Int’l Children's Film Festival Bangladesh begins

The ‘11th International Children's Film Festival Bangladesh 2018' began in the city on Saturday with the screening of Mexican film ‘Tesoros’.

Children's Film Society Bangladesh organised the festival which will continue till February 2 with the theme of ‘future in frames’ at Shawkat Osman Auditorium.

Finance Minister AMA Muhith inaugurated this year's festival as the chief guest while Information Minister Hasanul Haqu Inu, British Council Bangladesh Country Director Barbara Wickham and Chairman of the Festival Advisory Committee Mustafa Monwar were present.

The festival will screen over 200 films of 58 countries created by renowned and aspiring directors from all over the world in six different venues in Bangladesh.

Four films will be shown every day at 11 am, 2 pm, 4 pm and 6 pm respectively at six venues while all the film shows are open to all parents and children.

The crest, certificates and financial incentives will be awarded while the five-member jury board will choose the best films made by small children for the award in different categories.

This year, there is a section titled "Young Bangladeshi Talent" where youngsters from 19 to 25 years of age will participate. Alongside, there is also a social film section where a competition will be organised on 'Violence against women' issue.

Starting in 2008, the festival is one of the biggest film events in Bangladesh and also the only international film festival for children and young adults of the country.unb.

Dinner ideas for winter nights

COBB SALAD

Ingredients

8-10 pieces of beef (cold meat)

4 handful salad leaves (torn into bite-sized pieces)

3 hard-boiled eggs (shelled and chopped)

500g skinless, boneless cooked chicken (diced)

2 avocados (peeled, stoned and cubed)

150g cherry tomatoes (halved)

100g blue cheese (crumbled)

Bread rolls (to serve)

Dressing —

½ tsp Dijon mustard

4 tbsp red wine vinegar

1 tsp Worcestershire sauce

1 garlic clove, crushed into a paste

¼ tsp salt

¼ tsp pepper

6 tbsp olive oil

Method

Put cold meat in a frying pan over a medium-high heat and cook until crisp. Drain on kitchen paper. When it is cool enough to handle, crumble and set aside. Make a bed of salad leaves in four shallow bowls. Arrange eggs, meat, chicken, avocados, tomatoes and cheese in rows on top of the lettuce, covering the surface completely. To make the dressing, whisk mustard, vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, garlic, salt and pepper. Slowly drizzle in the oil, whisking constantly. Pour the dressing evenly over the salad, and serve immediately with bread rolls.

Two-day music festival begins at Dhaka University

A two-day Music Festival of Dhaka University (DU) began on Friday at the Mall Chattar of the university aiming to promote different kinds of Bangla music.

DU Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Md Akhtaruzamman inaugurated the music festival at a function as the chief guest. Music Department of the university is organizing the music event, a press release said.

Noted singers from different forms of music and as well as students of the DU Music Department are performing at the festival.

Chinese scientists break key barrier by cloning monkeys

Chinese scientists have cloned monkeys using the same technique that produced Dolly the sheep two decades ago, breaking a technical barrier that could open the door to copying humans.

Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua, two identical long-tailed macaques, were born eight and six weeks ago, making them the first primates -- the order of mammals that includes monkeys, apes and humans -- to be cloned from a non-embryonic cell.

It was achieved through a process called somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), which involves transferring the nucleus of a cell, which includes its DNA, into an egg which has had its nucleus removed.

Researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Neuroscience in Shanghai said their work should be a boon to medical research by making it possible to study diseases in populations of genetically uniform monkeys.

But it also brings the feasibility of cloning to the doorstep of our own species.

"Humans are primates. So (for) the cloning of primate species, including humans, the technical barrier is now broken," Muming Poo, who helped supervise the programme at the institute, told reporters in a conference call.

"The reason ... we broke this barrier is to produce animal models that are useful for medicine, for human health. There is no intention to apply this method to humans."

Genetically identical animals are useful in research because confounding factors caused by genetic variability in non-cloned animals can complicate experiments. They could be used to test new drugs for a range of diseases before clinical use.

The two newborns are now being bottle fed and are growing normally. The researchers said they expect more macaque clones to be born over the coming months.

Since Dolly - cloning's poster child - was born in Scotland in 1996, scientists have successfully used SCNT to clone more than 20 other species, including cows, pigs, dogs, rabbits, rats and mice.

Similar work in primates, however, had always failed, leading some experts to wonder if primates were resistant.

The new research, published on Wednesday in the journal Cell, shows that is not the case. The Chinese team succeeded, after many attempts, by using modulators to switch on or off certain genes that were inhibiting embryo development.

