Bangladesh court upholds death sentence of 20 men convicted of murder
A High Court in Bangladesh has upheld the death sentence of 20 men convicted of killing a fellow student seven years ago inside a university campus.
Abrar Fahad, a 21-year-old student at the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), was killed in October 2019, hours after publishing a Facebook post criticising the then Sheikh Hasina government‘s water-sharing treaty with India.
Massive protests erupted in Bangladesh after he was beaten to death with cricket bats and skipping ropes by a group of 25 students who were members of the Bangladesh Chhatra League – the banned student wing of Ms Hasina’s Awami League party.
The second-year college student’s body was found on a stairway at the university dormitory. An autopsy showed that he had been bludgeoned with blunt objects and had extensive bruises on his hands, legs and back.
The mass protests forced Ms Hasina to pledge the highest punishment for the perpetrators. The group of 20 were sentenced to death by a lower court in 2021.
A High Court bench of judge AKM Asaduzzaman and judge Syed Enayet Hossain on Sunday upheld the death sentence of 20 men and life in prison for five others. Four of the 20 men sentenced to death were still at large. One of the convicts, Muntasir Al Jamie, broke through the prison wall of a high-security jail in August 2024 during the anti-government mass protests.
“I am satisfied. I hope the legal procedures will be completed soon, and justice will be served,” Fahad’s father, Barkat Ullah, told reporters after the verdict.
“I don’t want to blame the parents who sent their sons to the top university, but they got involved in bad politics. I would urge others to stay away from harmful activities,” he added.
He urged students to not “engage in bad politics”. “Parents send their children to educational institutions and work hard so that the children have education. However, when children go astray, giving in to temptation, parents are deeply hurt,” he added.
Abrar Faiyaz, the victim’s younger brother, said that the family did not think even a year ago that the High Court verdict would be delivered “so soon”. “It may have been possible because of the changeover on 5 August last year. However, there is still a lot to be done.”
Bangladesh is run by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, who was appointed as the chief advisor, after Ms Hasina’s ouster last year following a violent anti-government uprising.
Mr Faiyaz added that if verdicts are implemented fast, it will act as a deterrent. “No one else should have the same fate as Abrar Fahad,” he added.
The lawyers for some of the defendants said they would appeal against the verdict. “After the appeals are filed, the execution of the death sentence will be suspended,” Azizur Rahman Dulu, the lawyer for two of the convicts, told the Daily Star.
Who are the victims of the North Macedonia nightclub fire?
At least 59 people were killed and over 150 injured in a devastating fire at Club Pulse in Kocani, North Macedonia. Authorities have arrested 20 individuals as part of the investigation and are investigating safety violations and possible corruption linked to the tragedy.
The identities of those killed in the fire are beginning to emerge, though local authorities are yet to issue an official list of the victims. The government is in the process of holding emergency meetings to determine what further action it needs to take. “None of the responsible this time should avoid the law, the justice, and punishment too,” said president Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova. “Nothing is worthier than human life, specifically young life.”
Marija Taseva, 19, was enjoying a night out with her sister at the club on Saturday when the fire broke out. “Everyone started screaming and shouting ‘get out, get out!'” she told Reuters. While she managed to escape, her sister did not survive. “My sister died. I was saved and she wasn’t.”
Many of the victims were young, including teenagers as young as 15. More than 20 of the injured and three of those killed were under 18, said interior minister Pance Toskovski.
Among those who died was Stefania Aleksova, a student at the American University in Bulgaria. “We deeply mourn with our North Macedonian friends for this tragedy that has shaken us all,” university president Dr Margie Ensin said in a statement, reported Bulgaria’s Novinite.com.
Dragi Stojanov, who lost his only child – 21-year-old Tomche – said he was searching for answers. “Let me tell you in front of everybody. Film me. I am a dead man, I lost everything… the whole of Europe should know,” he told reporters.
“After this tragedy, what do I need this life for? I don’t need it. I had one child and I lost him.”
Turkey’s ambassador to Skopje Fatih Ulusoy confirmed that a Turkish citizen was among the wounded and that officials would visit them later in the evening, reported Turkish outlet Yeni Safak .
Survivors sustained severe burns and inhalation injuries. Dr Vladislav Gruev, a reconstructive and plastic surgery specialist, reported that most patients suffered second- and third-degree burns on their head, neck, upper torso, and hands.
Several countries have stepped in to assist with medical evacuations. Bulgaria has transported 14 critically injured victims for treatment. Eight of them, including three teenagers, are in intensive care at Sofia’s Pirogov Hospital, where doctors have issued urgent blood donation appeals. The patients include three minors, two girls and one boy, aged 15 and 16.
The oldest patient is 31-year-old man, reported Novinite.com. All eight are in critical condition in an intensive care unit, with three patients intubated.
