News

A United Nations inquiry into the assassination of former Pakistani PM Benazir Bhutto has formally began. It is headed by Chile’s ambassador to the UN, Heraldo Munoz, and includes a former Indonesian attorney general and a former senior Irish police officer. The inquiry will last six months and investigate the “facts and circumstances” of Ms ... Read more

New Long March China moving fast to break unipolar world The skeptics are now convinced that China rightly embarked on the second long march in the year 1978 after successfully blending socialist political system with market economy. The historic long march brought political independence for the Chinese people and the new China emerged in the ... Read more

Plan to build 4 satellite towns outside Dhaka State Minister for Housing and Public Works advocate Abdul Mannan Khan invited all local and foreign firms to invest in the country”s housing sector hugely under Public-Private Partnership (PPP), the newly-conceived development paradigm, to rid the capital city of unplanned urbanization that creates what is sardonically called ... Read more

Khaleda seeks Hasina’s assistance to send BNP team to dam site Prime minister Sheikh Hasina has said the problems posed by the controversial Tipai-mukh dam project by India could be resolved through bilateral discussion . “I believe I will be able to resolve the problem through bi-lateral discussions.” She accused the main opposition BNP of ... Read more

Hundreds of angry apparel workers set ablaze a 10-storey building of Hameem Group yesterday in protest against at the death of two of their co-workers in Ansar and police firing over the past two days at Ashulia in Savar. The two garment workers were killed in firing by Ansar and police and about 200 others ... Read more

Duties on newsprint, mobiles, motorbikes, micro-buses ought to be lowered, says PM The premier, Sheikh Hasina, on Monday asked the elected representatives and members of the administrations to work hard to implement the proposed budget for 2009-10 fiscal year, which she termed a ‘pro-people’ budget. The premier, while taking part in the general discussion on ... Read more

The leader of the opposition in parliament and BNP’s chairperson, Khaleda Zia, on Monday wrote a letter to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, naming a six-member team for visiting the site of the proposed Tipaimukh dam, in response to the latter’s request that BNP send a separate team. The team comprises BNP’s two vice-chairmen, MK Anwar ... Read more

The High Court yesterday issued a rule upon the government to show cause within four weeks as to why the extra-judicial killings ‘in the name of crossfire or encounter’ by the law enforcing agencies, should not be declared illegal and without lawful authority. The court also asked the government to explain as to why departmental ... Read more

RMG Workers’ Mayhem in Ashulia It all started with the sacking in a sick unit Sacking of about 1,000 workers of a sick garment factory was at the root of yesterday’s mayhem in Ashulia. But it fanned at a stunning speed the festering anger of workers of a large number of sick garment factories. Ultimately, ... Read more

Home Minister Advocate Sahara Kathun told the House on Monday that a total of 74 persons, including 57 army officers, were killed in BDR mutiny at Pilkhana on February 25-26. Replying to a question raised by treasury bench member Begum Meher Afroz, she said the other people, who were killed in the carnage, included a ... Read more

A telephoned threat to bomb the Dhaka Stock Exchange on Monday forced the authorities concerned to stop trading at the bourse forty-five minutes earlier than the scheduled closing time, said a senior official. When contacted, DSE’s president Rakibur Rahman told New Age from Singapore over the phone, ‘We think the fake bomb threat was an ... Read more

Focus only on their constituencies: Suranjit Awami League (AL) lawmaker Suranjit Sengupta criticised some ministers for speaking only about their own constituencies rather than the entire country during discussion on the proposed budget in parliament yesterday. Suranjit, chief of the parliamentary standing committee on law, justice and parliamentary affairs ministry, also fired a broadside at

Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) yesterday blamed government ‘failure’ to ensure law and order as the main reason behind last three days’ incidents in Ashulia-Savar industrial belt near the capital, resulting in damage worth around Tk 300crore. Leaders of the BGMEA refused to recognise the incidents as ‘labour unrest’. They claimed that these ... Read more

1 more killed, 150 hurt as RMG workers clash with cops for second day Garment workers clashed with police for hours at Ashulia near the capital yesterday, leaving a co-worker killed and over 150 people including 30 cops wounded. The fight followed Saturday’s pitched battles that saw a worker killed and 25 others injured when ... Read more

Awami League’s spokesman and Minister for Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperatives Syed Ashraful Islam yesterday criticised the comments made by party general secretary Abdul Jalil saying that none should do anything that affect the party unity. “It was good for him not to make such statements at this moment,” he said in an exclusive ... Read more

At least one in every seven garment factories does not pay salaries to the workers regularly and one in every three factories could in no way be considered a good employer in view of the labour laws, an official survey reveals. Labour rights violation is actually more widespread in garment factories than the survey has ... Read more

The move to revamp the opposition BNP in a bottom-up approach faced obstacles at its initial-level as differences of opinion among grassroots leaders and activists surfaced over formation of the convening committees at district levels. A number of district units failed to present full-fledged convening committees to the central committee for approval within the deadline ... Read more

JS body asks for steps to recover 3.27 lakh acres grabbed land A parliamentary body yesterday castigated forest officials for their failure to prevent grabbing of forest land and illegal felling of trees, and directed the chief conservator of forest to strengthen the drive to recover around 3.27 lakh acres of land from grabbers. The ... Read more

Joint working group on counter terrorism launched Bangladesh and UK yesterday launched a joint working group (JWG) to enhance counter terrorism cooperation between the two countries for building capacity of combating terrorism. At the first meeting of JWG, high officials of the two countries primarily identified the areas of cooperation, including sharing intelligence and training ... Read more