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Monday 31 January 2011

47 Bangladeshis arrested in UK for working illegally - 31 January


Forty-seven Bangladeshi nationals were arrested in the UK in December and January as they were found working illegally during the British Border Agency-enforced operations.

“During the period, a Bangladeshi man has been jailed for 16 months in Scotland for facilitating the unlawful entry of migrants to the UK. He will be liable to deportation on release from prison,” the British High Commission said Monday.

The UK mission in a release said the 46 Bangladeshi men and one woman were found with other nationalities working illegally in widespread enforcement operations in England, Scotland and Wales over two months.

“They were apprehended in restaurants, takeaways, a food factory and a shop, and had committed a range of immigration offences, including staying in the UK after their visas expired, entering the UK illegally and working in breach of their visa conditions. Steps are being taken to return all those apprehended to Bangladesh.”

Fines of up to £10,000 will be imposed on the employers for every illegal worker found in their business, unless the employers can prove that they carried out the correct right-to-work checks on the employees.

Immigration Minister Damian Green said, “These operations are among many being carried out across the country following the success of a major crackdown on immigration crime during the summer 2010, which generated a large number of arrests, cash seizures, prosecutions and intelligence which the UK Border Agency is using to disrupt more of the activities of people involved in facilitating immigration crime.”

To justify the sweeping action the British minister said, “Illegal immigration puts huge pressure on public finances at a time when the country can least afford it. Together with the police and the Serious Organised Crime Agency we will continue to make life as difficult as possible for those who cheat the immigration system.”

In addition, a man was stopped at Birmingham airport when he attempted to use a forged document to pose as a student in order to work in the UK, Green said, adding that he was returned to Bangladesh where he lost his appeal against removal.

Damian Green said, “I believe attracting talented students from abroad is vital to the UK, but we must clamp down on abuse and be more selective about who can come here and how long they can stay. Too many students arriving to study at below-degree level have been coming here with a view to living and working, rather than studying. We need to stop this abuse.”

Demo against airport at Arial Beel Police-protesters clash leaves police officer killed, over 100 injured


A police official was killed and over 100 others injured as a massive demonstration against the proposed Bangabandhu International Airport at Arial Beel Monday erupted into rioting between law-enforcers and the protesters.

Sub-Inspector Motiur Rahman succumbed to his injuries on arrival at Mitford Hospital in the capital.

Additional SP Saiful Islam confirmed the death of the police SI and said, “The injured officer and others were rushed to Dhaka Medical College Hospital and Mitford Hospital. SI Motiur died at Mitford. Of the injured, seven are in critical condition.”

Saiful Islam, however, claimed the situation in the area was brought under control with the help of the elite-force RAB at about 3:15 pm.

Earlier at 1pm, Nimtali Bridge area in Sirajdikhan upazila turned into a veritable battlefield as police and protesters locked into clashes during the blockade programme sponsored by Arial Beel Raksha Committee.

Witnesses said police used water cannon, fired teargas shells and bullets to disperse the demonstrating people.

Earlier in the morning, people wielding sticks swarmed out of villages onto the street and blockaded the Dhaka-Mawa Highway on a stretch of eight kilometers.

Shahjahan Badal and other leaders of the resistance committee said that scores of people were injured in police action.

Officer-in-Charge of Srinagar Police Station Sakhawat Hossain told banglanews that people blockaded the highway at about 10 am. They also vandalized vehicles, set fire to a motorcycle of a journalist and attacked some other journalists.

“Despite repeated request to calm down, the protesters attacked police with brick chips and sticks. Under the circumstances, police used tear shell and rubber bullets to bring the situation under control,” the OC said.

The committee made the announcement of the road-blockade plan last Thursday, as part of their ongoing protests against the selection of the airport site.

In a latest development, leader of the opposition and ex-PM Khaleda Zia expressed her BNP party’s solidarity with the movement of the locals against the massive scheme on transforming the vast water-body into an airport-cum-new city after the name of country’s founding father, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

Shops in Nimtali, Hasara and Srinagar areas remained closed in what looked like a hartal-like situation.

Security was beefed up on both sides of Dhaleswari Bridge and Keraniganj, Nimtali, Hasara and Srinagar areas.Earlier on December 27, some 30,000 people formed an 8-km-long human chain from Shologhar to Nimtali in Srinagar upazila on the same issue.

