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Professor Muhammad Yunus and his Grameen Bank have been awarded Nobel peace prize this year for their contribution to sustainable peace through poverty reduction initiatives based on small credit schemes.
   Yunus is the first ever Bangladeshi, and the third Bengali, to win the most coveted global recognition. Poet Rabindranath Tagore won Nobel prize for literature in 1913 and economist Amartya Sen for economics in 1998.
   The Nobel committee chairman, Ole Danbolt Mjoes, announcing the award in Oslo, Norway, said, Yunus had shown himself to be a leader who had managed to translate visions into practical action for the benefit of millions of people.
   Yunus and the bank were being honoured ‘for their efforts to create economic and social development from below,’ Mjoes said.
   The winners receive a prize of 10m Swedish kronor ($1.07m or £730,000).
   Yunus is expected to receive the award and the prize money during a ceremony in Oslo in December.
   The news came as a delight to Bangladeshis living at home and abroad, who cheered the event as a great national honour. Telephone calls from international media and world dignitaries started pouring in congratulating Professor Yunus.
   Giving his reaction, Yunus said that the award is a great honour for him as well as for Bangladesh. ‘It’s a recognition of our work. As a Bangladeshi, I am proud that we have given something to the world. Our work has now been recognised by the whole world.’
   Yunus, the micro-credit pioneer, is now 66. He, however, conquered the world much before. He has been almost a household name in many developed and developing countries for his unique model of micro-finance targeting the poor, who have no access to banking fund. His model of small-credit, with the best possible repayment record, has been replicated in many countries including USA, Nigeria, Rwanda and Uganda, and acclaimed by global agencies like the UN.
   As a young professor of economics at Chittagong University, Yunus took a small credit scheme in his country home for cooperative farming. Perhaps he did not know that his experimental scheme sowed the seed of a micro-credit bank, which would be a brand name for Bangladesh in a few decades and bring him the Nobel prize just after 30 years.
   Set up in 1976, the Grameen Bank now have nearly 66 lakh small borrowers, mainly women, supported by the bank for taking micro ventures—be it farming or small shops. Yunus, whose interest ranges from farming to information technology, loves to tag poverty to everything. He ventured upon a mobile phone scheme targeting rural women to give them self-employment and help widen communication scopes in remote countryside.
   A campaigner of information superhighway, he also believes that information communication technology can play a great role in the fight against rural poverty.
   Yunus has already had scores of other global prizes, including Seoul Peace Prize to be handed over this month.
   The announcement of Yunus and Grameen Bank winning the Nobel peace prize this year came as a surprise to many observers and commentators, who had expected someone involved in global peace-making deals to win the prize. Former Finnish president, Martti Ahtisaari, who brokered Indonesia’s Aceh peace deal and Australia’s former foreign minister, Gareth Evans for his International Crisis Group were the forerunners.
   This is for the second time in three years that the Nobel Peace Prize went to the area of sustainable development instead of direct peace-making efforts. Kenyan environmentalist Wangari Maathai got the award in 2004, while the 2005 peace prize went to International Atomic Energy Agency and its Egyptian director general Mohamed El Baradei.

Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus termed the accolade a great pride for the country and said it will encourage him further to dedicate himself for improving the lives of the poor.
   Soon after hearing the news of getting the Nobel Peace Prize, professor Yunus said a world free from poverty is his dream and he will work to make Bangladesh as a poverty-free nation.
   ‘I am delighted. It is a matter of great joy for the country and countrymen. It’s such a pride that will elevate the country’s image abroad,’ Yunus said, giving his formal reaction to the media at his Mirpur residence.
   Clad in his trademark fatua, a smiling Yunus was busy receiving friends, colleagues and admirers, who started flooding in their hundreds since the news broke in the afternoon to greet him.
   Yunus said that he will donate all the prize money to the interest-free projects of the Grameen Bank to help economic development for the poor people.
   Asked how he sees the winning of peace prize when he works in the field of economic development, Yunus said, ‘Though we work for eradicating poverty, but ultimately it establishes peace in the society as there is a link between peace and poverty.
   ‘I believe that economic growth and development will ultimately establish peace. Eradication of poverty can give you real peace. There is no self-respect and status when you are poor,’ he said.
   About his next steps, the first-ever Bangladeshi Nobel prize winner said the war against poverty would get further boost across the world through a bigger network of micro-credit stretching from country to country.
   Every poor person has the vision to live a decent life and there is a need to show them the way for making the vision true, he said.
   Yunus also believed peace will descend on the country if all efforts are put together.
   Yunus appeared before the media accompanied by his wife Afroz Yunus and daughter Deena Afroz Yunus at the lawn of his residence at 4:00pm.
   It took him about one hour to make his way into the conference through a thick crowd of admirers, many holding bouquets in their hands.

