Bangladesh Nobel winner to sever ties with Grameen Bank

0 Comments | AFP, February, 2007

DHAKA (AFP) — Bangladesh's "banker to the poor" Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus will sever ties with Grameen Bank after he enters politics later this month, a report has said.

Yunus was "ready to relinquish his long relationship with micro-lender Grameen Bank in the greater interest of launching a trend of new politics in the country," the state-owned BSS news agency said in a report Monday.

Yunus and Grameen Bank, which he founded to offer small loans to the very poor, were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last October.

Yunus said at the weekend his party would be called "Nagorik Shakti" (Citizen Power) as part of an attempt to break the two main political parties' 16-year stranglehold on power.

"I am now determined with my decision to...