Another three victims, two boys and one girl, are receiving care in Varna where they have been intubated and placed in intensive care. Three others are being treated in Plovdiv.
Turkey has also provided medical support. The Turkish health ministry sent two medical evacuation planes, transporting nine victims for specialist treatment in Istanbul and Ankara. “This is a great tragedy for North Macedonia, and we share their pain,” said Fatih Ulusoy, Türkiye’s ambassador to Skopje.
Authorities have arrested around 20 individuals as part of the investigation in the fire. Mr Toskovski suggested potential bribery and corruption linked to the club’s illegal operations. Inspections revealed multiple safety violations, including faulty fire-extinguishing systems and inadequate emergency lighting, he said.
Speaking outside the hospital, Red Cross volunteer Mustafa Saidov described the devastation. “The situation is brutal, chaotic. The stories are very sad, and unfortunately many young lives are lost.”
Trump drafts three-tier US travel ban targeting 43 countries
President Donald Trump appears to have expanded the scope of the travel ban from his first term to include 43 countries, according to a report.
Although Trump failed to reintroduce the “travel ban” on “day one” of his second term, as he promised, he did issue an executive order on January 20 directing cabinet members to draft a list of countries that should face full or partial travel restrictions because their “vetting and screening information is so deficient” within 60 days.
Now, with that deadline approaching, a draft list of proposed countries banned from traveling to the US is circulating, the New York Times reported.
A White House official told The Independent no decision has been made.
It was developed by the State Department weeks ago, officials familiar with the matter told the outlet, who cautioned it will likely undergo changes by the time the White House gets ahold of it.
The Independent has reached out to the State Department for comment.
The draft list was separated into three sections — red, orange, and yellow — to denote the level of restriction, according to the outlet.
The “red” list includes 11 countries whose citizens would be entirely forbidden from entering the US: Afghanistan, Bhutan, Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen.
Ten countries whose citizens will be limited from entering but not entirely banned, meaning they are required to have specific visas, were on the “orange” list. People of Belarus, Eritrea, Haiti, Laos, Myanmar, Pakistan, Russia, Sierra Leone, South Sudan and Turkmenistan will have to sit for in-person interviews to obtain a visa, the outlet reported.
The “yellow” list contains 22 countries, mostly African nations, that the Trump administration is giving 60 days to address its concerns over alleged “deficiencies.” If these nations don’t comply, they risk being placed on the red or orange lists, the Times reported.
This list includes Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Chad, the Republic of Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Dominica, Equatorial Guinea, Gambia, Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, São Tomé and Príncipe, Vanuatu and Zimbabwe.
Security specialists and embassy officials at State Department regional bureaus are reviewing the proposal and providing comments as to the accuracy of the so-called deficiencies or whether there are “policy reasons” to avoid certain categorizations, the outlet reported.
In his January 20 executive order, Trump said the travel ban would “protect its citizens from aliens who intend to commit terrorist attacks, threaten our national security, espouse hateful ideology, or otherwise exploit the immigration laws for malevolent purposes.”
On former President Joe Biden’s first day in office in 2021, he issued a proclamation to terminate Trump’s travel bans. He said Trump’s bans were “a stain on our national conscience and [were] inconsistent with our long history of welcoming people of all faiths and no faith at all.”
US strikes on Yemen kill 31 after Houthis vow to renew Red Sea attacks
The US military conducted overnight airstrikes on Yemen in what president Donald Trump claimed was a response to Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping, killing at least 31 people, most of them women and children, at the start of a campaign expected to last many days.
The airstrikes came after the Houthis threatened to resume attacks on ships linked to Israel in the Red Sea over its blockade of Gaza.
Israel cut off power, halted all international aid supplies to the war-ravaged Palestinian territory earlier this month and renewed deadly attacks, imperiling the fragile ceasefire.
The Houthis targeted around 100 military and civilian ships with missiles and drones, sinking two vessels and killing four sailors, between October 2023, when Israel launched its war on Gaza, and January 2025, when the ceasefire took effect.
Mr Trump also warned Yemen’s chief ally, Iran, that it needed to immediately halt support to the Houthis, who rule most of the Arab country. If Iran threatened the US, he said, “America will hold you fully accountable and we won’t be nice about it!”
The top commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards responded on Sunday that the Houthis took their own strategic and operational decisions.
“We warn our enemies that Iran will respond decisively and destructively if they take their threats into action,” Hossein Salami told state media.
The strikes — which one US official told Reuters might continue for weeks — was the biggest US military operation in the Middle East since Mr Trump took office in January. It came as the United States ramped up sanctions pressure on Tehran while trying to bring it to the negotiating table over its nuclear programme.
