Dhaka - More than 100 fishermen were feared drowned in the rough waters of the Bay of Bengal with rising tides setting off flash floods that hit the coastal belt of southern Bangladesh, rescuers and local officials said Wednesday.

The high tides caused by a depression in the bay inundated the low-lying areas of seven coastal districts, leaving hundreds of people stranded at flooded fishing villages and rice farms.

Dhaka - Former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Khaleda Zia was appointed chairwoman for life of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) in a bid to protect her against moves by reformists to elect a new party leadership, officials said Sunday.

Tanvir Rahman Siddiqui, a member of BNP's policy-making standing committee, told a news briefing that Zia would remain party chief as long as she wished or her health permitted.

Dhaka  - Former Bangladeshi premier Khaleda Zia walked to freedom Thursday from a high security makeshift prison in the parliament complex in northern Dhaka, a senior prison official said.

Inspector General of Prisons Zakir Hasan said Zia was freed from her special cell after the courts delivered her release order.

Thousands of supporters of the ex-prime minister thronged the parliament building after news of her release spread.

Zia's release comes a year after she was arrested for graft and abuse of power during her second five-year term as prime minister leading a four-party alliance government which included her Bangladesh Nationalist Party.

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.

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.