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Dhaka, Apr 30 opposition BNP has announced countrywide protest programme on Wednesday as it completed its two consecutive days of nationwide general strike demanding 'release' of the missing leader M Ilias Ali on Monday. BNP's joint secretary general Ruhul Kabir Rizvi at a press conference at the party's Naya Paltan headquarters said the next course of agitation would be announced from Wednesday's demonstration. Last week, the main opposition had observed general strike for three consecutive days over the same demand. Rizvi also condemned filing of cases against the opposition leaders allegedly over hurling of homemade bombs at the Secretariat and setting a vehicle ablaze in front of the prime minister's office during the Sunday's general strike. He urged the government to withdraw the cases, which he termed 'baseless.' The cases filed were filed with Shahbagh and Tejgaon police stations accusing 18-party coalition leaders including BNP&

Online Report Two cases have been filed against BNP leaders Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir and Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, LDP President Oli Ahmed and several other leaders and activists of the 18-party alliance for Sunday's violence. Meanwhile, BNP leader Kamruzzaman Ratan, accused in both cases, was placed on a three-day remand on Monday. Nearly two hours into the filing of the cases, police arrested him at Mouchak around 1:00am Monday. Of the cases, one was filed with Tejgaon Police Station for torching a vehicle near the Prime Minister’s Office while the other with Shahbagh Police Station in connection with the 'bomb' blast in the Bangladesh Secretariat during Sunday’s hartal hours. Tejgaon police filed the vehicle torching case against 43 leaders and activists of BNP-led 18-party alliance around 11:00pm Sunday. BNP acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, party Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, party lawmaker Shahid Uddin Chowdhury Anny, BNP le

Dhaka, Apr 30 Rushdir, wife of missing BNP leader M Ilias Ali, has asked for a scope to meet prime minister Sheikh Hasina as 13 days have passed since her husband went missing. In a press briefing at her residence in Banani on Monday morning, Tahsina said, "My children are facing uncertainty and insecurity. I can't even send them to school. I want my husband back at any cost." "If the prime minister allows, I want to meet her with my family." Tahsina said the law enforcers were becoming less helpful in finding out her husband. "It has been three days since the officials investigating the case last spoke to me. Since then nobody from any law enforcing agencies contacted me." Ilias' two sons and daughter were with Tahsina during the briefing. The 18-party opposition alliance led by BNP is enforcing two daylong shutdowns on Sunday and Monday demanding 'return' of Ilias Ali, one of the party's organising secretaries and chief o

Dhaka, Apr 30 Ali Azam the driver of the car that Border Guard Bangladesh personnel caught while reportedly carrying an unaccounted for Tk 7 million cash did not appear before a probe body formed to investigate the incident. The probe body advertised in the newspapers and sent notices to the residence of Azam, asking him to appear before it on Monday for questioning. The driver Azam has been missing since the night of Apr 9 when BGB reportedly recovered the money from the car carrying former railways minister Suranjit Sengupta's assistant personal secretary Omar Faruq Talukdar and two railway officials The cash-scandal led to the suspension of railways east zone general manager Yusuf Ali Mridha and railways police Dhaka commandant Enamul Haque. APS Faruq was fired while Suranjit stepped down from his position as railways minister following the incident. Anti Corruption Commission initiated an investigation into the incident. On a question whether a fair probe would b

Dhaka, Apr 30 The opposition BNP on Monday claimed the cases filed against the top-level leaders of the BNP-led 18-party opposition alliance are politically motivated. "The government has filed the cases out of ill-motive just to divert attention from Ilias Ali's abduction," party's standing committee member Moudud Ahmed told a press briefing at BNP chief Khaleda Zia's Gulshan office reacting to the filing of cases. Police on Sunday night filed cases against several leaders of the opposition alliance including BNP's acting secretary-general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain and A S M Hannan Shah over the bomb blasts at the Secretariat, and vandalism and torching of vehicles in front of the Prime Minister's Office during Sunday's nationwide general strike. Demanding withdrawal of the cases, Moudud threatened to intensify agitation on the streets. He said, "Top-level leaders of a major political party of the count

