Is Bangladesh once again on the verge of a political meltdown?
With bomb explosions almost taking the life of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, opposition leader Khaleda Zia charged with murder, and violent protests and arson sweeping the capital, the country seems poised at the edge of an abyss.
Of course, Bangladesh has long been plagued by volatility. When the country became independent in the early 1970s, following a bloody war of liberation against the Pakistani Army, U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger famously predicted that the new country's economy would be its Achilles heel.