Exclusive Stories

MNA Editorial Desk: BNP chief Khaleda Zia has returned to Dhaka after a three-month stay in the UK. She arrived at Dhaka’s Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport at 5:15pm, amid tightened security and gathering of supporters. Law-enforcement agencies have beefed up security around the airport for her arrival. Armed personnel carriers, water cannons and additional police were seen lining the VIP road. “We have provided extra security because party members have gathered in the area to welcome Khaleda Zia,” said Airport Police OC Noor-e-Ajam. Meanwhile, crowds of BNP leaders and activists were disrupting traffic on the vital road. Central leaders of ...

MNA Exclusive Desk: Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Tuesday reported destruction of tens of thousands of structures in Myanmar, which are primarily homes inhabited by ethnic Rohingya Muslims. Referring to some newly released satellite images, the rights group said at least 288 villages were partially or totally destroyed by fire in northern Rakhine state since 25 August 2017. HRW analysis says the burnings took place after the Myanmar officials claimed security force “clearance operations” had ceased. The images show at least 66 villages were burned after 5 September, when security force operations supposedly ended, according to a 18 September speech ...

MNA Editorial Desk: A special egg sale in Dhaka has ended in chaos after police got involved against the violent people who formed disorderly queues, surprising organizers by turning up in thousands. The program of sales aimed to mark World Egg Day on Friday was jointly organized by the Department of Livestock Services and the Bangladesh Poultry Industries Central Council or BPICC. The prospect of buying an egg for just Tk 3 attracted thousands, who began queuing up in front of the Krishibid Institution at Khamarbari from 7am. The market price for a single egg is above Tk 8. The ...

MNA Exclusive Desk: The Indian Supreme Court on Wednesday said sex with wife below 18 years of age is rape, striking down the provision of criminal law that permitted sex with wife aged between 15 and 18. The husband is liable to be prosecuted if the woman files a complaint within a year of the sexual act, the Supreme Court said. The landmark order comes at a time when the apex court is already hearing petitions calling for marital rape to be declared crime and a debate over the age of consent. The court, however, made it clear that it ...

MNA Exclusive Desk: Around 18,523 pregnant Rohingya women, who have entered Bangladesh during the massive exodus of Muslim community of the Rakhine state in Myanmar, have been suffering from many health-related problems. Moreover, nearly 441 child-expecting women out of 18,523, have been facing various types of health-related complexities, according to the information of Health Department. So far, some 150 women have given birth to their babies in Bangladesh, sources at the Health Department added. Besides, there are some 42,541 children of different ages in the makeshift Rohingya camps in Ukhia and Teknaf upazilas who have been facing a great threat ...

MNA Exclusive Desk: The Buddhists community in Bangladesh has declared that they will forgo parts of their festivities for Probarona Purnima, their second biggest religious festival, and donate the cost of a major event for the Rohingya refugees who have recently arrived in Bangladesh. Community leaders announced this decision at a meeting with senior Awami League leaders at the party president’s Dhanmondi political office on Wednesday morning. However, the festival is also known as Ashvini Purnima that marks conclusion of the three months long seclusion of the monks inside their monasteries for self-edification and atonement of their defilement. The Purnima ...

MNA Exclusive Desk: The inking of the investment protection agreement (IPA) between the European Union and Myanmar has been put off until an unknown date. On September 14, the Committee on International Trade of the European Parliament announced that it has postponed its visit to Myanmar, which was meant to finalise the EU-Myanmar investment agreement, according to a report published in the Myanmar Times. The committee’s chair, Bernd Lange, said that the delegation is postponed until further notice. “The EP’s International Trade Committee decided to postpone the delegation to Myanmar to an unknown date as it was clear that the ...

MNA National Desk: Amid the growing pressure on Myanmar, state counselor Aung San Suu Kyi sent her representative to discuss the Rohingya issue with the Bangladesh government, reports news agency. Minister of the office of state counselor Kyaw Tint Swe arrived at Shahjalal International Airport by a Thai Airways flight around 1:5am on Monday. Tint Swe is set to hold meeting with foreign minister AH Mahmood Ali today at state guesthouse Padma. The meeting began at 11:00 am. The delegation would discuss the means of “repatriating Muslim refugees” Myanmar’s Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement Minister Win Myat Aye told The ...

MNA Exclusive Desk: World Food Programme (WFP) will supply food assistance to 500,000 Rohingyas, who entered Bangladesh fleeing violence in Myanmar. WFP Executive Director David Beasley announced the food support for Rohingya refugees when he met relief and disaster management minister Mofazzal Hossain Chowdhury Maya in a city hotel on Saturday, an official release said. Secretary of the ministry Md Shah Kamal and director general of disaster management department Md Reaz Ahmed, among others, were present at the meeting. The minister said UNICEF would provide assistances for education of Rohingya children. “It is not possible to give shelter to the ...