Dhaka, Apr 29 Foreign minister Dipu Moni has left for Kolkata on Sunday to receive the prestigious Mother Teresa award. "She left in a Biman flight at 11:00 in the morning," public relations officer of the foreign ministry Monirul Islam Kabir told bdnews24.com. Dipu Moni has been nominated for the award for 'social work and administration'. The Bangladesh foreign minister does not have any scheduled meeting with the West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee. However, foreign ministry sources do not reject the possibility of a unscheduled meeting between the two. Bangladesh and India failed to strike an interim water sharing deal for the Teesta River during Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh's visit last year due to Mamata Banerjee's 'strong reservation'. Dipu Moni is scheduled to back on May 1.

Online Report Md Helal Uddin, former officer-in-charge of Khilgaon Police Station, has been denied bail once again in a case over the torture of Dhaka University student Abdul Kadar in custody. He is also accused of falsely implicating the youth in several criminal cases including robbery and carjacking. Judge Mohammad Zahurul Haque of Metropolitan Sessions Judge's Court in Dhaka turned down the bail petition on Sunday when Helal’s lawyer filed a criminal appeal against the lower court rejection order. On April 9, the First Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate denied him bail. Metropolitan Magistrate Mohammad Mizanur Rahman sent Helal to prison on the latter's surrender in a case filed against him with the police station on January 23. Kadar, a student of DU biochemistry and molecular biology department, filed the case in line with recommendations of a law ministry probe committee and a HC order. Helal was sent to jail on April 2 when he surrendered before the co

Dhaka, Apr 29 (bdnews24.com) – The secretary general of D-8 Widi A Pratikto is scheduled to arrive in Dhaka on May 1 on a four-day visit to review the cooperation that the Bangladesh has with the member countries of the organisation. "The secretary general will have meetings with ministers of agriculture, foreign, industries, civil aviation and tourism. He will also meet foreign secretary and head of civil aviation authority in Bangladesh," foreign ministry director F M Borhan Uddin told bdnews24.com. Ankara-based D-8 was formed in 1996 with the objective to strengthen economic cooperation between member states and improve their position in the global economy. Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Makaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan and Turkey are the members of the organisation. "We have identified the areas where cooperation can be extended and now working on mechanism to have deeper engagement," Borhan Uddin said.

Dhaka, Apr 29 (morningnews24.com) – A Dhaka court adjourned hearing on Sunday on the charge-framing against the BNP chief Khaleda Zia, her son Tarique Rahman and four others to July 14. Judge Mohammad Mozammel Hossain of the Dhaka Special Judge's Court-3 rescheduled the hearing following plea from Khaleda's lawyers Taherul Islam Touhid and Joynal Abedin Mesbah. The BNP chief's lawyers said Khaleda could not come to the court over security concerns on the first day of the dawn-to-dusk shutdown. Barrister Mahbub Uddin Khokon, lawyer for Tarique, appeared before the court as the BNP senior vice-chairman has been living abroad. The other accused are former MP from a Magura constituency Qazi Solimul Hoque, former bureaucrat Kamaluddin Siddiqui, businessman Shorfuddin Ahmed and Mominur Rahman. Qazi Solimul Hoque and Shorfuddin Ahmed, who had earlier secured bail, were absent at the court. Their lawyers pleaded for more time. The other two accused in the case are abs

Dhaka, Apr 29 (morningnews24.com)—Ridiculing strict security measures during the opposition-sponsored shutdown, two hand bombs exploded inside the Secretariat on Sunday. There have been no reports of casualties. The bombs exploded around 3:45pm near Gate-2 of the seat of the government, next to Building 8 which houses the home ministry. Two unidentified youths riding a motorcycle hurled the bombs right in front of law-enforcers on guard and sped away, Dhaka Metropolitan Police's deputy commissioner of Ramna zone Syed Nurul Islam told bdnews24.com One of the bombs exploded on the boundary wall near Zero Point, while the other went off in the parking lot near the cars of the home minister and the state minister for home. It fell on the window of Ansar official Ashish Kumar Rai, DC Nurul Islam added. The incident occurred in presence of hundreds of policemen who were 'dumbfounded' by the attack. Prime minister Sheikh Hasina attended a programme at the Osmani Memoria

