Dhaka

- Rising rivers driven by late monsoon storms in northern Bangladesh Tuesday flooded hundreds of homes and forced the rescue of thousands of people stranded in muddy villages, officials said.

The swollen Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers breached their banks, inundating farmlands in the 16 stricken districts in the past two days, the Flood Forecasting and Warning Centre said.

Dhaka  - Rising rivers driven by late monsoon storms in northern Bangladesh Tuesday flooded hundreds of homes and forced the rescue of thousands of people stranded in muddy villages, officials said

Dhaka- Bangladesh's opposition Awami League protested a High Court decision to overturn guilty verdicts against six former army officers accused of killing captive political leaders, news reports said Friday.

On Thursday, two officers handed death sentences in 2004 were cleared of charges involving their role in a prison massacre in 1975, in which four top leaders of the opposition Awami League were gunned down in their cells, while four officers serving life sentences were also acquitted.

Dhaka  - After more than two days of a bitter life and death struggle in a small hospital in western Bangladesh, a double-headed baby boy died Thursday as crowds of grief-stricken people waited outside.

Witnesses said many in the crowd went hysteric when the hospital officials announced the death of the baby, who apparently had two heads with a double pair of eyes and ears and two noses.

Earlier hundreds of people had gathered at a local health clinic to have a glimpse of the double-headed male baby christened Kiron (Light) by his parents.

Dhaka - Thousands of people gathered at a clinic in western Bangladesh see a double-headed baby boy born to a farm worker, media reports said Wednesday.

The mass circulation newspaper Ittefaq quoted medical personnel in small town of Keshabpur, west of Dhaka as saying the baby had two pairs of eyes and ears and two noses.

Doctor Abdul Bari, who delivered the baby by Caesarian section, told reporters the child weighed four-and-a-half kilos. The baby had been named Kiron (Light) by his parents.

Dhaka - The High Court in Bangladesh Tuesday released former prime minister Khaleda Zia for four months to undergo medical treatment.

Zia, 63, was detained in September last year on corruption charges.

The same court granted her son and political heir Tarique Rahman an identical four-month release, also for medical treatment.

Both rulings were made on humanitarian grounds and after the recommendation of medical boards, judicial officials said.