December 21, 1972

CUNNINGHAME CALLS ON BANGABANDHU

R.R. Cunninghame, high commissioner of New Zealand in Bangladesh, calls on Prime Minister Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman at the Gono Bhaban today and stays with him for some time. Cunninghame is visiting Dhaka in connection with the handing over of an aircraft for plant protection programme in Bangladesh.

TAJUDDIN WARNS AGAINST SABOTEURS

Finance Minister Tajuddin Ahmed says the Indo-Bangladesh friendship is based on "reality and not guided by emotion" and would be everlasting. Giving stern warning to those who are trying to create fissures in the friendship built during the "most difficult days in the nation's life", the minister declares that no power in the world would be able to wreck it and all machinations would fail as the conscious people of Bangladesh would never allow these saboteurs to succeed.

FRANCE, BANGLADESH ASSOCIATION FORMED IN PARIS

An association to promote friendship and cooperation between France and Bangladesh has been set up in France under the honorary chairmanship of writer Andre Malraux, former French minister of culture. Among the French celebrities who have agreed to join the honorary committee of the association are writer Herve Bazin, Nobel Prize winner and jurist Rene Cassin and philosopher Vladimir Jankelevitch.

ABORTION WILL BE LEGALISED

Health and Family Planning Minister Abdul Malek says the government has principally accepted the legislation of abortion and minimum marriage age limit of 18 years for proper family planning of the country. The government can't allow the explosion of the population unchecked in this war-ravaged country, adds the minister.

Source: December 22, 1972 issues of Dainik Bangla, The Bangladesh Observer and Ittefaq.