DHAKA: Bangladesh is set to get a new, interim government headed by Nobel Peace Prize-winning economist Muhammad Yunus on Thursday, after weeks of tumultuous student protests forced Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to resign and flee to India.
Yunus, 84, Bangladesh’s only Nobel laureate and a harsh critic of Hasina, was recommended for the job by the student protesters who led the campaign against Hasina.
He was expected to be sworn in as chief adviser along with a team of advisers later on Thursday in an interim government which the army chief said may include 15 members, although discussions on the names continued till late on Wednesday.
Hasina’s Awami League party was not involved in all-party discussions led by army chief General Waker-Uz-Zaman, who announced Hasina’s resignation on Monday.
Her son Sajeeb Wazed Joy said in a Facebook post late on Wednesday that the party had not given up yet and was ready to hold talks with opponents and the administration.
“I had said my family will no longer be involved in politics but the way our party leaders and workers are being attacked, we cannot give up,” Joy said.
Yunus is known as the ‘banker to the poor’ and was awarded the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for founding a bank that pioneered fighting poverty with small loans to needy borrowers.
He is due to arrive in the capital Dhaka from Paris on Thursday, where he had been receiving medical treatment.
“I’m looking forward to going back home and see what’s happening there and how we can organize ourselves to get out of the trouble that we’re in,” Yunus said before he boarded a flight on Wednesday evening.
Hasina’s dramatic exit on Monday from the country she ruled for four terms — and was reelected to a fifth in January — triggered jubilation and violence across Bangladesh, as crowds stormed and ransacked her official residence unopposed.
She fled to neighboring India where she is taking shelter at an air base near the capital New Delhi.
Student protests against quotas for government jobs spiralled in July, killing about 300 people and injuring thousands, as demonstrations were met with a violent crackdown that was criticized internationally although the government denied using excessive force.
The protests were fueled by tough economic conditions and political repression as well.
After years of strong growth as the garment industry expanded, the $450 billion economy struggled with costly imports, inflation and unemployment and the government had sought a bailout from the International Monetary Fund.
Yunus and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), Hasina’s main political opponent, called for calm and an end to violence on Wednesday.
“No destruction, revenge or vengeance,” said Hasina’s arch rival and BNP leader Khaleda Zia, 78, in a video address from her hospital bed to hundreds of her supporters at a rally in Dhaka on Wednesday.
Zia, who was released from house arrest on Tuesday, and her exiled son Tarique Rahman, addressed the rally and called for national elections to be held within three months.
On Wednesday, a court overturned Yunus’ conviction in a labor case in which he was handed a six-month jail sentence in January. Yunus had called his prosecution political, part of a campaign by Hasina to quash dissent.
“Let us make the best use of our new victory,” Yunus said.

WASHINGTON: Hunter Biden was hired by a Romanian businessman accused of corruption who was trying to “influence US government policy” during Joe Biden’s term as vice president, prosecutors said in court papers Wednesday.
Special counsel David Weiss said Hunter Biden’s business associate will testify at the upcoming federal tax trial of the president’s son about the arrangement with the executive, Gabriel Popoviciu, who was facing criminal investigation at the time in Romania.
The allegations are likely to bring a fresh wave of criticism of Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings, which have been the center of Republicans’ investigations into the president’s family. Hunter Biden has blasted Republican inquiries into his family’s business affairs as politically motivated, and has insisted he never involved his father in his business.
An attorney for Hunter Biden didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
Prosecutors plan to introduce evidence that Hunter Biden and his business associate “received compensation from a foreign principal who was attempting to influence US policy and public opinion,” according to the filing. Popoviciu wanted US government agencies to probe the Romanian bribery investigation he was facing in the hopes that would end his legal trouble, according to prosecutors.
Popoviciu is identified only in court papers as G.P., but the details line up with information released in the congressional investigation and media reporting about Hunter Biden’s legal work in Romania. Popoviciu was sentenced to seven years in prison in 2017 after being convicted of real estate fraud. He denied any wrongdoing. An attorney who previously represented Popoviciu didn’t immediately respond to a phone message Wednesday.
Prosecutors say Hunter Biden agreed with his business associate to help Popoviciu fight the criminal charges against him. But prosecutors say they were concerned that “lobbying work might cause political ramifications” for Joe Biden, so the arrangement was structured in a way that “concealed the true nature of the work” for Popoviciu, prosecutors allege.
Hunter Biden’s business associate and Popoviciu signed an agreement to make it look like Popoviciu’s payments were for “management services to real estate prosperities in Romania.” However, prosecutors said, “That was not actually what G.P. was paying for.”
In fact, Popoviciu and Hunter’s business associate agreed that they would be paid for their work to “attempt to influence US government agencies to investigate the Romanian investigation,” prosecutors said. Hunter Biden’s business associate was paid more than $3 million, which was split with Hunter and another business partner, prosecutors say.
The claims were made in court papers as prosecutors responded to a request by Hunter Biden’s legal team to bar from his upcoming trial any reference to allegations of improper political influence that have dogged the president’s son for years. While Republicans’ investigation has raised ethical questions, no evidence has emerged that the president acted corruptly or accepted bribes in his current role or his previous office as vice president.
Hunter Biden’s lawyers have said in court papers that he has been “the target of politically motivated attacks and conspiracy theories” about his foreign business dealings. But they noted he “has never been charged with any crime relating to these unfounded allegations, and the Special Counsel should thus be precluded from even raising such issues at trial.”
Hunter Biden’s trial set to begin next month in Los Angeles centers on charges that he failed to pay at least $1.4 million in taxes over four years during a period in which he has acknowledged struggling with a drug addiction.
Prosecutors say they won’t introduce any evidence that Hunter Biden was directly paid by a foreign government “or evidence that the defendant received compensation for actions taken by his father that impacted national or international politics.”
Still, prosecutors say what Hunter Biden agreed to do for Popoviciu is relevant at trial because it “demonstrates his state and mind and intent” during the years he’s accused of failing to pay his taxes.
“It is also evidence that the defendant’s actions do not reflect someone with a diminished capacity, given that he agreed to attempt to influence US public policy and receive millions of dollars” in the agreement with his business associate, prosecutors wrote.
The tax trial comes months after Hunter Biden was convicted of three felony charges over the purchase of a gun in 2018. Prosecutors argued that the president’s son lied on a mandatory gun-purchase form by saying he was not illegally using or addicted to drugs.
He could face up to 25 years in prison at sentencing set for Nov. 13 in Wilmington, Delaware, but as a first-time offender he is likely to get far less time or avoid prison entirely.