Eresh Omar Jamal

What-ever may be the details of the deal signed between President Trump and Chairman Kim, both the two leaders (along with Moon Jae-in of South Korea and others) must be congratulated for what can only be a deal that is good for peace. The deal provides great relief for the people of Asia, and as Bangladeshis, we too sincerely welcome this encouraging development.

In the education circle, the low share of GDP allocation for education in the national budget is a recurrent theme. Benchmark numbers in this respect are 6 percent of GDP and/or at least 20 percent of the national budget (depending on the public finance structure of the country) as recommended by UNESCO and at other international forums. Bangladesh's public spending for education is only about one-third by GDP measure and a little over half by national budget measure of what is recommended.

Syed Manzoorul Islam, retired professor of Dhaka University, who is currently teaching at ULAB and is a member of the board of trustees at Transparency International Bangladesh, talks to Eresh Omar Jamal about the latest proposed budgetary allocation to the education sector and its underlying implications.

When it comes to Palestine and the plight of Palestinians, everything is generally inverted.

Over the last 10-15 years, increase in the use of methamphetamine, globally, has outpaced that of any other drug. In its World Drug

Abir* first tried yaba out of curiosity with one of his neighbours. Eight years later, he is now fully addicted to the drug, having taken it regularly for the past seven years.

The Korean War began on June 25, 1950 and is “technically” still ongoing in the absence of a validated peace treaty—although, the fighting was ended with the signing of an armistice by North Korea, China and the US (South Korea was not a signatory) on July 27, 1953.

OVER the last two decades, if not more, the global press, if taken as a whole, has largely failed to live up to the lofty ideas and ideals talked about by former US President John F Kennedy and countless other visionaries who understood that “a critical, independent and investigative press is the lifeblood of any democracy,” as Nelson Mandela said. That is why journalism and journalists around the world today face

Amid Bangladesh's rapidly expanding foreign trade, trade-based money laundering has become a major concern for the banking industry, a recent survey by the Bangladesh Institute of Bank Management has found. This includes over- and under-invoicing of goods and services and mis-declaration of goods.

At a recent press conference, representatives of the World Bank (WB) questioned the 7.65 percent economic growth estimate and the estimate of 7–8 percent growth of domestic demand that the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) came up with for FY17-18. Zahid Hussain, lead economist of the WB's Dhaka office, said there are two causes that could lead to such a spike (growth of employment and labour

After the 9/11 attacks, the US government, with support from its allies, launched a global military campaign against terrorism that continues to this day. The disclosures of former CIA employee and US government contractor-turned-whistleblower, Edward Snowden, has shed unprecedented light on the darkness surrounding the involvement of US intelligence agencies in shaping the early days of this campaign.

IN a historic 1999 civil lawsuit of the King family against the US government, 12 jurors in the Shelby County Court in Tennessee reached a unanimous verdict on December 8, 1999, after about an hour of deliberations, that Dr Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. When asked whether the jury found “others including governmental agencies” to be “parties to this conspiracy,” the jury answered, “yes”.

US based journalist Elizabeth Lea Vos, Editor-in-Chief of Disobedient Media, who was one of the panellists at an online vigil held for Assange hours after the imposition of the ban, talks to Eresh Omar Jamal of The Daily Star, about the latest restrictions placed on Assange and its implications for press freedom around the world.

For months it seemed like everything was quieting down on the Syrian front.

In the last two years, Bangladesh's economic expansion has been quite impressive from the perspective of GDP growth rate, which was seven-plus percent both years, according to figures from government and other sources.

To start with, what is interesting is that garment export struggled in the latter half of FY16-17, experiencing a decline even of 4.49 percent year-on-year in February; and surprisingly soaring in July, despite the European Union, which accounts for over 54 percent of our exports, banning direct cargo flights from Dhaka to the 28-nation bloc in June, following the lead of the UK (who just lifted the ban yesterday), Australia and Germany.

Out of the 45 least developed countries (LDCs) in the world, Bangladesh was one among only five countries that had a GDP growth rate of 7-plus percent in 2017, according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.

A large number of people in the world today no longer believe in the sanctity of people's absolute right to unfettered and unrestricted speech; preferring speech, rather, to have some restrictions—as people increasingly find more and more types of speech offensive.

We have done well to ensure people have access to education. But we have not yet managed to provide quality education for all segments of the population. Providing quality education is without a doubt the biggest challenge.

In recent years, the left-right political spectrum has been more at the centre of national (in the case of many countries) and global politics than it had been for years.