VIOLENT protests erupted in several cities across Bangladesh after the death of youth leader Sharif Osman Hadi late on Thursday, with concerns of further unrest ahead of national elections in which he was due to run.

Mr. Hadi, 32, a spokesperson for the Inquilab Mancha platform who participated in the student-led protests that overthrew the government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, was shot in the head by masked assailants in Dhaka last Friday while launching his campaign for the elections.

He was initially treated at a local hospital before being flown to Singapore for advanced medical care, where he died after spending six days on life support.

Mr. Hadi was an outspoken critic of India, and Inquilab Mancha describes itself on its website as a “revolutionary cultural platform inspired by the spirit of uprising.”

In Dhaka, videos circulating on social media showed mobs vandalizing the offices of the country’s largest daily newspaper, Prothom Alo, as well as the Daily Star.

The demonstrations were marked by emotionally charged slogans invoking Mr. Hadi’s name, with protesters vowing to continue their movement and demanding swift justice. Several areas remained tense, with additional police and paramilitary forces deployed to prevent further violence.

Police did not immediately comment, while the fire service said the blaze at the Daily Star was under control. Troops were deployed to the scene, and firefighters rescued journalists trapped inside the building.

PRESSURE ON THE GOVERNMENT
Bangladesh has been governed by an interim administration led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus since August 2024, after Mr. Hasina fled to India following a student-led uprising.

The government has been grappling with fresh protests over delayed reforms, and warnings of unrest by Mr. Hasina’s party, which has been barred from the vote, scheduled for February 12.

In a televised address to the nation following Mr. Hadi’s death, Mr. Yunus said: “His passing represents an irreplaceable loss to the nation’s political and democratic sphere.”

Urging citizens to remain calm, Mr. Yunus said the government was committed to ensuring a transparent investigation and bringing all those responsible to justice. He also appealed for restraint, warning that violence would only undermine the country’s path toward a credible election.

The interim administration has declared Saturday a day of state mourning in honor of Mr. Hadi, with national flags to be flown at half-mast and special prayers planned across the country.

The home of the country’s first president, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the father of Mr. Hasina, was vandalized and set on fire once again, after having been attacked twice previously in February and August last year.

In Dhaka, the premises of the prominent Bengali cultural organization Chhayanaut were vandalized and torched. In the northwestern district of Rajshahi, protesters demolished an Awami League party office using a bulldozer, while demonstrators blocked major highways in several other districts.

Violence was also reported in a number of cities across Bangladesh, including the port city of Chittagong, where protesters attacked the Indian Assistant High Commission and set fire to a house belonging to a former Awami League education minister.

The unrest follows fresh anti-India protests earlier in the week, with ties between the neighbors deteriorating since Mr. Hasina fled to Delhi. On Wednesday, hundreds of demonstrators under the banner “July Oikya” (July Unity) marched toward the Indian High Commission in Dhaka, chanting anti-India slogans, while also demanding the return of Mr. Hasina.— Reuters

PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island/SALEM, New Hampshire — Police have identified a suspect in last weekend’s deadly mass shooting at Brown University and are investigating a possible link to the murder of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor two days later near Boston, a person familiar with the matter said.

The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to discuss the matter, did not provide more details on the identification of the suspect or why investigators think the two cases may be linked.

On Thursday night, officers in SWAT gear and law enforcement vehicles, including some police cars from Providence and the Rhode Island State Police, were seen surrounding a storage facility in Salem, New Hampshire, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) north of downtown Boston. The source familiar with the probe said the police activity in Salem was related to the investigation.

The manhunt since Saturday’s shooting inside a classroom building at Brown University has left students and residents of Providence, Rhode Island, “restless and eager” for an arrest, said Mayor Brett Smiley. Two students were killed and at least eight were wounded.

Two days later, MIT professor Nuno Loureiro, 47, was fatally shot in his home in the Boston suburb of Brookline, Massachusetts, some 80 km (50 miles) north of Brown’s campus.

Earlier this week, an FBI official said authorities did not believe there was a link between Saturday’s shooting at Brown and the MIT professor’s murder. Mr. Loureiro was a member of the departments of nuclear science and engineering and physics as well as MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center.

SEEKING THE PUBLIC’S HELP
Investigators in Providence said the suspect in the Brown University shooting escaped on foot into nearby streets, prompting a search that relied heavily on residential security footage because of a lack of surveillance cameras in the classroom building and surrounding area.

