Bangladesh’s ousted PM Sheikh Hasina sentenced to death in absentia for crimes against humanity after deadly crackdown on student protests.

Dhaka Tribunal Hands Down Historic Verdict

Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal has sentenced former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to death for crimes against humanity, ruling she was the “mastermind” behind last year’s violent suppression of student‑led protests that left more than 1,400 people dead Al Jazeera Asharq Al-Awsat DW.

The 78‑year‑old leader, ousted in 2024 after a mass uprising toppled her 15‑year rule, was tried in absentia. Hasina fled to India alongside her former Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan, who was also sentenced to death. A third defendant, ex‑police chief Chowdhury Abdullah Al‑Mamun, received a five‑year prison term after testifying against Hasina Al Jazeera Asharq Al-Awsat.

Background: From Pro‑Democracy Icon to Authoritarian Rule

Hasina, once celebrated as a pro‑democracy figure, faced mounting criticism as her government grew increasingly authoritarian. The student uprising of 2024 erupted over alleged corruption, economic mismanagement, and suppression of dissent. Security forces responded with lethal force, sparking international outrage and ultimately forcing Hasina into exile DW France 24.

Reactions in Bangladesh and Abroad

• Public Response: Jubilant crowds gathered in Dhaka, with students hailing the verdict as justice for victims of the crackdown Al Jazeera.
• Awami League: The now‑banned party denounced the ruling, calling it politically motivated India Today.
• India: Dhaka has formally demanded Hasina’s extradition, but New Delhi has yet to respond Al Jazeera India Today.
• International Community: Human rights groups welcomed accountability but urged Bangladesh to ensure fair judicial standards.

Geopolitical and Human Rights Implications

The ruling intensifies Bangladesh‑India relations, as Hasina remains in exile across the border. Analysts warn of potential diplomatic strain if India resists extradition. Globally, the case underscores growing scrutiny of leaders accused of using state power to suppress dissent.

What Comes Next for Bangladesh

The verdict sets a precedent in South Asia, signaling that even long‑entrenched leaders can face justice. With parliamentary elections looming, Bangladesh’s political future hinges on whether the ruling consolidates democratic reforms or deepens polarisation.

Sheikh Hasina’s death sentence marks a watershed moment in Bangladesh’s political history, raising urgent questions about justice, democracy, and regional diplomacy.

Sources: Al Jazeera India Today Asharq Al-Awsat DW France 24

For much of the past four years, China’s equity markets have been a graveyard of foreign enthusiasm. International investors, once captivated by the promise of the world’s second-largest economy, retreated amid a property crisis, regulatory crackdowns, and geopolitical tensions. The narrative was one of caution, even resignation: China, many argued, had lost its luster. Yet markets are creatures of sentiment, and sentiment can pivot with startling speed. The recent surge of foreign inflows — the largest since 2021 — marks a turning point. The catalyst is not a stimulus package or a central bank maneuver, but a technological breakthrough that has jolted investors awake.

A Market Long in the Shadows

China’s stock market has endured a bruising half-decade. The collapse of property developers, most notably Evergrande, cast a long shadow over the economy. Regulatory interventions in tech — from e-commerce giants to private tutoring firms — rattled confidence. Foreign ownership of Chinese equities fell to multi-year lows, with MSCI China underperforming global peers by double digits. The Shanghai Composite stagnated, while capital fled to safer havens in the U.S. and Europe. For many, China became synonymous with risk rather than opportunity.

DeepSeek AI: A Shock to the System

Enter DeepSeek, a little-known Chinese AI lab that stunned the world with a breakthrough in generative intelligence. Its model, hailed as a leap beyond existing architectures, demonstrated capabilities that rivaled — and in some cases surpassed — Western counterparts. The symbolism was profound: Beijing was no longer playing catch-up in the AI race. Investors, fatigued by narratives of Chinese decline, suddenly saw evidence of innovation at scale. DeepSeek became shorthand for a broader truth — that China’s technological ecosystem remains formidable, underestimated, and capable of reshaping global competition.

The breakthrough did more than impress engineers. It shifted investor psychology. AI is the defining growth story of this decade, and China now has a flagship to rival Silicon Valley. For foreign funds, the logic was simple: ignore China at your peril.

The Surge of Capital

The numbers tell the story. In October and November 2025, foreign investors poured over $25 billion into Chinese equities, the largest two-month inflow since 2021. The CSI 300 index rallied nearly 12% in the same period, while the MSCI China index outperformed emerging market peers for the first time in years. Tech and semiconductor stocks led the charge, with AI-linked firms posting double-digit gains. Even beleaguered consumer discretionary names saw renewed interest, buoyed by expectations that AI-driven productivity could lift broader growth.