Muhammad Yunus, the winner of Nobel peace prize this year, was born in the south-eastern district of Chittagong in 1940. He is the third of 14 children of his parents, five of whom died in infancy.
   Yunus had his schooling at Chittagong Collegiate School and then studied at Chittagong College. He obtained his Bachelor and Master’s degrees from Dhaka University. He was awarded a Fulbright scholarship and received his PhD from Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee in 1969.
   In 1972 he became head of the department of economics at Chittagong University. He founded the Grameen Bank (rural bank) in 1974 and subsequently proved to the world that a small amount of money could radically change the life of a poor man or woman.
   He led his bank to the world’s first micro credit summit in Washington DC in 1997. His ideas couple capitalism with social responsibility and have brought about a silent revolution in rural Bangladesh changing the pattern of economic and social development in the countryside.
   Yunus took up a number of innovative programmes for rural development. In 1974, he pioneered the idea of Gram Sarker (village government) as the lowest tier of local government. The concept proved successful and was adopted by the Bangladesh government in 1980.
   In 1978, he received the President’s Award for Tebhaga Khamar (a system of cooperative three-share farming, which the Bangladesh government adopted as the Packaged Input Programme in 1977).
   The UN secretary general appointed Professor Yunus to the International Advisory Group for the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing from 1993 to 1995.
   He also served on the Global Commission of Women’s Health (1993-1995), the Advisory Council for Sustainable Economic Development (since 1993), and the UN Expert Group on Women and Finance.
   He also serves as the chair of the Policy Advisory Group (PAG) of the Consultative Group to Assist the Poorest (CGAP).
   He served a number of international institutions dealing with education, population, health, disaster prevention, banking, and development programmes.
   Yunus received more than five dozens of awards for his contribution to various innovative programmes. He received Ramon Magsaysay Award, the Philippines (1984); Aga Khan Award for Architecture, Geneva (1989); Mohammed Shabdeen Award for Science, Sri Lanka (1993); and World Food Prize by World Food Prize Foundation (1994) from the US, Pfeffer Peace Prize (1994), Max Schmidheiny Foundation Freedom Prize, Switzerland (1995), International Simon Bolivar Prize, Venezuela and Unesco (1996); Distinguished Alumnus Award of Vanderbilt University, USA (1996 ), International Activist Award, USA (1997); Planetary Consciousness Business Innovation Prize, Germany (1997); Help for Self-help Prize, Norway( 1997); Man for Peace Award, Italy (1997); State of the World Forum Award, 1997; One World Broadcasting Trust Media Awards, UK (1998); The Prince of Austurias Award for Concord, Spain(1998); Sydney Peace Prize, Australia (1998); Ozaki (Gakudo) Award, Japan (1998) and Indira Gandhi Prize, India(1998), among others.
   In Bangladesh, he has received the President’s Award (1978), Central Bank Award (1985), and the Independence Day Award (1987), the nation’s highest award.
   Yunus received many honorary degrees from different institutions across the world.

