Tag: Featured

Why Ebola is so dangerous Workers from UNICEF and partners speak with families about how they can best protect themselves from the Ebola virus disease, at the Marche Niger, a market in Conakry, Guinea, courtesy of this UNICEF handout photograph taken March 31, 2014. The Ebola outbreak in West Africa is the world's deadliest to date and the World Health Organization has declared an international health emergency as more than 1,000 people have died of the virus in Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria this year. What is Ebola? Ebola is a viral illness of which the initial symptoms can include a sudden fever, intense weakness, muscle pain and a sore throat, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). And that is just the beginning: subsequent stages are vomiting, diarrhoea an...

In prison, still ominous Slack monitoring allows JMB to regroup M Abul Kalam Azad and Rafiul Islam: Banned Islamist outfit Jama'tul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) that carried out countrywide bomb attacks nine years back still poses threat of terror attacks. The government's flagging socio-political campaign against militancy and slackness in monitoring JMB activities since 2012 has given the outfit space to regroup, believe many officials of intelligence agencies. Hundreds of JMB operatives were arrested after the bomb attacks left one dead and more than a hundred others wounded in 63 districts on August 17, 2005. According to official statistics, 478 JMB men have been tried in 177 cases between 2007 and 2014. Of them, 51 top leaders of the outfit have been sentenced to death, 178 give...

Messi, Neymar to play for Gaza peace Online Report: Combining his love of world peace with his love of soccer, Pope Francis plans to host a celebrity soccer match this September to promote a diplomatic resolution to the ongoing crisis in the Gaza Strip. The exhibition game will take place on September 1 at the Olympic Stadium in Rome with "all-star players" like F.C. Barcelona’s Lionel Messi and the legendary – and contentious - Diego Maradona taking the pitch for the event, reports Fox News Latino referring to Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Besides Messi and Maradona, Brazilian start Neymar is expected to play along with Yossi Benayoun, an Israeli National Team star, along with former Italian star Robert Baggio, a renowned Buddhist, and former French player Zinedine Zidane, who professes...

Transactions via SWIFT rise 32.7pc The financial messaging network celebrates 20 years in Bangladesh Suman Saha: Bangladesh last year registered 32.7 percent year-on-year growth in foreign exchange transactions through SWIFT owing to an increase in trade finance payment. Around eight million foreign currency transactions in and out of Bangladesh were completed through the SWIFT network last year, according to Alain Raes, chief executive of SWIFT's Asia-Pacific region. Trade accounts for 56.1 percent of financial traffic sent by Bangladesh, which is 5.06 million a year. “Bangladesh has registered significant growth in trade finance as it is gradually becoming a manufacturing hub,” he told The Daily Star in an interview yesterday. Bangladesh's import payment rose 9.77 percent year-on-y...

43 workers return from Libya Online Report: Forty three Bangladeshi workers today returned home from violence-torn Libya as their South Korean employer closed a power construction project on security ground. A flight of Emirates Airlines carrying the migrants landed at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport around 12:00pm, said Zahid Anowar, assistant director of Wage Earners Welfare Board of the Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment Ministry. The returnees are among around 200 Bangladeshis used to work for Hyundai Construction and Engineering, a South Korean Company in Benghazi. Ahsan Kibria Siddiqui, first secretary (labour) at Bangladesh embassy in Tripoli, said as the Korean companies started evacuating their employees some migrants are opting to return home. South Korea ...

Scandal-hit BASIC Bank accounts for two-thirds of the increase Rejaul Karim Byron: Banks' total default loans rose Tk 3,183 crore in the three months from March 31, with the scam-hit BASIC Bank accounting for almost 64 percent of the rise. On June 30, the banking sector's total default loans stood at Tk 51,345 crore, up 6.59 percent from the first quarter, according to data from the central bank. The amount is 10.75 percent of the total outstanding loans. The state-run BASIC Bank alone accounted for Tk 2,034 crore of the default loans, which is 40.77 percent of its total outstanding loans. Only ICB Islami Bank has a higher percentage of default loans. Of the 47 scheduled banks (excluding the nine new banks), 23 banks saw their default loans ascend and 24 descend. The four state-owne...