Bangladesh’s first election in seven years was called largely free, fair and the most peaceful in decades, but the bitter feelings between the two women who have dominated politics re-emerged as the loser rejected her archrival’s win.

Bangladesh’s ex-Prime Minister Khaleda Zia today rejected election results that gave her arch-rival Sheikh Hasina a two-thirds parliamentary majority.

BANGLADESHIS voted in their droves yesterday in elections that marked the end of two years of emergency rule, with ex-prime minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed’s Awami League party claiming to be ahead in early returns.

The head of Bangladesh’s military-backed interim government pledged today’s election for prime minister – the country’s first poll in seven years – would be free and fair and urged political parties to accept the results.

An Election Commission official said Bangladesh’s general elections scheduled to take place on December 18 may be delayed by 10 days if all political parties agree.

THOUGH Europeans are lucky enough to be able to take democracy and all the great benefits that process confers almost for granted, every now and then some terrible event reminds us that it is a privilege to live in a society that regularly and peacefully elects and dismisses its leaders and, by and large, controls its affairs without resorting to violence.

Exiled former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will return home to Pakistan from Saudi Arabia today, a senior leader of his party said.

But Pakistan is about more than curry and cricket.

Pakistan’s president is engaged in last-ditch talks with Benazir Bhutto, another banished former leader, about a pact that could save his troubled re-election bid – and leave Nawaz Sharif out in the cold.

Police searched the house of detained former Bangladesh prime minister Khaleda Zia and confiscated documents and mobile phones, an official said today.

Police in Bangladesh arrested former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia on corruption charges today, the latest in a series of moves by the military-backed government to undermine a political elite widely viewed as corrupt.

Bangladesh’s former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was blocked today from boarding a flight home from London after the military-backed government barred her from returning.

The head of Bangladesh’s anti-corruption watchdog and one of his colleagues said they resigned today after the country’s president asked them to quit.

Bangladesh’s new interim leader took charge of security agencies and the election commission today as mass arrests continued days after the president declared a state of emergency following weeks of deadly unrest ahead of disputed elections.

Separate clashes between rival political activists and police left one man dead and about 65 people injured, as a major political alliance in Bangladesh staged a nationwide transport blockade today to force electoral reforms, police said.

More than 5,000 Muslims paraded in Bangladesh’s capital today to protest against the publication of drawings of Prophet Mohammed.

A series of bombs in two Bangladesh cities killed at least eight people and injured 66 today in what appeared to be the latest attack by militant Muslims who want to impose harsh Islamic law, officials said.

Thousands of opposition supporters joined hands or stood side by side Saturday to form a massive human chain across Bangladesh to demand a new government.

THE United Nations is to seek international aid to help rehabilitate Bangladesh after devastating floods washed away rice crops, villages and livestock and killed more than 450 people in the impoverished nation.

The United Nations is to seek international aid to help rehabilitate Bangladesh after devastating floods washed away rice crops, villages and livestock and killed more than 450 people in the impoverished nation.

BANGLADESH stepped up security today as a general strike called by the main opposition party shut down shops and schools and disrupted traffic for the second straight day.

Advancing coalition forces today claimed control of the Shah-e-Kot valley in eastern Afghanistan, sweeping all but a few small groups of al-Qaida and Taliban fighters as allied troops worked their way through the warren of mountain caves.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair today kicked off his tour of south Asia with a warning that the simmering conflict between India and Pakistan could destabilise the whole region and the wider world.

The attempt by asylum seekers to storm the Channel tunnel entrance in France was today dismissed as a publicity stunt and a mayor asked for their refugee camp near Calais to be closed down.

An alliance of right-wing and fundamentalist Islamic parties, led by former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, appears set for a landslide victory in Bangladesh’s general election.

A bomb killed a bus conductor during an opposition-sponsored general strike in Bangladesh that closed schools and stores and halted most traffic for a second day today, police said.