The entire nation went euphoric as soon as international media reported on Friday afternoon that Professor Muhammad Yunus had won this year’s Nobel peace prize.
   The proud nation greeted him for his being the first-ever Bangladeshi to win a Nobel prize as well as for his accomplishment and that of his famed Grameen Bank.
   People from all walks of life—from the head of state to the homeless, from learners to professionals—greeted the news with joy.
   The president, Iajuddin Ahmed, congratulated Muhammad Yunus for winning the Nobel peace prize for his innovative micro-credit concept serving the poor.
   The president, in a message said, Yunus’s Grameen Bank was not only a model for Bangladesh, but was also being followed by different countries in alleviating poverty and his winning the Nobel peace prize had made the country and its people proud.
   The prime minister, Khaleda Zia, in her message said, ‘this is a much awaited prize. It is not only a great honour for Yunus himself, but also a pride for Bangladesh.’
   Khaleda said micro-credit concept was a basic innovation of Yunus that saw tremendous success in alleviating poverty in Bangladesh and elsewhere.
   ‘This is a recognition of the success of Bangladesh which has strengthened our national pride and identity,’ said the BNP secretary general Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan. ‘I am congratulating him on behalf of the BNP and the people and also thanking the Norwegian Nobel Committee for naming Yunus as the winner of the prize,’ he said in a statement.
   The Awami League-led opposition alliance congratulated Muhammad Yunus on his winning Nobel peace prize.
   The AL presidium member, Tofail Ahmed, at a press briefing after a meeting of the opposition alliance leaders at the AL central office, said the prize was a great pride for our country. The Grameen Bank is working relentlessly for poverty alleviation, Tofail said on behalf of the 14 parties.
   The Jatiya Party chairman, Hussein Muhammad Ershad, who had issued licence to Yunus to launch his micro-credit scheme in 1980s, was also happy at the news.
   Ershad recalled that he had issued the licence to Yunus through an ordinance though the bank was then, in fact, a government organisation. ‘We have some contribution to his success,’ he told newsmen.
   The British High Commissioner to Bangladesh, Anwar Choudhury, said, ‘we congratulate Dr Yunus on his receipt of Nobel prize. This great award and honour is a tribute to him and the Bangladeshi nation.’
   Anwar Hossain Manju, the leader of a faction of the Jatiya Party, in a statement said, ‘we are delighted at the winning of Nobel prize for first time by a Bangladeshi national or institution.’
   President of the National Alliance of Disabled People’s Organisation, Abdus Sattar Dulal in a statement lauded Yunus on behalf of the poor and disabled people.
   The news came as a pleasant surprise to Nurnunnahar Begum, 40, a subscriber of Palli Phone service in village Lohair in Muksudpur of Gopalganj. ‘Is it so? I wish him more success,’ she said.
   The president and chef executive of Telenor, a major shareholder of the Grameen Phone, Jon Fredrik Baksaas said, ‘we are proud of being a part of the development in Bangladesh and for working in close cooperation with Grameen Bank. We convey our sincere congratulations to Muhammad Yunus, for whom we have the deepest admiration. I am looking forward to expressing our greetings to him in person.’
   Grameen Phone in close collaboration with Grameen Bank has introduced the unique Palli Phone concept. Palli Phone is based on the micro finance concept, offering low-cost loans to women, allowing them to buy a mobile phone and set up a mobile phone exchange service in the village.
   The Post Graduate Doctors Association president, Professor Kazi Shahidul Islam, and its secretary general, Rakibul Islam Litu, also congratulated Professor Yunus.
   Our staff correspondent reports from Jaipur: The Bangladesh cricket team on Friday congratulated Dr Muhammad Yunus on his winning the Nobel peace prize. The team was playing its final qualifying match of the ICC Champions Trophy against Zimbabwe when they received the historic news.
   ‘The news has uplifted the spirit of the team and we join in the celebration with every Bangladeshi around the globe at this proud moment of the nation,’ said the team in a statement.
   ‘The team wishes Yunus a lifetime success in his every endeavour,’ added the statement.
   Our staff correspondent from Chittagong reports: The Chittagong elite and leaders of different socio-cultural and political organisations greeted Yunus for his being named the winner of Nobel peace prize this year.
   The Chittagong City Corporation mayor, ABM Mohiuddin Chowdhury, vice-
   chancellor of Chittagong University, professor Badiul Alam, vice- chancellor of Premier University, Dr Anupum Sen, the BNP city unit convener, Wahidul Alam MP, Chittagong Chamber of Commerce and Industry president, Saifuzzaman Chowdhury, chairman of Chittagong Metropolitan Socio-economic Development Coordination Committee, Nurul Islam BSc, chairman of the department of economics at the CU, Dr Mohammed Sirajul Haque and a former colleague of the Nobel laureate, professor Sikandar Khan were among the eminent persons who felicitated Yunus.