Vandalism, arson and cocktail blasts took place at different parts of the capital and elsewhere in the country during the dawn-to-dusk hartal for a third consecutive day on Tuesday. Incidents of police resistance to processions and detention of opposition activists were also reported during the nationwide shutdown demanding that the government trace BNP leader M Ilias Ali and his driver. The violence happened at different places in the city including Rajarbagh, Agargaon, Mohakhali, Gulshan, Malibagh, Bangla Motor intersection, Karwan Bazar, Dhanmondi and Jatrabari. Three cocktails went off at Rajarbagh around 8:15am leaving two police personnel injured. Two more cocktails exploded at Maghbazar around 1:30pm while another blast took place near Gulshan crossing in the morning. In Mohakhali, a section of Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal (JCD) activists brought out a procession in the morning and vandalised five vehicles there. A human hauler was also vandalised in Malibagh railgate

The United States on Tuesday expressed concern over the disappearance of BNP leader M Ilias Ali and called on all sides to work together to find him out. “First of all I join everyone the concern of disappearance of anyone. It may be to anyone and it is violation of basic human rights,” said US Ambassador in Dhaka Dan Mozena. Replying to a question, he said, “This is a frightening experience not for the person but also for the families.” The US diplomat was talking to a selected group of journalists at his Gulshan residence in the afternoon.

Dhaka, Apr 24 Action Battalion (RAB) personnel raided two residences in Dhaka on Monday night to find the 'missing' BNP leader M Ilias Ali. However, the late night hunt around the capital failed to turn up any leads, spokesperson commander M Sohail told bdnews24.com. He declined to specify whose houses they raided. "The raids were based on tip-off. We are actively searching for Ilias Ali," he added. Ilias Ali, one of the organising secretaries of BNP and the chief of the party's Sylhet chapter, went missing last Wednesday. Law enforcers recovered his abandoned private car from Mohakhali. His wife Tahsina Rushdir Luna filed a general diary with police and a petition with the High Court. RAB personnel raided four residences at Gazipur's Pubail on Apr 21 based on a tip-off from Luna. However, they did not find any lead on the missing leader in the three-hour long forage. Inspector General of Police (IGP) Hassan Mahmood Khandker told bdnews24.com : &qu

A Dhaka court on Tuesday granted permission to the investigation officer to exhume the bodies of journalist couple Sagar Sarowar and his wife Meherun Runi for second autopsy. Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Bikash Kumar Saha passed the order after Assistant Superintendent of Police Abu Zafar, also the investigation officer of the case, submitted the petition to his court in the morning. After the court sent the matter to the Dhaka district magistrate Monoj Kumar Roy on Tuesday to take next course of action, he assigned executive magistrate Md Shahiduzzaman to take necessary steps for exhuming the bodies. The executive magistrate will now fix a date for exhuming the bodies. Sagar, news editor of private TV station Maasranga, and Runi, a senior reporter of another TV channel ATN Bangla, were killed in the small hours on February 11 at their rented apartment in the capital's West Razabazar. Earlier on April 18, the High Court expressed frustration over the Detective Branch

Dhaka, Apr 24 After three days of general strike, BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia has threatened to launch a fresh agitation from Sunday if the government fails to trace missing party leader Ilias Ali and his driver by Saturday. "Ilias and the driver of his car must be back within Apr 28. Otherwise, we will have to launch a tougher agitation once again," Khaleda told a press conference on Tuesday. She also announced that the party would hold protest rallies across the country on Thursday and processions on Saturday to protest the disappearance of Ilias.

