Bangladesh

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived Friday in Bangladesh’s capital to join celebrations marking 50 years of the country’s independence.

His visit sparked violent protests at Dhaka’s main mosque that were dispersed by police using tear gas and rubber bullets — injuring scores of people — after clashes broke out between groups of demonstrators, officials and witnesses said.

Critics accuse Modi’s Hindu-nationalist party of stoking religious polarization in India and discriminating against minorities, particularly Muslims.

COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh (AP) — Searchers recovered at least 15 charred bodies after a devastating fire destroyed thousands of shelters at a Rohingya refugee camp in southern Bangladesh, officials said Tuesday.

At least 400 people were still missing and around 560 were injured by the fire, according to Louise Donovan, a spokesperson for the United Nations’ refugee agency. The UNHCR said around 45,000 people were displaced by the fire, which broke out Monday afternoon and burned well into the night.

13 Mar 2021; MEMO: After a year of impasse, the UN and Bangladesh finally reached a consensus on a first-hand visit by the UN delegation to the Rohingya relocation site on a remote Bangladeshi island, officials said today, Anadolu Agency reports.

DHAKA, Feb 28 (NNN-BSS) – Bangladesh reported 407 new COVID-19 cases and five deaths yesterday, making the tally at 545,831 and death toll at 8,400, the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), said.

A total of 12,348 samples were tested in the last 24 hours across Bangladesh. The total number of recovered patients in the country stood at 496,107, including 609 new recoveries yesterday, said the DGHS.

According to official data, the COVID-19 fatality rate in Bangladesh is now 1.54 percent and the current recovery rate is 90.89 percent.

DHAKA (Reuters) - Bangladesh is under “no obligation” to shelter 81 Rohingya Muslim refugees adrift for almost two weeks on the Andaman Sea and being assisted by neighbouring India, said Bangladesh foreign minister A.K. Abdul Momen.

India’s coast guard found the 81 survivors and eight dead crammed onto a crippled fishing boat and were trying to arrange for Bangladesh to take them, Indian officials said on Friday.

But Momen told Reuters late on Friday that Bangladesh expects India, the closest country, or Myanmar, the Rohingyas’ country of origin, to accept them.

DHAKA, Feb (NNN-AGENCIES) — The United Nations refugee agency called for the immediate rescue of a group of Rohingya refugees who were adrift in their boat in the Andaman Sea without food or water, many of whom were ill and suffering from extreme dehydration.

The agency said it understood some passengers had died, with fatalities rising over the weekend on a boat it said had left the coastal district of Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh about 10 days ago and had experienced engine failure.

DHAKA, Jan 15 (NNN-BSS) — Health and Family Welfare Minister Zahid Maleque said Bangladesh has the capacity to preserve 14 to 15 crore COVID-19 vaccine doses.

“We would be able to apply four to five crore COVID-19 vaccine doses in an appropriate manner as the health sector of the country has enough capacity for storage of vaccines,” he told a meeting on “Application and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines” at the health ministry here, an official release said.

DHAKA, Dec 30 (NNN-BSS) – Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the government of Bangladesh, yesterday signed agreements for 200 million U.S. dollars in additional loans, including 130 million U.S. dollars concessional loan, to improve access to efficient and reliable electricity supply in rural areas in Bangladesh, by strengthening transmission and distribution networks.

The additional loans will scale up the ongoing 616 million U.S. dollars, Bangladesh Power System Enhancement and Efficiency Improvement Project, which ADB approved in 2017.

DHAKA (Reuters) - Bangladesh is set to move a second batch of Rohingya refugees from neighbouring Myanmar to the remote island of Bhasan Char in the Bay of Bengal this month, officials said on Sunday, despite calls by rights groups not to carry out further relocations.

Around 1,000 Rohingya refugees, members of a Muslim minority who have fled Myanmar, will be moved to the island in the next few days after Bangladesh relocated more than 1,600 early this month, two officials with the direct knowledge of the matter said.

DHAKA, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- Another 250-kg wartime bomb was on Monday found at now the construction site of Bangladesh's Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in capital Dhaka, said the Defense Ministry's Inter Service Public Relations (ISPR) department.

The department said in a statement that workers found the cylinder-shaped general-purpose (GP) bomb buried about 3.05 meters deep when excavating for building the third terminal of the airport on Monday morning.