Two earthquakes shook Sylhet district within five minutes early Thursday. According to the National Center for Seismology of India, the first tremor, measuring 3.5 on the Richter scale at a depth of 20 kilometers, was felt at 2:20AM, followed by a second at 2:25AM, measuring 3.3 at a depth of 30 kilometers. No damage or casualties were reported. Shah Md ...

The Election Commission will announce the schedule for the upcoming national parliamentary election on Thursday evening, Senior Secretary Akhtar Ahmed confirmed on Wednesday. Earlier in the afternoon, at around 4PM, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) A M M Nasiruddin recorded his formal address regarding the schedule at his office in the Election Commission headquarters in Agargaon. The speech will be aired ...

Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperatives Adviser Asif Mahmud Shojib Bhuiyan has confirmed he will contest the upcoming national election, but says any announcement regarding his resignation from the interim advisory council will come from the Chief Adviser’s Office. Speaking at a press conference at Secretariat on Wednesday afternoon, Asif Mahmud highlighted various initiatives and development activities of LGRD Ministry. ...

President Mohammed Shahabuddin expressed satisfaction over the preparations undertaken by the Election Commission (EC) ahead of the upcoming 13th parliamentary election and the national referendum, EC Senior Secretary Akhtar Ahmed said on Wednesday. “The President expressed satisfaction after we informed him in detail,” Akhtar Ahmed said while talking to reporters after a meeting between Chief Election Commissioner AMM Nasir Uddin, ...

Finance Adviser Dr Salehuddin Ahmed has underscored the urgent need to curb VAT leakage. At a seminar on Wednesday, he said, “Bangladesh’s economic progress depends fundamentally on its ability to mobilise domestic resources rather than relying excessively on foreign loans and grants.” Adviser Dr Salehuddin said, “There is no doubt about the need for VAT. In many countries, VAT contributes ...

Donald Trump has sought to reboot his ailing US presidency at a rally-style event with a blitz of false claims about the economy and xenophobic attacks on immigrants and “shithole countries”. In the wake of Republican election defeats and criticism that he is out of touch with America’s affordability crisis, Trump’s speech at the Mount Pocono casino in north-eastern Pennsylvania ...

A London City Hall committee has warned that Heathrow Airport’s expansion plans would undermine progress made to the capital’s air quality and expose residents to “harmful” levels of noise, in a letter to the government. Last month, the government backed the airport’s proposals for a third runway, which could increase the annual number of flights from 480,000 to 756,000. In ...

Sir Keir Starmer has urged European leaders to reform human rights laws to make it easier to deport illegal migrants ahead of crucial talks on a potential shake-up of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). The government has already announced plans to restrict asylum seekers using the “right to family life” clause in the ECHR to avoid deportation from ...

Shabana Mahmood’s radical plans to overhaul the asylum system could cause “unintended consequences” such as increased homelessness among people seeking refuge and growing case backlogs, Whitehall’s spending watchdog has concluded. The head of the National Audit Office said that the home secretary’s policies, which are meant to accelerate case decisions and reduce appeals, would require “effective action on the bottlenecks” ...

Corridor care is “endemic” in the UK, doctors have said, as a major study found one in five patients were treated in hallways, offices and cupboards. Millions of patients are enduring undignified and unsafe care, with almost every A&E department in the country deploying the approach routinely, contravening national guidance, research reveals. Amid mass overcrowding and long delays for treatment ...