On Sunday (July 13), a government order signed by Jeti Pru, Senior Assistant Secretary of the Appointment-2 Branch of the Ministry of Public Administration, announced the extension of magistracy powers for the armed forces.

According to the order, powers of Special Executive Magistrate have been delegated under Sections 12(1) and 17 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898, to commissioned officers of the rank of Captain and above in the Armed Forces, including equivalent officers deployed on deputation in the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) and Coast Guard.

These officers will be authorized across the country to take action under Sections 64, 65, 83, 84, 86, 95(2), 100, 105, 107, 109, 110, 126, 127, 128, 130, 133, and 142 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898, in controlling offenses.

This order, issued in the public interest under the authority of the President, takes effect immediately.

Previously, on September 17, the armed forces were granted magistracy powers for 60 days. Since then, the tenure has been extended several times.

The same PSG that defeated clubs like Real Madrid and Bayern Munich to reach the final was brought down by Chelsea. On Sunday (July 13) at midnight, Chelsea beat the in-form PSG 3-0 to win the FIFA Club World Cup.

Although PSG dominated possession throughout the match, Chelsea led in attacks, build-up play, and creating scoring chances. They reaped the rewards as early as the 22nd minute, when Cole Palmer found the net from a pass by Gusto inside the box.

Just eight minutes later, Palmer scored again—this time assisted by Colwill. Trailing by two goals, PSG began to lose composure, and Chelsea took advantage. In the 43rd minute, João Pedro scored the third goal. It was his third goal since joining Chelsea.

While PSG couldn’t create any notable chances in the first half, they began pressing for opportunities early in the second half. However, Dembélé and his teammates couldn’t break Chelsea’s solid defense. As the match began slipping out of PSG’s hands, frustration started to show.

In the 85th minute, PSG’s Portuguese star João Neves received a red card for pulling Chelsea defender Cucurella’s hair. In the 87th minute, Ousmane Dembélé was shown a yellow card for arguing with the referee. Ultimately, Chelsea walked off the field with a convincing 3-goal victory. After the match, players from both sides clashed physically, and PSG coach Luis Enrique also lost his temper and got involved.

Thus, PSG’s dream of a perfect season came to an end. After winning the treble, they were the hot favorites to win the Club World Cup. They even made it to the final, but couldn’t secure the title. On the other hand, Chelsea, who had earlier won the Conference League, ended their season with another trophy. This marks their second Club World Cup title. They first won it in 2021 by defeating Brazilian club Palmeiras.

A recent spate of violent crimes across the country has raised serious concerns about the effectiveness of law enforcement, nearly a year into the interim government’s tenure. Data from the Police Headquarters (PHQ) presents a grim picture of violent crimes, including murder, mugging, robbery, extortion, and mob violence, in the first six months of 2025.

Moreover, many of these incidents were caught on camera and widely shared on social media, fuelling fear and insecurity among the public. Inspector General of Police Mohammad Baharul Alam admitted that the police are yet to regain their control following last year’s traumatic political upheaval.

“You may say we haven’t been 100 percent successful. Maybe not even 50 percent. The situation is widespread … we must find ways to deal with it,” he told yesterday.

Experts warned that the situation may worsen if the government fails to take prompt and effective measures to tackle it. According to PHQ, 1,336 cases of dacoity and robbery were reported across the country in the first six months of this year.

During the same period, police recorded 1,930 murder cases, though over 400 of them were filed over incidents that took place in previous years. Crimes against women and children also remained a serious concern. From January to June this year, 11,008 cases related to the repression of women and children were filed.

In addition, 515 kidnapping cases were reported in the same period, indicating a growing threat to personal security. Mob violence remained a disturbing trend. At least 89 people were killed in mob attacks between January and June this year, including 45 in Dhaka alone, according to rights group Ain o Salish Kendra. Such incidents have continued despite repeated warnings from law enforcement officials and government advisers.

