Exclusive Stories

MNA Editorial Desk: The High Court on Sunday asked Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU) Vice Chancellor to submit a report on BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia’s health condition by 5:00pm on Wednesday. The court also fixed February 27 for hearing on her bail petition in Zia Charitable Trust graft case. The HC bench of Justice Obaidul Hassan and Justice AKM Zahirul Huq came up with the directives on Sunday after hearing on the bail petition, reports UNB. The court asked the BSMMU VC to inform the court three things — whether Khaleda Zia allowed medical board to give her advanced ...

MNA Editorial Desk: Dozens of Rohingya Muslims, including two children, appeared in court in Myanmar on Friday, the latest group to face charges after attempting to flee conflict-torn Rakhine state. The group of about 20 were among 54 people from the Rohingya minority arrested on Wednesday on the outskirts of the commercial capital Yangon while trying to leave for Malaysia, according to judge Thida Aye, reports Reuters. “The immigration officer submitted the case because they found no identification cards from these people,” she said. Some were barefoot, others clothed in colourful head-scarfs, as they were ushered into the small courtroom ...

MNA Editorial Desk: Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka again ranked worst in the Air Quality Index (AQI) on Thursday morning. It had an AQI score of 287 at 08:18am. The air was classified as ‘very unhealthy’. Nepal’s Kathmandu and India’s Delhi occupied the second and third spots in the list of cities with the worst air quality with AQI scores of 190 and 188 respectively, according to a news agency report. When the AQI value is between 201 and 300, the entire population is more likely to be affected. The AQI, an index for reporting daily air quality, informs people how clean ...

MNA Editorial Desk: Commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) Mohammad Shafiqul Islam on Wednesday said there is no possibility of any militant attack and act of sabotage centring the International Mother Language Day and Shaheed Dibosh on February 21. He, however, said a four-tier security arrangement will be there in place in and around the Central Shaheed Minar to smooth observance of the day. While talking to reporters after visiting the Shaheed Minar, the DMP chief said those who will come to pay tributes to the Language Movement martyrs will have to enter the Shaheed Minar premises through archways and ...

MNA Editorial Desk: The High Court on Tuesday directed the authorities concerned to set up breastfeeding corners at all mills and factories across the country within two months. The HC bench of Justice M Enayetur Rahim and Justice M Mostafizur Rahman passed the order. Labour secretary and Chairman of Department of Labour were directed to submit report within 60 days on implementation of the order, said Advocate Israt Hasan, who filed a petition in this regard on October last. On October 24 last year, nine-month-old baby Umair Bin Sadi and his mother Advocate Israt Hasan filed the writ seeking a ...

MNA Editorial Desk: Three United Nations (UN) agencies along with the government of Bangladesh on Sunday launched the Safe Access to Fuel and Energy Plus Livelihoods (SAFE Plus) project to mitigate deforestation and improve livelihood opportunities in Cox’s Bazar, reports UNB. SAFE Plus is a joint project among the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Organization for Migration (IOM), and the World Food Programme (WFP) to address environmental degradation through avenues such as distribution of Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG) and stoves, reforestation, and improved access to food production through livelihoods programming. The LPG stove and ...

MNA Editorial Desk: Bangladesh’s permanent representative (PR) to the UN ambassador Rabab Fatima has said ensuring justice and accountability for the Rohingyas is an important precondition for their safe, dignified and voluntary return to Rakhine State and eventual societal reconciliation. She was addressing the UN Security Council open debate on “Peacebuilding and sustaining peace: transitional justice in conflict and post-conflict situation” held in New York recently. Belgium organised the open debate as the president of the Security Council for the month of February, said the Bangladesh Mission at the UN on Saturday. Highlighting the importance of internationally recognised criminal justice ...

MNA Editorial Desk: Implementation of the ongoing solar power plant projects in Bangladesh that are somehow dependent on Chinese machinery and manpower is likely to be delayed by at least four months due to the coronavirus outbreak. “A huge number of Chinese workers who went back home to spend holidays are unable to return and join the works after the outbreak,” UNB reported quoting a top official at the Power Division who deals with renewable energy projects. Coronavirus, now known as COVID-19, has so far killed 1,355 people and infected nearly 60,000 others. Sources at the Power Division said most ...

MNA Editorial Desk: China on Wednesday reported its lowest number of new coronavirus cases since late January, lending credence to a prediction from the country’s senior medical adviser that the outbreak could be over by April. Global markets took heart from the outlook but international experts remain alarmed by the spread of the flu-like virus which has now killed more than 1,100 people, all but two in mainland China. China’s foremost medical adviser on the outbreak, Zhong Nanshan, said the numbers of new cases were falling in some provinces, and forecast the epidemic would peak this month. “I hope this ...

