Dhaka - Businesses and policymakers in Bangladesh said Saturday they fear that the global financial crisis might cause a slump in the country's export earnings as its major export destinations are severely hit by the meltdown.

Businessmen said their buyers in Europe and the US have already started delaying new orders, and economists predict a higher fiscal deficit because of lower foreign capital inflow and external funding to the impoverished South Asian country.

Dhaka - Researchers have identified waters along Bangladesh's coast and deep in the Bay of Bengal as one of the richest areas on Earth for cetacean diversity.

An amazing array of dolphins and whales live in these areas, the US-based Wildlife Conservation Society and Bangladesh's Cetacean Diversity Project said after conducting a joint study over the past six years.

But scientists at the same time warned that the habitats of these aquatic mammals are increasingly in danger because of declining freshwater flows from the Ganges River and global climate change.

Dhaka - Military-ruled Myanmar on Wednesday informed Bangladesh that it did not have enough reserve of natural gas to offer Bangladesh to run fertilizer plants at present.

In response to Dhaka's proposal for gas import from Yangon, visiting Myanmar Energy Minister, Lun Thi, told his counterpart M Tamim that Bangladesh will have to compete with other regional players like Thailand and China if it wants gas import in future.

Dhaka- Bangladesh on Tuesday proposed a tripartite meeting to discuss the possibility of linking the South Asian country with China via a cross-border road with Myanmar, an official said.

Bangladesh's chief foreign policy adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed presented the proposal at a meeting with General Maung Aye, a high-ranking member of Myanmar's military junta, who is on a three-day official visit to Bangladesh.

Maung Aye, vice chairman of State Peace and Development Council of Myanmar, leads a 55-member delegation including seven government ministers.

Dhaka - The vice-chairman of Myanmar's military junta, General Maung Aye, arrived in Dhaka Tuesday for bilateral talks with Bangladeshi leaders, officials said.

The chief of Bangladesh's military-backed interim government, Fakhruddin Ahmed and cabinet colleagues including army chief Moen U Ahmed welcomed Maung Aye at the international airport.

The Myanmar general leads a 55-member delegation including seven government ministers on the three-day official visit.

Fakhruddin is expected to host talks on regarding disputes over a maritime boundary, construction of a cross-border road link, and leasing of Myanmar land to Bangladeshi farmers for cultivation, his press secretary said.

Dhaka  - A court in Dhaka on Monday asked Bangladesh's former primer Khaleda Zia and a few of her ex-cabinet colleagues to appear in court by next Sunday in a graft case.

Accepting the charge sheet, pressed Sunday by an anti-corruption investigator against 15 others in a coalmine corruption case, the Metropolitan Session Judge, Mohammad Azizul Haq, also issued a warrant for the arrest of nine other officials of her 2001-2006 cabinet of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led alliance government.