Archive for December 7th, 2009
Monday, December 7th, 2009Inside her small dark, musty hut, Pia Rani looks like a haunted animal. Fear and insecurity etched in her desperate eyes; she is even hesitant to open the bamboo door just a crack to see her visitors."My husband is away. He has left the village," she then says quietly. "What else could he do?"Well. What else could he do? The villagers agree. In fact, what should we all do? Follow Pia Rani's husband Ranjan Jaladash? they ask. At Chokoria's fishermen's colony, everybody is desperate to find a way out, to know what lays ahead for them.This year, Ranjan tried ...
(read more) Monday, December 7th, 2009Bangladesh is all set to place its demands, including reduction of carbon emission by developed countries, to fight the impacts of global warming as the United Nations Climate Change Summit kicks off today in Copenhagen, Denmark.As a representative of the least developed and most vulnerable countries, Bangladesh demands that the developed nations (Annex I countries) commit to reduce 40 percent carbon emission by 2020 and 80 percent by 2050 and keep the rise of world temperature within 2 degrees Celsius.Bangladesh is also demanding allocation of adaptation funds according to a climate vulnerability index.The inaugural session of the summit will start ...
(read more) Monday, December 7th, 2009Today 56 newspapers in 44 countries take the unprecedented step of speaking with one voice through a common editorial. We do so because humanity faces a profound emergency.Unless we combine to take decisive action, climate change will ravage our planet, and with it our prosperity and security. The dangers have been becoming apparent for a generation. Now the facts have started to speak: 11 of the past 14 years have been the warmest on record, the Arctic ice-cap is melting and last year's inflamed oil and food prices provide a foretaste of future havoc. In scientific journals the question is ...
(read more) Monday, December 7th, 2009The Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) is going to propose in its draft law and reform policy provisions for punishment and promotion of soldiers by their own battalions in a bid to decentralise the force."These two issues solely depend on the headquarters of the force. But we think as the soldiers work under direct command of the battalions, the officers of the battalions know better about them," comments a BDR official."We are proposing in the draft law to empower the battalions to ensure punishment for offences and promotion for good performances," the official explains.The border guards have finalised the draft in the ...
(read more) Monday, December 7th, 2009Detained Kashmiri Islamist militant Abu Yusuf Butt, who is a leader of Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan's armed wing Hijbul Mujahideen, confessed to a Dhaka court yesterday that he was linked to the 2004 grenade attack on an Awami League rally on Bangabandhu Avenue in the city.Disclosing that he was present at the scene of the attack that killed 24 people and injured 300 others, the Hijbul Mujahideen leader also admitted to his close involvement in the planning and preparation of it, court sources said.Yusuf gave the confessional statement before Metropolitan Magistrate AKM Emdadul Huq after being in remand for 14 days in ...
(read more) Monday, December 7th, 2009A head-on collision between two buses yesterday left 20 people dead and 50 others injured on Dhaka-Barisal highway in Bhanga upazila of Faridpur.Of the injured, 25 were sent to Faridpur Medical College Hospital in a critical condition while the rest were taken to Bhanga Health Complex and several clinics, said police.The driver of a Dhaka-bound bus of Chandra Paribahan from Madaripur lost control over steering while trying to save a goat on the highway and collided with a Gopalganj-bound bus of Rajdhani Paribahan at around 4:45 pm, Superintendent of Police Awlad Ali Fakir said quoting locals.Fifteen people were ...
(read more) Monday, December 7th, 2009A number of founding members of BNP were excluded from the list of guests to be invited to the inaugural session of its fifth national council though about three thousand guests, apart from councillors and delegates, are going to attend it.The daylong council will be held tomorrow at Bangabandhu International Conference Centre in city's Sher-e-Bangla Nagar area with BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia in the chair.Khaleda visited the council venue last evening to see for herself the progress in the run-up to the council. She also talked to sub-committee conveners and enquired about the council preparation.Khaleda, also the leader of ...
(read more) Monday, December 7th, 2009Infant mortality rate in Bangladesh halved in 18 years since 1990, reveals a global flagship report of Unicef released yesterday.The report titled "The State of the World's Children" was formally launched at a function at Cirdap auditorium in the capital in celebration of the 20th anniversary of Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).The report on impacts of the convention and the remaining challenges states that the infant mortality rate came down to 43 from 103 per 1,000 births by last year.The mortality rate of children below five also decreased from 149 to 54 per 1,000 within ...
(read more) Monday, December 7th, 2009The government has begun challenging a High Court bench's recent orders granting bail to a good number of people convicted of serious offences.The attorney general's office yesterday filed petitions with the Supreme Court for permission to appeal against bail orders obtained by 18 people sentenced to life in prison.The move comes in response to concern that the “wholesale granting of bail” to the ones found guilty by trial courts of grievous crimes would leave an adverse impact on the society.Attorney General Mahbubey Alam yesterday told The Daily Star his office had filed the petitions with the apex court to ...
(read more) Monday, December 7th, 2009Just a one-meter rise in sea level might cause around 17 percent of Bangladesh's landmass to go under water, displacing some 20 million people living in coastal areas, forecasts Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).A model developed by Bangladesh Centre for Environmental and Geographic Information Services (CEGIS) also demonstrates a similar scenario.In its model, CEGIS shows if the sea level rises 32cm, it will inundate 10,612 square km area in Khulna, Bagerhat, Barguna, Bhola and Pirojpur districts.Scientists say glaciers are melting much faster than they predicted in IPCC reports. The sea level may rise at least 88cm to 1.5m by ...
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