Bangladesh lifts ban on Facebook,says will monitor it

We opened Facebook to the users at 11:40 pm following a BTRC directive, Masud Kabir,managing director of Mango Telecom Services,one of the Internet gateways handlers,said.

Bangladesh imposed a ban on Facebook on May 29 after cartoons of the Prophet posted on the site hurt the religious sentiments of the countrys Muslim population. Thousands of people belonging to Muslim community protested over the cartoons which they branded as anti-Islamic propaganda,and demanded the site be banned.

Nearly 90 per cent of Bangladeshs 144 million people are Muslims. The BTRC also said that some links in Facebook contained obnoxious images of the countrys leaders including the Prime Minister and that the site would be reopened after Bangladesh had permanently blocked the offending pages.

We are satisfied with the removal of offensive items by Facebook team. And now its again open for all, BTRC chairman Zia Ahmed was quoted as saying by The Daily Star,adding that Bangladesh would strongly monitor the postings on the site.

The governments move to lift the ban on Facebook came after Pakistan lifted a similar ban on the site last week. Bangladesh has nearly one million Facebook account holders a sixth of all Internet users,according to the BTRC.

US mom finds missing kids on Facebook

SAN BERNARDINO: A Southern California mother whose two children were reported missing 15 years ago has tracked them down in Florida using Facebook. San Bernardino Deputy District Attorney Kurt Rowley says Faustino Utrera,the father of the boy and girl,took off with them in 1995 when they were ages 2 and 3.

Rowley says recently the mother typed one of the childrens names into Facebook and a listing for her daughter,now a teenager,came up. The mom contacted authorities,who tracked the Facebook profile to Orlando,Florida. Utrera was arrested and charged with kidnapping and violating child custody orders. AP