Heritage

Wildfires that have raged across forests and grassland in eastern Bolivia for weeks have destroyed rare rock art sites, archeologists announced Tuesday. “We believe that the damage is big and wide in terms of our heritage of rock art,” said Danilo Drakic, chief archeologist in the eastern Santa Cruz department. Santa Cruz is home to numerous rock art sites, including ... Read More »

The second gala event of the Bangladesh Heritage Crafts Foundation was successfully completed. In addition to the exhibition, cultural events and talks were held in the capital city’s Hotel Radisson on the initiative of the TS event on August 23 and 24, in which there were participated the minister’s advisers, as well as entrepreneurs and foreign ambassadors. Read More »

Should Americans, as part of their school curriculum, learn Arabic numerals? CivicScience, a Pittsburgh-based research firm, put that question to some 3,200 Americans recently in a poll seemingly about mathematics, but the outcome was a measure of students’ attitudes toward the Arab world. Some 56 percent of the respondents said, “No.” Fifteen percent had no opinion. Read More »

Anchorage (AP/UNB) — A man discovered a 50-year-old letter in a bottle from the Russian Navy on the shores of western Alaska. Read More »

Dhaka, Aug 15 (UNB) – President Abdul Hamid and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Thursday paid tribute to Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman as the nation is observing the 44th anniversary of his martyrdom in a somber mood. President Abdul Hamid and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina paid homage to the architect of the Independence by placing wreaths ... Read More »

Geneva, (Kanaga Raja) – Human rights experts at the United Nations have called for a decade of action to protect and promote the use of indigenous languages, many of which have now become endangered. This call came on the occasion of International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples which is commemorated on 9 August. Read More »

Dhaka, Aug 9 (UNB)- Members of ethnic groups around the globe are observing the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples on Friday with the theme ‘Indigenous Languages’. On December 23, 1994, the United Nations General Assembly decided in its resolution 49/214 that the day shall be observed on August 9 every year. This year’s aim is to highlight the ... Read More »

Dhaka, Aug 2 (UNB) – Eid-ul-Azha, the second largest religious festival of Muslims, will be celebrated across the country on August 12 as the new moon of the Arabic month of Zilhaj was sighted in Bangladesh sky on Friday. State Minister for Religious Affairs Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah made the announcement after a meeting of the National Moon Sighting Committee at ... Read More »

Westphalia, Jul 30 (AP/UNB) — A historic rural Roman Catholic church that had served its surrounding Central Texas farming community for more than a century has burned to the ground. Photos posted on the Austin Catholic diocesan Facebook page show the Church of the Visitation in Westphalia fully involved in flames Monday morning, being reduced to nothing more than ashes. ... Read More »

Cape Canaveral, Jul 21 (AP/UNB) — A moonstruck nation celebrated the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11’s “giant leap” by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin at parties, races, ball games and concerts Saturday, toasting with Tang and gobbling MoonPies. At NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, Aldrin showed Vice President Mike Pence the launch pad where he flew to the moon in 1969. ... Read More »

Cape Canaveral, July 17 (AP/UNB) — Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins returned Tuesday to the exact spot where he flew to the moon 50 years ago with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. Collins had the spotlight to himself this time — Armstrong has been gone for seven years and Aldrin canceled. Collins said he wished his two moonwalking colleagues could ... Read More »

Dhaka, July 7 (UNB) – A day after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced the government’s plan to turn 17 ‘iconic’ tourist sites into world-class destinations, UNESCO announced Jaipur City in Rajasthan as a World Heritage Site in India, reports The Indian Express.  Sharing the tweet, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said: “Jaipur is a city associated with culture and valour. Elegant and energetic, Jaipur’s hospitality ... Read More »

Dhaka, Jun 29 (UNB) – Liberation War Affairs Minister AKM Mozammel Haque on Saturday asked the authorities concerned to remove Ziaur Rahman’s grave, constructed going beyond the original design of Parliament areas, from the premises of the Jatiya Sangsad. “Some structures, including Zia’s grave, were constructed on the Jatiya Sangsad premises going beyond the original design. There are also some ... Read More »

Dhaka, Jun 23 (UNB)- Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Sunday said that Awami League was formed on this in 1949 to bring back the independence of Bangladesh which was lost in Amrakanon on June 23, 1757 through the defeat of the last independent Nawab of Bengal. “Under the leadership of the Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, this ... Read More »

Dhaka, Jun 23 – Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Sunday said that Awami League was formed on this in 1949 to bring back the independence of Bangladesh which was lost in Amrakanon on June 23, 1757, through the defeat of the last independent Nawab of Bengal. “Under the leadership of the Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, this ... Read More »