The process of acquiring land for constructing the planned Bangabandhu International Airport has begun, as the government moves to start at the soonest the massive construction works that are estimated to cost some Tk 50,000 crore.

Of the total 25,000-acre area, 10,895 acres of the wetlands are in Srinagar upazila of Munshiganj, and 7,017 acres in Nawabganj and 7,188 acres in Dohar of Dhaka.

Sunday 30 January 2011

Anti-Mubarak protesters dominate Cairo Protesters have taken over the centre of the Egyptian capital Cairo on the sixth day of demonstrations against

Protesters have taken over the centre of the Egyptian capital Cairo on the sixth day of demonstrations against the rule of President Hosni Mubarak.

The police, who have been involved in violent clashes with protesters in recent days, have largely disappeared from the streets.

There is a heavy military presence in the city, but soldiers are not intervening.
Meanwhile, al-Jazeera's broadcasts via an Egyptian satellite have been halted, the BBC reports.

The Egyptian government had earlier ordered the Arabic TV channel, which has been showing blanket coverage of the protests, to shut down its operations in the country.
Clashes between protesters and the security forces - mostly riot police - are reported to have left at least 100 people dead across Egypt since rallies began on Tuesday.

Thousands have been injured as violence has flared in cities including Cairo, Suez and Alexandria.

In Cairo, many protesters defied an overnight curfew to camp out in Tahrir (Liberation) Square, the focal point of the demonstrations in the city.

Chants of "Mubarak, Mubarak, the plane awaits" could be heard on Sunday morning, a reference to protesters' hopes that President Mubarak will step down and leave Egypt.
Many protesters once again climbed onto tanks and armoured vehicles around the square, with many soldiers apparently on friendly terms with the anti-Mubarak demonstrators.

Sunday is the start of the working week in the Middle East, but many businesses in the capital are closed. Internet access remains intermittent.

The BBC's Jeremy Bowen says that although key government buildings are under heavy guard, there appears to be a vacuum of authority in large areas of the city.
Throughout the city, armed citizens' groups have formed to respond to the widespread looting and disorder that has accompanied the growing sense of lawlessness.
Across Egypt, thousands of prisoners are reported to have escaped from jails after overpowering their guards.

TRAVEL ADVICE

Western leaders have urged President Mubarak to avoid violence and enact reforms.
Mr Mubarak has appointed a vice-president - intelligence chief Omar Suleiman - as he struggles to regain control. Aviation Minister Ahmed Shafiq has been appointed prime minister.

Sunday saw a number of Egyptian political movements issue a joint statement calling on leading opposition figure Mohamed ElBaradei to form a transitional government.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said his government is watching events in Egypt carefully, and hoping to maintain peaceful relations with its Arab neighbour.
The Rafah crossing between Egypt and the southern Gaza Strip is closed, Palestinian officials say.

The US government, which previously had advised US citizens against non-essential travel to Egypt, is now advising Americans in Egypt to consider leaving the country as soon as possible.

The UK has advised against all but essential travel to Cairo, Alexandria, Luxor and Suez.

A number of other European countries have also advised against visiting the country.
The unrest in Egypt follows an uprising in Tunisia two weeks ago which toppled President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali after 23 years in power.

Saturday 29 January 2011

Apple begins iPad sales in India


Apple Inc's popular iPad tablets finally hit Indian stores on Friday, nearly 10 months after its US sales began, giving more options to customers in the world's fastest-growing mobile market that is also seeing a surge in sales of smartphones and other high-end devices.

Apple is selling the iPad through its authorised resellers and partner stores across the country, an India-based company spokesman told Reuters. Apple has priced the iPad in India between 27,900 rupees and 44,900 rupees ($612-$985), depending on the model.

The iPad model with 16 GB of memory that works only on Wi-Fi is priced at 27,900 rupees, while the one that can operate on both Wi-Fi as well as third-generation (3G) mobile networks costs 34,900 rupees.

Customers have the option to buy an iPad with 16, 32 or 64 GB of memory and can choose a model that works only on Wi-Fi or on both Wi-Fi and 3G.

The 64 GB iPad model that operates on both Wi-Fi and 3G costs 44,900 rupees, according to Apple's website. iPad India prices and details, click r.reuters.com/gag77r

Apple first introduced the iPad in January last year and began sales in April. The company shipped a total 14.79 million iPads as of Dec 25 last year and research firm iSuppli expects 36.5 million to be sold in 2011.