He won 27.1% of the vote, while his Socialist rival Francois Hollande took 28.6%, the first time a sitting president has lost in the first round. The two men will face each other in a second round of voting on 6 May. Third-place Marine Le Pen took the largest share of the vote her far-right National Front has ever won, with 18%. The BBC's Christian Fraser in Paris says Mr Hollande's narrow victory in this round gives him crucial momentum ahead of the run-off in two weeks' time. Analysts suggest Mr Sarkozy, leader of the ruling centre-right UMP, will now need to woo the far-right voters who backed Ms Le Pen if he is to hold on to the presidency. But Mr Hollande remains the front runner. Mr Sarkozy began reaching out to Ms Le Pen's voters on Monday, saying "there was this crisis vote that doubled from one election to another - an answer must be given to this crisis vote". Around one in five people vo

Online Report Former state minister for home Tanjim Ahmad Sohel Taj relinquished his membership of parliament on Monday. Abu Kawsar, assistant personal secretary of Sohel Taj, submitted the resignation letter to the speaker’s office around 10.25 in the morning. Md Shamim, an official of the speaker’s office, received the letter from the APS. This is for the first time in the country’s history a ruling party lawmaker resigned from his post. In the letter, Taj said, “My constituency is Gazipur-4 (Kapasia). I am submitting my resignation letter to you (speaker) under section 67 (2) of Bangladesh Constitution.” His resignation came almost three years after he resigned from the post of state minister for home. Taj, the only son of the country's first prime minister Tajuddin Ahmad, resigned as the state minister for home on May 31, 2009, five months after the ruling Awami League-led grand alliance government assumed office. He sent his resignation letter to Prime Minister Sheikh

Dhaka, Apr 23 persons died as people of Biswanath upazila, the constituency of missing BNP leader M Ilias Ali, clashed with law enforcers once again on Monday, police said. The violent demonstrations that continued for over two hours from around 2pm also left over 50 people including 10 policemen injured. Police could not immediately confirm the identity of the victims, one of them aged 22. Sylhet district police superintendent Shakhawat Hossain said the body was found in the field adjacent to Jamiya Madania Mosque beside the Upazila office premises after the clash. He said the body was sent to M A G Osmani Medical College and Hospital, Sylhet for an autopsy. The news of the second death was confirmed as the body was taken to the hospital, Hossain added. bdnews24.com's Sylhet correspondent quoting police and witnesses said several thousand people from seven to eight villages including Ramdhana of Olongkari union, the home of Ilias Ali, marched towards Biswanath Police Station minu

Online Report At least 15 BNP leaders and activists including BNP Vice-chairman Selima Rahman were detained during the countrywide daylong shutdown for second straight day on Monday. Ten BNP women activists including BNP leader Selima Rahman were picked up from capital's Gulshan area when they brought out a procession there. Police also detained three people from in front of BNP's main office in Nayapaltan and two from Central Shaheed Minar premises. No major incident of violence was reported in the capital or elsewhere in the country when the opposition and its alliance-called hartal passed seven hours. Meanwhile, unknown perpetrators hurled a cocktail in front of Bangladesh Bank around 11:30am in Motijheel and another cocktail went off in Fakirerpool area around 9:00am. None was injured in the incidents. Unknown criminals torched a minibus in the city's Chankharpool area around 7:30am while a BRTC bus was vandalised in Motijheel, the commercial hub of the cap

Online Report BNP will enforce a dawn-to-dusk hartal on Tuesday for a third consecutive day for getting back its missing leader M Ilias Ali and his driver. Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, acting secretary general of the main opposition party, on Monday also vowed to continue their movement until the two are found. The BNP leader announced the new programme at a press briefing around an hour before the end of second's daylong hartal on Monday. Former lawmaker and BNP Organising Secretary (Sylhet Division) M Ilias Ali along with his driver remain missing since Tuesday night. The main opposition BNP claimed that government agencies have picked them up to make them disappear. Sunday's hartal was announced on Wednesday after Banani police recovered the abandoned car of Ilias near his Banani home in the capital. They found the driver's mobile phone on the passenger seat with the car’s doors flung wide open. Earlier on Thursday, BNP observed a hartal in Sylhet division on

Online Report Police rescued the seven-month-old baby girl from the capital’s Mirpur area on Sunday, a day after she was abducted by robbers from her Khilgaon residence. Kazi Wazed Ali, officer-in-charge of Mirpur Police Station, said a housemaid first saw Maysha on a stair landing when she went out of the ground floor of a building at Dakshin Paikpara hearing a baby’s cry. On information, police rescued Maysha from the four-storied building around 12:30pm, the OC said. The mobile number of Maysha’s father was written on the infant’s vest, the OC said. It was also written that ‘if find, send the baby to Khilgaon Police Station’. A gang of robbers abducted Maysha, daughter of one Shah Alam, and took away gold ornaments and money in cash from their Khilgaon house Saturday night.