MNA Editorial Desk: Hundreds of Myanmar nationalists rallied in the country’s commercial capital on Sunday in a show of support for the military, amid tensions between the civilian government and the army ahead of elections expected later this year. Around a thousand protesters marched from Yangon’s famed Shwedagon pagoda to City Hall downtown to accuse the administration of Aung San Suu Kyi of allegedly failing to protect the country’s Buddhist majority and for proposing constitutional amendments that would reduce the power of the military. The proposed reforms have led to tensions between Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) and ...

MNA Editorial Desk: Bangladesh’s healthcare system remains inadequately prepared to cope with the potential outbreak of fatal coronavirus, which has so far killed more than 600 people. While state-backed hospitals have taken precautionary measures to respond to the novel virus, no such steps are visible in their private peers who have received hardly any government advice. Visits to several city hospitals, the FE correspondents found the display of warning messages on their premises about the virus that broke out in China whose Wuhan City was the epicentre. Dhaka Medical College Hospital director A K M Nasir Uddin said the hospital ...

MNA Editorial Desk: Donor funding to meet the expenses of the humanitarian needs of the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh is in a declining trend. The UN agencies along with Dhaka launched an appeal, known as the Joint Response Plan (JRP), for $920.5 million for the year 2019. But only $636.7 million, 69.2 per cent of the total requirement, was made available by donor countries and organisations. In 2017 and 2018, the funding was 73 per cent and 72 per cent respectively against requirements. On the heel of a declining trend in funding for the Rohingya, the UN agencies along with ...

MNA Editorial Desk: Can individuals infected with the Wuhan coronavirus spread it to others even if they aren’t showing symptoms? It’s one of the most important questions confronting scientists. If even asymptomatic people can spread the virus, then it will be much, much harder to slow its spread. Doctors in China claimed asymptomatic transmission was possible, and a letter published Jan 30 in the New England Journal of Medicine appeared to back them up. In the letter, scientists described a cluster of infections in Germany that had started with a traveller from Shanghai. The traveller had seemed healthy during her ...

MNA Editorial Desk: No coronavirus was found in the samples of eight persons who were admitted in Kurmitola General Hospital on 01 February after returning from Wuhan in China. Seven of them were sent back to Ashkona Hajj Camp on Sunday for quarantine. Another returnee with high temperature than accepted level remained under observation in the hospital. There are now eight persons with three old and five new suspects in quarantine at Combined Military Hospital (CMH) in Dhaka. The information was revealed at a press briefing at the Institute of Epidemiology Disease Control & Research (IEDCR) on Monday. IEDCR Director ...

MNA Editorial Desk: Bangladesh has suspended on-arrival visas for Chinese nationals for one month as part of the government’s temporary policy following the outbreak of coronavirus, foreign minister Dr AK Abdul Momen said on Sunday. At the same time, he said, the government has advised the Chinese nationals living in Bangladesh to avoid visiting China during the same period. Deaths caused by the new virus rose to at least 304 globally. “Last night (Saturday), we took the decision to stop providing on-arrival visas for one month,” the foreign minister told reporters at a briefing at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. ...

MNA Editorial Desk: The Directorate General of Health Services has directed local authorities to draw up a list of all returnees from China in the last 14 days amid the outbreak of a fatal coronavirus. Deputy commissioners, police superintendents and civil surgeons have been asked to prepare the list in their respective districts, the Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR) said in a statement on Wednesday. The decision was taken at a meeting of the DGHS headed by its Director General Prof Abul Kalam Azad on Tuesday, the statement said. “Civil surgeons were informed about the overall situation ...

MNA Editorial Desk: Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen on Wednesday said the government will keep those who will return to Bangladesh under observation before China lifts the ongoing 14-day restriction to avoid any risk. “We’re not delaying. We’re fully ready to bring them (Bangladesh citizens) back once China allows,” he told reporters adding that the government does not want to see the transmission of coronavirus in other places. The Foreign Minister said the Chinese government remains very strict in following the 14-day quarantine period and did not even accept the proposals of Japan and the USA to take back ...

MNA Editorial Desk: The death toll from a coronavirus outbreak in China rose to 81 on Monday, as the government extended the Lunar New Year holiday and more big businesses shut down or told staff to work from home in an effort to curb the spread. Chinese premier Li Keqiang visited the central city of Wuhan, the epicentre of the outbreak, as the government sought to signal it was responding seriously to the crisis. The total number of confirmed cases in China rose about 30 per cent to 2,744, about half of them in Hubei province, whose capital is Wuhan. ...

