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A cross-section of people braved a widespread sense of fear and insecurity to bring out a mourning procession in Netrakona on Friday, deploring the suicide attack at Azhar Road that killed eight persons and injured 45 on Thursday.
   The procession was pre-scheduled and was to mark the liberation of the district from the Pakistani occupation forces on the day in 1971. It turned into a mourning procession after the deadly bombing the day before.
   The residents of the town started gathering at the Shaheed Minar in the morning, and so did leaders and activists of different political parties, freedom fighters’ associations and cultural organisations. They wore black badges.
   The procession started after a team of the Awami League and allied opposition parties arrived at about 11:15am. The police accompanied the procession as it paraded the town and end at the Shaheed Minar.
   Meanwhile, in Mymensingh Medical College Hospital, one of the five critically wounded victims of the blast, Sudipta Pal Shelly, 22, died at 2:30pm.
   The police continued its investigation but could not arrest anyone till the filing of the report 8:00pm Friday night. They claimed they had detained eight persons from the town for interrogation.
   ‘So far there is no arrest but we are trying our best,’ said sub-inspector Osman of the Netrakona sadar police station.
   He said the body of Yadav Biswas was handed over to family members after autopsy in the morning.
   Earlier, the police picked up the members of Yadav’s family, including his father, brothers and sister, midnight Thursday but released them after interrogation.
   ‘None of his family members is in our custody,’ Osman told New Age.
   He said two cases – one for the killing of people and another under explosives substance act – had been filed.
   As an uneasy calm descended the town after the suicide attack, a huge contingent of police deployed at all the points of the town. Wearing bullet-proof vests and helmets, the police hardly allowed any vehicle or pedestrian into the town without security screening.
   Most of the shops remained closed while the movement of the people was very thin through Friday.
   As the banned Islamist organisation Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh changing tactics with every attack, the police resorted to extra caution asking commuters to open their bags and parcels at a distance.
   The leaders of the opposition alliance vowed to free the country from the clutches of evil forces when addressing the pre-procession rally.
   ‘We are really aggrieved by frequent bombings across the country,’ said Awami League presidium member Matia Chowdhury.
   The opposition leaders took part in namaz-e-janaza of Khawaza Haider Hossain and visited victims in Mymensingh Medial College Hospital before returning to the capital city.
   AL central leaders Saber Hossain Chowdhury, Mostafa Jalal Mohiuddin, Asim Kumar Ukil, Juba League president KM Jahangir, Gana Forum general secretary Saif Uddin Ahmed Manik, Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal executive president Moinuddin Khan Badal, Samyabadi Dal leader Abu Hamed Shahabuddin, Workers Party leader Quamrul Ahsan were in the team.
   Matia said the latest attack took place when the BNP secretary general promised an end to the menace within two months and the prime minister claimed that there was ‘no presence’ of Islamist militancy in the country.
   The bodies of six of the eight persons who died in the blast were handed over to their relatives.
   Haider, a popular cultural figure in Netrakona, was buried in his village home at Gajnipara after a namaz-e-janaza at the bazar mosque near his house in the morning.
   The 55-year-old beggar Joynal Abedin was also buried in the same village while Rani Akhter, wife of sub-inspector Shahidullah, was buried in Trisal and the motor mechanic, Yadav, was cremated in his Barhatta village.
   Meanwhile the police identified Raisuddin, who was killed in the deadly bomb explosion on Thursday, as the suicide bomber.
   Son of late Kitab Ali of Katli of East Malni in Netrakona municipal area, Raisuddin died in Mymensingh Medical College Hospital several hours after the attack.
   He used to live in Mymensingh and returned to his ancestral town about 10 days ago.
   The police detained his mother, Lalbanu, wife Parveen, elder brother, Shaheed and uncle Babul but released the two women on Friday morning.

The Bangladesh Railway has tightened security in the western zone after the recent arrest of two militancy suspects in possession of explosives from trains in the region and the latest bomb attack on a crowd in Netrakona on Thursday.
   The Bangladesh Bank governor, meanwhile, received a threat in his official residence at Gulshan in Dhaka over telephone on Thursday in the name of militants.
   The General Railway Police in Saidpur has been facing trouble over man- power shortage and inade-quate security equipment.
   The western zone railway authorities requested the inspector general of police to urgently send additional force and adequate security devices, sources in the zonal headquarters at Saidpur said.