Ms Suu Kyi was among 43 MPs elected from her National League for Democracy (NLD) party in by-elections in April. They want to swear to "respect", rather than "safeguard" the constitution, which they say is undemocratic. The constitution was drawn up by Burma's former military junta. "Only after the wording in the oath has been changed, will we be able to attend the parliament," Ohn Kyaing, NLD spokesperson and newly-elected MP, told BBC Burmese. Burma has begun political and economic reforms in the past year, since a civilian-led government ended nearly 50 years of direct military rule. Military dominance But this constitution was introduced by the military administration in 2008 and it allocates 25% of seats in both houses of parliament and the state assemblies to the army. The army and its proxy Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) still hold about 80% of seats in parliament afte

Dhaka, Apr 22 told a Dhaka court on Sunday that they were yet to make any headway into BNP leader M Ilias Ali's 'missing' case. The law-enforcing agency admitted its failure in a report to the court of Dhaka Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Muniruzzaman, four days after the BNP organising secretary went missing. Ali's wife Tahsina Rushdir Luna had filed a general diary with the Banani police on Wednesday after his car was found abandoned in Mahakhali. Following the complaint, the magistrate ordered police to inform the court of the probe progress every 48 hours. Ali's wife had also sought the High Court's intervention to find her missing husband. On Saturday, Rapid Action Battalion conducted raids on four houses in Pubail, Gazipur. RAB officials said they conducted the searches based on a letter given to them by Ilias Ali's wife. They said she was with them during the operations. Tahsina, however, rejected the RAB claims while speaking to reporters.

Dhaka, Apr 22 (bdnews24.com) — The BNP will enforce for a second straight day a daylong countrywide shutdown on Monday to protest the disappearance of the party's organising secretary M Ilias Ali. The main opposition party's acting secretary-general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir made the announcement at a media call at the Naya Paltan headquarters minutes before Sunday's lockdown was to end. Fakhrul, who has been threatening the government with a non-stop general strike, said, "I'm telling the government again, return Ilias Ali and his car driver. Otherwise, the protest will be tougher." "Monday's hartal will also be a 6am-to-6pm one like Sunday," he added. Ilias Ali, also the chief of Sylhet district chapter, went missing since in the early hours on Wednesday. Police recovered his car, abandoned with doors open, from a street in Mohakhali. Sunday's shutdown saw law-enforcers clamping down on pickets as sporadic clashes took place

The race track has been heavily guarded by police, dogs and armoured vehicles to keep activists away. On Saturday, protests intensified after the body of a Shia man killed in overnight clashes with security forces was discovered on a rooftop. Many protesters wanted the race to be cancelled, but the government was determined it would go ahead. West of the capital, Manama, demonstrators have set up barricades of burning tyres. Witnesses say police have set up checkpoints near the circuit and officers armed with pump-action shotguns are lining nearby roads. Ahead of the race Bahrain's King Hamad al-Khalifa said that he was committed to reform in the kingdom. "I also want to make clear my personal commitment to reform and reconciliation in our great country. The door is always open for sincere dialogue amongst all our people," he said in a statement. His comments came after police fired tear gas to disperse

Dhaka, Apr 21 A bus driver has been burnt alive when the bus was torched at Khilgaon in a pre-hartal violence, police said. Khilgaon police station officer in charge Sheikh Shirajul Islam said that the bus was set on fire in front of Khidmah Hospital around 1;45pm on Saturday. The victim was identified as Badar Uddin, aged 40 years. Three other buses were also set alight between 1:30pm and 3:00pm at Gulistan intersection, in front of Azimpur's Eden Womens' College and Abdullahpur near Uttara. The fire at the bus at Gulistan was doused by passers-by, while, the other two were put-off by fire service personnel, fire service control room official Shahzadi Sultana told bdnews24.com. "We could not immediately find out who set the fires or how they were set," she added.

