Dhaka - Two Bangladeshi development workers based in war- torn Afghanistan were kidnapped by unidentified gunmen on Thursday, an official from the non-governmental Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) said on Saturday.

Akhter Ali and Mohammad Shahjahan Ali, BRAC area managers in Afghanistan's central Ghazni province, were taken from their office in Moi Mobarok in the provincial capital, the Dhaka-based organization said in a statement.

The gunmen attacked another Afghan national working for the organization, according to BRAC.

Dhaka- Bangladesh's military-backed interim government said Thursday that it would provide the highest security to two former prime ministers and leaders of the country's two biggest political parties during the December general election.

"We have decided in principle to provide them with the highest security coverage as they deserve it," an adviser to the government, Hossain Zillur Rahman, told reporters after electoral talks with the opposition Awami League party.

Dhaka,  - Bangladesh's military-backed government may relax the prolonged state of emergency early November to hold the country's stalled parliamentary polls in December, an adviser to the interim administration said on Tuesday.

After a meeting with a European Commission delegation in Dhaka, the country's foreign affairs adviser said that the government would make an announcement relaxing the emergency rule in November, when a 10-member EU-core team will visit Bangladesh to assess the election atmosphere.

Dhaka- Bangladesh's interim government plans to reduce the fuel price by 8 to 12 per cent in the wake of the crude oil price fall on the global market, an official said Tuesday.

The decision will be finalised at a meeting of the council of advisers to be headed by the chief adviser to the interim government of Fakhruddin Ahmed sometime next week, he said.

Dhaka - A total of 107 political parties have applied to register with Bangladesh's Election Commission for eligibility in December's general election, officials said Monday.

The parties applied to meet an extended deadline for the submissions. The submissions were mandated by the country's military- backed interim government, led by Fakhruddin Ahmed. The interim administration was installed in January 2007 against a backdrop of political turmoil.

Dhaka - The full-blooming rachis shoots skyward from the top of the rarest species of wild palm in the world.

But the budding of the 10-metre tree is unusually depressing for Bangladesh's Dhaka University botanists studying it, for the flower forecasts its death.

With the death of what is the only known wild Corypha taliera in the world, the species will be extinct.