   The railway police detained two suspected members of the banned Islamist outfit Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh in possession of explosives and leaflets from the mail trains in five days from Monday.
   Fearing that trains could be the next target of the militants, the authorities have tightened security measures in all the express, mail and local trains, at the Saidpur railway workshop and all other important installations. Passengers are checked at railway stations, the police and witnesses said.
   The Saidpur railway police superintendent, Mohammad Nazrul Islam, said hawkers and illegal occupants had been evicted from the stations.
   He acknowledged the acute shortage of manpower and equipment to face the militancy threats. He said a request had been sent to the higher authorities to address the problems.
   A man claiming himself a JMB activist on November 11 made a telephone call to Saidpur Railway Hospital and threatened to blow up the hospital, other important installations and passenger trains.
   The official residence of the Bangladesh Bank governor in Dhaka received a phone call Thursday morning when the caller threatened to blow up the building.
   The threat had been received before the bankers sat together at the Bangladesh Bank to find ways to stop ‘terror funding.’
   The militants in Cox’s Bazar on Thursday threatened to bomb the Ramu upazila health complex if the authorities failed to stop family planning programmes such as vasectomy, ligation and use of condoms in a week. They termed such programmes against Islamic law.
   The letter that carried the threat to the upazila nirbahi officer also threatened to blows up mosques, police stations and the UNO office.
   A similar letter was sent to Jhenaidah on Thursday in which the militants threatened to blow up all the police stations in the district within seven days.
   An unidentified man left six powerful bombs near the Wahedpur frontier in Chapainawabganj Thursday night.
   Another bomb, found in the Sirajganj Government College compound on Friday, was defused by the police in the morning.
   The law enforcers also recovered a brief case containing bomb-making materials from a house in a Natore village Thursday night.
   The law enforcers in Tangail on Friday recovered 12 kilograms of gun power and 13 kilograms of bomb-making materials, including detonators, at Delduar.
   The law enforcers detained 20 more people on Friday suspecting them to be members of Jamaatul Mujahideen.
   The police released two out of the three detained from Baitul Mukarram just before the beginning of Friday’s prayer.
   The police claimed that they had not found anything objectionable with the two men, reportedly activists of Islami Chhatra Shibir, the student wing of the ruling alliance partner Jamaat-e Islami Bangladesh.
   The arrested included a suspected regional coordinator of Jamaatul Mujahideen, Abdul Salafi, who is a madrassah teacher, held from Saghata and a suspected militant trainer, Abu Raihan Siraji, also a madrassah teacher, from Feni on Friday.

An attempt by the Netrakona police to brand Yadav Biswas, a motorcycle mechanic killed in Thursday’s blast, as the suicide bomber has stirred confusion and controversy among the people of the central-northern district.
   The police first claimed that a cyclist had carried out the attack and that they were yet to ascertain his identity. Eyewitness account of the blast that killed seven persons and injured scores corroborated the claim.
   However, just before the arrival of the state minister for home affairs, Lutfozzaman Babar, they changed their version of how the attack had taken place.
   Yadav and the unidentified cyclist together carried out the attack, they said, claiming that a bomb and wires were found attached to his body. Babar seems to have been convinced as he told media that the involvement of a non-Muslim had added a new dimension to the militant attacks. The superintendent of the Netrakona police, Ali Hossain Fakir, could not come up with a plausible explanation for the claim.
   He said he had made the claim on the basis of a forensic expert who, he said, had examined Yadav’s body and found a bomb attached to his leg.
   The forensic expert refused to comment. ‘I am not authorised to talk,’ he said in the face of a series of questions from journalists.
   Both the police superintendent and the forensic expert remained mum when it was suggested that the police might have had a motive behind the twist in their claim.
   The SP, however, admitted he had received a letter from the JMB two weeks ago which warned of dire consequence if its top-ranked leader, Suman, was not freed and the case filed against him not withdrawn.
   ‘We have submitted charge sheet accusing Suman of August 17 blast in Netrakona,’ he said, hinting the latest suicide attack might be a sequel to the letter.
   According to witnesses, an identified cyclist detonated the bomb as he reached the police barricade on Azhar Road, put after a bomb had been found near the office of cultural organisation. The bomb had gone off as fire servicemen tried to defuse it with water. A constable was hurt in the first blast. ‘I was hardly six yards away from the cyclist. When the police asked him to go back, he pulled something out and a huge explosion took place,’ said 22-year-old Rezaul Hossain Suman, now undergoing treatment in Mymensingh Medical College Hospital.