Supervisors David Chaney and Greg Stokes are among three agents already leaving the elite agency in the wake of the affair. US President Barack Obama was briefed on Friday by Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan about the scandal. It broke as the president arrived for last weekend's Summit of the Americas. On Friday, a 12th Secret Service employee was placed on administrative leave. Another member of staff at the agency was cleared by investigators of "serious misconduct", but will face administrative action. The scandal broke when a dispute between an escort and an agent spilled into the hallway of a beachfront hotel. Continue reading the main story “ Start Quote Check this out, bodyguard: you're fired!” Sarah Palin Up to 20 women were involved in the antics in the city of Cartagena. A 24-year-old Colombian single mother told the New York Times on Wednesday that an agent had agreed to pay h

He would encourage visitors to his site to "submit noodz" (nudes) of their former girlfriends and boyfriends, as well as details about who the subject was and why they deserved to be featured. This information would be posted up in full on his site, IsAnyoneUp.com. As well as the person's full name and location, links to social networks, usually Facebook, would also be included. Below each post appeared a stream of comments from visitors critiquing - to put it lightly - the victim's looks and body. If anyone complained, they were ridiculed. If they threatened legal action, Mr Moore ignored it. As many of the site's victims soon discovered, they were largely powerless to do anything about it. It was enough for many to dub Mr Moore the "most hated man on the internet". "I love the attention," Mr Moore told the BBC that everyone would see these pictures” 'Lucy'

Rescue teams working through the night recovered many bodies as well as the jet's flight recorder, officials said. The Bhoja Air Boeing 737, which had flown from Karachi, crashed on its approach to the airport during a storm. Grieving relatives of the victims have been gathering at airports in Karachi and Islamabad. The head of Bhoja Air has been barred from leaving the country pending the outcome of the inquiry, officials said. The wreckage of the plane has fallen over a number of kilometres but much is concentrated over the small village of Hussain Abad. We still don't know if any villagers have become casualties. Body parts are spread all over the place - in nearby fields, inside the village, in front of houses, and in the narrow streets. You can see bits of clothing and belongings scattered all over the place. Rescuers are now trying to collect the body parts and put them into body bags to secure them and take them to h

Editor's note: Editor's note: Andrew Keen is a British-American entrepreneur and professional skeptic. He is the author of "The Cult of the Amateur," and the upcoming (June 2012) "Digital Vertigo." This is the latest in a series of commentaries for CNN looking at how internet trends are influencing social culture. Follow @ajkeen on Twitter. (CNN) -- The comment on the Facebook page of the Norwegian tabloid newspaper Verdens Gang last July was unequivocal. "The death penalty is the only just sentence in this case!!!!!!" it said. Written by Thomas Indrebo, the "case" to which the message referred was the meticulously planned mass murder of 77 people in Oslo on July 22, 2011by Anders Behring Breivik. This week, the Breivik case has finally come to Oslo central criminal court. But Indrebo, who, as it happens, had been selected as a "lay" judge ( the Norwegian version of the U.S. and UK jury system ), wasn't i

Editor's note: Alice Antheaume is associate director at Sciences Po School of Journalism, where she investigates new trends in journalism and teaches digital journalism and digital culture. Her website W.I.P. (Work In Progress) covers the digitization of newsrooms and she is a commentator on new media for France 5 TV. Paris (CNN) -- Can an election be won on social media? That question is being increasingly asked in France, before the first round of the presidential election. The French are very much online now: 75% of people surf the web while 25 million have Facebook accounts , out of a total population of 66 million, of whom 43 million are voters . "The truth is that nobody has yet worked out how to change a 'like' on Facebook into a real vote," declared Fleur Pellerin , digital economy adviser for socialist candidate Francois Hollande. And yet, the 2012 campaign has proved a pivotal moment in political history: for the first time, the Web and so