The political parties outside the two main camps led by the ruling BNP and the main opposition Awami Leagu seem sceptical about the fate of the secretary-level dialogue between the two parties on electoral reforms.
   Some of the parties are pessimistic about the outcome of the talks, while others believe that there was no alternative to dialogue. The two main parties must find out a solution to the present political impasse through talks.
   H M Ershad, chairman of his faction of the Jatiya Party, does not think the talks will bring any solution to the crisis. ‘Initially I kept my fingers crossed for a positive outcome of the dialogue. But now I am sure that it will fail to produce any positive results,’ Ershad told New Age on Friday afternoon.
   ‘A solution could have been reached in two or three days, if the two parties had been sincere. No positive development is possible now as the opposition leader is already out of the country and the prime minister is to go abroad tomorrow (Saturday).’
   The president of the other faction of the Jatiya Party, Anwar Hossain Monju, is, however, still optimistic about a positive outcome of the ongoing dialogue.
   ‘There is no alternative to election and both the BNP and the AL should ensure a free and fair election through an agreement on the major points of the reform proposals,’ he said. ‘Time is not yet over to settle the issues’.
   Manzurul Ahsan Khan, president of the Communist Party of Bangladesh, told New Age that it was very difficult to predict the outcome of the dialogue, but his party was still optimistic about a solution as regards the proposed reforms in the caretaker government and the election commission.
   ‘There is no alternative to a negotiated settlement as the failure of the dialogue may throw the nation into uncertainty,’ Khan said Friday afternoon.
   He spoke highly of the ‘sincere attitude’ of the BNP secretary general, Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan and the AL general secretary, Abdul Jalil, towards reaching a consensus on the contentious issues. But he criticised Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina for their ‘aggressive public statements’ which, according to him, may stand in the way of a positive outcome of the dialogue.
   AQM Badruddoza Chowdhury, president of the Bikalpadhara Bangladesh, at an iftar party in a city hotel on Thursday, expressed doubt over the success of the ongoing dialogue, and said that the prime minister would be held responsible if the dialogue failed.
   Abdul Malek Ratan, general secretary of a faction of the Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal, believes that the dialogue ‘is destined to fail in terms of solving the disputes over electoral laws and rules’. ‘The subject of the dialogue is related to the whole nation and it can only be solved through an all-party dialogue’.

The police Thursday night filed a case accusing 30 leaders and workers of the Juba League and the Bangladesh Chhatra League for attacking and ransacking the residence of the election commissioner, SM Zakaria, at Kazipara in Brahmanbaria town.
   The police launched a drive to arrest the culprits following the attack on Thursday afternoon.
   The police raided the town residences of leaders and workers of the Juba League and the Chhatra League, the two front organisations of the Awami League, and detained 14 to 15 people for interrogation.
   The activists of the Juba League and the Chhatra League went into hiding following the drive by the police.
   Meanwhile, chairman of Brahmanbaria pourasabha Hafizur Rahman Molla Kochi and district BNP general secretary Alhaj Syed Emranur Reza in separate statements have condemned the attack on the residence of SM Zakaria and demanded immediate arrest of and exemplary punishment for those responsible for the incident.

Movement of vessels to and from Chittagong port was being interrupted, as all attempts of the port authorities to salvage the sunken ship MV Shah Badar-1 went in vain as of Friday night.
   The MV Shah Badar-1, laden with 1,400 tonnes of wheat, went down in the middle of the port channel near jetty 15 at around 9:00pm on Wednesday while entering the port from the Red Buoy at the outer anchorage.
   Sources at the Chittagong Port Authority said they allowed only four ships to enter and one to leave the port Friday, and three small ships to depart on Thursday, as the port channel became narrow and risky for vessel movement due to the submerged ship.
   Four CPA tugboats — Kandari-6, 7 and 10, and Dishari-8 — have been trying to salvage the sunken ship since the incident, CPA Marine Department sources said, adding the task appeared to take some more time, as the ship’s mast had become embedded in thick silt.

