Bangladesh strike call

Opposition leaders in Bangladesh have called for a nationwide strike on Tuesday in protest against the police's handling of an opposition rally on Sunday.

The police used tear-gas and rubber bullets to disperse the crowd of nearly three-thousand people in the capital, Dhaka, as they were about to be addressed by opposition leaders.

The clashes lasted more than an hour.

The rally had been called to protest against what the opposition alliance says is the failure of the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, to check an outbreak of Dengue fever in the country.

The BBC correspondent in Dhaka says the opposition has enforced a number of strikes in its attempts to force the resignation of the four-year-old government, which faces a general election next year.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service