In Bangladesh, it’s always teatime. The country produces 60 million kilos of tea every year, with almost 95% consumed domestically. At the center of the industry is the bucolic town of Srimangal, a five-hour train ride northeast of Dhaka. You can rent a bike to zip around Srimangal’s estates — most of them welcome [...]
While the entire country is gripped by the Lionel Messi fever with the arrival time of the Argentine superstar looming close, national cricket captain Sakib al Hasan is also not an exception. Sakib, currently Bangladesh’s biggest sporting icon, is a keen follower of Messi, so much so that he even recently switched his support [...]
Iraq will hire more than 30,000 workers, both skilled and unskilled, from Bangladesh soon for rebuilding the country’s infrastructure. Both the countries will sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in this regard within two months, Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment Minister Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain on Monday said. He was briefing journalists at the [...]
The US East Coast has begun clearing up after the devastation of tropical storm Irene, which killed at least 21 people. The storm is now lashing Canada’s north-east, after causing severe flooding in the US and leaving some five million homes without power. But New York was not nearly as badly affected as state [...]
Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda, a fiscal hawk, will become Japan’s sixth prime minister in five years after winning a ruling party vote on Monday, an outcome likely to please investors worried about a bulging public debt. Noda, 54, who defeated Trade Minister Banri Kaieda in a run-off vote, must cope with a resurgent yen [...]
The Scottish government Monday took aim at critics of its decision to release Lockerbie bomber Abdelbeset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, a day after CNN found him comatose and near death. CNN Senior International Correspondent Nic Robertson found al Megrahi under the care of his family in his palatial Tripoli villa Sunday, surviving on oxygen [...]
Visiting national security advisor Shiv Shankar Menon has discussed itinerary details of Indian premier Manmohan Singh with prime minister Sheikh Hasina. Singh is scheduled to visit Dhaka Sept 6-7 when he is expected to sign a number of significant deals for cooperation between the two neighbours. When Menon met Hasina on Monday at her [...]
Sony Ericsson — a 50-50 mobile devices venture between Sweden’s Ericsson AB (privately held) and Japan’s Sony Corp. (TYO:6758) — appears to be finally getting serious about the U.S. smartphone market. In May it released the long-rumored “PlayStation Phone” (official the Xperia Play) in the U.S. on the Verizon Communications, Inc. (VZ) network.  While the [...]
Back in the 1920s, the great Jazz Age writer F. Scott Fitzgerald published a story titled The Diamond as Big as the Ritz — the Ritz-Carlton hotel, that is, which even in those pre-high-rise days was a pretty hefty chunk of real estate. Fitzgerald wasn’t a science-fiction writer, so he didn’t have to explain [...]
Lionel Messi won the inaugural UEFA Best Player in Europe award on Thursday, finishing ahead of Barcelona team-mate Xavi and Real Madrid’s Cristiano Ronaldo. The vote, conducted by sports journalists representing each of UEFA’s member associations, was organised with the idea of reviving the spirit of the former European Footballer of the Year award [...]