Other Headlines

Poll schedule announcement today The Election Commission will hold upazila election in the middle of next month, Chief Election Commissioner Kazi Rakibuddin Ahmad said yesterday. The election to 113 upazilas will be held in the first phase, the CEC told journalists after a meeting with senior officials of different ministries at the

Severe gas shortage in the capital has affected households, commercial and industrial units in the last few weeks, a number of victims said Saturday. They did not get adequate gas supply even on weekends Friday and Saturday as their cookers, boilers and CNG refuelling stations could not operate.

This year, only two out of 20 species of migratory birds have come to one of their regular winter transit points in Bangladesh, the lake at Jahangirnagar University, bird watchers and ornithologists said. They blamed the decline on an alarming trend witnessed for the past five years. At least 61 species of birds used to ... Read more

Steep fall in sales forces realtors to stop taking new projects The real estate sector has almost stopped taking new projects following a drastic fall in the sales of plots and flats in recent times. The realtors said registration of new projects witnessed a significant fall last year for absence of a good business environment. They said ... Read more

A Japanese soldier, who hunkered down in the jungles of the Philippines for nearly three decades, refusing to believe that World War II had ended, has died in Tokyo. Hiroo Onoda was 91 years old. In 1944, Onoda was sent to the small island of Lubang in the western Philippines to spy on US forces ... Read more

Fishermen and divers caught at least 25 dolphins in a controversial Japanese fishing village yesterday, according to environmentalists, who said the process was captive selection ahead of a mass slaughter. Activists from the militant environmental group Sea Shepherd streamed live footage of the dolphin capture in the village of Taiji, which drew worldwide

Majority of private universities seem to have turned a deaf ear to the Private University Act provision which requires them to move to their own campus in seven years after establishment as only 11 of the 52 private universities have done so. There are now 77 private universities running in the country and 52 of them ... Read more

North Korea and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) have congratulated Sheikh Hasina on her assumption of the office of the Prime Minister of Bangladesh for the third time. According to a foreign ministry release issued yesterday, Pak Pong Ju, premier of the Cabinet, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, greeted the new government headed by ... Read more

Asks BNP to sever ties with Jamaat-Hefazat The European Union on Thursday called on the government and opposition to consider early elections to ‘give the Bangladeshi people a chance to express their democratic choice in a representative way’. In a resolution adopted on the ‘recent elections’ in Bangladesh, the EU also urged the Bangladesh Nationalist Party ... Read more

Awami League joint general secretary Jahangir Kabir Nanok yesterday alleged that BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia was engaged in spreading lies to mislead the people after her blunder for boycotting January 5 parliamentary elections. Addressing a press conference at the party chief Sheikh Hasina’s Dhanmondi political office, Nanok said Khaleda Zia is now engaged

An enigma even in her final journey; president, PM, BNP chief condole Iconic Bengali actress Suchitra Sen, often described as India’s Greta Garbo after she quit acting at the height of her career to lead a hermit-like existence, died on Friday aged 82, reports AFP. The star had been ill in hospital in the eastern ... Read more

The tussle between Jatiya Party (JP) chairman HM Ershad and his wife, also the senior member of the JP’s presidium and leader of opposition in Parliament, Rawshan Ershad, is worsening day by day. The schism relates to control over the party and its functioning, inside Parliament. The conflict between HM Ershad and Rawshan Ershad worsened further ... Read more

In the wake of widespread violence across the country, authorities have taken strong security measures for the upcoming Biswa Ijtema, the second largest congregation of Muslims after the holy Hajj, reports UNB. This year, the three-day first phase of the Biswa Ijtema will begin on January 24 on the bank of the Turag River at ... Read more

Though the country’s power generation capacity reached 10,000 megawatts in November last year, actual generation of such a quantum of electricity was not possible because of the dearth of energy supplies and mismanagement in power distribution, a report by the Planning Commission (PC) said on Wednesday. It prepared the report on January 15 so that the

The number of students in public universities is increasing every year and authorities are struggling to provide them with accommodation in halls of residence as the universities can provide only a third of their students with residence. According to University Grants Commission’s 2012 annual report published on January 9, only 32 per cent students were

BNP vice-chairman Selima Rahman was released from Kashimpur jail on Friday morning as she secured bail on Thursday in a case filed under explosives act, reports UNB. Jail sources said she came out from the women unit of the jail around 11:15 am. A Dhaka court granted bail to Selima Rahman on Tk 20,000 bond. ... Read more

Family members of murdered controversial Pir Lutfur Rahman are feeling helpless, as law enforcers have not been able to make much headway in the investigation into the killing of six persons in the Gopibagh area of Old Dhaka on December 21. Despite repeated assurances by the police that they were doing their best, family members ... Read more

Ctg hospitals see increased inflows of patients as temperature drops With the fall in temperature, a large number of children affected by cold related complications have been admitted to the paediatric ward at Chittagong Medical College Hospital (CMCH) and private clinics in the city over the past few days. Most of them contracted pneumonia, asthma, and ... Read more

Kidnappers realise ransom from families thru’ agents in Bangladesh A number of kidnapping gangs run by Bangladeshi nationals are trapping their compatriots working abroad by offering lucrative jobs in some European countries. The gangs, active mainly in some Middle Eastern countries and Greece, lure migrant workers with promises of jobs in Turkey, Italy and some ... Read more

A previously unknown, yet potentially very important, ancient Egyptian kingdom has been discovered by archaeologists working in the Nile Valley. Excavations at Abydos, 70 miles north-west of Egypt’s famous Valley of the Kings, have revealed the existence of an entire royal cemetery. The cemetery