Myanmar said on Sunday that the trial of democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi was in line with its laws and was a domestic issue other countries should not interfere with.

"The legal action against Aung San Suu Kyi is merely the internal affairs of Myanmar, taking action through its legal system in accordance with domestic law," said Major General Aye Myint, Myanmar's Deputy Minister of Defence, at the Asia Security Conference in Singapore.

The government has exempted the Bangladesh Football Federation from paying all value added tax (VAT) on their sponsorship earnings, said a BFF official on Sunday.

However, the football governing body would have to let the National Board of Revenue (NBR) know time to time about all their deals, sponsorship money they were getting as well as the amount of VAT-free money, said BFF general secretary Al Musabbir Sadi.

Finance minister AMA Muhith says he will be putting final touches to the budget of 2009-10 fiscal year outside the country.

He will leave Dhaka on Monday morning to attend the annual conference of Islamic Development Bank (IDB) at Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan and be back on June 4.

Public, private and NGO linkages could go a long way to serving basic healthcare to all, said the prime minister's adviser on health, Syed Modasser Ali, on Sunday.

"We need to foster partnerships between public, private and NGO initiatives, specifically targeting the underprivileged population of the country to make basic healthcare services available to all," said the health adviser, speaking as chief guest at one such intitiative.

Prime minister Sheikh Hasina has said her government will spend Tk 450 crore over the next five years on a forestation programme that includes restoring mangrove forests along the coast to shield from cyclones, tidal waves and rising sea levels.

"Forest resources are decreasing as the population increases," said the prime minister inaugurating the three-month long National Tree Plantation Movement and month-long Tree Fair 2009 on Sunday.

An all-party parliamentary committee will take a decision on whther to send an expert team to the site of the proposed Indian Tipaimukh dam and hydropower project over the cross-boundary river Barak, the water resources minister said Sunday.

"A meeting will be called soon following formation of the all-party committee," Ramesh Chandra Sen told reporters in the capital.

Bangladesh Football Federation president Kazi Salahuddin on Saturday announced that they were going to offer scholarships to the school footballers playing in the ongoing Citycell National School Football Championship.

"So far based on available information I know that the standard of the ongoing football championship is very good meaning there is no lack of talented footballers in the country although there was no school football in the last five to seven years.

When Seema Shrikhande goes to work, she drives. When she takes her son to school, they drive. And when she goes shopping, to the bank or to visit friends, she gets into her car, buckles up and hits the road.

Driving is a way of life for Americans but researchers say the national habit of driving everywhere is bad for health. The more you drive, the less you walk. Walking provides exercise without really trying.

Germany reached a landmark deal with Canadian auto parts group Magna, General Motors and governments to save carmaker Opel from the imminent bankruptcy of its US parent, German leaders said on Saturday.

Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck told journalists waiting outside Chancellor Angela Merkel's offices during the six-hour meeting that a comprehensive deal had been agreed.

Police on Saturday detained Iraq's former trade minister in connection with graft allegations involving food rations, ordering a plane in which he was flying to Dubai to turn back, witnesses and officials said.

An Iraqi judge issued an arrest warrant for former Trade Minister Abdul Falah al-Sudany on Saturday, but he had already boarded a plane to Dubai, parliament's anti-graft watchdog said.

The government is moving to purchase new ships in a bid to modernise the Bangladesh Shipping Corporation, shipping minister Afsarul Amin said on Saturday. Amin placed emphasis on sea freighters for transport of import and export goods.

The minister, chairing BSC's 31st annual general meeting at its headquarters in Chittagong, did not however specify the timeframe or the number of ships to be purchased.

A Dhaka court on Saturday gave police eight days to grill Indian fugitive Abdur Rauf Merchant and two associates arrested this week by Dhaka Metropolitan Police's Detective Branch.

Police escorted the three in handcuffs into the chief metropolitan magistrates court at around quarter to the four in the afternoon. They emerged after the ruling just ten minutes later to be taken away in a white microbus.

Germany raced to overcome a transatlantic spat and growing tensions among Opel bidders to clinch a deal for the German carmaker on Friday, as parent General Motors hurtled toward bankruptcy.

As the clock ticked down to a June 1 restructuring deadline, widely expected to lead to a Chapter 11 filing for the U.S. automaker after it sealed a crucial sweetened deal with bondholders on Thursday, GM's Saab unit was granted more time to restructure by a Swedish court.

Tree-munching beetles, malaria-carrying mosquitoes and deer ticks that spread Lyme disease are three living signs that climate change is likely to exact a heavy toll on human health.

These pests and others are expanding their ranges in a warming world, which means people who never had to worry about them will have to start. And they are hardly the only health threats from global warming.

More than 20,000 Tamil civilians were killed in the final days of Sri Lanka's military operation to defeat Tamil Tigers rebels, The Times newspaper reported on Friday.

Sri Lanka's authorities say their forces stopped using heavy weapons on April 27 in a no-fire zone where an estimated 100,000 Tamil civilians were sheltered and blame civilian casualties on rebels hiding among the civilians, the paper said.

Foreign minister Dipu Moni has said the Myanmar leaders during her latest trip to that country told her that they would take the Rohingya refugees back.

She told reporters at the foreign ministry on Friday that Myanmar authorities in December last year said Rohingyas were not Myanmar citizens but Bangladeshis.

The chief election commissioner has finally proposed to the government for constitutional amendment for giving the CEC the authority of the Election Commission Secretariat

The two election commissioners have demanded amendment to the Election Commission Secretariat Law, but the chief election commissioner, ATM Shamsul Huda, wants amendment to the constitution. He proposed to the government.

The chief election commissioner has finally proposed to the government for constitutional amendment for giving the CEC the authority of the Election Commission Secretariat

The two election commissioners have demanded amendment to the Election Commission Secretariat Law, but the chief election commissioner, ATM Shamsul Huda, wants amendment to the constitution. He proposed to the government.

Oil rose to a six-month high above $63 a barrel on Wednesday after OPEC's biggest member Saudi Arabia said the global economy had strengthened enough to cope with oil at $75-$80 a barrel.

Speaking ahead of a meeting of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries in Vienna on Thursday, Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said oil prices would continue to rise, recovering from lows near $32 at the turn of the year. [ID:nLR631756]

The US Congress has started work on a broad overhaul of the healthcare system in a rare spirit of optimism, but brewing battles over its cost, scope and structure could still scuttle hopes for a solution.

From President Barack Obama's declaration that "the stars are aligned" on healthcare to a recent cost-cutting pledge by a half-dozen industry groups, momentum has built steadily on an issue that has eluded consensus for decades.