The India launch comes at a time when the company is expected to announce in weeks the next version of the iPad, known as iPad 2. Last month, Asian manufacturers sources told Reuters that Apple was working on a smaller iPad tablet with built-in cameras that could ship early this year.
The current iPad has a 9.7-inch screen.

Apple's iPad will compete in India with tablet computers from Samsung Electronics and Dell Inc who launched the devices in 2010. Samsung, which started selling its Galaxy Tab tablet computer in India in November last year, expected total industry tablet sales of 750,000 to 1 million units in one year.
India is the world's second biggest mobile market after China with 730 million mobile customers, but the price-sensitive market is still small in base for sales of smartphones.

($1=45.6 rupees)

Mubarak dismisses Egypt's government


Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak refused on Saturday to bow demands that he resign, after ordering troops and tanks into cities in an attempt to quell an explosion of street protest against his 30-year rule.

Mubarak dismissed his government and called for national dialogue to avert chaos after a day of battles between police and protesters angry over poverty and autocratic rule.

Medical sources said at least 24 people had been killed and over a thousand injured in clashes in Cairo, Suez and Alexandria.

The unprecedented unrest has sent shock waves through the Middle East, where other autocratic rulers may face challenges, and unsettled global financial markets on Friday. US President Barack Obama said he had spoken with Mubarak and urged "concrete steps that advance the rights of the Egyptian people".

Demonstrators at first cheered tanks and armoured cars as they filed through Cairo and Suez, but the mood appeared to change. The army, deployed for the first time in four days of protests, cleared Cairo's Tahrir square towards midnight.

Shortly after Mubarak's speech, protesters drifted back in their hundreds, defying a curfew.

"It is not by setting fire and by attacking private and public property that we achieve the aspirations of Egypt and its sons, but they will be achieved through dialogue, awareness and effort," said Mubarak, in his first public appearance, on state television, since unrest broke out four days ago.

Shots were heard in the evening near parliament and the headquarters of the ruling National Democratic Party was in flames, the blaze lighting up the night sky. Cars were set alight and police posts torched.

US AID

Mubarak, long a close ally of Washington and beneficiary of US aid, has justified his autocratic style partly by citing a danger of Islamist militancy. The Muslim Brotherhood opposition, however, appears to have played little role in the unrest.

Mubarak made clear he had no intention to resign over the protests, triggered by the overthrow two weeks ago of Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Al Ben Ali. Street protests in Tunis focused on similar issues of poverty and political repression.

Demonstrations have also flared in Yemen.

"There will be new steps towards democracy and freedoms and new steps to face unemployment and increase the standard of living and services, and there will be new steps to help the poor and those with limited income," Mubarak said.

"There is a fine line between freedom and chaos and I lean towards freedom for the people in expressing their opinions as much as I hold on to the need to maintain Egypt's safety and stability," he added.

Obama also called on the Egyptian government to halt interference in access to the Internet, mobile phone service and Internet social networks that have been used by protesters.

"I want to be very clear in calling upon the Egyptian authorities to refrain from any violence against peaceful protesters," he said.

Anthony Skinner, Associate Director of political risk consultancy Maplecroft, said Mubarak's conduct was reminiscent of that of Ben Ali in his final days in power.

UNCHARTED TERRITORY

"Mubarak is showing he is still there for now and he is trying to deflect some of the force of the process away from himself by sacking the Cabinet.

"We will have to see how people react but I don't think it will be enough at all. I wouldn't want to put a number on his chances of survival -- we really are in uncharted territory."

Markets were hit by the uncertainty. US stocks suffered their biggest one-day loss in nearly six months, crude oil prices surged and the dollar and US Treasury debt gained as investors looked to safe havens.

"I think the next two to three weeks, the crisis in Egypt and potentially across the Middle East, might be an excuse for a big selloff of 5 to 10 percent," said Keith Wirtz, president and chief investment officer at Fifth Third Asset Management in Cincinnati, Ohio.


Many protesters are young men and women. Two thirds of Egypt's 80 million people are below 30 and many have no jobs. About 40 percent of Egyptians live on less than $2 a day.

Elections were due to be held in September and until now few had doubted that Mubarak would remain in control or bring in a successor in the shape of his 47-year-old son Gamal.