   Others treated in the hospital for wounds from the blast came up with similar versions. They said they had never seen the cyclist before. Traders, based at Azhar Road, confirmed that the cyclist was a new face in the town. However, the police claim that Yadav went to the spot twice on Thursday.
   Yadav, who used to sleep at the workshop at Chhoto Bazar where he worked, first went to Azhar after the first blast, said his co-workers.
   ‘He was working at about 9:00am,’ Bappi, a co-worker at the workshop, told New Age. ‘Ratan, another mechanic, told him there was a blast at Azhar Road and they should go and visit the place.’
   ‘Yadav did not want to go at first,’ he recalled. ‘However, he gave in as Ratan kept insisting.’
   ‘There was an explosion minutes after the two had left the workshop,’ said Bappi. ‘I saw people carrying Ratan to hospital but there was no trace of Yadav. I called the owner of the shop and came to know that Yadav was dead.’
   Akhil, a goldsmith whose shop is next to the workshop, said Yadav used to work the whole day and sleep at the workshop. ‘He and Ratan left for the spot together.’ In all the previous bombing incidents, the attackers were outsiders, observed a police officer. ‘I am sure the same thing happened here.’ People in Netrakona refuse to believe the police claim that Yadav played a part in the bombing.
   They knew Yadav well, they say and believe the police should conduct a proper investigation before making any such claim.
   The police have handed the body of Yadav to his family Friday morning. He was cremated in Brichaparkona under Barhatta upazila. He was youngest of two sons and a daughter of Satyendra Biswas.

No official enquiry into the nature, dimension and extent of the selective killings of intellectuals by Al-Badr, Al-Shams and similar groups of the henchmen of the Pakistani occupation forces has been done so far. Besides, the report of the Buddhijibi Nidhan Tathyanusandhan Committee, a committee formed by a group of leading civil society members for enquiry into the killings, has never come to light, let alone followed up.
   The Tathyanusandhan Committee was formed at a meeting at the then Dhaka Press Club on December 18, 1971, immediately after the discovery of a mass grave of martyred intellectuals at Rayer Bazar in the capital city. The late filmmaker and litterateur Zahir Raihan was made convenor of the seven-member committee. He was then in exile and took over on his return. The late journalist Enaeytullah Khan of the weekly Holiday was made the co-convenor. The other members were the late Ehtesham Haider Chowdhury, brother of Professor Mofazzal Haidar Chowdhury, a victim of the selective killings, Amirul Islam, a senior advocate of the Supreme Court, Moudud Ahmed, now the minister for law, justice and parliamentary affairs, the late journalist Ali Ashraf and Professor Serajul Islam Chowdhury.
   The committee started recording depositions on December 20, 1971 and worked on the lists and other documents recovered during the raids on the killers’ camps at Dhanmondi, Motijheel and elsewhere in the city. The lists, some short and others long, contained the names of 20,000 of the best brains of the nation, according to the members of the committee. One of those, prepared by Syed Sazzad Hossain, then a teacher of Rajshahi University, listed 30 university teachers. The martyred intellectuals were on the lists.
   The Tathyanusandhan Committee narrowed down the list of suspects, vis-à-vis the killings, especially of academics, journalists and professionals in Dhaka, to three names, including Chowdhury Mainuddin and Asrafuzzaman of the Al-Badr. It recommended that the government set up a commission comprising freedom fighters, members of the allied force, government officials and private citizens. The proposed commission, to be put under the direct control and supervision of the home minister, would enquire into the nature, dimension and extent of the killings of the intellectuals, it said. The committee also suggested that the commission should be empowered to take whatever actions necessary to arrest the killers, investigate the killings and find out the intellectuals who remained untraced.
   Before submitting the report to the government of the time, Zahir Raihan put forward the committee’s recommendations at a press briefing at the Dhaka Press Club on December 29. The report has remained beyond the public domain ever since.
   The cabinet of the then prime minister, the late Tajuddin Ahmed, decided on December 31 to form a commission for an enquiry into the nature, dimension and extent of the genocide. A sitting or retired judge of the High Court or an eminent person, who is competent to be a judge of the High Court, would head the commission, the cabinet decided. It also approved the terms of reference of the commission to collect evidence, both oral and written, especially of the killing of the intellectuals. The decision was never implemented.
