Sonali Bank, which is struggling to reduce nearly 30 percent of its bad loans, has made the strange decision to waive interest of Tk 129 crore of Alltex Group, owned by a former lawmaker and Awami League leader, who reportedly happens to be one of its top five defaulters.

It is the nature of war that its biggest sufferers are women and children. The fact that children constitute about 60 percent of six lakh Rohingya refugees who have made it to Bangladesh has just reaffirmed it.

The Lancet published a report on October 20 on pollution and the havoc it causes in peoples' lives at a global level. The facts are mindboggling. It kills the poor and vulnerable and 92 percent of pollution-related deaths are in middle-income and lower-middle income countries.

A report published by this newspaper on Wednesday highlighted quite clearly our lack of a sense of history when it comes to appreciating our heritage.

We are surprised that even after three months since the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) filed a case against 61 people for mismanagement and corruption in the construction of dams in the haor areas, the water and resources minister, at a recent dialogue, would remark that an onslaught of rats caused the damage.

The Inter-Parliamentary Union has delivered a strong condemnation of the atrocities committed by Myanmar in Rakhine State, adding its voice to the growing call for actions by the global powers.

The recent killing of Khandaker Abu Talha, a student of Daffodil University student who protested against muggers trying to rob a pedestrian, has brought to the limelight how easy it is for muggers to slip through the legal system and become repeat offenders.

Only a few weeks after it was revealed that the UN had suppressed a report highly critical of the conditions in Rakhine State, we find out that a UN World Food Programme report on hunger and starvation of the Rohingyas had also been shelved.

The Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics unveiled the report “Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) 2016” on October 17. It is the most exhaustive nationwide survey carried out and is usually brought out every five years or so.

Some 30,000 Rohingyas have streamed into Bangladesh in the latest outflow of people from Myanmar into Bangladesh. As the numbers increase exponentially, so do the casualties.

We are worried to know that a BCL member, a student of the law department at Leading University in Sylhet, was stabbed to death allegedly by his rival group members in Sylhet; and six other Chhatra League activists and two policemen were injured in another clash between the two factions of BCL in Chittagong Government College on October 16.

We are deeply saddened to know that a 12-year-old girl in Khulna took her own life on Friday “fearing abduction and further humiliation” after being harassed by a youth for almost a year.

The issue of the chief justice proceeding on leave abroad on health grounds and the statements and comments from various quarters have muddied the matter immensely. This situation is most unwarranted and should not have been allowed to happen

A picture in the backpage of this paper's Friday issue says it all. Untreated waste from a tannery in Savar's tannery estate, being dumped into the Dhaleshwari.

Disappointingly, out of the 26 deals that were signed between China and Bangladesh during President Xi Jinping's visit, three-fourths of the deals have shown no signs of progress even after a whole year has passed.

We are appalled to hear that the police at Tetulia, Panchagarh earlier refused to register a case against two rapists who repeatedly raped a girl and blackmailed her threatening to release a video clip of the incident, leading the girl to commit suicide.

The process is being questioned primarily because there is no independent party to verify whether the committee will conduct a fair and impartial inquiry and whether a military enquiry committee engaged in investigating its own members accused of mass violations of human rights can be impartial in the first place.

The Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) has been directed by the government to keep highways clear of illegal vehicles like the Nosimon and Karimon that cannot run at 60kmph.

That the military and the government of Myanmar have been spinning lies after lies about the Rohingya genocide has once again been confirmed by the falsehood that its army chief has spewed on Thursday.

The latest report presented survivors' statements about megaphones being used to announce before and during the attacks: “You do not belong here ... go to Bangladesh. If you do not leave, we will torch your houses and kill you.”