Police released images and video of a masked man believed to be the shooter, based on survivor accounts, and have repeatedly asked for the public’s help in identifying him. The footage showed the suspect walking in a nearby neighborhood both before and immediately after the attack, including moments when police vehicles arrived with flashing lights.

“He could be anywhere,” Providence Police Chief Oscar Perez said on Wednesday, adding that authorities did not initially know the suspect’s identity or motive.

Police also circulated photos of another unidentified man seen near the area, saying they wanted to speak with him as a potential witness who may have relevant information.

Authorities initially announced a person was in custody a day after the shooting, but later released that individual after determining he was not involved.— Reuters

MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin is likely to send a signal to the United States and European powers on Friday over his appetite for peace or more war in Ukraine when he speaks at a marathon end-of-year news conference.

Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, after eight years of fighting in eastern Ukraine, triggering the biggest confrontation between Moscow and the West since the Cold War.

US President Donald Trump, who says he wants to be remembered as a peacemaker, has repeatedly complained that ending the Ukraine war has been one of the elusive foreign policy aims of his presidency.

Mr. Putin, Russia’s paramount leader since the last day of 1999, will lead an end-of-year news conference and call-in with the population that is due to begin at 0900 GMT (5:00 p.m. PHT) on Friday.

PUTIN DUE TO TAKE DOZENS OF QUESTIONS
At the “Results of the Year” event, which Mr. Putin has held in different formats most years since 2001, he fields dozens of questions on everything from price rises and his own future to nuclear weapons and what the Kremlin calls the “special military operation” in Ukraine.

Attendees had to undergo a COVID test – still routine for meetings involving Mr. Putin, 73, several years after the end of the pandemic.

At stake is whether Mr. Putin will agree an end to the deadliest war in Europe since World War Two, the extent to which European powers are sidelined and whether or not a peace deal brokered by the United States will fly.

Ukraine and its European allies are worried that Mr. Trump could sell out Ukraine and leave European powers to foot the bill for supporting a devastated Ukraine after Russian forces took 12-17 square kilometers (4.6-6.6 square miles) per day in 2025.

They echo former US President Joe Biden in saying the Russian invasion was an imperial-style land grab for which Moscow must be punished, a view which Mr. Trump has challenged.

Mr. Putin casts the war as a watershed moment in relations with the West, which he says humiliated Russia after the Soviet Union fell in 1991 by enlarging NATO and encroaching on what he considers Moscow’s sphere of influence.

An end to the war could reconnect Russia – which holds some of the world’s biggest reserves of natural resources from oil and gas to diamonds and rare earths – with the United States just as it seeks to refocus on competition with China, with whom Mr. Putin has forged a “no limits” partnership.

A continuation of the war would lead to many more deaths, drain the economies of Ukraine, Russia and European powers, and raise the chances of the war escalating.

US officials say that Russia and Ukraine have suffered more than 2 million casualties, including dead and wounded since the war began. Neither Russia nor Ukraine disclose credible estimates of their losses.— Reuters

SOFIA — Thousands of Bulgarians protested on Thursday evening against the outgoing government, calling for fair elections and judicial reform to tackle what they describe as endemic corruption in the European Union’s poorest member state.

The protests in the capital Sofia and several other towns and cities across the Black Sea nation are the latest in a series of rolling demonstrations and come as Bulgaria prepares to adopt the euro on January 1.

The outgoing government, in power since January, had looked set to oversee the transition to the euro, but Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov handed in his government’s resignation last week after weeks of street protests against state corruption and a new budget that would have increased taxes.

Protesters on Thursday held Bulgarian and EU flags. One sign read “This is not farce.”

“Everything about it (the government) is extremely brazen. Shameless. Such arrogant behavior defines this government,” said Shisman Nikolov, a 48-year-old salesman.

“Society does not respect people who consider themselves above others.”

The president, Rumen Radev, is holding consultations with parties, but if they refuse or fail to form the government, he will appoint an interim government and call a snap election.

Bulgaria, a NATO member state, has held seven national elections in the past four years as consecutive governments failed to keep control of a fractured parliament.

Kalina Yurukova, 21-year-old student, said: “If you steal constantly, you must think you are above everyone else. And for people who are arrogant and have not a shred of shame, I cannot have respect or associate myself with them.”

Earlier this month, the government withdrew its 2026 budget plan, the first drafted in euros, due to the mass protests. Opposition parties and other organizations said they were protesting against plans to hike social security contributions and taxes on dividends to finance higher state spending. — Reuters