The United States right now is preferring diplomatic solutions to the Rohingya crisis instead of punishment to Myanmar though there is scope for sanctions if needed, a State Department official said in Dhaka yesterday.

The US wants Myanmar to repatriate hundreds of thousands of Rohingyas in their own villages following their exodus from violence-wracked Rakhine State towards Bangladesh, a senior State Department official said in Dhaka yesterday.

The BNP chairperson's road trip to reach out to the Rohingyas living in refugee camps is a refreshing deviation from a long hibernation of the party in terms of drumming up support.

Imagine yourself in the year 1905. Governor General Lord Curzon has just implemented the Partition of Bengal. Curzon Hall and the Supreme Court were yet to be built.

Myanmar's government began harvesting rice from farmland abandoned by Rohingya in northern Rakhine yesterday, officials said, a move likely to raise concerns about the prospect of return for more than half a million refugees who have fled communal violence in the area.

Demolition of the century-old laboratory building in the capital's Khamarbari is going on despite an outcry from preservationists.

If you are poor and in jail for some reason and you happen to be seriously ill, you are probably out of luck. But if you are a rich inmate or have political clout, you do not even need to be sick to have extended holidays at the country's leading government hospitals.

According to Bangladesh Shishu Adhikar Forum, a total of 494 children were raped in the eight months from January till August this year—among them 58 were gang-raped. According to their statistics, 37 disabled children were raped during this time, while 46 were victims of attempted rape.

What we call Russian revolution, from a long-term view, is a revolution in three episodes. Lenin called 1905 a "dress rehearsal" and, as Paul Dukes among others notes, he was the first to argue that October must follow on from February. So did Trotsky.

The ever-growing Rohingya influx is a crisis not only for Bangladesh but also for the region as well as the entire world, UN Resident Coordinator in Bangladesh Robert D Watkins has said.

Two Chhatra League leaders and an admission seeker at Dhaka University were arrested yesterday over leaking the question paper of

The statement by the Bangladesh Supreme Court, issued a day after Chief Justice SK Sinha left Dhaka for Australia on “leave”, raises questions one can hardly avoid.

At least 12 people drowned and dozens remained missing after a boat carrying Rohingyas sank in the Naf River yesterday, as more than 30,000 Myanmarese nationals joined half a million others who crossed over into Bangladesh since late August. The dead include seven women and four children aged between one and four. Fifteen boat people have been rescued.

Two of the country's largest public health facilities -- Dhaka Medical College Hospital and Mitford Hospital -- might not be able to withstand an earthquake of seven magnitude on the Richter scale.

After the shame of Bosnia, there should not have been a Myanmar. Yet, Myanmar happened because the big nations on both sides of the East-West divide have rendered the UN an ineffective organisation, a platform to talk and not to take actions.

Two parties are widely blamed for the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingyas: the Myanmar army and Aung San Suu Kyi. They stand amid the embers and ashes of torched Rohingya homes, objects of a furious global condemnation.

1994 should have been a watershed year in human history; a year to feel ashamed of humanity's failure to stop a genocide that resulted in the deaths of 800,000 mostly Tutsis in Rwanda; a year to mend the mistakes that allowed the atrocities to happen, and to build solid defence against such atrocities in the future; it should have been truly a year of re-learning the lessons from death and destruction.

The government is planning to bring the entire Dhaka city under video surveillance under an ambitious project to ensure better safety and security as well as combat crimes. The finance ministry has recently agreed to fund the Tk 5,000-crore project to be implemented by the police, after a similar scheme taken up in 2007 failed due to fund crunch, technical glitches and lack of expertise, sources said.\

The Foreign Ministry's statement, following the mixed messages coming out of Naypyidaw after the visit of Myanmar's Union Minister U Kyaw Tint Swe to Bangladesh, that it betrayed the doubtful intention of Myanmar, has said it all.

Myanmar's promise to take back the Rohingyas, who have taken refuge in Bangladesh, looks empty and seems to be a tactic to ease international pressure. This is reflected in the contents of a hasty statement put on the official website of State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi hours after Myanmar Union Minister U Kyaw Zeya concluded his Dhaka visit.