Bangla polls: Court bars graft convicts

Dhaka: In a landmark judgment, Bangladesh's high court has disqualified the graft convicts, who were tried under Emer-gency Power Rules and sentenced to not less than a two-year term, from contesting parliamentary polls.

A two-member high court bench on Sunday issued the judgment which would debar about 75 high-profile politicians, mostly belonging to former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and her arch-rival Sheikh Hasina's Awami League, from contesting the forthcoming general elections. -PTI

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15 workers die in China mine blast

Beijing: A coal mine blast in northern China killed 15 miners and three rescuers died in a cave-in Monday morning. China's coal mines are the world's deadliest. Coal is hugely important in China, feeding two-thirds of the economy's energy demand.

Fifteen miners were confirmed dead after the gas explosion on Sunday afternoon in the Changlong coal mine in Heilongjiang province, Xinhua News Agency said. Twenty-five people were in the mine but 10 escaped. The cause of the explosion in Qitaihe city is still under investigation, Xinhua said. -AP

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Ex-call girl in Spitzer case may pen book

New York: Ashley Dupre, the former high-class call girl sited as the reason behind Eliot Spitzer's resignation from his post of New York governor, may pen a tell-all book, according to sources.

Dupre has reportedly be-en approached by "another Hollywood madam", Heidi Fleiss, who has offered her a money-spinning deal to narrate her part of the story for Fleiss' publishing house, reports the New York Post. The 23-year-old had been dubbed as an "informant" during the Eliot Spitzer prostitution scandal which saw the politician patronising a prostitution service. -ANI

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Bruni to be anti-AIDS ambassador

Paris: France's First Lady, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, is to be named later on Monday a special ambassador in the global fight against AIDS.

Ms Bruni-Sarkozy, whose brother died from the disease, will become a special ambassador for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, an international fund-raising organisation.

"Of course, I'm particularly sensitive to this issue because of my brother," the 40-year-old former top model told Elle magazine.

-DPA

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Nepal-Bangla trade fair from Dec. 4

Kathmandu: With a view to promote bilateral trade between Nepal and Bangladesh, more than 37 companies from Dhaka will showcase their products at the Single Country Fair 2008, scheduled to begin from December 4 in Kathmandu.

Foreign minister of Nepal Upendra Yadav will open the annual event, in which industries will showcase products like ready made garments, jute products, food products, melamine products, handicrafts, cosmetics and herbal beauty products. Bangladesh has been organising such a fair in Nepal every year since 1995. -PTI