Dhaka  - Bangladesh's economy is expected to grow at its lowest rate in five years during the current fiscal year, mainly due to the impact of global recession, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) projected Tuesday.

The ADB Outlook 2009, the annual publication of the lending agency, said that the country's GDP growth would fall to 5.6 percent from 6.2 percent in the 2008-09 fiscal year.

It also projects a further decline in growth to 5.2 percent in the 2009-10 fiscal year.

Dhaka - Myanmar said Tuesday that its planned fencing on its border with Bangladesh was not a "defence structure" and would be placed away from the border.

"It's not a defence structure," Myanmar Ambassador Phae Thann Oo told reporters in Dhaka after a meeting with Bangladesh's junior minister for foreign affairs, Hasan Mahmud. "It is for the prevention of smuggling of narcotics and trafficking in persons."

Dhaka - The government of Bangladesh on Monday asked Myanmar to clarify a planned border fence along the no-man's land along the two countries' shared border, officials said.

"We asked for an official version of the construction site of the fencing as Myanmar has given various versions of the location of fencing," Bangladeshi State Minister for Foreign Affairs Hasan Mahmud told a press conference.

Dhaka- Forty-five women were sworn in as lawmakers in Bangladesh's Jatiya Sangsad or parliament on Sunday, officials said.

The women wear earlier this month elected unopposed to seats reserved for women. They were expected to join Sunday's session, which follows after a nine-day recess.

Thirty-six of the new lawmakers belong to ruling Awami League (AL), four to Jatiya Party, a coalition partner of the AL, and the rest belong to the mainstream opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party.

Dhaka - British Airways Saturday ended its direct passenger flights between Dhaka and London after 38 years of operation in Bangladesh, officials said.

"It was a commercial decision by British Airways to shut the route," Mujtaba Ali Khan, the outgoing station manager of the airline, told the German Press Agency dpa.

In November, BA had announced that it would suspend its passenger flights on Dhaka-London route due to non-profitability.

Dhaka  - Bangladeshi Foreign Minister Dipu Moni on Saturday urged Malaysian authorities to reconsider the cancellation of visas for more than 55,000 Bangladeshi workers during the economic crisis, officials said.

Moni met Malaysian International Trade and Industry Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin bin Mohd in Kuala Lumpur as part of Bangladesh's diplomatic efforts to protect its overseas labour markets, a release issued by the embassy in Malaysia said.