Dhaka , Sept 11 : Khaleda Zia, the former Bangladesh Prime Minister and chairperson of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) was today released on bail after a year''s detention in prison.

Zia was released as a part of an apparent deal between her and the military-backed interim government.

The BNP chairperson walked free from a makeshift jail in Parliament premises at about 11.45 A. M.

All the necessary papers for her release had reached the jail authorities last night.

Dhaka  - The wife and daughter of executed Islamic militant chief Shaekh Abdur Rahman have been freed on bail from a provincial jail in north-eastern Bangladesh, local officials said Wednesday.

The two women were held in prison since the founder of the outlawed Jamiatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) was sent to the gallows last year along with two of his deputies.

Authorities in Sylhet province said Nurjahan Rupa and her daughter Arifa were released after bail bonds were posted for them.

London, September 10 : The UK is giving 133 million dollars to ‘climate-proof’ Bangladesh, i. e., it would help the country prepare for the impacts of climate change.

According to a report by BBC, the money will go on measures such as protecting houses, schools and farms against flooding, and introducing new crop strains.

Aid agencies have welcomed the move, but say poorer countries will need much more money to adapt to climate change.

UN resources for climate adaptation are badly under-funded, they say. The resources currently available for adaptation are grossly inadequate.

Dhaka - Nearly 100,000 people made homeless by floods in northern Bangladesh began returning to their villages Tuesday as rivers receded to below danger levels, officials said.

Water levels dropped in all three major rivers in the country as monsoon rains tapered off in the northern and central regions, the state Water Development Board said.

The board in its latest bulletin said the water level in the Ganges had dropped dramatically over the weekend and was flowing at half a metre below the danger mark at most monitoring stations.

Dhaka, Sept. 8 : The location of the orphanage in Bangladesh from where Republican presidential nominee John McCain’s stepdaughter, Bridget, was taken has been revealed.

McCain and his wife adopted Bridget as their daughter 17 years ago from a Dhaka orphanage.

She was then a desperately ill baby girl after a cyclone struck Bangladesh in 1991, the Sunday Telegraph reveals.

Dhaka - Areas in Bangladesh's northern and central region were inundated Saturday, submerging a fourth of the country, as authorities warned of more floods and the displacement of tens of thousands of people.

Officials in the Flood Forecasting and Warning Centre in the capital Dhaka said the major rivers in the country were above danger levels and nearly 20 out of 64 administrative districts were flooded.

Crops were destroyed, enclosures washed away and people rendered homeless as the waters collapsed flood protection embankments at several points.