One such case is the recent brutal killing of scrap metal trader Lal Chand alias Sohag in the capital’s Mitford area on Wednesday, a video of which went viral on social media, sparking public outrage. Many criticised how such a barbaric assault could occur in broad daylight and in full view of bystanders, without any intervention.

Meanwhile, a group of armed men attacked a business establishment in the capital’s Pallabi on Friday, allegedly for not getting Tk 5 crore in extortion money. Also on Friday, unidentified assailants severed tendons and shot dead a former Jubo Dal leader in front of his house in Khulna city.

The same day, a 75-year-old khatib of a local mosque was hacked with a machete after Juma prayers in Chandpur. On Friday morning, muggers in the capital’s Shyamoli area not only snatched valuables from a man but also took his shirt and shoes.

Just a day before, police recovered the body of a man bearing multiple hack wounds, with his hands cuffed behind his back and legs tied with a scarf, from a roadside in the capital’s Mirpur-11 area.Such killings have lately hogged the headlines.

Apart from these, mugging incidents, some taking place in broad daylight, have also rattled people’s confidence in the country’s law and order. These incidents kept occurring even as the army remains deployed across the country with magistracy powers to assist in maintaining law and order. IGP Baharul Alam yesterday said the authorities are yet a find a way to make the force fully operational.

“Our main challenge is making the force 100 percent effective after such a traumatic experience [last year],” he said at an event in Gendaria.

“I’m still not satisfied [with the situation]. We’re still in the process [of regaining control],” he said, adding that operations and arrests of known criminals are ongoing.

On political ties to crimes, he said the expulsion of accused individuals from political organisations is a welcome sign. Meanwhile, Home Affairs Adviser Lt Gen (retd) Jahangir Alam Chowdhury defended law enforcers. “If police were inactive, arrests wouldn’t have happened in last two days,” he said, referring to the Mitford murder.

“There may have been some delays in action, but we acted after verifying information,” he said, urging people to contact police instead of taking law into their own hands.

Meanwhile, Rapid Action Battalion Director General AKM Shahidur Rahman said the elite force is focused on regaining public trust following criticism during last year’s political unrest. “Gaining public trust is the main task,” he said at a press briefing in Karwan Bazar.

Omar Faruk, a professor at the Department of Criminology and Police Science at Mawlana Bhashani Science and Technology University, said prolonged political misuse of the police has deeply damaged the institution.

“For 15 years, police have been used politically. That damage is hard to reverse,” he told. “Police still don’t behave like they should in a democratic country.”

He added, “I have spoken to several officers. They believe the police are going through a crisis period, and once it’s over, the situation will be under control, gradually.” However, he said the government has to arrange training or counselling programmes to help officers adapt to the situation. He also said curated efforts are needed to rebuild the trust between the force and the people.

Militancy in Bangladesh was once “nothing more than a drama,” from which the country has now been freed, Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of Police for Dhaka Range Rezaul Karim Mallick has said.

“For 18 long years, we were under fascist rule — we are free from that as well. We are now working as part of the new police force of a new Bangladesh,” he said while addressing a public gathering in Shariatpur today (13 July). Addressing the issue of extortion, DIG Rezaul said police are working to stop extortion on roads, waterways, and other sectors.

“No extortion or terrorism will be tolerated. Anyone involved in extortion will be arrested wherever they are found,” he warned.

The anti-drug, anti-terrorism, and anti-militancy event was held at the drill shed of the Shariatpur Police Lines at 11am today. The event was attended by leaders of various political parties, representatives of the Students Against Discrimination, family members of those killed in the 2024 mass uprising, members of civil society, and district police officials. At the end of the programme, DIG Rezaul distributed gifts to 14 families in Shariatpur who had lost loved ones during the July uprising.

The State Department began firing more than 1,350 U.S.-based employees on Friday as the administration of President Donald Trump presses ahead with an unprecedented overhaul of its diplomatic corps, a move critics say will undermine U.S. ability to defend and promote U.S. interests abroad. The layoffs, which affect 1,107 civil service and 246 foreign service officers based in the United States, come at a time when Washington is grappling with multiple crises on the world stage: Russia’s war in Ukraine, the almost two-year-long Gaza conflict, and the Middle East on edge due to high tension between Israel and Iran.