MNA Editorial Desk: Food Minister Sadhan Chandra Majumder on Saturday said the government will not take the responsibility if anyone is shot to death along the border while bringing cattle from India. He made the remarks while talking to reporters after attending the founding anniversary programme of Damkurahat High School in Poba upazila of Rajshahi. “It’ll be pointless to blame others unless our character is good,” he said when asked about the shooting down of three Bangladeshi nationals by members of Indian Border Security Force (BSF) in his constituency Porsha of Naogaon. On January 23, the three Bangladeshis –- Sanjit ...

MNA Editorial Desk: In response to an international court’s decision ordering Myanmar to take emergency measures to prevent the genocide of the Rohingya, the country’s government responded by saying that there has been “no genocide in Rakhine” – the state from which most of the Muslim-minority group hails. Rights groups and members of the Rohingya minority have celebrated Thursday’s ruling from International Court of Justice (ICJ) judges. But a statement released by Myanmar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it was “important for Myanmar that Court [ICJ] reaches a factually correct decision on the merits of the case”, and condemned human ...

MNA Editorial Desk: The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has ordered measures to prevent the genocide of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, reports BBC. The decision comes despite de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi defending her country against the accusations in person last month. Thousands of Rohingya died and more than 700,000 fled to Bangladesh during an army crackdown in 2017. UN investigators have warned that genocidal actions could recur. The ICJ case, lodged by the African Muslim-majority nation of The Gambia, called for emergency measures to be taken against the Myanmar military until a fuller investigation could be launched. ...

MNA Editorial Desk: Bangladesh has gained eight places on the latest Democracy Index 2019, compared to the previous year, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). Although there was no big movement at the top and bottom of the index, there have been sizeable movements in the rankings elsewhere with Bangladesh among the countries making ‘notable improvements’, according to EIU’s findings. Bangladesh ranks 80th with an overall score of 5.88 on the Democracy Index 2019, improved from the 88th position with a score of 5.57 a year ago, reports bdnews24.com. Despite gains on the latest index, Bangladesh is still classified ...

MNA Editorial Desk: The authorities have put the airports on alert to prevent deadly coronavirus from spreading in Bangladesh by screening travellers from China where the number of patients has more than tripled in days and a third person has died. The Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR) has in a letter asked the Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh to act to avoid the possible risk related to the Chinese virus, Meerjady Sabrina Flora, a director at the institute, said on Monday, reports bdnews24. The government’s disease wing has also trained health workers at the airports for detection ...

MNA Editorial Desk: BJP’s West Bengal unit chief Dilip Ghosh has said that the government is committed to implementing the proposed nationwide National Register of India and will send back 10 million (1 crore) Bangladeshi Muslims living in the state illegally. Addressing a rally in the North 24 Parganas district on Sunday, Mr Ghosh said that those opposing the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) are anti-Bengali and against the idea of India. He said 10 million illegal Muslims in the state are “thriving” on the government’s Rs 2 per kg subsidised rice, NDTV reported. “We will send them back,” he announced. ...

MNA Editorial Desk: Chinese President Xi Jinping reached Nay Pyi Taw on Friday for a state visit to Myanmar. It is Xi’s first overseas trip this year, and the first visit to the Asian neighbour by a Chinese president after an interval of 19 years. Two Myanmar fighter jets escorted Xi’s plane as it entered the country’s airspace. Myanmar’s First Vice President U Myint Swe and several cabinet ministers warmly welcomed Xi upon his arrival at the Nay Pyi Taw International Airport. Myanmar children presented flowers to the Chinese president, and local youths and artists in national costumes performed traditional ...

MNA Editorial Desk: Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said on Wednesday that his government was resigning to give President Vladimir Putin room to carry out the changes he wants to make to the constitution. The unexpected announcement, which came shortly after Putin proposed a nationwide vote on sweeping changes which would shift power from the presidency to parliament, means Russia will also get a new prime minister. Possible candidates include Sergei Sobyanin, the mayor of Moscow, Maxim Oreshkin, the economy minister, or Alexander Novak, the energy minister, reports Reuters. Medvedev made the announcement on state TV sitting next to Putin ...

MNA Editorial Desk: The International Court of Justice, the United Nations’ highest court, will issue a decision on a request for emergency measures in a genocide case against Myanmar on January 23, the Gambian Ministry of Justice said on Twitter on Monday. The mainly Muslim west African country filed the suit in November, alleging Myanmar was committing “an ongoing genocide” against its minority Muslim Rohingya population. The ICJ did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Gambia has accused Myanmar of violating the 1948 Genocide Convention in a military campaign that expelled more than 730,000 Rohingya from the country. ...