Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Friday said the USA had tried its best to stop the January 5 election in Bangladesh, which was inevitable to continue democracy and constitutional rule. “They (USA) tried their best to make sure that this election (January 5) could not take place,” she said. The Prime Minister made the observation, responding to a question regarding the recent visit of US assistant secretary of state Nisha Biswal and her comments on Bangladesh, at a press briefing held at her official residence Ganabhaban to inform about her recent Ne...

A mechanism needs to be developed to keep tabs on the movement of cargo vessels from Bangladesh to Kolkata as part of the Indo-Bangladesh trade protocol, the Navy feels. After necessary formalities at Hemnagar on the Indo-Bangladesh border, the vessels - which are actually large barges - pass through the fringe of the Sundarbans to Namkhana and northward to Budge Budge and Kolkata. The Navy had wanted to keep a tab on these vessels using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) but they couldn’t be based at Behala due to problems of land...

Corruption rose in Bangladesh with the country sliding two notches to rank the 14^th most corrupt country in the world, according to this year’s Corruption Perception Index of Transparency International. The country scored 25 points out of 100, two points less than last year’s, shows the index released globally by the Berlin-based graft watchdog yesterday. TI Bangladesh shared the findings of the global survey at a crowded press conference at Jatiya Press Club in the capital. In South Asia, Bangladesh remains the second most corrupt country a...