   Meanwhile, the late president Sheikh Mujibur Rahman returned to Bangladesh from imprisonment in Pakistan on January 10, 1972 and declared that the war criminals, including the occupation forces and their collaborators, would be tried a la the Nuremberg tribunals.
   When the family of Zahir Raihan, who had by then gone missing, met Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on February 8, the latter reportedly said that there would be an enquiry into the killings of the intellectuals and that the report of the Buddhijibi Nidhan Tathyanusandhan Committee would be made public in the next three weeks.
   On March 17 Mujib told a delegation of the families of the martyred intellectuals at Ganabhaban that the order for an enquiry had already been issued. Earlier on the day, the families of the intellectuals staged a rally at the Central Shaheed Minar before marching towards Ganabhaban.
   The government did form a committee comprising the late Supreme Court lawyer Sirajul Haque and the late attorney general Aminul Huq to enquire into the genocide. The committee compiled evidence painstakingly and submitted a report on about 1,500 cases to the home ministry in July 1972.
   The report listed the war criminals in two categories: 195 members of Pakistani army and bureaucracy, who had been taken into Indian custody in New Delhi and were subsequently handed over to Pakistan in 1974 following the Simla Agreement; and about 12,000 of their local collaborators, including members of Razakar, Al-Badr, Al-Shams and the peace committees.
   This report was not followed up, either.
   The nation has, meanwhile, been denied the satisfaction of watching the war criminals stand trial. Most of the leading collaborators of the Pakistani occupation forces have been let off one after another, as whatever evidence that was compiled, of one of the most heinous episodes of human treachery and cruelty, slips deeper into oblivion.

The law enforcement agencies find themselves increasingly out of their wits as the banned militant Islamist organisation Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh resort to innovative strategies to carry out bomb attacks.
   Experts detect a sense of helplessness in the ranks of the police and other law enforcement agencies as the trained bombers outwit them in every step.
   The Islamist organisation seems to have put together a dedicated band of suicide bombers like international terrorist groups, say the experts.
   Its tactics have so far proved beyond the ability of the law enforcement and the intelligence agencies to cope with, although they have been on the highest alert since the militants’ threats started
   pouring in.
   The latest in the series, when suicide bombers ploughed a bicycle into a crow in Netrakona, may sound unsophisticated but has been potent nevertheless.
   Seven persons were killed and scores wounded even before the police had an inkling of what was coming their way.
   Equally outwitted the law enforcement and the intelligence agencies were when the organisation targeted the deputy commissioner’s office in Gazipur. It sent in a teenager in the guise of a tea vendor, with a bomb shaped like a thermos flask.
   Policemen on guard did not let the teenager into the office, where a meeting on law and order was scheduled to start, with the deputy commissioner in the chair.
   Little did they know that the boy carrying a bomb, not a thermos flask.
   The policemen who have survived the attack said they had never heard of bomb planted in a thermos flask although the tactic has been used in many countries.
   Just a day before, the JMB suicide bomber entered the Gazipur bar library in the guise of a lawyer and blew the building apart, killing nine persons and injuring several others.
   In September the bombers hid a bomb inside a book and threw it into the Chittagong court building.
   Intelligence agencies say Jamaatul Mujahideen has at least four dozens of well-trained experts who can make bombs in a short period of time.
   The explosive experts are also sound tacticians with trainings on how to carry out a successful attack, they said.
   ‘Ataur Rahman Sunny, brother of the JMB chief, Abdur Rahman, is in charge of the explosives experts and supervises the attacks,’ said an intelligent official.

The debate over climate change at the three-day UN conference in Montreal turned into a battle of sexes on Thursday when a feminist-based environment group accused men of being the biggest contributors to human-induced global and lament that women were bearing the brunt of the negative climate consequences caused by men. ‘Women and men are differently affected by climate change and they contribute differently to climate change,’ Ulrike Rohr, director of the Germany-based Genanet Focal Point for Gender Environment and Sustainability, told New Age.
   A banner, which hung over the group’s booth at the conference venue, called for ‘creative gender strategies’ from ‘rural households to global scientific bodies’. The booth was set up with the theme – ‘how to overcome the nearly uniform domination of men in leadership structures?’
   Rohr insisted that gender was the main culprit.