“The Department is streamlining domestic operations to focus on diplomatic priorities,” an internal State Department notice that was sent to the workforce said. “Headcount reductions have been carefully tailored to affect non-core functions, duplicative or redundant offices, and offices where considerable efficiencies may be found,” it added. The total reduction in the workforce will be nearly 3,000, including the voluntary departures, according to the notice and a senior State Department official, out of the 18,000 employees based in the United States.

The move is the first step of a restructuring that Trump has sought to ensure U.S. foreign policy is aligned with his “America First” agenda. Former diplomats and critics say the firing of foreign service officers risks America’s ability to counter the growing assertiveness from adversaries such as China and Russia.

“President Trump and Secretary of State Rubio are once again making America less safe and less secure,” Democratic senator Tim Kaine from Virginia said in a statement.

“This is one of the most ridiculous decisions that could possibly be made at a time when China is increasing its diplomatic footprint around the world and establishing an overseas network of military and transportation bases, Russia is continuing its years-long brutal assault of a sovereign country, and the Middle East is careening from crisis to crisis,” Kaine said.

Dozens of State Department employees crowded the lobby of the agency’s headquarters in Washington holding an impromptu “clap-out” for their colleagues who have been fired. Dozens of people were crying, as they carried their belongings in boxes and hugged and bid farewell to friends and fellow workers.

Everyone agrees: it’s getting worse. The people of Kyiv have, like the citizens of other Ukrainian cities, been through a lot. After three and a half years of fluctuating fortunes, they are tough and extremely resilient. But in recent months, they have been experiencing something new: vast, coordinated waves of attacks from the air, involving hundreds of drones and missiles, often concentrated on a single city.

Last night, it was Kyiv. And the week before too. In between, it was Lutsk in the far west. Three years ago, Iranian-supplied Shahed drones were a relative novelty. I remember hearing my first, buzzing a lazy arc across the night sky above the southern city of Zaporizhzhia in October 2022. But now everyone is familiar with the sound, and its most fearsome recent iteration: a dive-bombing wail some have compared to the German World War Two Stuka aircraft.

The sound of swarms of approaching drones have sent hardened civilians back to bomb shelters, the metro and underground car parks for the first time since the early days of the war.

“The house shook like it was made of paper,” Katya, a Kyiv resident, told me after last night’s heavy bombardment.

“We spent the entire night sitting in the bathroom.”

“I went to the parking for the first time,” another resident, Svitlana, told me.

“The building shook and I could see fires across the river.”

The attacks don’t always claim lives, but they are spreading fear and eroding morale.

After an attack on a residential block in Kyiv last week, a shocked grandmother, Mariia, told me that her 11-year old grandson had turned to her, in the shelter, and said he understood the meaning of death for the first time.

He has every reason to be fearful. The UN’s Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU) says June saw the highest monthly civilian casualties in three years, with 232 people killed and over 1,300 injured. Many will have been killed or wounded in communities close to the front lines, but others have been killed in cities far from the fighting.

“The surge in long-range missile and drone strikes across the country has brought even more death and destruction to civilians far away from the frontline,” says Danielle Bell, head of HRMMU.

YouTube has announced it will shut down its Trending Page on July 21, nearly 10 years after its launch in 2015, citing a significant drop in user engagement. In a blog post on the YouTube Help page, the company revealed that visits to the Trending Page have decreased sharply over the past five years as users increasingly discover popular content through other features like recommendations, search suggestions, Shorts, comments, and Communities.

“YouTube’s Trending Page Help Center has revealed that the Trending Page will be shut down on July 21,” the company stated.

Going forward, YouTube will highlight trending content through YouTube Charts. While currently limited to music, users can explore Trending Music Videos, Weekly Top Podcast Shows, and Trending Movie Trailers, reports says.

