Sheikh Hasina, Bangladesh’s prime minister, has said there is a risk of further attacks “to foil the country’s democracy”, following a mutiny by paramilitary troops that left more than 70 officers dead.
In comments on Wednesday, Hasina said that her own safety was also at risk, describing last week’s revolt by the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) border guards as “condemnable”.
Hasina said the 33-hour mutiny was part of a wider plot to destabilise the country.
“Conspiracies against Bangladesh are not over yet … the game is still on,” she said at a seminar speech …

Dhaka: Veteran politician Zillur Rahman on Thursday took the oath as the 19th president of Bangladesh a day after the Election Commission declared him the new head of the state-elect as the lone candidate for the highest office.
Chief Justice M.M. Ruhul Amin administered the oath of office at an austere ceremony at the Bangabhaban presidential palace last evening.
Guests witnessing the ceremony gave him a standing ovation as the swearing-in was over.

Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) Chairperson and former prime minister Khaleda Zia who lost Monday’s parliament election said Tuesday midnight that the election results are not acceptable to her party.
In a brief statement to the press after a meeting of the BNP standing committee, she said, “The blueprint about which we had been saying earlier, came into reality through the election results.”
Khaleda said it is noticeable that there are some leaders of her party who have been elected time and again in the past with big margin are on the …

DHAKA (Reuters) – One man was killed and about 150 people were injured on Tuesday in clashes between rival political activists, one day after Bangladesh’s parliamentary election, a private television station reported.
“One man died in northern Pabna area, where around 50 others were injured in the clashes,” Diganta Tva said, quoting police and witnesses. Around 100 more people were hurt in post-election violence across the country, it said.
Reuters

NEW DELHI — After two years of army-backed emergency rule, democracy returned to Bangladesh as the secular Awami League party scored an apparent landslide victory in election results announced on Tuesday.
Voting on Monday had proceeded in a largely peaceful atmosphere, and in many locations it was even quite festive.
According to the Associated Press, the election official Humayun Kabir said the Awami League, in alliance with a smaller party called Jatiya, won a more than two-thirds majority in Parliament after votes in most districts had been counted. “This has been a …

An alliance under Bangladesh’s former prime minister Sheikh Hasina won a massive parliamentary majority in the country’s first polls in seven years, unofficial results showed, but a rival party complained of irregularities.
Analysts said it was unclear if the losers would accept the results or take their supporters onto the streets to protest. Confrontations, strikes and street violence have often hampered the effectiveness of Bangladeshi governments in the past.
Unofficial results from election centres around the country showed Hasina’s “Grand Alliance” led by her Awami League had so far won 206 …

Her plucked-and-arched eyebrows flanking brown shades, pink chiffon chador over head with a wisp of grey showing, Begum Khaleda Zia has just cast her vote in the centre at Adamjee Cantonment School and College here.
Workers of her Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), she alleges, have been harassed overnight in Rangpur and Satkhira, but she is hoping the elections will be peaceful.
The Awami League’s 14-party combine is widely tipped to take an edge over the BNP-led four-party alliance. Zia may be positioning herself for an upset after claiming she was on …

Dhaka, Bangladesh (AHN) – The Awami League (AL)-led grand alliance is headed for a landslide victory in Monday’s parliament polls as its candidates were unofficially elected to over 151 seats out of 300. Begum Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its allies won just more than 20 seats to the AL-led grand alliance’s over 151 by the early hours of Tuesday morning in Dhaka.
“The Awami League is heading for a clear majority,” Election Commission Secretary Humayun Kabir told the Agence France-Presse.

Voting is complete in Bangladesh’s first election in seven years and the process appears largely peaceful, save 18 reported injuries.
Although the Australian Broadcast Corporation (ABC) indicates that the day of voting in Bangladesh was “mostly peaceful and orderly,” there are reports of violence. The Associated Press says that violence in southwestern Bangladesh has resulted in injuries to 18 people. According to AP, the United News of Bangladesh agency says that the fighting erupted in the Madaripur district, 45 miles southwest of the capital of Dhaka, between supporters of opposing …

A general election is scheduled to be held in Bangladesh on 29 December 2008, after being postponed from the original date of 18 December 2008. They were originally scheduled for 21 January 2007, but postponed by two days due to demands by the opposition made in December 2006. They were put back by one day to 22 January, and subsequently postponed for an extended period due to opposition protests and boycott threats.
The general election is once again being contested between Khaleda Zia of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and …