“To all Houthi terrorists, your time is up, and your attacks must stop, starting today. If they don’t, hell will rain down upon you like nothing you have ever seen before,” Mr Trump posted on his Truth Social platform.
The attacks killed at least 31 people and injured over 100, mostly women and children, Anees al-Asbahi, a spokesman for the Yemeni health ministry said on Sunday.
The Houthi political bureau described the American attacks as a “war crime.” “Our Yemeni armed forces are fully prepared to respond to escalation with escalation,” it said in a statement.
The attacks targeted the capital Sanaa, the southwestern city of Taiz and the town of Dahyan in northwestern Saada area, Al Masirah TV reported.
Dahyan is where Abdul Malik al-Houthi, the enigmatic leader of the Houthis, often meets his visitors.
“The explosions were violent and shook the neighborhood like an earthquake. They terrified our women and children,” Sanaa resident Abdullah Yahia told Reuters.
The Houthis carried out scores of attacks on ships sailing off its coast after Israel launched the war on Gaza, disrupting global commerce and setting the US military on a costly campaign to intercept missiles and drones that burned through air defence stocks.
A Pentagon spokesperson said the Yemeni attacked American warships 174 times and commercial ships 145 times until early this year.
The Houthis said the attacks were in solidarity with the Palestinians and aimed at pressuring Israel to end the assault on Gaza.
The Joe Biden administration had sought to degrade Houthi ability to attack Red Sea shipping by carrying out a series of airstrikes but had limited success.
US officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Mr Trump had authorised a more aggressive military approach.
The US military’s Central Command, which oversees troops in the Middle East, described the attacks as the start of a major operation across Yemen.
Mr Trump held out the prospect of far more devastating military action. “The Houthi attack on American vessels will not be tolerated. We will use overwhelming lethal force until we have achieved our objective,” Mr Trump wrote.
Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi demanded that the US “end support for Israeli genocide and terrorism”. “Stop killing of Yemeni people,” he said in an X post on Sunday.
He also remarked that Washington had “no authority, or business, dictating Iranian foreign policy”.
Mr Trump recently sent a letter to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, seeking talks over its nuclear programme.
Mr Khamenei, however, rejected holding negotiations with the US.
Iran denies seeking to develop nuclear weapons. However, it is accelerating the enrichment of uranium to up to the roughly 90 percent weapons-grade level, the International Atomic Energy Agency says.
The US and its allies say there’s no need to enrich uranium to such a high level under a civilian programme and that no other country has done so without producing nuclear bombs. Iran maintains its nuclear programme is peaceful.
Five killed in bombing of bus carrying Pakistani security forces
A bus carrying security forces in Pakistan’s restive Balochistan province was struck by a bomb on Sunday, killing at least five personnel and injuring 10.
The blast in the Naushki area severely damaged another nearby bus, local police chief Zafar Zamanani said.
The injured were taken to a nearby hospital for treatment. The death toll could rise as many of the wounded were in serious condition.
Initial investigations indicated a suicide bomber rammed an explosive-laden vehicle into the bus, Dawn quoted the Naushki police as saying.
Balochistan chief minister Sarfraz Bugti condemned the attack, as did Pakistan’s interior minister Mohsin Naqvi. “We share the grief of the families of the deceased. Targeting innocent people is the height of brutality,” Mr Naqvi said on X.
“The enemy of the country is hatching a heinous conspiracy to create instability in the beloved homeland. The nation’s firm resolve cannot be weakened by such cowardly acts.”
“Those who play with the peace of Balochistan will be brought to a tragic end. Cowardly attacks cannot lower our morale. There is no place for terrorists in Balochistan, peace will be established at all costs,” Mr Bugti said.
He promised to bring the perpetrators of the attack to justice. “This war will continue till every last terrorist is eliminated.”
While no group had claimed responsibility by the afternoon, suspicion was likely to fall on the outlawed Baloch Liberation Army, an insurgent group seeking independence, or at least autonomy from Islamabad.
The BLA is classified as a terrorist organisation by Pakistan as well as the United States.
Balochistan, Pakistan’s largest but least populated province, is rich in oil and minerals, which the ethnic Baloch accuse the central government of exploiting to their detriment.
Islamabad denies allegations of shortchanging the local people or discriminating against them.
The attack in Naushki occurred just a day after a policeman was killed and six of his comrades injured in a blast in Quetta.
It also came a week after BLA gunmen hijacked the Jaffar Express train carrying over 400 passengers in the mountains of Balochistan.
The gunmen killed at least 21 passengers, many of them security personnel travelling home, before the military freed the train in an operation that left 33 assailants dead.
President Asif Ali Zardari and prime minister Shehbaz Sharif denounced the attack on the train and vowed to “bring the cowardly terrorists to their end”.