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- 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  - 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.

Dhaka- The vice-chairman of Myanmar's military junta is scheduled to make a three-day official visit to Bangladesh, a foreign ministry official said Monday.

General Maung Aye, who is also the head of the Myanmar army, will lead a 55-member delegation including seven government ministers to discuss a host of outstanding issues between the neighbour nations.

Maung Aye is scheduled to meet with the chief of Bangladesh's interim administration, Fakhruddin Ahmed, to discuss bilateral concerns, said the official.

Dhaka  - Authorities in Bangladesh on Monday began to automate customs clearance at the country's main Chittagong port to speed up the process to export and import goods.

Inaugurating the automation process of Chittagong Customs House at a ceremony in Dhaka, the chief adviser of the country's interim administration, Fakhruddin Ahmed, said his government will also bring other customs offices under the computerised system for the betterment of trade and commerce.