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TARIQ LEAVES FOR TREATMENT ABROAD
Khaleda freed; BNP to join dialogue, elections
Abdur Rahman Khan
BNP chief Begum Khaleda Zia, immediately after her release on Thursday, announced that her party would join the electoral dialogue and general elections, and Tariq Rahman would be away from politics until his full recovery from illness...[ FULL STORY ]
INADEQUATE RELIEF OPERATIONS
Flood continues to cause miseries to victim
Special Correspondent
Although the authorities refused to accept the second spell of flood as a serious matter, the people of the affected districts found it to be severe in terms of damage and miseries. Joblessness, sky-rocketing prices of essentials, outbreak of waterborne diseases and poor relief efforts are making the lives of poor people miserable. In some areas, however, the flood situation is now showing signs of some improvement...[ FULL STORY ]
WIDESPREAD WORKERS' VIOLENCE
External forces' heinous plot to destroy RMG sector?
Faruque Ahmed
The garment sector is facing violence and widespread anarchy over the past several months and more so in recent weeks and the factory owners and industry leaders are blaming a vested interest quarters for it...[ FULL STORY ]
PARADIGM SHIFTS IN SOUTH ASIAN GEO-POLITICS-III
Will US negotiate with Taliban for an Afghan coalition?
Sadeq Khan
On August 26, top US and Pakistani military officials met on a US aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln in the Indian Ocean to discuss strategies to contain the growing militant threat along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. They reviewed the syndrome of increasingly deadly attacks against Afghan and Western targets in Afghanistan following a series of bombings and threats by Taliban-led insurgents. The meeting was mainly to continue to discuss ongoing operations against extremists in the border region and to work together to find better ways to solve those problems...[ FULL STORY ]
Bangladesh gets $130m UK fund to fight climate change impact
Special Correspondent
Bangladesh received 75 million pounds from the UK government to fight the effects of climate change, according to an announcement made in London on Wednesday.
A recent study by the World Bank, leading donors and the Bangladesh government had found the country urgently needed huge amounts of money for its survival...[ FULL STORY ]
VERY LOW INTERNET SPEED
Bangladesh lags far behind many countries
Moinuddin Naser in New York
Underdeveloped countries in Asia including Bangladesh do not have access to high speed internet market like the rich countries. The UN International Telecommuni-cation Union (ITU) stating the discrimination in having access to the high speed internet, in a report said that while some countries in Asia and the Pacific the world's largest broadband market have high speed and affordable internet access, the same cannot be said for most of the region's poorer nations...[ FULL STORY ]
ZARDARI 12th PRESIDENT OF PAKISTAN
Sharif absent from ceremony, while Karzai attends as chief guest
Jonaid Iqbal in Islamabad
PPP co-chairperson Asif Ali Zardari was sworn in as the 12th President of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan on Tuesday. The ceremony was delayed by an hour in wait for Afghan President Hamid Karzai who was the chief guest at the installation ceremony. For some reason Newaz Sharif flew away to London. However, he strongly approved Asif's rise to the country's high office and also assured him of his party's support...[ FULL STORY ]
INDIA-US RELATIONS
Nuclear waiver a big blow to non-proliferation
Praful Bidwai in New Delhi
The special waiver granted to India by the Nuclear Suppliers' Group (NSG) from its nuclear trade rules is being seen as a massive setback to the cause of global nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament.
The NSG's waiver will allow India to resume nuclear commerce with the rest of the world with very few restrictions although India is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and has refused to accede to any other agreement for preventing the spread of, reducing the numbers of, or abolishing nuclear weapons. ..[ FULL STORY ]
GLIMPSES OF THE GREAT
George Orwell
K. Z. Islam
George Orwell (1903-1950) embarked on his career as a socialist idealist by examining working class life at close quarters. He first took rooms in Notting Hill, at that time a London slum. Then in 1929 he worked in Paris as a dish washer and kitchen porter. He then lived with tramps and hop-pickers, boarded with a working class family in Wigan, and kept a village store. All these activities had one aim: 'I felt I had to escape not merely from imperialism but from every form of man's dominion over man. I wanted to submerge myself, to get right down among the oppressed, to be one of them and on their side against the tyrants'. He started life with extreme socialistic ideas...[ FULL STORY ]
Why Hotel Sheraton is leaving; who comes next?
Shahabuddin Ahmad
The question being asked by the knowledgeable circles is why the Sheraton hotel chain is leaving the operation of the Dhaka Sheraton hotel from first January, 2009? And why the owners of the hotel property - Bangladesh Services Limited (BSL) - is now looking for another international hotel chain to run it?
The Sheraton hotel chain had notified BSL last year that the older section of the hotel building needed urgent repair, refurbishing and renovation in certain vital areas to bring the property up to international level and keep the operation smooth...[ FULL STORY ]
Restrictions on trade union relaxed under pressure from outside
Special Correspondent
Keeping the emergency power rules (EPR) in force, the caretaker government has announced certain relaxation in the trade union activities following months of political violence and series of strikes in the industrial belts...[ FULL STORY ]
AFGHANISTAN
US-NATO air strikes swell civilian toll
Ali Gharib in Washington
Ramped-up U.S. and NATO air strikes in Afghanistan are causing an increased civilian death toll, raising concerns about the fallout from civilian deaths on the war effort against the Taliban insurgency, according to a major news report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) released here earlier this week...[ FULL STORY ]
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