DHAKA, Bangladesh: When the founding leader of Bangladesh, father of current Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, was assassinated in 1975 after helping achieve independence from Pakistan, then-Foreign Minister Kamal Hossain abandoned a state visit in Europe to rush to her side.
Now Hossain, 82, is helming a popular opposition against Hasina that aims to prevent his former Awami League party from maintaining its hold on Bangladesh in Sunday’s parliamentary elections.
“There should be a very decisive victory for the opposition if it’s free and fair,” Hossain said in an interview Saturday with The Associated Press. “If there is some kind of a decision in favor of the present government, I can assure you that it will not be a free and fair election.”
A respected Oxford-educated lawyer, Hossain emerged as an improbable opposition leader after a court disqualified Hasina’s chief rival, former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, because she is serving a 17-year sentence for corruption.
Although Zia is in solitary confinement in a colonial-era jail, she is not alone: More than 15,000 opposition party activists and critics have been arrested since November, the vice chairman of Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party said Saturday. At least nine people have been killed in campaign-related skirmishes, the party said.
“The urge for power can make someone who’s human into something less than human,” Hossain said of Hasina.
Hossain supported Hasina as part of a grand coalition in 2008 elections, when the Awami League and its allies secured 270 of the 300 seats in Bangladesh’s Parliament.
But in 2014, Zia and the BNP boycotted the polls, leaving more than half of the parliamentary seats uncontested. Voter turnout in the country of 160 million was a dismal 22 percent, and the Awami League’s landslide victory was met with violent protests that left at least 22 people dead.
Hossain is among those who see that election as illegitimate. He said the government since then has been characterized by “unprecedented corruption” and “political patronage of the crudest kind.” He said Hasina — the daughter of a revolutionary fighter and his former benefactor — has shown increasing authoritarian tendencies.
The ruling party has challenged that narrative by focusing on Bangladesh’s plaudits by the World Bank and others as a development success story. Its economy grew nearly 8 percent this year on greater agricultural production and the South Asian country’s booming garments exports industry, the second-largest in the world after China.
The Awami League says its supporters also have been targeted during the run-up to the vote, alleging in a statement Saturday that opposition activists had killed six of their party leaders and injured hundreds more in bomb and arson attacks.
Hasina implored her supporters to stay at polling stations Sunday until the votes had been counted.
“I am alerting all, don’t get confused even if the BNP announces that they are boycotting the election,” Hasina said while visiting a party leader injured in campaign violence at a military-run hospital in Dhaka.
“I want to say, maybe the BNP would say at one point of the election that they are withdrawing from the race, we will not compete. Don’t trust them. It could be a ploy,” she said.
Hossain, too, said he is telling his supporters to stay at voting centers — even at the risk of violence.
“We are saying very strongly ... whatever we do, let us stick it out, however ugly,” he said.
Bangladesh opposition leader expects victory if vote is fair
Bangladesh opposition leader expects victory if vote is fair
- Hossain supported Hasina as part of a grand coalition in 2008 elections, when the Awami League and its allies secured 270 of the 300 seats in Bangladesh’s Parliament
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World welcomes 2026 with fireworks after year of Trump and turmoil
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PARIS, France: People around the globe toasted the end of 2025 on Wednesday, bidding farewell to one of the hottest years on record, packed with Trump tariffs, a Gaza truce and vain hopes for peace in Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin used his traditional New Year address to tell his compatriots their military “heroes” would deliver victory in Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II, while his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky said his country was “10 percent” away from a deal to end the fighting.
Earlier, New Year celebrations took on a somber tone in Sydney as revellers held a minute of silence for victims of the Bondi Beach shooting before nine tons of fireworks lit up the harbor city at the stroke of midnight.
Seeing in the New Year in Moscow, Natalia Spirina, a pensioner from the central city of Ulyanovsk, said that in 2026 she hoped for “our military operation to end as soon as possible, for the guys to come home and for peace and stability to finally be established in Russia.”
Over the border in Vyshgorod, Ukrainian beauty salon manager Daria Lushchyk said the war had made her work “hell” — but that her clients were still coming regardless.
“Nothing can stop our Ukrainian girls from coming in and getting themselves glam,” Lushchyk said.
Back in Sydney, heavily armed police patrolled among hundreds of thousands of people lining the shore barely two weeks after a father and son allegedly opened fire on a Jewish festival at Bondi Beach, killing 15 people in Australia’s deadliest mass shooting for almost 30 years.
Parties paused for a minute of silence an hour before midnight, with the famed Sydney Harbor Bridge bathed in white light to symbolize peace.
Pacific nations including Kiribati and New Zealand were the first to see in 2026, with Seoul and Tokyo following Sydney in celebrations that will stretch to glitzy New York via Scotland’s Hogmanay festival.
More than two million people are expected to pack Rio de Janeiro’s Copacabana Beach for what authorities have called the world’s biggest New Year’s Eve party.
In Hong Kong, a major New Year fireworks display planned for Victoria Harbor was canceled in homage to 161 people killed in a fire in November that engulfed several apartment blocks.
Truce and tariffs
This year has brought a mix of stress and excitement for many, war for others still — and offbeat trends, with Labubu dolls becoming a worldwide craze.
Thieves plundered the Louvre in a daring heist, and K-pop heartthrobs BTS made their long-awaited return.
The world lost pioneering zoologist Jane Goodall, the Vatican chose a new, American, pope and the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk laid bare America’s deep political divisions.
Donald Trump returned as US president in January, launching a tariff blitz that sent global markets into meltdown.
Trump used his Truth Social platform to lash out at his sliding approval ratings ahead of midterm elections to be held in November.
“Isn’t it nice to have a STRONG BORDER, No Inflation, a powerful Military, and great Economy??? Happy New Year!” he wrote.
After two years of war that left much of the Gaza Strip in ruins, US pressure helped land a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in October — though both sides have accused each other of flagrant violations.
“We bid farewell to 2025 with deep sorrow and grief,” said Gaza City resident Shireen Al-Kayali. “We lost a lot of people and our possessions. We lived a difficult and harsh life, displaced from one city to another, under bombardment and in terror.”
In contrast, there was optimism despite abiding internal challenges in Syria, where residents of the capital Damascus celebrated a full year since the fall of Bashar Assad.
“There is no fear, the people are happy, all of Syria is one and united, and God willing ... it will be a good year for the people and the wise leadership,” marketing manager Sahar Al-Said, 33, told AFP against a backdrop of ringing bells near Damascus’s Bab Touma neighborhood.
“I hope, God willing, that we will love each other. Loving each other is enough,” said Bashar Al-Qaderi, 28.
Sports, space and AI
In Dubai, thousands of revellers queued for up to nine hours for a spectacular fireworks and laser display at the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building.
After a build-up featuring jet skis and floating pianos on an adjacent lake, a 10-minute burst of pyrotechnics and LED effects lit up the needle-shaped, 828-meter tall (2,717-feet) tower.
The coming 12 months promise to be full of sports, space and questions over artificial intelligence.
NASA’s Artemis II mission, backed by tech titan Elon Musk, will launch a crewed spacecraft to circle the moon during a 10-day flight, more than 50 years since the last Apollo lunar mission.
After years of unbridled enthusiasm, AI is facing scrutiny and nervous investors are questioning whether the boom might now resemble a market bubble.
Athletes will gather in Italy in February for the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics.
And for a few weeks in June and July, 48 nations will compete in the biggest football World Cup in history in the United States, Mexico and Canada.