Professor Muhammad Yunus’s winning of Nobel peace prize and his micro-credit model drew huge attention in global media as well as citations from world personalities.
   It was the lead news in international broadcasters including BBC and CNN, while wire services released slew of reports.
   AFP reports from Washington: US-based Chinese dissident Rebiya Kadeer on Friday asked Nobel peace prize winner Muhammad Yunus to help introduce his successful poverty eradication concept among minority Uighur Muslims in China.
   ‘I wish to congratulate him and hope he can help my people overcome poverty,’ said Kadeer, among 191 people nominated for the Nobel award this year.
   Kadeer, leading a struggle for eight million Uighurs in China’s autonomous northwest Xinjiang, said her people were in dire need of assistance to free them from poverty, allegedly worsened by an influx of mainland Chinese.
   The 58-year-old grandmother spent six years in prison in China before she was deported in March last year to join her family in the United States.
   Kadeer was nominated by a Swedish parliamentarian for ‘championing’ Uighur rights and for being ‘one of China’s most prominent advocates of women’s rights.’
   Another report from KAMPALA adds: Uganda on Friday hailed new Nobel Peace laureate Muhammad Yunus, and said it hoped the award would boost micro-credit programs it is introducing in the country.
   ‘I am extremely delighted that professor Yunus has been recognised by the Nobel peace committee for his work of taking financial services to the poor,’ said Finance Minister Ezra Suluma.
   ‘The reason I am delighted is that Uganda is following his footsteps so that poor communities can access credit,’ he told AFP. ‘This prize strengthens some of us who are working towards achieving what he has been doing.’
   Uganda is currently working to introduce micro-credit schemes in each of its 1,000 sub-counties with an eye to reducing chronic poverty.
   In Africa, the Grameen Foundation supports microcredit programs in Uganda, Rwanda and Nigeria, according to its website.
   AFP reports from Paris adds: Microcredit has become an increasingly powerful tool to liberate the world’s poorest people, particularly women, from the prison of poverty and the power of loan sharks.
   It provides access to small loans to the world’s 1.2 billion poor people so they can rebuild their homes, pay school fees or set up that tiny business that will enable them to get out of poverty.
   Empowering women through microcredit is especially important, according to Maitreesh Ghatuk, professor at the London School of Economics.
   ‘It reflects a philosophy that if you help empower women, or give them some economic opportunities, this has a positive impact on fertility behaviour as well as education. In that way it is like investing in the future,’ he told AFP.
   Microcredit has its critics, who say its interest rates are excessive, or that it diverts money from large-scale health, water or education schemes that would benefit many more of the poor. ‘It’s been very successful (but) it has its limits,’ acknowledged Ghatuk.
   ‘These (microfinance) loans (are) at roughly the commercial rate of interest prevailing in the formal banking sector, which is considerably lower than what rural moneylenders or loan sharks would charge. But it is also considerably higher than what subsidised government lending agencies would use.’
   Ghatuk acknowledged microcredit could not perform miracles.
   ‘It’s not a solution for poverty—we need other programmes for that,’ he said. ‘One has to keep in mind that it’s really taking up a few dimensions of the problems of poverty alleviation, not everything.’
   But he hailed its considerable successes.
   ‘Microcredit is one of the silent revolutions in terms of instrumental development policy over the last few decades.’

Professor Mohammad Yunus’ winning of Nobel peace prize will give momentum to the nation’s struggle for poverty alleviation and also brighten Bangladesh’s image in the international arena, economists hope.
   They expressed their joy and happiness on Friday on hearing the news of winning of the coveted prize by the first-ever Bangladeshi and said this recognition would encourage the countrymen to march towards prosperity, shunning the path of conflicting political divide.
   ‘We are overwhelmed to know that Professor Yunus and his Grameen Bank have been awarded Nobel prize for their devotion to poverty alleviation,’ Mozaffer Ahmad told New Age.
   ‘Yunus, the great social reformer, has made Bangladesh proud by wining this award,’ Debapriya Bhattacharya said, describing the award as the recognition of the struggle to remove poverty and injustice from Bangladesh and many other countries around the world.
   Hossain Zillur Rahman expressed conviction that such recognition would not only help fight out poverty but also help forge a consensus in the political arena which is characterised by conflicts among parties.
   The president of the Bangladesh Economic Association, Qazi Kholiquzzaman Ahmad, termed Yunus’ accomplishment as wealth of the nation and wished that the economist would shoulder more responsibility in the development pursuit of Bangladeshis.
   ‘His fight against poverty is symbol of peace through freedom from poverty, which is source terrorism,’ he said correlating the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to an economist who founded Grameen Bank and worked for poverty alleviation through micro-credit.
   MA Taslim, a former chairman of the Tariff Commission, explained that the selection was because of the spirit of peace inherent with struggle for removing poverty to achieve economic advancement.
   All of the economists described the award as a glorious achievement for Bangladesh and said this would give further momentum to the global effort to ensure rights of the poor and remove hunger and poverty.
   Wahiduddin Mahmud, a friend of Professor Yunus, said Yunus had translated economic theory into practical works — something that have been included into the syllabus of economic discipline in many universities around the globe.