MNA Exclusive Desk: Sarishabari mayor Rukunuzzaman was found in Sreemangal, Moulvibazar, on Wednesday, according to the police. The mayor’s hands and legs were tied when he was rescued, Moulvibazar police superintendent Md Shahjalal confirmed to media. A microbus dropped him off at the local Katiatala tea gardens, the mayor told the media at Police Station. He could not say much more. Rukunuzzaman was missing after he had left his house in Uttara sector 13, Dhaka, around 9:30am on Monday. His mobile phone was switched off since then. His elder brother Md Saiful Islam Tukon filed a general diary over the ...

MNA Exclusive Desk: State Minister for Social Welfare Ministry Nuruzzaman Ahmed on Tuesday said that the government will rehabilitate some 6,000 Rohingya orphan children after giving them field card. “There will be separate arrangements for the Rohingya orphan children aged between 0-18. They will also be divided into two groups” said Nuruzzaman. “By filling up a form, the government is making database on the orphan children.” He also added. He told media that his ministry had already urged the government to allocate 200 bighas of land for their rehabilitation. Besides, Zillar Rahman, secretary of Social Welfare Ministry, said that the ...

MNA Exclusive Desk: An attempt on Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s life, inspired by the way Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her own bodyguards, was foiled four weeks ago by her loyalists and top counter-terrorism officers. Intercepts suggested that six to seven personnel of the Special Security Force (SSF), which guards the Prime Minister of Bangladesh, were preparing to attack Hasina on August 24. Their plan was to attack her as soon as she would step out of her office for an evening stroll. Four independent sources, including two in Dhaka and two in the external intelligence apparatus of India dealing ...

MNA Exclusive Desk: China’s foreign minister Wang Yi said China welcomes the measures taken by Myanmar’s government to alleviate the situation in Rakhine state. Wang made the comments in New York on Thursday on during a meeting on the sidelines of the annual United Nations General Assembly with Myanmar officials, according to a Foreign Ministry statement. More than 400,000 Muslim Rohingya have fled from Rakhine across the border to Bangladesh following a counter-insurgency offensive by Myanmar’s army in the wake of militant attacks on security forces. U.N. officials have described Myanmar’s strategy as “ethnic cleansing”. Earlier, myanmar’s army chief called ...

MNA Exclusive Desk: Myanmar’s army chief called on Thursday for people internally displaced by violence in Rakhine State to go home and rebuild communities, but he made no mention of 422,000 Rohingya Muslims who fled to Bangladesh. Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, in a major speech on his plans for Rakhine state on his first visit there since the latest strife erupted, said the military had handled the situation as best as it could after a wave of coordinated attacks by Rohingya insurgents on Aug 25. Min Aung Hlaing did not mention the accusation of ethnic cleansing in his speech ...

MNA Exclusive Desk: Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said she spoke to US president Donald Trump on Monday about Rohingya Muslims flooding into her country from Myanmar, but she expects no help from him as he has made clear how he feels about refugees. As Trump left an event he hosted at the United Nations on reforming the world body, Hasina said she stopped him for a few minutes. “He just asked how is Bangladesh? I said ‘it’s doing very well, but the only problem that we have is the refugees from Myanmar’,” Hasina told Reuters in an interview. “But he ...

MNA Exclusive Desk: The United Nations says so far more than 400,000 desperate Rohingya exodus have fled the violence in Myanmar and crossed into neighbouring Bangladesh, as Dhaka pleads for global help to cope with the humanitarian crisis. “An estimated 409,000 Rohingya refugees have arrived in Bangladesh since August 25, fleeing violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine state,” said Joseph Tripua, a UN refugee agency spokesman, in a statement on Saturday. The latest figure came a day after the UN announced that some 391,000 Rohingya refugees had entered Bangladesh, showing a leap of 18,000 in a matter of a day. However, on ...

MNA Exclusive Desk: Bangladesh has strongly protested the repeated violations of its airspace by Myanmar military drones and helicopter on 10, 12 and 14 September. Director general (Southeast Asia) of the foreign ministry Manjurul Karim Chowdhury summoned Charge d’affaires of Myanmar embassy in Dhaka Aung Myint on Friday evening at the ministry and handed over a protest note to him. Referring to the earlier instances of violation of the airspace since 25 August last, Bangladesh expressed deep concern at the repetition of such acts of provocation and demanded that Myanmar take immediate measures to ensure that such violation of sovereignty ...

MNA Exclusive Desk: More than 200,000 Rohingya children, who have fled persecution in Myanmar to Bangladesh, are at risk of health hazards, according to the UNICEF. “This is a growing humanitarian crisis and children are at the heart of this crisis. Some 60 per cent of all refugees are children according to preliminary data,” said Jean Lieby, chief of child protection, UNICEF Bangladesh on Tuesday. In a briefing note, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) official said the Rohingyas are facing an unprecedented influx of Rohingya refugees who are coming from Myanmar and crossing into Bangladesh. “The first thing you ...

