WIKILEAKS EXPOSÉ

The UK and the US government are working hand-in-hand to influence Bangladesh's madrasa curricula in a bid to achieve a 'common counterterrorism goal', WikiLeaks has revealed.

British government officials have made moves towards influencing Islamic education in Bangladesh as part of regional counterterrorism strategies.

WIKILEAKS EXPOSÉ

Officers of Rapid Action Battalion, the elite force of Bangladesh raised to fight crime and terrorism, were trained in the UK, according to a US embassy cable leaked by the WikiLeaks.

RAB is held responsible for hundreds of extra-judicial killings despite objections from different human rights organisations, both in home and abroad, The Guardian newspaper reported on Tuesday.

The bail appeal of BNP leader and major war crimes suspect Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury in the arson and murder case has been turned down.

The Dhaka's Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Court judge Mostafa Shahriar on Wednesday rejected the bail request and ordered him jail.

The court also ordered to provide Chowdhury facilities and take measures for treatment if he feels sick.

WIKILEAKS EXPOSÉ

US diplomats have repeatedly put pressure on Bangladesh government to reopen the controversial Phulbari coal mine, which was closed following a violent protest.

In a latest WikiLeaks release, a diplomatic US cable shows that US ambassador to Bangladesh James Moriarty held talks with the country's chief energy advisor last year.

EDIBLE OIL

The government has fixed the prices of edible oil for the second time in a month.

The prices, set for the next 15 days, will come into effect on Thursday, said A K Azad, president of the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI), on Wednesday.

He said unpacked soybean oil price for other places than greater Chittagong has been fixed at Tk 90 per litre, while Tk 89 for Chittagong.

CLIMATE CONFERENCE

Bangladesh has demanded immediate release of quick funds and agreement on a robust plan for next year's climate summit in Durban, South Africa.

Bangladesh's state minister for environment, Hasan Mahmud, told a high-level plenary session at the Cancún climate talks on Wednesday that he wanted to see an ambitious work plan leading to the next summit in Durban.

Initial probe into Wednesday's train crash in Narsinghdi that left at least 14 people dead finds the loco master of Chattala Express responsible for the accident.

Head of a four-member probe committee Eusuf Ali told bdnews24.com: "The Chattala loco master Rafiq Uddin left the main tracks and entered the platform, ignoring the signal."

The government is working on expansion of cardiac treatment across the country, the health minister says.

"The technology and services for ensuring primary life support to cardiac patients will be made available at the district hospitals," A F M Ruhal Haque said on Thursday at a conference on cardiac disease in the city.

National Heart Foundation organised the two-day conference, which was also attended by health state minister cap (retd) Mozibur Rahman Fakir, foundation president justice Chowdhury A T M Masud and general secretary brig (retd) Abdul Malik.

An American company that had been directing traffic to the WikiLeaks website withdrew its services late on Thursday, making the site invisible for several hours.

EveryDNS.net, which helps computers locate the sites of its members, said WikiLeaks had breached its terms of service, and that it had stopped providing services to the controversial publisher of leaked information at 2200 Eastern time on Thursday (0300 GMT on Friday).

Spinner Abdur Razzak pulled off a spectacular hat-trick to help Bangladesh thrash Zimbabwe by six wickets in Mirpur on Friday.

Chasing 192 atSher-e-Bangla National Stadium, Bangladesh reached the target in the 40th over to level the five-match Micromax one-day international series 1-1.

Communications minister Syed Abul Hossain has said that the funds for the much-desired Padma Bridge have been arranged and its construction will be completed before the end of the tenure of the current government.

The minister mentioned this on Friday while distributing the compensation among the landowners, whose lands have been acquired for the bridge, at Zazira in Shariatpur.

MUNICIPAL POLLS

Awami League general secretary Syed Ashraful Islam has said the grand alliance will have common candidates in the upcoming municipal elections.

He made the announcement after the party's central executive committee meeting held on Friday evening with Awami League president Sheikh Hasina in the chair.

Removal of belongings at Khaleda Zia's Cantonment house began on Friday and it would take perhaps another day to clear out all items.

According to eyewitnesses, household goods collected from the house on 6 Mainul Road were shifted to a rented house in Baridhara and another house in Dhanmondi.

Beximco Pharmaceuticals has joined forces with an American company to launch four drugs in the US market in the next three years.

Beximco Pharma recently signed a strategic manufacturing, supply, and product development agreement with Adamis Pharmaceuticals and the companies plan to introduce four generic respiratory drug formulations.
The two companies will co-develop certain generic formulations, some of which Beximco currently produces for the European market.

Grameen Bank has dismissed reports that its founder Muhammad Yunus had diverted nearly Tk 7 billion in aid to another company as "inaccurate and misleading".

It denied any wrongdoing and said 'these reports are a total fabrication and baseless".

Norway's national TV NRK aired a documentary on November 30 titled "Fanget i Mikrogjeld" or "Caught in Micro debt", based on which bdnews24.com ran a report on December 1. According to the documentary, Nobel laureate Yunus transferred the money to Grameen Kalyan, which was in no way involved with microcredit operations.

The United States was catapulted into a worldwide diplomatic crisis on Sunday, with the leaking to the Guardian and The New York Times and some other international media of more than 250,000 classified cables from its embassies, many sent as recently as February this year.

The documents show Saudi donors remain chief financiers of militant groups like al Qaeda and that Chinese government operatives have waged a coordinated campaign of computer sabotage targeting the United States and its allies, according to a review of the WikiLeaks documents published in the Times.

The power secretary has expressed fear that mass agitation could rise in the next few months due to increasing demand for electricity.

"We've three threats ahead of us – for irrigation, SSC exams and the World Cup," Abul Kalam Azad said on Sunday at a meeting with the local representatives and administrative officials at the office of Rangpur deputy commissioner.

The 14-party grand alliance has warned the government over prices of daily necessities, and law and order issues.

"We've urged the government to be on alert," Awami League general secretary Syed Ashraful Islam said on Sunday after the fourth meeting of the ruling alliance.

Meat and milk from cloned cattle show no difference in composition from that of traditionally bred cows and so are unlikely to pose a food safety risk, an advisory committee to Britain's food safety regulator said.

The Advisory Committee on Novel Foods and Processes, following an open meeting on Thursday, said that consumers still may want to see effective labeling of products from clones and their offspring partly due to animal welfare concerns.

If Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo wanted to lay down markers ahead of the Barcelona v Real Madrid showdown at the Camp Nou on Monday, scoring hat-tricks in their final La Liga games before El Clasico was a typically sublime way to go about it.

Messi and Ronaldo are the two best players on the planet right now. They play weekly at a level most can only dream of, consistently overshadowing the abundance of world-class players who line up as their team-mates and opponents alike, reports BBC sports.