Bangladesh 313 for 6 (Tamim 154, Price 3-60) beat Zimbabwe 312 for 8 (Coventry 194*) by four wickets

Charles Coventry made the joint highest individual score in an ODI but his effort was outweighed by a sparkling, cool-headed century from Tamim Iqbal, who broke the record for the most runs made in an innings by a Bangladesh batsman.

Coventry's blockbuster innings pushed Zimbabwe beyond 300, far more than Bangladesh have chased before, but the visitors were rarely troubled as they hunted down the target to take their third consecutive series.

Andrew Flintoff's fitness for the fourth Ashes Test was still in doubt on Thursday after the England all-rounder struggled with the ball in a net session.

"He bowled this morning and it didn't look like he was quite 100 percent," captain Andrew Strauss said at a news conference ahead of the match, which starts on Friday.

The World Bank has pledged another $160 million for construction of the Padma Bridge at Mawa, raising its total loan assistance for the project up to $460m, communications minister Syed Abul Hossain said Thursday.

He said the government had some funding deficit for the nearly $2 billion bridge project. "Today, the World Bank has assured us of more assistance," Hossain told reporters after a meeting with Isabel Guerrero, visiting World Bank Vice President for the South Asia Region.

A Dhaka court will decide on Aug 12 whether to accept the chargesheet against opposition BNP chief Khaleda Zia in the Zia Orphanage Trust embezzlement case.

Senior metropolitan special judge ANM Bashirullah on Thursday set the hearing date. The court will issue arrest warrant against the fugitives or order the investigation officer to submit the chargesheet again.

Millions of Bangladeshis were observing Shab-e-Barat on Thursday, the night that brings annual hopes of forgiveness and good fortune amid traditional festivities.

Muslims traditionally believe that God reviews all people's past deeds on the night, one of the most sacred of the Islamic calendar.

Yet another Hiroshima Day is being observed on Thursday with grave solemnity in Japan but few other parts of the world will mark the mushroom day of August 6, 1945 with the deep concern it ought to receive.

Sixty-four years after the apocalyptic destructive potential of the atomic bomb was recognized, it may be posited that the global community is less secure apropos the nuclear domain with every passing day.

Prime minister Sheikh Hasina has asked the water resources ministry to form an expert committee to examine available data on India's planned Tipaimukh Dam project, and give an assessment of the project's likely impact on Bangladesh.

Abdur Razzak, who led a parliamentary delegation to India to gather data on the project, told bdnews24.com at the parliament complex on Thursday that they had submitted a report to the prime minister of their findings on the trip.

Five Brazilian athletes training in Germany for this month's world championships have failed out of competition doping tests and will return home, the Brazilian Athletics Confederation (CBAt) has said.

According to a CBAt statement, sprinters Bruno Lins Tenorio, Jorge Celio Sena, Josiane Tito and Luciana Franca, and heptathlete Lucimara Silvestre had tested positive for the banned substance Recombinant EPO.

Warid Telecom, a subsidiary of UAE-based Abu Dhabi Group, has changed its logo and names of some services to portray a uniform brand image and identity of the Warid Group, says the company.

Telecommunication minister Raziuddin Ahmed Razu and the CEO of Warid Telecom Muneer Farooqui unveiled the new logo Wednesday.

Chittagong Hill Tracts Regional Council chairman Shantu Larma has said that the army still rules supreme in the Chittagong Hill Tracts even after the government recently announced the withdrawal of one brigade.

He asked the government to immediately declare a roadmap for the full implementation of the CHT Peace Accord.

Some 200 out of around 250 licensed drug companies are churning out sub-standard medicines, officials of the Directorate of Drug Administration allege, while lawyers say the country's lone drug court remains idle as authorities, including the DDA, fail to take legal action against the offenders.

That the market is flooded with adulterated medicines is a longtime allegation.

The Anticorruption Commission has pressed charges in the court against opposition BNP chief Khaleda Zia, elder son Tarique Rahman and four others in the Zia Orphanage Trust embezzlement case.

BNP chairperson Khaleda, a two-time former prime minister, and the others face charges of embezzling more than Tk 2 crore by throwing up the Trust that existed only on paper.

US ambassador James F Moriarty said on Monday backed the proposal to declare Sylhet as a 'special economic zone'.

"Such an innovative idea would help Bangladesh to tackle the current economic challenge and take opportunity of global economic system," he said at a views-exchange meeting with the leaders of Sylhet Chamber of Commerce and Industry at a local hotel.

Bangladesh captain Mashrafe Bin Mortaza will fly to Melbourne on Thursday to consult a specialist regarding his injured right knee.

He will be examined by orthopaedic surgeon Dr David Young at the Melbourne Orthopaedic Group.

Mshrafe has been sidelined since suffering the injury on the third day of the first Test against the West Indies at St. Vincent.

Chinese police have detained 718 people suspected of involvement in deadly ethnic rioting in northwestern Xinjiang region last month, the official Xinhua agency said on Tuesday.

It was not clear if this number represented the total number of people held after the riots because the report did not mention anybody being released. Officials had previously said that more than 1,500 had been detained.

Two more swine flu cases have been detected, taking the tally of infected cases to 32, IEDCR director Mahmudur Rahman said Tuesday.

Rahman told newsmen 12 cases had been contracted in the country. The other 20 cases had been detected in Bangladeshis who had recently arrived from the US, Britain, Australia and South East Asia.

A parliamentary delegation from Dhaka, after its visit to India, is convinced that the Tipaimukh dam project will not threaten Bangladesh's interests, said delegation head Abdur Razzak on Tuesday.

"We are absolutely convinced with the Indian assurance that they will not implement any project that would harm Bangladesh," Razzak told a press conference at Zia International Airport on the delegation's return from New Delhi.

The government has promoted 19 top civil servants to secretary rank, who had been posted as acting secretaries in recent months to ministries and divisions including information, power, food, labour, social welfare, environment, planning and internal resources.

The recommendations had already been made at a meeting of the Superior Selection Board, establishment secretary Iqbal Mahmud told bdnews24.com Tuesday.

Six members of the 10-strong parliamentary delegation will stay back in New Delhi one more day after the team failed for a second day on Sunday to visit the proposed Tipaimukh dam site, in India's northeast Manipur state.

Md Hasanuzzaman, personal secretary to delegation head Abdur Razzak, told bdnews24.com, "The Bangladesh high commission in New Delhi informed me that the Dhaka delegation is staying in the Indian capital for another day to speak to relevant government officials."

Google Inc Chief Executive Eric Schmidt is resigning from Apple Inc's board of directors, Apple said, citing increased competition between the two leading technology companies.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs said that with Google's recent unveiling of a computer operating system, "we have mutually decided that now is the right time for Eric to resign his position on Apple's Board.