MNA National Desk: Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Monday said her government will raise the Rohingya issue in the upcoming session of the UN General Assembly. “If required Bangladesh would provide all support to Myanmar to overcome the crisis and rehabilitate the displaced people in their homeland,” she said. The prime minister said while taking part in the discussion in parliament on a motion moved by lawmaker from Chandpur-3 constituency Dipu Moni on Rohingya issue under section 147 of the Rules of Procedure. The prime minister urged everybody not to do politics and exploit the sufferings of the distressed Rohinya ...

MNA Exclusive Desk: Rohingya insurgents declared a month-long unilateral ceasefire, starting on Sunday, to enable aid groups to help ease a humanitarian crisis in northwest Myanmar. Nearly 300,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh and 30,000 non-Muslim civilians have been displaced inside Myanmar after the military launched a counter-offensive following attack by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) insurgents on 30 police posts and an army base on 25 August. “ARSA strongly encourages all concerned humanitarian actors resume their humanitarian assistance to all victims of the humanitarian crisis, irrespective of ethnic or religious background during the ceasefire period,” ARSA said in ...

MNA Exclusive Desk: Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets on Friday to protest the Rohingya killings in Myanmar, police said. At least 15,000 supporters of the Islami Andolon Bangladesh party chanted slogans against Myanmar’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi as they demonstrated in Dhaka and the town of Tongi to the north of the capital after Friday prayers. “Myanmar army is carrying out genocide of the Rohingya with the help of Suu Kyi’s government. She must be held accountable and tried,” said party spokesman KM Atiqur Rahman. Earlier, several thousand supporters of Bangladesh’s main opposition political party ...

MNA  Exclusive Desk: Security was tightened around the Australian cricket team in Bangladesh on Tuesday after a bus carrying the team was hit by a rock, which could have been thrown up by another vehicle, Cricket Australia (CA) said on Tuesday. The incident happened on Monday as the players were travelling back to their hotel after the first day’s play in the second and final test against Bangladesh in Chittagong’s Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium. ‘En route back to the hotel last night a window on the Australian team bus was broken. No one was injured in the incident,’ CA security ...

MNA Exclusive Desk: Sacrifice of animals on Eid-ul-Azha had left Dhaka city authorities with 22,000 tonnes of waste to manage, according to South Dhaka Mayor Sayeed Khokon. Cleaners were able to remove ninety percent of the total waste, he told a press conference at Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC) offices on Sunday, reported news agency. Mayor Sayeed Khokon held the briefing on Dhaka’s two city corporations in the absence of North Dhaka Mayor Annisul Haq, who is taking treatment in UK. Cleaning trucks of South Dhaka took 3,000 trips to remove 14,000 tonnes of waste, he said. Another 8,270 tonnes ...

MNA Exclusive Desk: More than two million Muslims from around the world began the hajj pilgrimage at Islam’s holiest sites Wednesday, a religious duty and a multi-stage spiritual journey. This year sees pilgrims from Shiite Iran return to Mecca in Saudi Arabia after a hiatus following a diplomatic spat between the regional rivals and a deadly stampede in 2015. It also comes with the Gulf mired in a major political crisis that has seen thousands of faithful who would usually make the journey from neighbouring Qatar stay away. On the esplanade of Mecca’s Grand Mosque, the excitement was palpable as ...

MNA Exclusive Desk: A court has sentenced Sohel Rana, the owner of collapsed Rana Plaza building, to three years in prison in a case filed by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC). The garment factory complex collapsed in 2013 and killed more than 1,130 people. Sohel Rana was given the maximum three-year sentence by a special court in Dhaka for failing to declare his personal wealth to Bangladesh’s anti-corruption commission, one of a series of charges brought by prosecutors following the disaster. Rana faces four other charges, including murder, over his role in one of the world’s worst industrial tragedies. He and ...

MNA Exclusive Desk: Thousands of fearful Rohingya Muslims and Rakhine Buddhist civilians fled the worst fighting to grip Myanmar’s northwest in five years, reported news agency. The mass escape from the northern part of Rakhine state was triggered by widespread coordinated offensives by Rohingya insurgents wielding sticks, knives and homemade bombs in attacks on Friday on 30 police posts and an army base. The violence marks a dramatic escalation of a conflict that has simmered in the region since last October, when a similar but much smaller Rohingya attack prompted a brutal military response dogged by allegations of human rights ...

MNA Exclusive Desk: About 2.5 million households in Bangladesh live in extreme poverty, according to BRAC, a non-government development organization. Bangladesh has reduced its poverty level to 27 percent but the challenge of extreme poverty still remains and women are disproportionately affected, the organization said in its Annual Report 2016. “We’re working towards eliminating extreme poverty completely from Bangladesh by 2030 through a powerful combination of direct and complimentary efforts,” Brac said in its report. The report in its ‘eliminating extreme poverty’ section said people living in extreme poverty are forced to make impossible choices every single day about basic ...