilisation force (ISF) in Gaza.

Israeli public broadcaster Kan reported on Sunday that Netanyahu’s government was engaged in a last-minute diplomatic push to alter the draft resolution, which the US had changed to include more defined language about Palestinian self-determination under pressure from Arab and Muslim countries expected to contribute troops to the ISF.

The draft now says that “conditions may be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood” after reforms to the Palestinian Authority are “faithfully carried out and Gaza redevelopment has advanced”.

There has been criticism that Palestinian voices and aspirations have been sidelined in the whole spectacle of Trump’s Gaza plan from its launch, which came with the US president’s customary fanfare.

Later on Sunday, Hamas and other Palestinian resistance factions called on Algeria – a non-permanent member of the UNSC – to reject the plan for stabilisation forces to be deployed in Gaza.

In a statement, the resistance factions called the efforts “a new attempt to impose another form of occupation on our land and people, and to legitimise foreign trusteeship”.

“We direct a sincere and fraternal appeal to the Algerian Republic, government and people, to continue adhering to its principled positions supporting Palestine, and its steadfast rejection of any projects targeting Gaza’s identity and our people’s right to self-determination,” the statement added.

On Friday, a joint statement with eight countries – Qatar, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Pakistan, Jordan and Turkiye – urged “swift adoption” of the draft resolution by the 15-member UNSC. Potential contributors to the force have indicated that a UN mandate is essential for their participation.

Israel has already said it will not accept Turkiye, a key Gaza ceasefire mediator, having any role on the ground.

Turkiye has maintained staunch criticism of Israeli actions in Gaza over the past two years and recently issued arrest warrants for genocide against Netanyahu and other senior officials.

Ahead of Monday’s crucial vote, which is expected to garner the nine votes needed to pass, with the likely abstention of Russia and China, Netanyahu confidants and officials from the Foreign Ministry were said to be engaged in intensive talks with their US counterparts, according to the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation (Kan).

Netanyahu under pressure

A far-right walkout over the ceasefire plan, in which Trump has heavily invested his own prestige, could bring down Netanyahu’s right-wing government well before the next election, which must be held by October 2026.

On Sunday, Israeli government officials lined up to express their opposition to any proposals backing a Palestinian state.

“Israel’s policy is clear: no Palestinian state will be established,” Defence Minister Israel Katz wrote on X.

He was followed by Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, who said on X that his country would “not agree to the establishment of a Palestinian terror state in the heart of the Land of Israel”.

Far-right firebrand and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir called the Palestinian identity an “invention”.

Hardline Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a major backer of Israel’s settler movement who has been sanctioned by a number of countries for “incitement of violence” against Palestinians, urged Netanyahu to take action.

“Formulate immediately an appropriate and decisive response that will make it clear to the entire world – no Palestinian state will ever arise on the lands of our homeland,” he said on X.

Russia’s rival resolution

The UNSC resolution would give the UN’s blessing to the second phase of Trump’s 20-point plan, which brought about a ceasefire after two years of genocidal war that has killed nearly 70,000 Palestinians.

The ceasefire came into effect on October 10, although it has been repeatedly breached by Israel with near-daily attacks that have killed hundreds of people.

There has been plenty of jockeying ahead of the vote.

Meanwhile, Russia is circulating its own resolution to rival the US version, offering stronger language on Palestinian statehood and stressing that the occupied West Bank and Gaza must be joined as a contiguous state under the Palestinian Authority.

In a statement, Russia’s UN mission said that its objective was to “to amend the US concept and bring it into conformity” with previous UNSC decisions.