Headlines

Ctg Correspondent At least eight workers of rival factions of the Awami League backed Chhatra League suffered wounds following a clash over establishing supremacy at the university train yesterday afternoon. Eyewitness said that supporters of two rival groups of BCL – Ulka and 69 – locked into heated altercation over taking control of the train’s ... Read more

UNB, Dhaka Bangladesh Human Rights Commission (BHRC) chairman yesterday said inquiries would be held if there be specific complaints of human rights violation against former ministers, MPs and others while under detention during the immediate-past caretaker government’s rule. “If there are specific complaints, we will see…We will inquire,” Justice Amirul Kabir Chowdhury told UNB when ... Read more

Staff Correspondent Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will hear people’s complaints and opinion every Saturday from now on at her political office in the capital’s Dhanmondi. Prime Minister’s Press Secretary Abul Kalam Azad said this to reporters at her political office yesterday after Hasina’s meeting with Gopalganj district Muktijoddha Command Council and Awami League leaders and ... Read more

RU Correspondent Islami Chhatra Shibir activists along with outsiders staged a big showdown on the Rajshahi University (RU) campus yesterday to celebrate the 32nd founding anniversary of the student organisation, creating panic among general students and teachers. Witnesses said RU Shibir activists and outsiders, including students from schools, colleges and madrasas, brought out a procession ... Read more

A Correspondent, Munshiganj Robbers killed a Bangladeshi stationary shop owner in Johannesburg, South Africa, Thursday and looted valuables from the shop. The robbers swooped on Iqbal Haji’s Iqbal Stationery in the suburbs of Johannesburg around 10:30pm (local time). They stabbed Iqbal to death, his elder brother Jasim Uddin Bhuiyan said. Iqbal, son of Shamsul Haque ... Read more

Reuters, German U.S. Vice President Joe Biden announced changes to U.S. foreign policy on Saturday that emphasized diplomacy over military power but also urged allies to shoulder more of the burden in tackling global crises. “I come to Europe on behalf of a new administration determined to set a new tone in Washington, and in ... Read more

Agence France-Presse . London BBC television presenter Jeremy Clarkson said on Saturday that while he was sorry for having made fun of British prime minister Gordon Brown’s appearance, he would not apologise for calling him an ‘idiot’. Clarkson, known to viewers around the world as the face of the BBC’s top-rated ‘Top Gear’ car show, ... Read more

Staff Correspondent Three Chinese crew of a Panama flag carrier vessel, including the chief officer, were killed after they had fallen into the oil tank of the vessel near Myanmar on its way to the Chittagong Port Friday afternoon. The deceased were identified as chief officer of the vessel Tan Weifang, 37, third officer Ju ... Read more

Two ministers, intelligence sources say Hasan Jahid Tusher and M Abul Kalam Azad The government a couple of days ago received information from different international intelligence agencies that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s life is under threat from international terrorist organisations who are in

Nurul Alam . Chittagong A severe power crisis has hit the Chittagong region, reeling under more than 150MW of load shedding, sources in the Power Development Board said. The Secondary School Certificate examinees scheduled to take for the exams beginning February 15 have become the worst suffers because of the power crisis. A drastic fall ... Read more

Primary Education In A Shambles-1 70pc can’t read, write even after 5-yr study Suranjith Deabnath and Raihan Sabuktagin The quality of the country’s primary education is so substandard that around 70 percent of students who complete the five-year primary level education are unable to read, write or calculate properly. According to a new government study, ... Read more

Staff Correspondent The government is planning to float tenders online to make the public procurement system transparent, accountable and functional and keep it free from undue influence, officials said. As part of the Public Procurement Reform Project-II, it has taken up a plan to introduce, in phases, e-government procurement (e-GP) to modernise the outdated procurement ... Read more

Pinaki Roy The government is going to start work on Trans-Asian Railway (TAR) that would connect the country’s railway system to a 81,000-km network stretching from Europe to East and South-East Asia. ” The prime minister has already directed me to take initiative in this regard,” Communications Minister Syed Abul Hossain told The Daily Star. ... Read more

Bdnews24.com . Dhaka The main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party will chair four parliamentary standing committees, chief whip Abdus Shahid said on Friday. No opposition party chaired a standing committee — parliamentary watchdog on ministries — in the previous eight parliaments. ‘Proportionately, the main opposition BNP will get four chairs of the standing committees. We’ve already ... Read more

Raheed Ejaz Dhaka and Washington will focus on security, especially combating terrorism, and trade, during the US senior assistant secretary of state Richard Boucher’s scheduled meeting with the officials here today and tomorrow. Boucher was scheduled to arrive in the capital early Saturday on a two-day visit to Bangladesh to meet officials, including the prime ... Read more

Staff Reporter The proposed South Asia Task Force and giving ‘transit ‘ to India under bilateral agreement would cause an extreme, harm to the country’s independence and sovereignty, said speakers at a roundtable in the city. They said any move to allow transit to India under bilateral deal would not be welcomed by the people ... Read more

Staff Correspondent, Ctg The government is to start the process of constructing a tunnel under the Karnaphuli in Chittagong as soon as mid September. Communication Minister Syed Abul Hossain said this while visiting the site of the under-construction third bridge over the Karnaphuli yesterday afternoon. The Awami League had promised in its electoral pledges that ... Read more

Pakistan to publish report next week Afp, New Delhi/ Lahore India for the first time yesterday directly accused Pakistan’s military intelligence agency of involvement in the Mumbai attacks. In a speech in Paris reported by the Indian media yesterday, Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon said the perpetrators “planned, trained and launched their attacks from Pakistan, and ... Read more

Deal allows passage of goods through one country into another UNB, Dhaka Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s cabinet on Thursday decided to renew for three years the Bangladesh-India trade agreement, which allows passage of goods through one country into another under one of its provisions. Endorsing another major

Staff Correspondent The Election Commission on Thursday filed a case against the fisheries and livestock minister, Abdul Latif Biswas, his daughter and four other local Awami League leaders for intervening in polling and violating the electoral code of conduct in the upazila elections. The commission in the case alleged Latif had assaulted polling personnel, snatched ... Read more