Dhaka - Wild elephants trampled to death three people, including two children, in far south-eastern Bangladesh as they were collecting firewood, media reports said Wednesday.

They were trampled Tuesday at Teknaf hill near the Bangladesh-Myanmar border, 374 kilometres south-east of the capital, Dhaka.

Two of the victims died on the spot when the elephants crushed them after knocking down while the third victim succumbed to her injuries at a nearby health complex, said Yunus Sheikh, a vice chairman of the Teknaf subdistrict.

Dhaka - Bangladesh's Awami League-led alliance government is to set up programmes to rehabilitate "innocent people" who get involved in militancy due to poverty, a junior minister said Tuesday.

"Many poor innocent people have been recruited by the militant outfits operating in the name of Islamist movements. They are simply lured and misguided by the terrorists," Tamjim Ahmed Sohel Taj, state minister for home affairs, told a group of journalists.

Dhaka - Bangladesh's Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed left Dhaka for Riyadh early Tuesday to discuss with Saudi leaders the welfare of over 2 million Bangladeshi expatriate workers in the gulf kingdom, officials said.

Hasina is scheduled to meet Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdullah Aziz Al Saud on the first day of her five-day visit.

Dhaka  - Bangladesh is planning stringent measures to fight cyber crimes amid the rapid expansion of information and communication technology and telecommunications networks in the impoverished South Asian country, an official said Monday.

"We have taken steps afresh to facilitate fair and secured use of the information technology as the country lacks a complete law to deal with cyber crimes," MM Neazuddin, a joint secretary to the science and ICT ministry, told the German Press Agency dpa.

Dhaka  - Bangladesh on Sunday announced an economic stimulus package worth over 500 million US dollars to offset the fallout of global economic meltdown, officials said.

Finance Minister AMA Muhith announced the package amounting to Tk 3,424 crore (500 million US dollars) for the fourth quarter of the current fiscal to increase subsidies in power and agriculture sector, and export sectors.

Dhaka - At least three people were reportedly killed as Cyclone Bijli swept over south-eastern part of the country Saturday, officials said.

The cyclone hit Bangladesh's coastal areas late Friday night and turned into a land depression the following morning.

Reports from southern tourism district of Cox's Bazar said three people were killed when their thatched homes collapsed and trees fell on them.