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 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.

Dhaka - Authorities on Friday evacuated several thousand residents of islands in the Bay of Bengal as a moderate-intensity cyclone, Bijli, was forecast to hit the Bangladeshi coast early Saturday, officials said.

"People from low-lying islands were brought to cyclone shelter centres Friday, and we have prepared to evacuate other costal residents to safer places if required," said MS Akbar, chairman of the Bangladesh Red Crescent Society.

Dhaka - A Dhaka court on Thursday charged the chief of a banned Islamist organization and 13 others for a concert bombing that killed 10 revellers eight years ago during a celebration of the Bengali New Year, officials said.

Mufti Abdul Hannan, the chief of the outlawed Harkat-ul-Jihad al Islami, and his followers were accused of murder and bombing after investigators found they were involved in the attack on April 14, 2001, at Raman Green, the prime site for the New Year celebrations.