The inflows were not indiscriminate. Capital targeted sectors aligned with innovation: cloud computing, chip design, robotics, and biotech. Foreign ownership of Chinese technology firms rose from 3.8% to 5.1% in just weeks, reversing years of decline. Hedge funds, sovereign wealth funds, and pension managers — long absent — returned with conviction.

Policy Signals and the State’s Hand

The surge was amplified by policy signals from Beijing. Regulators, chastened by the backlash to earlier crackdowns, have softened their tone. The government has rolled out tax incentives for AI firms, streamlined approval processes for foreign investors, and emphasized “predictability” in regulatory frameworks. The People’s Bank of China has kept liquidity ample, while fiscal authorities have hinted at targeted support for innovation hubs.

Macroeconomic indicators, though mixed, have offered reassurance. Industrial output rose 5.2% year-on-year in Q3, while exports stabilized after months of decline. Inflation remains subdued, giving policymakers room to maneuver. For investors, the message is clear: Beijing wants capital, and it is willing to accommodate.

Global Reverberations

The implications stretch far beyond China. Global capital allocation is being recalibrated. For years, emerging market flows were dominated by India, Brazil, and Southeast Asia, while China languished. The DeepSeek moment has reinserted China into the conversation. Asset managers are rebalancing portfolios, shifting weight back to Chinese equities at the expense of other emerging markets.

The tech sector, too, feels the tremors. U.S. markets, long buoyed by AI enthusiasm, now face competition for investor dollars. DeepSeek’s breakthrough has rattled assumptions about American dominance in innovation. Europe, struggling to carve its own AI niche, watches uneasily as capital gravitates eastward. The geopolitical chessboard of technology is being redrawn, with investors as the pawns and beneficiaries alike.

Risks and Skepticism

Yet caution remains warranted. Transparency in Chinese firms is uneven, and corporate governance standards lag global norms. Geopolitical tensions — from U.S.-China trade disputes to Taiwan — could flare at any moment, disrupting flows. The AI sector itself is prone to hype; breakthroughs can dazzle but fail to commercialize. Investors must ask whether DeepSeek represents a sustainable trend or a singular anomaly.

Moreover, the property sector’s malaise has not vanished. Household debt remains high, and consumer confidence fragile. Foreign inflows, while impressive, are concentrated in a narrow band of sectors. A broader recovery in China’s equity market will require more than AI enthusiasm.

A Forward-Looking Thesis

Still, the return of foreign capital is significant. It challenges the prevailing wisdom that China is uninvestable, that its markets are permanently tainted by risk. DeepSeek has reminded the world that innovation is not the monopoly of Silicon Valley. For investors, the lesson is provocative: to bet against China is to bet against the possibility of surprise.

The surge of inflows may not herald a straight-line recovery. Volatility will persist, and skepticism will endure. But the turning point is undeniable. China has reasserted itself as a locus of technological ambition, and global capital has responded. The dragon, long subdued, has roared again — not through stimulus or decree, but through invention.

The world is ditching the dollar. China, the BRICS nations, everyone’s looking for the exit. We hear the warnings constantly: de-dollarisation is the slow, grinding threat to American supremacy. But instead of hiking rates or cutting debt, Donald Trump’s team has unveiled a surprising, counter-intuitive weapon: stablecoins.

It’s a high-stakes, geopolitical bet on code and commerce. The administration is executing a calculated bet on private digital assets—specifically dollar-pegged stablecoins like USD Coin (USDC) and Tether (USDT)—to digitally extend dollar hegemony globally. It’s a strategy to beat China’s digital yuan and neutralize the dollar’s rivals, but the risks to our own financial stability and the global banking system are massive.

This isn’t some fringe idea; it’s official policy, codified in the GENIUS Act signed by the President in July 2025. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has been clear, stating the administration will “use stablecoins to do that” when referring to maintaining the dollar’s dominance globally. The plan is brilliant, aggressive, and perfectly tailored to the “America First” ethos. Yet, the very financial innovation it champions could ultimately act as a digital Trojan Horse, smuggling systemic dangers into the U.S. financial system.

A Digital Extension of Dollar Hegemony: The Treasury Bond Loop

The genius of this strategy lies in its two-part mechanism, which uses the private sector’s demand for the dollar to serve the government’s geopolitical aims. The Trump team isn’t trying to force the dollar onto the world; they’re making it the most irresistible digital currency option.

