"The civil society is like mercenaries. They work for the highest bidder. They want to be caretaker government advisers and also want to become ministers

BANGLADESH signed a deal with Saudi Arabia yesterday to resume recruitment of workers on a gradual basis, which will result in 10,000 jobs per month,

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her cabinet colleagues are now calling civil society members -- who are putting in efforts for a dialogue to resolve the ongoing political standoff -- as "key actors" in the 1/11 changeover.

Dhaka and Riyadh are expected to strike a deal to resume recruitment from Bangladesh on a gradual basis, beginning with house servants such as maids and drivers.

BANGLADESH Shop Owners' Association representing 25 lakh retailers has put across an SOS to political leaders to rescue them from impending ruination.

ACCORDING to information received form the Dhaka Metropolitan Police, the DMP has arrested more than a thousand people on political grounds between January 5 and February 6. 76 percent of those are BNP cadres and the rest Jamaat's.

THE situation in the country is so desperate that it has gone far beyond the parameters of what we have so far known as political gridlocks. With innocents dying or burning out every day, law enforcers taking a toll in so-called cross-fires, economy, education, public health and livelihoods in jeopardy as BNP and AL swear by a fight-to-finish amid forebodings of a still darker future, any collective voice of sanity rings out a positive note.

LITTLE do we realise the severe trauma that surviving burn victims go through. The suffering is so much that many of them wished that they were better dead than alive. Regrettably, due to the spate of violence we have witnessed in the last five weeks, their numbers are accreting every day. What the country has in its hands are more disabled and more infirm people who cannot get by on their own.

“Everyone has the democratic rights to wage a movement. But do they have the right to burn and kill people?"

The BNP has again called for 72-hour hartal. We condemn it most strongly. We do so more because the fate of one and a half million students is being played foul with. An unthinking continuation of hartal imperils the plight of students which is already in dire straits having been caught up in two disruptive spells of exam rescheduling. Further uncertainty looms over their academic career with degenerate politics showing no signs of abating.

According to a report by UNB, we understand that more than half our missions abroad have failed to attain their export targets in the current fiscal (2014-15). It is sad to see that important embassies and high commissions abroad in cities like Washington, Berlin and London are among those on the list. Export earnings target for the July–December period fell short by more than $700 million, which is approximately 4.42 percent lower than the target set.

For trucker Liton, life is now a nightmare. A bomb attack has blown away his one eye and damaged the other. But what worries him the most is the future of his five-member family.