Archive for September 7th, 2008
Sunday, September 7th, 2008The Election Commission (EC) yesterday said it will ask the caretaker government to relax the state of emergency allowing political parties to hold national councils for amending their constitutions ahead of the parliamentary poll.The EC made the promise to Jatiya Party (JP-Ershad) on the first day of its third round of electoral talks with the parties.The criteria for parliamentary parties' mandatory registration with the commission, set by the new electoral law, demand the amendments to the constitutions.Emerging from their talk with the commission, JP leaders disclosed the EC's promise and said their party agreed with all criteria for registration, except ...
(read more) Sunday, September 7th, 2008Officials and contractors of the Bakhrabad Gas Systems Limited (BGSL) pocketed about Tk 396 crore in bribe for providing gas connections since its start in 1980 till December 2007, a Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) report yesterday said.It said systems loss gobbled up about 5648.16 million cubic feet (mmcf) of gas worth Tk 1,646 crore during the same period.The report on "Corruption in Distribution and Marketing of Natural Gas in Chittagong Region: A Special Study on Bakhrabad Gas Systems Limited" was based on information from 603 BGSL clients who took out connections from December 2006 to August 2008.Besides, present ...
(read more) Sunday, September 7th, 2008Detained BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia will file two petitions with the High Court (HC) today for bail in Gatco and Niko graft cases filed by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC).If she is granted bail in these two cases, there would be no legal bar to her release, her lawyer Nasiruddin Ahmed Asim told The Daily Star yesterday.Khaleda, also former prime minister, stands accused in four cases. She has already secured bail in two--Barapukuria coalmine and Zia Orphanage Trust graft cases.Meanwhile, her lawyers Mahbub Uddin Khokon and Naushad Jamir yesterday visited her at the sub-jail on Jatiya Sangsad Bhaban ...
(read more) Sunday, September 7th, 2008Flood situation in the country's central part is likely to deteriorate further while thousands of marooned people in the flood-affected areas are suffering from a shortage of food and drinking water.Crops on vast tracts of land were damaged and hundreds of educational institutions remain closed in the flood-hit districts. Besides, supply of relief materials at temporary shelters for flood-affected people is inadequate.The Flood Forecasting and Warning Centre (FFWC) forecast that water levels of big rivers are expected to fall in a day or two, which will help improve the present flood situation.The water level of the Ganges ...
(read more) Sunday, September 7th, 2008Asif Ali Zardari secured a large win in Pakistan's presidential elections yesterday, capping a remarkable rise from jail, exile and his wife Benazir Bhutto's assassination just nine months ago.The controversial front-runner swept a poll among lawmakers to become the 14th president in Pakistan's short but turbulent history, taking power in the world's only nuclear-armed Islamic state and frontline "war on terror" ally."It is an historic win. It is a victory for democracy," said Sherry Rehman, the country's information minister and a close aide of Bhutto."This man suffered jail for more than 11 years for the sake of democracy and today ...
(read more) Sunday, September 7th, 2008These are some of the rarest animals and birds in Bangladesh -- slow loris, jungle cats, leopard cats, civets, badgers, hornbills and green pigeons. Once they were found frequently, if not in abundance, in the wild. But with systematic destruction of forests, they have now been pushed to the verge of extinction. These animals were captured from different parts of Sri Mongol and Sylhet as they foraged into locality.According to the Red List of International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the animals in the pictures are however not endangered worldwide.Their capture also tells sorry tales of how our evergreen ...
(read more) Sunday, September 7th, 2008Telenor, the Norwegian majority shareholder of Bangladeshi telecom giant Grameenphone (GP), has denied ever reaching an agreement with Grameen Telecom chair Prof Muhammad Yunus to sell its stakes to Bangladeshi management.In a written statement released from Norway on Friday, Telenor, which has 62 percent shares in GP, also threatened to take Yunus to court if he continues to disagree over the shareholder agreement.Meanwhile, Prof Yunus, whose Grameen Telecom has a 38 percent stake in GP, yesterday backed off from earlier suggestions that he would take Telenor to court to force the deal.He told a press conference in the Norwegian capital ...
(read more) Sunday, September 7th, 2008BNP last night decided it would not join the Election Commission's (EC) dialogue today on registration of the political parties, said party leaders.It however did not make a formal announcement to that effect.Talking to The Daily Star at around 10:00pm, former BNP lawmaker Syed Moazzem Hossain Alal said they were sending a letter to the EC to explain their decision.He said they would tell the EC that the party would participate in talks only after release of Chairperson Khaleda Zia.Quoting BNP standing committee member Chowdhury Tanvir Ahmed Siddique, UNB reports that a five-member committee has been formed to make ...
(read more) Sunday, September 7th, 2008Bangladesh should not ask for charity or aid from industrially developed countries to combat climate change but demand compensation from them, speakers at a dialogue in the city said yesterday.The reason for this, they said, is that the industrially developed countries are themselves causing the change in climate.The comments came at a dialogue arranged by BBC Bangla Sanglap (Dialogue) at the Bangladesh-China Friendship Conference Centre on “Bangladesh Sanglap on Climate Change” yesterday.Rezaul Karim Chowdhury, convener of Equity-BD and a panel member at the dialogue, said, "We should not be seeking help from developed countries. It is a question of ...
(read more) Sunday, September 7th, 2008The Election Commission (EC) yesterday did not allow journalists to cover dialogue with political parties on their registration.It gave no explanations for imposing restrictions on journalists' presence at the talks that began at the EC Secretariat conference room.Political leaders present there however said the EC told them that it wanted to discuss some issues 'frankly', and this is why it decided not to allow newsmen to be present there.In the past, the EC always allowed journalists to cover talks with political parties and professional bodies on electoral reforms from September last year for what it said was ...
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