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Security Council to vote on Syria gas attack probe The UN Security Council is set to vote Wednesday on a resolution demanding that the Syrian government cooperate with an investigation of the suspected chemical attack in Idlib province, but Russia is likely to veto the measure, diplomats said. Britain, France and the United States put forward the draft text which was slightly revised from a proposal presented last week in response to the suspected sarin gas attack in the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhun. The vote is scheduled for 3 pm (1900 GMT) and comes as US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is in Moscow to pressure Russia to reconsider its support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Russia is expected to use its veto to block the measure, diplomats said. It would be the eighth time that Moscow has resorted to its veto power at the Security Council to block action against its ally Syria. The draft resolution expresses “horror” at the reported use of chemical w...

Hasina advises people not to eat Hilsa on Pahela Baishakh Prime minister Sheikh Hasina on Tuesday urged the countrymen not to eat hilsha in Pahela Bashakh, the first day of Bangla Nababarsho, to help boost production of the country’s national fish. “I would like to call upon all not to catch and eat hilsha in Pahela Baishakh ... instead, you take ‘khichuri’ (yellow rice), vegetables, fried egg and burnt dry chilli,” she said. The premier made the request while addressing a press conference at her official Ganabhaban residence here this afternoon. The press conference was convened to brief the media about the outcome of her just-concluded official visit to India. This is the season for mother hilsha to release eggs, and the government has imposed a ban on catching hilsha for 30 days. The prime minister didn’t include hilsha in her Pahela Baishakh menu at Ganabhaban last year. Over the few years, on an average the production of hilsha increased to 10,000-12,...

                   Khaleda to meet press today BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia is going to meet journalists on Wednesday to brief them about the country’s latest political situation and the prime minister’s recent India tour, reports news agency UNB. The news conference will be held at 4:30pm at her Gulshan office, said a press release on Tuesday. Party sources said the BNP chief at the press meet will focus on the country’s latest political situation and give her party’s formal reaction to the Prime Ministers’ recent India visit and her Tuesday’s press conference.

Facebook to soon offer free version of Workplace In a tough challenge to team collaboration tool Slack, Facebook has announced to offer a version of Workplace for free. Workplace, Facebook's messaging service for businesses, is one of the many products used by businesses to chat and share files within their select groups. According to a report in Fortune, the new free version announced by Facebook this week joins a previously announced paid version that premiered in 2016. "The free standard version will offer one-to-one and group voice and video calling, streaming video, and chat for people with Apple iOS or Android devices as well as those on desktop PCs," the report noted. The social networking giant has been trying to venture more into business sphere. Facebook, for example, recently rolled out a feature that allows posting job notices -- something that competes with Microsoft's LinkedIn. However, it is not clear yet when the free version...

Phone operators refund 100m minutes to users for call drops The country's three mobile phone operators have so far refunded nearly 100 million call-dropped minutes to their users. Despite the huge reimbursement from the private operators -Grameenphone, Banglalink and Robi, the state-owned phone operator Teletalk still keeps silent as the Teletalk did not compensate a single minute to its users as yet. The Teletalk submitted a gross amount of call-drops to the BTRC. But, it did not specify how many calls are being dropped on its network. According to the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) data, the customers received 99.7 million minutes in past three months as remuneration. The BTRC regulation reads that a user should be refunded six times a day for his/her call-drops minutes from the second time. The BTRC data show between January and March this year, Banglalink gave 62.3 million minutes back to their customers while Grameenph...

              Geopolitics keep investors cautious Muted trading volumes across many financial assets on Monday and the dollar rising to a three-week high underscored investor caution against making big bets in the face of geopolitical tensions in the Middle East and the Korean peninsula. It is also a holiday-shortened week in much of the West. Stock futures on Wall Street ESc1 SPc1 were up 0.1 per cent. The dollar inched higher drawing support from US rate hike expectations while global stocks, reaching the point where some see them as expensive, were stuck in neutral ahead of US earnings season this week. European stocks were off 0.1 per cent with industrials and energy sectors the biggest drags. Shares of mining major BHP Billiton (BLT.L) were up more than 3 percent, however, after activist hedge fund Elliot Management urged the company to pursue a spin-off of its US business. The company, in a statement, said the costs involved with Elli...

Cyber attack on Union Bank of India similar to BB heist: WSJ A cyber attack on Union Bank of India last July began after an employee opened an email attachment releasing malware that allowed hackers to steal the state-run bank's data, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The attempt closely resembled the cybertheft last year of more than $81 million from the Bangladesh central bank's account at the New York Federal Reserve, the paper reported. The opening of the email attachment, which looked like it had come from India's central bank, initiated the malware that hackers used to steal Union Bank's access codes for the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), a system that lenders use for international transactions. The codes were used to send transfer instructions for about $170 million to a Union Bank account at Citigroup Inc in New York. Union Bank had traced the money trail and blocked the movement of funds. SWI...