More content categories will be added over time. Gaming videos will continue to appear on the Gaming Explore page. In addition to Charts, YouTube said it will offer personalised video recommendations, allowing a “wider range of popular content” to be shown to users based on individual preferences.

Non-personalised trending content will still be available via the Explore Page, creator channels, and subscription feeds. Content creators have long used the Trending Page to promote videos and monitor viral trends. For them, YouTube said the Inspiration tab in YouTube Studio will continue to offer personalised content ideas.

The platform also announced an update to its monetisation policy, aimed at curbing inauthentic, mass-produced content. The new rules take effect on July 15.

Alphabet’s Google has hired several key staff members from AI code generation startup Windsurf, the companies announced on Friday, in a surprise move following an attempt by its rival OpenAI to acquire the startup. Google is paying $2.4 billion in license fees as part of the deal to use some of Windsurf’s technology under non-exclusive terms, according to a person familiar with the arrangement. Google will not take a stake or any controlling interest in Windsurf, the person added.

Windsurf CEO Varun Mohan, co-founder Douglas Chen, and some members of the coding tool’s research and development team will join Google’s DeepMind AI division. The deal followed months of discussions Windsurf was having with OpenAI to sell itself in a deal that could value it at $3 billion, highlighting the interest in the code-generation space which has emerged as one of the fastest-growing AI applications, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters in June.

OpenAI could not be immediately reached for a comment. The former Windsurf team will focus on agentic coding initiatives at Google DeepMind, primarily working on the Gemini project.

“We’re excited to welcome some top AI coding talent from Windsurf’s team to Google DeepMind to advance our work in agentic coding,” Google said in a statement.

The unusual deal structure marks a win for backers for Windsurf, which has raised $243 million from investors including Kleiner Perkins, Greenoaks and General Catalyst, and was last valued at $1.25 billion one year ago, according to PitchBook.

Windsurf investors will receive liquidity through the license fee and retain their stakes in the company, sources told Reuters. Google’s surprise swoop mirrors its deal in August 2024 to hire key employees from chatbot startup Character.AI.

Big Tech peers, including Microsoft, Amazon and Meta, have similarly taken to these so-called acquihire deals, which some have criticized as an attempt to evade regulatory scrutiny. Microsoft struck a $650 million deal with Inflection AI in March 2024, to use the AI startup’s models and hire its staff, while Amazon hired AI firm Adept’s co-founders and some of its team last June. Meta took a 49% stake in Scale AI in June in the biggest test yet of this increasing form of business partnerships.

Unlike acquisitions that would give the buyer a controlling stake, these deals do not require a review by US antitrust regulators. However, they could probe the deal if they believe it was structured to avoid those requirements or harm competition. Many of the deals have since become the subject of regulatory probes.

The development comes as tech giants, including Alphabet and Meta, aggressively chase high-profile acquisitions and offer multi-million-dollar pay packages to attract top talent in the race to lead the next wave of AI.

Windsurf’s head of business, Jeff Wang, has been appointed its interim CEO, and Graham Moreno, vice president of global sales, will be president, effective immediately. The majority of Windsurf’s roughly 250 employees will remain with the company, which has announced plans to prioritize innovation for its enterprise clients.

At least 15 Palestinians, including eight children and two women, have been killed in an Israeli strike while queuing for nutritional supplements in front of a clinic in central Gaza, a hospital says.

Video from al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al-Balah showed the bodies of several children and others lying on the floor as medics treated their wounds.

US-based aid group Project Hope, which runs the clinic, said the attack was a blatant violation of international law. The Israeli military said it struck a “Hamas terrorist” and regretted any harm to civilians.

They were among 66 people reportedly killed in Israeli strikes on Thursday, as Israel and Hamas continued talks on a ceasefire deal. Despite optimism expressed by the US, which is acting as a mediator along with Qatar and Egypt, they do not so far seem to be close to a breakthrough.

