Clashes break out in Bangladesh capital as major political parties set to sign a new charter

DHAKA: Police fired teargas and used stun grenades and batons to disperse protesters outside Bangladesh’s national Parliament complex Friday, as tensions soared over the interim government’s new political charter.
Some protesters vandalized a police vehicle and makeshift tents, and others clashed with soldiers and security officials in the capital Dhaka. Witnesses said several people were injured.
The clashes broke out after several hundred people, who described themselves as those whose protests ousted former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, started demonstrating Friday. They expressed anger that their concerns were not addressed in the new charter, despite their loved ones dying during last year’s mass uprising against Hasina.
The interim government, headed by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus, has invited the country’s main political parties to sign a new political charter Friday to pave the way for a raft of political reforms.
The “July National Charter,” named after the national uprisings that started in July 2024, outlines a roadmap for constitutional amendments, legal changes and the enactment of new laws.
A National Consensus Commission formed by the Yunus’ government prepared the charter after a series of talks with the major political parties, except Hasina’s Awami League party.
The Bangladesh Nationalist Party, headed by former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, and eight like-minded parties said they would sign the charter.
Hasina, who was toppled last August after huge protests, is in exile in India and is being tried in absentia on charges of crimes against humanity. The United Nations has said that up to 1,400 people may have been killed in the weeks-long uprising last year.
Yunus has promised to hold the next national election in February. But questions remain whether the election would be inclusive without Hasina’s party and its allies in the race.
The country’s largest Islamist party, Jamaat-e-Islami, has remained undecided about signing the charter, while a newly-formed student-led party, National Citizen Party, said it would not take part.

MOSCOW: President Vladimir Putin has appointed Andrei Bulyga, one of Russia’s deputy defense ministers since last year, as deputy secretary of the country’s powerful security council, according to a decree published on the Kremlin’s website on Saturday.
In a separate decree, Putin appointed Colonel-General Alexander Sanchik, who had been serving as commander of Russia’s southern military district, as a deputy defense minister, replacing Bulyga.
Bulyga, a lieutenant-general in the Russian army, had held the post of deputy minister in charge of logistical support since March 2024.
He took office on the eve of a series of swirling corruption cases that began in April 2024 and has seen more than a dozen people, including three former deputy defense ministers, arrested on charges including embezzlement and bribe-taking.
Long-serving defense minister Sergei Shoigu was appointed secretary of the security council in May 2024, amid the corruption scandals and criticism of his forces’ performance in Ukraine.

Clashes break out in Bangladesh capital as major political parties set to sign a new charter