Headlines

UNB, Dhaka The Pakistani state could collapse within six months if immediate steps are not taken to remedy the situation, warned a top adviser to the US Central Command in an interview with Washington Post. David Kilcullen, who advises CENTCOM commander Gen. David H. Petraeus on the war on terror, urged US policy makers to ... Read more

UNB, Dhaka The 27-member high-powered taskforce to fight recession sits today (Tuesday), the first since it was formed on March 18, to take stock of the emerging situation of the country’s economy as the fallout of the global recession and suggest measures to face the challenges. Finance Minister AMA Muhith, the taskforce convenor, will preside ... Read more

The Daily Star visit to 5 leading shopping centres reveals sorry state of fire safety Helemul Alam Most of the shopping malls and markets in the capital are running without proper firefighting equipment and expertise, posing a serious threat to the life and property of owners, tenants and customers. Although a number of big shopping ... Read more

Experts suggest price support and compulsory domestic use Khawaza Main Uddin The country’s jute sector, affected further by the global recession, now deserves ‘minimum support price’ and compulsory use of the fibre in certain public sector programmes to give incentives to both farmers and entrepreneurs, suggest experts. With exports of jute goods declining drastically, they ... Read more

Mamunur Rashid Change in the design of the fire safety lobby at the Bashundhara City complex and technical glitches were mainly blamed for the outbreak of fire at the country’s biggest shopping mall on March 13. Director of Development, Training and Planning of the Fire Service and Civil Defense Motiur Rahman, who is one of ... Read more

POOR SHOW IN SSC, HSC EXAMS 1,614 non-govt schools, colleges face music Siddiqur Rahman Khan The education ministry is going to cancel the monthly pay orders of teachers of 554 non-government schools, colleges and madrassahs and cancel the academic recognition of 1,060 more such institutions, where teachers do not get monthly pay orders, because of ... Read more

Relatives allege excruciating torture; authorities sit today to discuss deaths Staff Correspondent Yet another member of Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) died in mysterious circumstances at the city’s Pilkhana headquarters yesterday. The man was identified as lance nayek Mobarak Hossain. He fled the HQ shortly before the 33-hour mutiny ended on February 26, and later reported back ... Read more

Two-day meet begins today Raheed Ejaz Dhaka and Delhi are beginning two-day talks in Dhaka today to renew the inland water transit and trade protocol, aimed at boosting the inland water trade, between the two next-door neighbours. Foreign and shipping ministry officials told New Age the deal, scheduled to expire on March 31, would be ... Read more

Tk 100-7,000 for a licence, Tk 100-500 for passing test, reveals TIB study on BRTA graft; minister pledges reform committee Staff Correspondent Sixty-one percent drivers have got driving licences from Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) without sitting for the required test while 54 percent of them drive vehicles on roads in the country with expired ... Read more

bdnews24.com, Dhaka The four top administrators of Bangabandu Sheikh Mujib Medical University quit their posts on Sunday, citing ‘personal reasons’. Vice-chancellor Prof Nazrul Islam, pro vice-chancellors Chowdhury Ali Kawser and Mohammad Kamal and treasurer Ruhil Amin Miah, appointed during the past caretaker government regime, faxed their resignation letters to the health secretary in the afternoon. ... Read more

Staff Correspondent Some 153 more Bangladesh Rifles personnel have been arrested in connection with the bloody February 25-26 rebellion at the border guards’ headquarters in Dhaka. The Criminal Investigation Department, tasked with probing the case, produced the BDR soldiers in the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Court on Sunday showing them arrested in the case filed with ... Read more

UNB, Dhaka Anti-Corruption Commission Chairman Lt Gen (retd) Hasan Mashhud Chowdhury Sunday said that it is not easy to combat corruption without political goodwill and commitment. The fight against corruption gets difficult unless the political will against graft does not become visible, the ACC chairman said while speaking at a roundtable on “Applying lessons from ... Read more

Inam Ahmed We have been acting like an ostrich for quite some time and we can keep on doing that. The wave will nevertheless wash over the economy; it actually is making its ripples bigger. The recession is knocking at the door. Take it or not. For a country that is so perilously poised on ... Read more

Staff Reporter A new FBI team arrived in Dhaka Tuesday night to help probe the February 25-26 BDR mutiny yesterday and visited Peelkhana, the headquarters of the border guards. The seven-member team of US Federal Bureau of Investigation visited the places of occurrence of massacre for four hours. US Ambassador to Bangladesh James F Moriarty ... Read more

BB intensifies monitoring on suspicious transactions: Governor UNB, Dhaka Finance Minister AMA Muhith on Wednesday pointed his finger at some new NGOs launched during the rule of former BNP-led alliance government and said they might be behind the funding of militant groups. Referring to such NGOs, he said there were some investments in the country ... Read more

Home minister tells JS Staff correspondent Six hundred and eighty persons died in the custody of law enforcement agencies after 2002, the home minister, Shahara Khatun, told the parliament on Wednesday. They died when the lawmen launched drives to either arrest criminals or recover illegal arms, she said, adding many of them died of heart ... Read more

Residents suffering for last two months Helemul Alam Just after recovering from illness, Kohinoor Begum came to fetch water from a water-carrying lorry of Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) at Senpara Parbata in the city’s Mirpur area yesterday. The woman in her 50s waited around half an hour in a queue and finally managed a bucket ... Read more

Pankaj Karmakar Most of the state run universities and colleges across the country including the apex Dhaka University are gradually getting tourmoiled as Bangladesh Chhattra League (BCL), student organisations of the ruling party Awami League (AL), has become aggressive to establish supremacy over different campuses. This has so happened despite Prime Minister and party chief ... Read more

Taib Ahmed The Fire Service and Civil Defence on its own does inspect not the city high rises to check the status of fire safety measures, sources in the fire service said. Spot visits shows many high rises in the city lacked adequate fire-fighting equipment and properly trained personnel. The building owners neither conduct fire ... Read more

Recruitment slips to half for global meltdown, unscrupulous middlemen Porimol Palma Poor labour recruitment arrangements coupled with ongoing financial meltdown have dealt a double blow to overseas employment, which is moving towards a precarious state. On an average, monthly 46,288 jobseekers left the country in the last three months, while the same rate was 75,516 ... Read more