1. Global Reach: Re-Dollarisation from the Bottom Up

For millions in emerging markets—from Argentina to Nigeria—the U.S. dollar is the only reliable store of value. However, getting those dollars is expensive, slow, and often requires circumvention of local capital controls.

Stablecoins solve this problem instantly. They are, in essence, digital dollar banknotes available 24/7, accessible with nothing more than a smartphone. The GENIUS Act provides a clear regulatory framework for these tokens, signaling global users that U.S.-regulated stablecoins are safe. This accelerates “re-dollarisation” by the people, making the dollar the default currency for cross-border remittances and local saving, independent of foreign governments. It’s a massive, spontaneous global adoption campaign for the global reserve currency.

2. The Perpetual Treasury Demand

This is where the monetary policy meets the geopolitical. The GENIUS Act mandates that permitted stablecoin issuers must maintain one-to-one reserves in “ultra-safe and highly liquid assets,” primarily short-term US Treasuries and cash equivalents.

Every new dollar of USDC or Tether (USDT) issued globally now translates directly into a new buyer of American government debt. With the stablecoin market expected to soar into the trillions, this creates a perpetual, massive, foreign-funded demand for US Treasuries. In an era of record-high U.S. debt and weakening foreign interest, this structural demand is a powerful tool to maintain the dollar’s strength and keep borrowing costs low. It’s dollar diplomacy financed by private tech.

The Team and The Political Narrative

This aggressive posture is driven by a small, influential circle of policymakers and political operators.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller have been the most prominent public cheerleaders. Waller, for his part, has argued that the expansion of dollar-pegged stablecoins in the DeFi space is likely to reinforce the dominant role of the dollar rather than challenge it.

Crucially, this stablecoin strategy is diametrically opposed to the route taken by China and the EU. The Trump team explicitly favors private digital assets and has signed a sweeping Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) ban. This isn’t just policy; it’s a statement: the government won’t innovate; it will regulate, enable, and co-opt the private sector’s financial innovation for national gain.

Perhaps the most potent symbol of this revolving door is the story of Bo Hines. The former executive director of the White House Crypto Council, instrumental in advancing the GENIUS Act, resigned his post only weeks before joining the stablecoin giant Tether as a strategic advisor. This move—the architect of the policy moving directly to the most significant beneficiary—frames the entire strategy as a seamless public-private partnership aimed at entrenching the interests of both “Big Dollar” and “Big Crypto.”

The Dark Side: Systemic Risks and the Banking Threat (The Opinion)

Here’s where the digital Trojan Horse analogy becomes terrifyingly real. The same mechanism that strengthens the dollar globally creates a fierce threat to the banking system domestically.

The primary conflict is over deposits. Banks rely on low-cost savings deposits to fund mortgages and business loans. If consumers and institutions decide to move hundreds of billions of dollars from traditional, insured bank savings accounts into the stablecoin ecosystem, it constitutes a massive deposit flight. Analysts project that an increase in stablecoins could reduce bank deposits by 10% or more, dramatically impacting banks’ cost of funds and their ability to lend. This potentially starves local banks of capital, reducing their lending capacity, and increasing the threat to the banking system.

The second danger is the systemic risk to the US Treasuries market itself.

The paradox is cruel: the stablecoin reserve requirement—the policy’s biggest strength—is also its biggest weakness. If the stablecoin market, now heavily reliant on US Treasuries, were to suffer a crisis of confidence, it could trigger a “digital run.” Issuers would be forced to liquidate hundreds of billions of dollars in their Treasury reserves instantly to meet redemptions. Such a sudden, massive fire sale could destabilize the entire short-term US Treasuries market, one of the cornerstones of global finance.

The Final Verdict: A Geopolitical Masterstroke with Domestic Costs

The Trump team’s embrace of Trump stablecoins is a brilliant, aggressive, and necessary move to counter the rising tides of de-dollarisation. It’s America playing offense in the digital currency wars, using its best financial asset—the stability and network effect of the dollar—and pairing it with the private sector’s financial innovation.

It’s a masterstroke of economic statecraft, but we must understand the cost. We are strengthening the dollar’s grip on the world at the risk of creating a new, volatile, private shadow banking system right here at home. We are trading long-term geopolitical security for immediate domestic financial volatility.

That is the digital Trojan Horse the next administration, regardless of party, will inherit. The stablecoins are already inside the gates. The question isn’t whether they’ll save the dollar, but who gets trampled in the charge.

The administration’s focus on private digital assets like stablecoins is a defining feature of their digital finance strategy, as discussed in this Stablecoins will strengthen US dollar as a reserve currency video explaining the impact of this policy goal.