Friday 28 January 2011

Indians dismayed by Eden Gardens decision


The decision to drop Eden Gardens as host of a high-profile World Cup match has been greeted with dismay in India and prompted calls to give arguably the country's most famous ground another chance.

Eden Gardens failed to meet deadlines for renovations to the stadium, causing the International Cricket Council to change the venue for the Feb. 27 match between India and England.

"We all were looking forward to this match. We all were dying to see a renovated Eden Gardens which was already looking so beautiful," former India batsman Arun Lal, now a commentator, told Reuters.

"Every cricket fan, every Kolkatan will be devastated by this."

Nearly 100,000 people screaming at the top of their voices make Eden Gardens one of the most atmospheric cricket grounds in the world.

"Is there no chance of this decision being reversed? I am just hoping that they can reconcile," Lal said.

Former India opening batsman Chetan Chauhan shared the view.

"I would suggest to the ICC and the Indian board that the Eden Gardens should be given another opportunity," Chauhan said.

"They should be given about 7-10 days. The game is on Feb 27. and there is still a lot of time.

"If they don't give them one more chance, I think they will deny a great centre and cricket-loving people the opportunity of watching a high-profile World Cup match."

Eden Gardens, which hosted the 1987 World Cup final, will stage three other matches on March 15, 18 and 20, none of which feature the home side.

A furious Madan Lal, a member of India's 1983 World Cup-winning team, said the organisers should be taken to task.

"One question is why was the stadium not ready?," he said.

"Once a deadline was given, they should have completed work before that deadline.

"It's not about the venue but about the people who have lost everything now."

Former ICC chief Jagmohan Dalmiya heads the Cricket Association of Bengal, which is based at Eden Garden

Tuesday 25 January 2011

Anti-corruption Commission sues Unipay2U officials


The Anti-corruption Commission (ACC) has sued the top officials of multi-level marketing company Unipay2U on money laundering charges.

ACC assistant director Toufiqul Islam filed the case against the company's chairman Shadizzaman Shahin and managing director Muntasir Hossain, with Shahbagh police on Tuesday.

It has been learnt that the officials lured people to invest in their company with promises of unnaturally high profits through their investments in 'virtual gold.'

The ACC case alleges that the company had not completed the legal formalities to operate such transactions.

The case details stipulate that between November 2009 and September 2010, Unipay2U managed to pool a fund of Tk 261,203,207 from the general people through their deposits in the New Market branch of City Bank, Narayanganj branch of NCC Bank, and Elephant Road branch of BRAC Bank.

According to the case details, Unipay2U is registered under the Registrar of Joint Stock Companies and Firms as an entity dealing with export, import and multi-level marketing under the Companies Act 1994.

The Joint Stock of Companies reports that there are 70 such firms in Bangladesh.

Sunday 23 January 2011

Website Optimization


Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a technique that brings quality traffic from search engines to your website. Before we get start we need to make sure our website is optimized for search engines or not. To help search engine crawlers to move easily through your website and examine all the web pages, it is good to fix the core optimization problem.

Key areas to focus on web optimization are:

Optimizing your Code matters

To improve relationship with SEO, optimize your code. Make sure there are no road blocks or hurdles and that means test your web pages thoroughly. Put in relevant links in your posts that lead to other pages or blogs of your site. Visit your website often to get the clear idea how to make your website more enjoyable for visitors.

Keywords are Integral

Keywords can literally make your website more visible and more accessible. In simple terms, keywords counts hugely. Sprinkle relevant keywords in your posts or content. Increase keywords density by researching the hot trends or find keywords related to your niche by using word tracker. Include keywords in your title, content, domain. You can analyze your keyword density by using tools such as this.

Categories Tags and Ping Services

Categorize your posts. It will make things easier not just for SEO and your website visitor, but for your too. Categories help users to move through your site and find the related material. So if you’re talking about e-commerce in your posts, categorize it in e-commerce. Make sure to use practical categories that people search for, if you use Shopaholic shop, well not many people are going to search for this.

Tags are basically something in between category and keyword. A post can belong to as many tags as possible, tagging actually refines search for users. As for pings, they started gaining importance until recently. Pings are like knocking on the doors of search engines and tagging services and introducing your website to them so yes, pings are very important for increasing traffic to your website.

