The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) is on track for a historic return to power after securing an absolute majority in Thursday's elections, according to provisional results. The elections mark the end of the era of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, a political transition triggered by the August 2014 protests. They left more than 1,400 deadIn addition to electing members of Parliament, Bangladeshis have approved in a referendum the package of constitutional reforms born from the student uprising, which aims to prevent a future prime minister from accumulating absolute power. With the vote count still underway, preliminary results released by local media on Friday give the BNP at least 151 of the 299 seats at stake, the exact threshold needed to govern alone. If confirmed, this victory would end a 15-year period of ostracism and persecution for the party led by Tarique Rahman, who recently returned to the country after 17 years of exile in London. "The people of Bangladesh have been waiting for this day for a long time. Today, the people have regained their rights," he proclaimed. Rahman, 60, belongs to the influential Zia family: he is the son of former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia and Ziaur Rahman, who was assassinated while serving as president in 1981. Rahman has pledged to rebuild democratic institutions, restore the rule of law, and revive the struggling economy.

A court in Bangladesh has sentenced former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to death, finding her guilty of ordering a brutal crackdown – which left more than a thousand dead – against the protesters who last year participated in a wave of student-led anti-government protestsHasina has been tried in absentia, as she has been in exile in India since August 2024. when he resigned and fled the country because of the riotsThe International Criminal Tribunal for the former prime minister, which tries war crimes in the country, has found both the former prime minister and her former interior minister and police chief guilty of allowing the use of lethal force against protesters and failing to prevent atrocities committed against them. Before former police chief Abdullah al-Mamun, the only defendant present for the sentencing, the judges read the charges, detailing the scale of the violence in the police action and referencing evidence of how the former prime minister and her inner circle used lethal force to suppress the uprising. Up to 1,400 people are estimated to have died between July 15 and August 5, 2024, most of them victims of gunfire from the country's security forces, according to a United Nations report.

The Chinese car boom, driven primarily by electrified models, is already having a direct impact on freight traffic at the Port of Barcelona. According to the infrastructure report this Wednesday, vehicle traffic increased by 3.5% between January and September. This increase is directly related to the rise in sales of Chinese cars in Europe. In fact, the bulk of this traffic recorded in the last nine months is imported, which has grown by 36%.