The following is the full text of the Norwegian Nobel Commi-ttee’s announcement of the Nobel peace prize to Muhammad Yunus of Bangladesh and his Grameen Bank:
   ‘The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel peace prize for 2006, divided into two equal parts, to Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank for their efforts to create economic and social development from below. Lasting peace can not be achieved unless large population groups find ways in which to break out of poverty. Micro-credit is one such means. Development from below also serves to advance democracy and human rights.
   ‘Muhammad Yunus has shown himself to be a leader who has managed to translate visions into practical action for the benefit of millions of people, not only in Bangladesh, but also in many other countries. Loans to poor people without any financial security had appeared to be an impossible idea. From modest beginnings three decades ago, Yunus has, first and foremost through Grameen Bank, developed micro-credit into an ever more important instrument in the struggle against poverty. Grameen Bank has been a source of ideas and models for the many institutions in the field of micro-credit that have sprung up around the world.
   ‘Every single individual on earth has both the potential and the right to live a decent life. Across cultures and civilizations, Yunus and Grameen Bank have shown that even the poorest of the poor can work to bring about their own development.
   ‘Micro-credit has proved to be an important liberating force in societies where women in particular have to struggle against repressive social and economic conditions. Economic growth and political democracy can not achieve their full potential unless the female half of humanity participates on an equal footing with the male.
   ‘Yunus’s long-term vision is to eliminate poverty in the world. That vision can not be realised by means of micro-credit alone. But Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank have shown that, in the continuing efforts to achieve it, micro-credit must play a major part.’

Britain’s army chief said the presence of British troops in Iraq was exacerbating security problems on the ground and they should be withdrawn soon.
   In bluntly worded comments to the Daily Mail newspaper, chief of the general staff, general Richard Dannatt, criticised post-war planning for Iraq and said the presence hurt British security globally.
   The remarks could have political fallout on both sides of the Atlantic. The war has hurt the popularity of the British prime minister, Tony Blair. Although in later interviews Dannatt denied any split with Blair, he may have added to the storm by warning that overstretching the British army in Iraq could ‘break it.’
   Britain should ‘get us out sometime soon because our presence exacerbates the security problems,’ he told the Mail.
   ‘I don’t say that the difficulties we are experiencing round the world are caused by our presence in Iraq, but undoubtedly our presence in Iraq exacerbates them,’ he said.
   ‘I think history will show that the planning for what happened after the initial successful war fighting phase was poor, probably based more on optimism than sound planning.’
   The remarks were seized upon by anti-war campaigners. Reg Keys, whose son died in Iraq, said: ‘Here you have an officer, at last, who is prepared to speak how it is, and not be a mouthpiece for the delusions of a prime minister.’
   In Basra, where most of Britain’s 7,200 troops are based, locals told Reuters they agreed it was time for them to go.
   ‘In the last three years, people started to look at these troops in a different way. They simply hate these troops,’ said school teacher Fatima Ahmed, 35. ‘I think the general’s statement is aimed at preparing an appropriate atmosphere for these troops to suddenly withdraw.’
   ‘These troops, especially those in the south, have become a nightmare which terrifies children and women,’ said shop owner Ali Abdul-Abbas, 31. ‘They have to leave before a catastrophe occurs.’
   Hours after the interview appeared, Dannatt made radio and television appearances to calm the political storm. He said his remarks were taken out of context but did not deny them.

Bangladesh won the battle of the minnows in the ICC Champions Trophy when they outclassed Zimbabwe by 101 runs in their last qualifying match at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur on Thursday.
   The win salvaged some pride for Bangladesh, who lost a series to Zimbabwe in July-August and also conceded defeats in their all seven previous Champions Trophy matches.
   Batting first, Bangladesh scored a modest 231 runs for six in 50 overs. Opener Shahriar Nafees made a remarkable century.
   Sakib al Hasan took highest three wickets for 18 runs, while Mohammad Rafique returned with 2-26 to bowl Zimbabwe out for 130 runs in 44.4 overs. Mashrafee bin Murtaza and Abdur Razzak also had their share in the demolition act as they took one wicket each.
   Brandon Taylor was the only Zimbabwean batsman to have offered some resistance by making highest 52 runs for them.
   Earlier, Bangladesh rode on Shahriar, who played with sheer responsibility to carry the bat through the innings to remain unbeaten on 123 off 161 balls.
   It made Nafees the first Bangladeshi batsman to have scored more one ODI century and he also bettered his previous Bangladesh record of 118 not out against the same side at Harare in last August.
   Nafees, who took 16 balls to open the account, clobbered 17 boundaries and a six, which is also a record for Bangladesh. He had some assistance only from Sakib Al Hasan and skipper Habibul Bashar, who both built an 80-plus partnership with the opener.
   Bangladesh lost their first wicket again inside five overs, when Rajin Saleh, who replaced Mohammad Ashraful in the opening slot, missed the line of a ball after attempting to pull to be judged lbw on six.
   Aftab Ahamed also could not reproduce his master-blaster this time as he scored just three off 10 balls.
   It left Bangladesh tottering at 26-2 in 10 overs before Nafees and Sakib brining the innings back on track with a 84-run stand in the fourth wicket.