Friday 21 January 2011

How to Increase Blog Traffic from your Blogsite

Title tag
The title tags appear in the HEAD section of the page code and the title is displayed in the title bar of the browser window when the site is viewed. The title tags appear as the name of the website in search results, and is often where you need to make your first impression. The title is a good place to display your company name and a few relevant keywords. You can also add locality descriptors to let your visitors know where your business is located. An example of a title tag:
Keyword tag
The keyword tag appears in the HEAD section of each page, and contains a list of keywords and phrases that are relevant to your site. The keyword tag used to be a highly influential tag used by search engines to index websites, however due to abuse by search engine spammers adding irrelevant repeated keywords, the tag now carries less influence.Adding irrelevant keywords may attract more traffic to your site
Link text
Link tags, also known as Anchors, are usually found many times throughout websites between the BODY tags. The description text used for the link should ideally contain any relevant keywords, and describe the purpose or destination of the link. For example:

Headings
Heading tags such as

etc. are often given extra standing by search engines. The heading tag should contain one or two important keywords. For example:

Running and Athletic shoes


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Wednesday 19 January 2011

Without Mashrafe,Bangladesh Squad was declared for Worldcup-2011


Mashrafe Mortaza, the Bangladesh allrounder, has not been included in the 15-man squad for the World Cup. Mortaza had injured his right knee while playing club cricket in Dhaka in December and was striving to recover in time for the tournament. He had begun bowling off a short run-up during net sessions in the last few days but the selectors decided against including him in the campaign. Shakib Al Hasan was named captain of the squad and Tamim Iqbal will be his deputy.

"There is little chance that Mortaza will be fit before the World Cup," chief selector Rafiqul Alam told AFP, adding that coach Jamie Siddons supported this assessment. "Mortaza, however, has the chance to be included in the team later if he fully recovers and an opportunity arises."

Mortaza's absence is a blow to Bangladesh but they have enjoyed a string of positive results under Shakib recently, including beating New Zealand 4-0 in October 2010 and Zimbabwe 3-1 in their most recent outing in December.

The doubt over Mortaza's selection was the only major question ahead of the announcement. And though his exclusion effectively means that Mortaza won't be part of the World Cup, Siddons was optimistic. "He [Mortaza] is on track with his rehab. He was supposed to bowl today, bowl off a full run-up at the end of the month in eight to ten days," Siddons had told Daily Star the day before the squad was announced.

"We definitely want him to be fit. If the selectors don't pick him, and if he's fit by the first match, we can use him as a replacement in the World Cup. There are a few good reasons for him to bowl. I expect him to be fit by the start of the World Cup. I want him in the team, I want a fit Mashrafe."

The Bangladesh physiotherapist, Michael Henry, had said Mortaza had "responded well and there were no negative repercussions after his bowling stint."

Bangladesh will play the tournament opener against India in Dhaka on February 19 after which they play their remaining group games at home.

Squad: Shakib Al Hasan, Tamim Iqbal, Imrul Kayes, Junaid Siddique, Shahriar Nafees, Raqibul Hasan, Mohammad Ashraful, Mushfiqur Rahim, Naeem Islam, Mahmudullah, Abdur Razzak, Rubel Hossain, Shafiul Islam, Nazmul Hossain, Suhrawadi Shuvo.

What happens when mom unplugs teens for 6 months?


Susan Maushart lived out every parent's fantasy: She unplugged her teenagers.

For six months, she took away the Internet, TV, iPods, cell phones and video games. The eerie glow of screens stopped lighting up the family room. Electronic devices no longer chirped through the night like "evil crickets." And she stopped carrying her iPhone into the bathroom.

The result of what she grandly calls "The Experiment" was more OMG than LOL — and nothing less than an immersion in RL (real life).

As Maushart explains in a book released in the U.S. this week called "The Winter of Our Disconnect" (Penguin, $16.95), she and her kids rediscovered small pleasures — like board games, books, lazy Sundays, old photos, family meals and listening to music together instead of everyone plugging into their own iPods.

Her son Bill, a videogame and TV addict, filled his newfound spare time playing saxophone. "He swapped Grand Theft Auto for the Charlie Parker songbook," Maushart wrote. Bill says The Experiment was merely a "trigger" and he would have found his way back to music eventually. Either way, he got so serious playing sax that when the gadget ban ended, he sold his game console and is now studying music in college.

