March 10,2010

Awami League will start a month-long nationwide tour from March 18 with a view to strengthening its organisational activities at the grassroots level. The decision came at a secretary-level meeting of the party at AL president's political office in Dhanmondi with party presidium member and deputy leader of the parliament Syeda Sajeda Chowdhury in the chair. The meeting also decided to focus on the success of the present government during the trip. It will also make the grassroots aware of the conspiracies by the opposition and asked them to counter those falsehoods. Recruitment of new members in the party and renewal of primary membership will also continue during the tour, AL Joint General Secretary Mahbubul Alam Hanif told after the meeting. "We want people to create pressure on the four-party alliance to refrain from its negative politics," Mahbubul Alam Hanif said. "We also want to hear what people expect from the government." The tour will finish before the monsoon, he said. The composition of the groups will be announced later in the month, the Hanif said.

March 10,2010

Awami League (AL) yesterday asked main opposition BNP to cut relations with Jamaat-e-Islami, a key partner in the four-party coalition, for its involvement in the war crimes, especially repression on women, during the liberation war in 1971. AL also asked the BNP chairperson to make apology to the countrymen, especially to the women community, for the party's previous misdeeds, including repression on women. "Drop number one women torturer Jamaat from your [Khaleda] coalition and continue politics accepting the present reality of the country, otherwise people won't forgive you," said AL General Secretary Syed Ashraful Islam. The AL leader made the call at a crowded press conference organised to condemn Khaleda's falsehood about repression on women at the AL president's political office at Dhanmondi in the city. Lambasting Khaleda's statement on Monday that 20 percent women were repressed in the last 13 months of the present government, he termed the speech completely false, fabricated and politically motivated. Flanked by a number of women lawmakers of the ruling party, Syed Ashraf threw Khaleda a challenge to make public the repressed women's names, addresses and types of repression. Terming Jamaat the top women torturer and main barrier to women's development, the AL spokesperson asked Khaleda that it does not go with her regarding the development of women by aligning BNP with the war criminals.

March 09,2010

Awami League President & Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has been rated as the sixth most powerful women in Asia as the US-based media giant CNN prepared an index of world's most influential women coinciding with the World Women's Day. Sheikh Hasina was named in the sixth place in the index while China-based Nine Dragons Paper Holdings' Zhang Yin topped the list. . PM Sheikh Hasina is also a member of the Council of Women World Leaders and is an outspoken advocate for women's rights, CNN said at this report. "As the world celebrates its 100th International Women's Day, we take a look at the key women who are shaping Asia's political and economic landscape," CNN said in a report.