Even so, their success rate was extremely low and the technique worked only when nuclei were transferred from foetal cells, rather than adult ones, as was the case with Dolly. In all, it took 127 eggs to produce two live macaque births.

"It remains a very inefficient and hazardous procedure," said Robin Lovell-Badge, a cloning expert at the Francis Crick Institute in London, who was not involved in the Chinese work.

"The work in this paper is not a stepping-stone to establishing methods for obtaining live born human clones. This clearly remains a very foolish thing to attempt."

The research underscores China's increasingly important role at the cutting-edge of biosciences, where its scientists have at times pushed ethical boundaries.

Three years ago, for example, researchers at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou caused a furore when they reported carrying out the first experiment to edit the DNA of human embryos, although similar work has now been done in the United States.

Scientists at the Shanghai institute said they followed international guidelines for animal research set by the US National Institutes of Health, but called for a debate on what should or should not be acceptable practice in primate cloning.

Messi and Suarez strike again as Barca advance in Copa del Rey

With Philippe Coutinho making his debut and Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez adding to their scoring run, Barcelona advanced to the Copa del Rey semifinals for the eighth straight year on Thursday.
First-half goals from Messi and Suarez guided Barcelona to a comfortable 2-0 victory over city rival Espanyol at Camp Nou Stadium, keeping alive the team's hopes of winning its fourth consecutive Copa title.
The other teams in the semifinals are Sevilla, Valencia and Leganes, which on Wednesday stunned Real Madrid at Santiago Bernabeu Stadium. Valencia got past last year's runner-up Alaves on penalties, while Sevilla eliminated Atletico Madrid. The draw will be held on Friday, with the first leg matches being played next week.
Barcelona had lost 1-0 to Espanyol in the first leg last week, but quickly evened the series when Suarez scored with a diving header less than 10 minutes into the match after a cross from the right by Aleix Vidal. Messi scored the goal that secured a 2-1 win on aggregate midway through the first half with a shot that deflected off a defender.
Messi and Suarez have combined to score at least a goal each in six of the team's last seven matches.
Messi has found the net 10 times in his last 11 games, while Suarez has scored 11 goals in his last nine matches.
"I liked how we were able to control the game in the final minutes," Barcelona coach Ernesto Valverde said. "We didn't want to risk conceding like we did in the first leg."
It was a good debut for Coutinho, who came off the bench in the second half to replace Andres Iniesta, playing well in the nearly 25 minutes he was on the field.
"There are a lot of expectations about Coutinho," Valverde said. "He will fit well into our game. He entered in a complicated match, but he did well."
Coutinho arrived from Liverpool earlier this month but had been sidelined by a right leg muscle injury. The Brazilian playmaker was signed in a transfer worth up to 160 million euros (then $192 million), making him Barcelona's most expensive player ever.

Mithila hosts new radio show ‘Berey Othar Golpo’

Popular model-cum-actress Mithila is going to host a new children’s development radio show titled ‘Berey Othar Golpo’, with support from BRAC. The two-hour live show will begin airing on Radio Shadhin from March, one-day every week. Mithila has been working as the  head of ‘Early Childhood Development’ section of ‘BRAC International’ for a long time where her work mostly includes activities with children.

DhakaLive has news that the radio show ‘Berey Othar Golpo’ will bring experts on children in different categories and parents will get the chance to ask them different questions directly over the phone. When asked about the programme, Mithila said, “It was a long dream of mine to do this type of programme. At last it is all possible now with the help from BRAC and Radio Shadhin. I am hoping that this programme will benefit the children.”

Apart from this, Mithila just finished shooting her maiden short film ‘Mukhomukhi’ in Kolkata, directed by Partho Sen. She starred against Kolkata actor Gourav Chakraborti, son of Sabbyaschi.

Regarding acting in the short film Mithila said, “ I have got plenty of offers for short films but I did not do those. The main reason behind working in ‘Mukhomukhi’ is that I liked the story very much and Partho Sen is a talented director. Everyone knows I work in very few projects and my wish for working in good projects was there right from the beginning. That is why I work on special occasions. Mukhomukhi is a completely different work and I am really hopeful about it.”

Alongside, the actress confirmed to DhakaLive that for the whole month of February she will be in Africa for official work. 

Sunrisers rope in Shakib in IPL auction

Premier Bangladesh all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan will play for Sunrisers Hyderabad in the cash-rich Indian Premier League’s next edition.

The southpaw, who played for the Koltaka Knight Riders in the last seven editions, was up for grab during the second round of the bidding with a base price of Rupees one crore. In the bidding Royal Challengers Bangalore also showed their interest to rope in Shakib. However, Hyderabad, where another Bangladeshi, left-arm pace bowler Mustafizur Rahman, played before, won the bid.