Dhaka is the world's 8th most polluted city as its air turns 'unhealthy'

Conservation teams in Indonesia have rescued dozens of critically endangered orangutans in recent weeks as wildfires burn across Borneo and Sumatra and send toxic haze across Southeast Asia.

The West Kalimantan conservation agency and the Indonesian non-profit YIARI said a team evacuated 51 orangutans from sites in the province between 6 August and 19 October. Figures from Indonesia's forestry ministry suggested the number rescued in Kalimantan in recent months could be as high as 96, though officials could not immediately clarify the total.

The latest rescue came on Saturday, when three conservation agencies evacuated a 20-year-old male orangutan in Hampangen village in Central Kalimantan, on Borneo. The agencies said the animal was sedated, given a medical examination and taken to a rehabilitation centre.

The fires have produced a months-long pollution spell that has closed schools, driven up respiratory illness in people and animals, and restricted outdoor activity in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and East Timor.

Air-quality monitors again ranked Singapore and Kuala Lumpur among the world's five most polluted major cities on Sunday. The BBC reported this month that Indonesia is having its worst wildfire season in a decade, with more than a million fire hotspots recorded and about 900,000 hectares burned, worsened by an unusually strong El Nino.

Indonesian authorities have suspended the operating licences of 26 companies linked to the fires and opened investigations into others, and President Prabowo Subianto has called slash-and-burn clearing 'ecological terrorism'. Greenpeace has named plantation firms based in Singapore and Malaysia that it links to burning land in Indonesia; the companies deny using fire.

Indonesia's transport ministry said about 2,400 flights have been affected by the haze since mid-August. 'Haze reduces visibility around airports, which can lead to delays, disruptions, and even flight cancellations,' it said, adding that safety comes first in every operational decision.

Malaysia's Johor state has extended school closures, and Singapore's air quality stayed unhealthy to very unhealthy over the weekend. Indonesia has used weather modification, dropping tonnes of dry ice over Sumatra, to try to break up the haze.

Prime Minister Tarique Rahman presented the National Standard to seven units of the Bangladesh Army at Savar Cantonment on Sunday, recognising their contribution to professional excellence and their roles in wartime and peacetime.

The units honoured this year were the President Guard Regiment, 7 Field Regiment Artillery, 32 Field Regiment Artillery, 25 Air Defence Regiment, 9 Engineer Battalion, 56 East Bengal Regiment and 57 East Bengal Regiment. The ceremony was organised by the 9th Infantry Division.

The prime minister was given an armed salute on arrival. Chief of Army Staff General Waker-Uz-Zaman, cabinet ministers and advisers, members of the diplomatic corps, and serving and former military officers attended.

In his address, Tarique Rahman said the strength of an armed force did not lie only in its weapons, equipment or numbers, but in discipline, skill, leadership, morality, training and public trust. He told officers and soldiers to remain committed to the Constitution, the law, military regulations and humanitarian values.

He said modern warfare increasingly involves cyberspace, outer space, drones, artificial intelligence, electronic warfare and information-based capabilities, and that Bangladesh's defence preparedness had to keep pace. The government, he added, was working to make the forces more technology-driven, skilled and professional, and to build a domestic defence industry for weapons and equipment.

Technology could never replace people, the prime minister said, calling for an integrated defence capability in which the Army, Navy and Air Force could act together when needed.

On welfare, he said the government was giving weight to housing, healthcare, education, training and post-retirement security for military personnel. Salaries and allowances had been raised by 100 to 138 percent under the National Pay Scale, and the 'One Rank, One Pension' system was being implemented, he said.

Tarique Rahman said the army's history was bound up with the country's independence, recalling the role of Ziaur Rahman, then deputy commander of the Eighth East Bengal Regiment, in Chattogram after the crackdown of 25 March 1971 and his declaration of independence from Kalurghat radio the following week.

He said protecting national interests, sovereignty and dignity would remain a core commitment, and that Bangladesh wanted to strengthen friendship and cooperation with all countries on the basis of mutual respect and equality.