Maushart's eldest, Anni, was less wired and more bookish than the others, so her transition in and out of The Experiment was the least dramatic. Her friends thought the ban was "cool." If she needed computers for schoolwork, she went to the library. Even now, she swears off Facebook from time to time, just for the heck of it.

Maushart's youngest daughter, Sussy, had the hardest time going off the grid. Maushart had decided to allow use of the Internet, TV and other electronics outside the home, and Sussy immediately took that option, taking her laptop and moving in with her dad — Maushart's ex-husband — for six weeks. Even after she returned to Maushart's home, she spent hours on a landline phone as a substitute for texts and Facebook.

But the electronic deprivation had an impact anyway: Sussy's grades improved substantially. Maushart wrote that her kids "awoke slowly from the state of cognitus interruptus that had characterized many of their waking hours to become more focused logical thinkers."

Maushart decided to unplug the family because the kids — ages 14, 15 and 18 when she started The Experiment — didn't just "use media," as she put it. They "inhabited" media. "They don't remember a time before e-mail, or instant messaging, or Google," she wrote.

Like so many teens, they couldn't do their homework without simultaneously listening to music, updating Facebook and trading instant messages. If they were amused, instead of laughing, they actually said "LOL" aloud. Her girls had become mere "accessories of their own social-networking profile, as if real life were simply a dress rehearsal (or more accurately, a photo op) for the next status update."

Maushart admits to being as addicted as the kids. A native New Yorker, she was living in Perth, Australia, near her ex-husband, while medicating her homesickness with podcasts from National Public Radio and The New York Times online. Her biggest challenge during The Experiment was "relinquishing the ostrichlike delusion that burying my head in information and entertainment from home was just as good as actually being there."

Maushart began The Experiment with a drastic measure: She turned off the electricity completely for a few weeks — candles instead of electric lights, no hot showers, food stored in a cooler of ice. When blackout boot camp ended, Maushart hoped the "electricity is awesome!" reaction would soften the kids' transition to life without Google and cell phones.

It was a strategy that would have made Maushart's muse, Henry David Thoreau, proud. She is a lifelong devotee of Thoreau's classic book "Walden," which chronicled Thoreau's sojourn in solitude and self-sufficiency in a small cabin on a pond in the mid-1800s. "Simplify, simplify!" Thoreau admonished himself and his readers, a sentiment Maushart echoes throughout the book.

As a result of The Experiment, Maushart made a major change in her own life. In December, she moved from Australia to Long Island in New York, with Sussy. Of course, the move merely perpetuated Maushart's need to live in two places at once: She kept her job as a columnist for an Australian newspaper and is "living on Skype" because her older children stayed Down Under to attend university. Ironically, the Internet eased the transition to America for Sussy, who used Facebook to befriend kids in her new high school before arriving.

Another change for Maushart: She's no longer reluctant to impose blackouts on Sussy's screentime. "Instead of angsting, 'Don't you think you're spending too much time on the computer? Don't you think you should do something else like reading?' I now just take the computer away when I think she's had enough," Maushart said in a phone interview. "And now that she's been on the other side and remembers what it's like, it's less of an issue."

Maushart realizes that living off the grid for six months is unrealistic for most people. (She also admits getting her kids to go along with it partly by bribing them with a cut of proceeds from the book, which she planned to write all along.)

But she encourages families to unplug periodically. "One way to do it is just to have that one screen-free day a week. Not as a punishment — not by saying, 'I've had enough!' — but by instituting it as a special thing," she said. "There isn't a kid on the planet who wouldn't really rather be playing a board game than sitting at the computer."

Sunday 16 January 2011

Brazil rains death toll rises

Brazil, Jan 16 (Reuters) - Rains that devastated a mountainous region north of Rio de Janeiro have killed at least 611 people, Brazil's Civil Defense agency said on Sunday, as forecasts of more storms and fears of disease outbreaks overshadowed rescue operations.

Nearly five days after rains sparked floods and massive landslides in one of Brazil's worst natural disasters, the death toll continues to rise steadily as rescuers dig up corpses buried by rivers of mud and reach more remote areas.

TV images showed rescue workers looking for people under mounds of debris, a task made difficult by more rain on Saturday and forecast of more downpours on Sunday.

O Globo newspaper said the army has helped with the rescue of 110 families in isolated areas in Teresopolis, where 263 people have died, but victims increasingly complain about what they see as a lack of government help in distributing basic goods and finding bodies.