Project Hope said Thursday morning’s strike in front of its Altayara health clinic in Deir al-Balah happened as patients had gathered outside, awaiting its opening to receive treatment for malnutrition, infections, chronic illnesses and more.

“Suddenly, we heard the sound of a drone approaching, and then the explosion happened,” witness Yousef al-Aydi told AFP news agency. “The ground shook beneath our feet, and everything around us turned into blood and deafening screams.”

Graphic footage posted on social media, which was verified by the BBC, showed the immediate aftermath of the attack, with adults and young children lying in a street, some severely wounded and others not moving.

At the mortuary of nearby al-Aqsa hospital, relatives of those killed wept as they wrapped the dead children in white shrouds and body bags before performing funeral prayers.

One woman told the BBC that her pregnant niece, Manal, and her daughter, Fatima, were among them, and that Manal’s son was in the intensive care unit.

“She was queuing to get the children supplements when the incident happened,” Intisar said.

Another woman standing nearby said: “For what sin were they killed?”

“We are dying before the ears and eyes of the whole world. The whole world is watching the Gaza Strip. If people aren’t killed by the Israeli army, they die trying to get aid.”

Project Hope’s president and CEO, Rabih Torbay, said the aid group’s clinics were “a place of refuge in Gaza where people bring their small children, women access pregnancy and postpartum care, people receive treatment for malnutrition, and more”.

“Yet, this morning, innocent families were mercilessly attacked as they stood in line waiting for the doors to open,” he added. “Horrified and heartbroken cannot properly communicate how we feel anymore.”

“This is a blatant violation of international humanitarian law, and a stark reminder that no-one and no place is safe in Gaza, even as ceasefire talks continue. This cannot continue.”

Unicef boss Catherine Russell said: “The killing of families trying to access life-saving aid is unconscionable.”

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement that it struck a member of the elite Nukhba forces of Hamas’s military wing who had taken part in the 7 October 2023 attack on Israel.

“The IDF is aware of reports regarding a number of injured individuals in the area. The incident is under review,” it added. “The IDF regrets any harm to uninvolved individuals.”

BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir today (12 July) blamed the absence of elections for the worsening law and order situation in the country and the rise in killings, saying criminals are taking advantage of the lack of an elected government.

“A government elected by the people will certainly be stronger and more accountable. I hope that together we will be able to establish a democratic state through unity and collective efforts,” he said while addressing a views-exchange meeting with the families of martyrs of the July mass uprising, reports UNB.

He called for completing necessary reforms quickly to return to democracy through a fair election. Otherwise, the BNP leader warned, the nation will not forgive the government and hold it responsible for creating these problems at a time when the country is heading towards the restoration of democracy.

“We sincerely want a change in the system and structure of the state and then to move forward with an election. There is no alternative to democracy, and the first step towards it is holding elections,” he said.

The BNP leader demanded a prompt investigation into the recent killings, including that of a scrap trader in Old Dhaka, to identify the offenders and bring them to justice.

“I would like to clearly urge the government to investigate these incidents very quickly and ensure the actual offenders are identified and brought to justice,” he said.

Mirza Fakhrul also called upon BNP leaders and activists to remain calm and patient in their democratic struggle.

“To those who have made sacrifices, I ask you to wait a little longer with patience. Ensure that no one among us commits any wrongdoing. BNP has never supported injustice and never will. BNP has always stood for the rule of law and will continue to do so,” he said.

The Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal organised the programme at a hotel in the capital to mark the first anniversary of the July–August mass uprising and to honour the family members of the brave martyrs of Chhatra Dal. BNP Acting Chairman Tarique Rahman joined the programme virtually from London.

Fakhrul suggested that Chhatra Dal prepare a book documenting the sacrifices of its martyred members. He also assured that if the BNP comes to power, the state will give due honour to the martyrs and stand by their families.

The BNP leader once again called on the interim government to ensure proper compensation for those killed and proper rehabilitation for those injured in the July-August uprising.