Dhaka, June 15 – International Union for Conservation of Nature( IUCN), the official advisor on natural World Heritage, recommends for three natural sites, including the Sundarbans in Bangladesh, to be listed as “World Heritage in danger.” The other two sites are Mexico’s Islands and Protected Areas of the Gulf of California and the Ohrid region in North Macedonia. IUCN’s advice ... Read More »

DHAKA, June 6, 2019 (BSS) – The historic Six-Point Day, marking the demand for autonomy for the then East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, will be observed tomorrow across the country in a befitting manner. On June 7 in 1966, Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman launched a massive movement against the misrule of the Pakistanis on the basis of ... Read More »

Image copyright Samsung Image caption A YouTube video explains how the researchers brought Mona Lisa to life The subject of Leonardo da Vinci’s famous Mona Lisa painting has been brought to life by AI researchers. The video, achieved from a single photo, shows the model in the portrait moving her head, eyes and mouth. The latest iteration of so-called deepfake ... Read More »

May 26, 2019 SANDRP Book Review: “Ganga: The Many Pasts of a River” by Sudipta Sen. Penguin Viking. 2019. PP 445 + (xvi) “Panditaraja Jagannath, Mughal court poet extraordinaire, a scholar of Linguistics, poetics, and philosophy, hounded by the Brahmin orthodoxy led by Hara Dikshita for marrying a Muslim woman, sought refuge on the steps of Banaras by the side ... Read More »

DHAKA, May 24, 2019 – The 120th birth anniversary of National Poet Kazi Nazrul Islam will be celebrated on Saturday across the country in a befitting manner. An elaborate programme has been taken at the national level to mark the day. Different organizations and cultural bodies in the capital and in districts will also celebrate the day amid various functions. ... Read More »

Dhaka, May 19 – In a major development, the High Court (HC) on Sunday in a verdict declared illegal the three gazette notifications and circular determining the minimum age of the freedom fighters. The HC bench also directed the government to give all due honorarium within 60 days to the freedom fighters who were deprived due to the circular. The ... Read More »

By Emily Dixon and Samuel Quashie-Idun, CNN . (CNN)A Belgian court has ruled that Albert II, the former king of Belgium, will be fined €5,000 ($5,600) every day until he takes a DNA test to determine whether he fathered a child during an alleged affair. Delphine Boel, a Belgian artist and sculptor, claims the king had an affair with her ... Read More »

By Jan Lundius Stockholm/ROME, May 6, 2019 (IPS) – The catastrophic fire in Notre Dame produced a massive emotional reaction. In a Paris famous for its secularism tearful people knelt on the pavement, sang the Ave Maria and prayed to God to save their cathedral. Several stated that it was not only a church burning, but the soul of Paris ... Read More »

London, May 8 (AP/UNB) — Royal couple Meghan and Prince Harry revealed their newborn son to the public on Wednesday, with the proud new mother declaring him “a dream.” The couple, known as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, posed with their son for cameras at Windsor Castle — the first in a lifetime of photo calls for the two-day-old ... Read More »

Rio De Janeiro, May 8 (AP/UNB)  — Brazil’s national museum said Tuesday it has recovered 200 pieces from its Egypt collection after a devastating fire last September. The collection had 700 pieces and was the largest in Latin America before the blaze. The artifacts recovered include statues, vases and amulets that had been buried inside the casket of a mummy ... Read More »

Tokyo, May 1 (AP/UNB) — Emperor Naruhito inherited the sacred sword and jewel Wednesday that signaled his succession as the 126th member of his family to rule Japan, pledging in his first public address to follow his father’s example by devoting himself to peace and sharing the people’s joys and sorrows. Naruhito, the first Japanese emperor to have studied abroad ... Read More »

Dhaka, Apr 30 (UNB) – The historic May Day will be observed in the country as elsewhere across the globe on Wednesday with a pledge to establish the rights of workers. May Day, also known as the International Workers’ Solidarity Day, commemorates the historic uprising of working people in Chicago, USA at the height of a prolonged fight for an ... Read More »

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Dhaka, Apr 17 – Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Wednesday paid tributes to Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on the occasion of historic Mujibnagar Day. The Prime Minister paid the homage by placing a wreath at Bangabandhu’s portrait in front of Bangabandhu Memorial Museum at Dhanmondi in the city in the morning. After laying the wreath, she ... Read More »

Dhaka, Apr 16 (UNB) – The historic Mujibnagar Day will be observed on Wednesday, marking the formation of Bangladesh’s first government that led the War of Liberation in 1971. Senior leaders of Awami League assembled at Baidyanathtala, a mango orchard, which was later named as Mujibnagar, in Meherpur district on April 17, 1971 to form the provisional government of independent ... Read More »