Grameen Bank founder Muhammad Yunus is the first Bangladeshi, third among the Bengalis and the eight from the Indian subcontinent, to win Nobel prize.
   So far a Bangladeshi, a Pakistani and six Indians, either by birth or citizenship, have received the Nobel prize from the Indian subcontinent.
   In 1913, the most eminent literary figure of the Bangla literature, Rabindranath Tagore, who was born in 1861 and died in 1941 in Kolkata, received the Nobel prize ‘Because of his profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse, by which, with consummate skill, he has made his poetic thought, expressed in his own English words, a part of the literature of the West.’
   In 1930, it was Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman, who was born in Trichinopoly in 1888 and died in Bangalore in 1970, who received the prize in physics ‘… for his work on the scattering of light and for the discovery of the effect named after him,’ known as Raman effect.
   In 1968, Har Gobind Khorana, who was born in Raipur of Punjab, which is now part of Pakistan, in 1922 received the prize, along with Robert W Holley and Marshall W Nirenberg, in medicine ‘...for their interpretation of the genetic code and its function in protein synthesis.’
   In 1979, social worker Mother Teresa — who was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu in Skopje, Macedonia, in 1910, later founded her order of the Missionaries of Charity on approval of the Holy See in Koltaka and died in 1997, won the Nobel peace prize.
   Pakistani physicist Abdus Salam, who was born at Jhang in Pakistan in 1926 and died in 1996 in Oxford, received the prize in physics.
   In 1983, Subramanyan Chandrasekhar, who was born in Lahore in India (now Pakistan) in 1910 and died in 1995, shared the prize in physics, along with William Alfred Fowler, for his work on Black Holes known as Chandrashekhar’s Limit.
   In 1998, Amartya Kumar Sen, who was born at Santiniketan in 1933 and later resided in Dhaka for some years, won the Nobel prize for economics for his contribution to welfare economics.

A Malaysian minister on Friday warned hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants to leave the country ahead of a major crackdown planned for early next year, state media reported.
   The home minister, Radzi Sheikh Ahmad, said about 600,000 illegal immigrants faced detention, deportation and jail sentences. He advised them to leave before the Eid-ul-Fitr holiday at the end of this month.
   ‘They should find their own way to return home, including using legitimate exits. If they are lucky, they may get away. If not, they will be detained for violating immigration regulations,’ he said.
   Malaysia conducts periodic sweeps for illegal immigrants, mainly Indonesians who work in the country’s plantation and construction sectors.
   Radzi said RELA, a uniformed civilian task force which participates in campaigns to track down and detain illegal immigrants, was already rounding up people.
   Since 1992, Malaysia has launched several operations against illegal workers, but each one has led to a labour shortage followed by a new wave of illegal immigration — a pattern which was apparent after a blitz last year.
   Malaysia is one of the largest importers of foreign labour in Asia. Foreign workers, both legal and illegal, number around 2.6 million of its 10.5 million workforces, officials said.

Workers across the country will go on a 24-hour industrial strike and a 6-hour road and railway blockade tomorrow at the call of the Sramik Karmachari Oikya Parishad.
   SKOP, the apex national body of trade unions, announced the programme to press home eight demands including full implementation of the government-SKOP agreement signed on January 8, 2004, amendment to the newly approved labour law, end to privatisation of nationalised mills and factories, and announcement and implementation of a national minimum wage for the private-sector workers.
   SKOP earlier gave an ultimatum to the government to fulfil the demands by October 14.