News 24 Hours

Bangladesh’s women cricket team has been given the green signal for upcoming Pakistan tour, a board official said today. “We heard the government has given the clearance,” said Jalal Yunus, director of Bangladesh Cricket Board. “An order has been issued”.

As Zaved Akhtar, Brand Building Director of Unilever Bangladesh Limited, took to the stage, most present in the media seats suddenly had their interests piqued. This man, a natural orator, made even the dullest presentations stand out so it was only expected that he would kick start one of the biggest celebrations in his own engaging and inimitable way. In this regard, no one was disappointed.

BBC Online European Union ministers are to meet to try to resolve a dispute over how to relocate 120,000 asylum seekers who have recently arrived in Europe. Some central European states have been resisting calls for EU members to accept mandatory quotas. The migrants are part of more than a quarter of a million to have arrived in July and August alone. Germany says it expects up to a million this year. Hungary has said European borders are under threat.

Charges have been framed against 13 people for the murder of Samiul Islam Rajan, who was tortured to death in July this year. The court of Sylhet’s Metropolitan Sessions Judge Akbar Hossain Mridha indicted them on Tuesday and set Oct 1 to hear witness testimonies. Ten of the 13 accused were produced before the court on Tuesday, Public Prosecutor Mafur Ali told Thirteen-year-old Rajan was branded a ‘thief’ and beaten to death in Sylhet’s Kumargaon on July 8. His tormentors captured the whole incident on mobile phone and released the video clip of the gory murder on the internet.

Hundreds of thousands of Muslims from across the globe began the annual hajj pilgrimage on Tuesday in one of the largest annual gatherings of people in the world. In what for many will be the highlight of their spiritual lives, pilgrims began moving from Saudi Arabia's holy city of Mecca to nearby Mina for the start of the six-day event.