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Let Khaleda go abroad
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condition can improve or deteriorate anytime. Thus, any concrete comment on her health may be confusing.”
The medical board, formed to treat her, is meticulously observing her physical condition round the clock and examining the vital organs constantly.
The former prime minister needs to stay at the Critical Care Unit of the hospital for a few more days and the medical board is readjusting her medication, Zahid said.
She is suffering from chronic kidney conditions, decompensated liver diseases, unstable haemoglobin, uncontrolled blood sugar, arthritis and other old-aged complications.
Family members of Khaleda applied to the government to allow her to go abroad for better treatment but the government rejected the plea.
Meanwhile, five parties of the BNP-led 20-party alliance filed a separate application to the government via the Ministry of Home Affairs, on the same ground.
A five-member delegation, led by Kalyan Party Chairman major general (retd) Syed Mohammad Ibrahim, met the home minister at the secretariat.
“We have submitted an application to allow Khaleda Zia to go abroad for treatment. We explained verbally too. The home minister listened to us and assured us that the application will be sent to the prime minister,” Ibrahim told journalists after the meeting.
Later Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal said, “I will send their application to the prime minister.”
Meanwhile, BNP’s lawmakers formed a human chain in front of the south plaza of the National Parliament demanding to allow Khaleda to go abroad for treatment.
They demanded to the president to intervene on the issue of Khaleda’s treatment.
Khaleda has long been suffering from arthritis, diabetes, as well as dental and eye problems. In April this year, she contracted coronavirus.
She recovered while under treatment at home, but as other health complications cropped up, she was admitted to Evercare Hospital on April 27.
Khaleda was admitted to the hospital on November 13 night and moved to the CCU on the next day, nearly a week after she was discharged from the same healthcare facility.
When she developed health problems, she was placed in the CCU and remained there for almost two months. She returned home on June 19.
On October 12, she was admitted to the hospital as her temperature had started fluctuating. At that time, a lump was found on her body and she was in the hospital for around three weeks.
Khaleda was sent to jail on February 8, 2018, in a corruption case. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, she was given a temporary release on certain conditions on March 25 last year. The term of her release has been extended four times so far.

Over 240,000 Lebanon expats register to vote in polls
Afp, Beirut
Nearly 245,000 Lebanese living abroad have signed up to vote in next year’s parliamentary polls, Lebanon’s foreign ministry said yesterday, after it closed the window for registration.
The vote scheduled for March 2022 is seen by many as a chance to challenge the ruling elite’s stranglehold on a country mired in its worse-ever financial crisis.
Lebanon’s diaspora -- estimated to number at least three times the country’s 6-million population -- will take part in the vote for the 128-seat parliament, making them a powerful electoral force.
The foreign ministry said the final expat voter count reached 244,442 -- more than double the almost 93,000 who registered for the last parliamentary polls in 2018, Lebanon’s first expat vote.
While the first was poorly publicised, this time around opposition activists at home and abroad organised social media campaigns to explain the registration process.
In some parts of Europe, volunteers set up registration centres to help compatriots sign up.
Europe accounted for the largest number of registered expat voters, with nearly 75,000, followed by Asia with 61,000 voters, and North America, where 60,000 signed up, the foreign ministry said in a statement.
In Latin America, home to one of Lebanon’s largest and oldest diaspora communities, only 6,350 people registered for the vote.
The March polls mark the first major electoral test since the onset in 2019 of a financial crises widely blamed on nepotism and corruption among Lebanon’s ruling class.
It comes as Lebanese, nearly 80 percent of whom live below the poverty line, battle to survive with scant incomes and endless power cuts and price hikes.
“The wave of change has started,” said Ayah Bdeir, a Lebanese activist who organised a diaspora vote campaign.
“Next we vote for change, then we take back our country,” she said yesterday in a post on Twitter.