   ‘In most parts of the world, women are contributing less to greenhouse gases. But at least in the developing countries, women are more affected because they are more vulnerable because they don’t have access to money,’ she said.
   ‘To give you an example from Germany, it is mostly men who are going by car. Women are going by public transport mostly.’
   ‘What we are calling for is to take into account more of the social aspect of climate change,’ she added. When asked if men should feel guilty, Rohr said, ‘No, they should change… It may help to take gender issues a little bit more into account.’ She claimed that men were dominating the UN conference. ‘It is really a male discussion going around. It’s not [a meeting] that will really help to mitigate climate change.’
   The spokesman for a conservative group scoffed at the linking of gender with climate change.
   ‘Nature does not discriminate between sexes. The issue is absurd on its face,’ said Peyton Knight, environment and regulatory affairs director of the Washington-based National Centre for Public Policy Research.
   ‘It is hardly surprising [though] … liberals tried to inject race into natural disasters and hurricane issues… are now trying to inject gender into global warming issues,’ he said, referring to a politically-charged racial fallout in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.
   Meanwhile, environmental groups found themselves divided over energy sources.
   ‘Expanding nuclear energy is one way that we can actually reduce reliance on fossil fuels in a big way,’ Patrick Moore, chief of the Canada-based Greenspirit Strategies, told New Age.
   ‘It is the environmental movement itself that is the primary impediment to the reduction of carbon dioxide emission and fossil fuel consumption because they refuse to support the obvious alternatives, nuclear and hydro power,’ he said.
   His pro-nuclear statement at the conference drew sceptic jeers from his former colleagues in Greenpeace, a movement he helped to found. They dubbed his latest statement as a promotional work for nuclear energy. ‘History has shown that nuclear energy is a problematic technology,’ Kaisa Kosonen, an energy campaigner for Greenpeace Nordic, told New Age.
   She demanded that the existing nuclear power systems should be phased out and warned that building more nuclear power plants would create more nuclear waste. Friends of the Earth International shared the Greenpeace position.
   ‘We don’t support it [nuclear], which represents a massive challenge, not only economically, but radioactive waste still represents a massive problem and quite frankly it’s not particularly popular with the public,’ said Catherine Pearce, an international climate campaigner for Friends of the Earth.

Negotiators at the UN climate meeting here reached an informal agreement early Friday on launching the next phase of talks on deepening cuts in greenhouse-gas pollution, but the deal was reached in the absence of the United States and Saudi Arabia, conference sources said.
   The proposal is couched in the vaguest terms in the hope of coaxing the United States and big developing countries onboard, but it was still uncertain whether the text would be approved, they stressed.
   A draft of the document obtained by AFP describes climate change as ‘a serious challenge that has the potential to affect every part of the globe.’
   It calls for ‘a dialogue on long-term cooperative action’ under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the offshoot of the 1992 Rio Summit.
   It makes no specific reference to the key UNFCCC treaty, the Kyoto Protocol, which spells out action on tackling greenhouse-gas pollution.
   The ‘dialogue (would be engaged) without prejudice to any future negotiations, commitments, process, framework or mandate under the UNFCCC,’ the document stresses.
   Agreement on the key text was reached by a core group of negotiators pre-dawn Friday, in the absence of the United States and Saudi Arabia.
   It was still unknown whether those two countries would accept the document when the text was put to the conference later Friday, the sources said.
   The biggest question mark surrounded the position of the United States, which expressed deep hostility to any talks on further emissions cuts at the start of the three-day ministerial-level UNFCCC meeting here.
   Adding to the potential for US objections, former US president Bill Clinton, who signed Kyoto for the United States and is a hero to some green groups, was to attend the conference in a side event hosted by the City of Montreal.
   And the Canadian press reported Friday that the US delegation was livid with a jab directed at Washington on Wednesday by the Canadian prime minister, Paul Martin, who called on the United States to hear the ‘global conscience’ on global warming.
   President George W Bush’s administration walked out of the UN’s Kyoto Protocol on curbing greenhouse-gas pollution in 2001.
   It said the cost of meeting the treaty’s legally-binding caps on these emissions was too costly for its economy.
   Kyoto’s present commitment period runs out in 2012, but its outcome will at best make only a tiny advance against what is a gigantic problem.
   There is universal recognition that future efforts against man-made global warming are doomed unless the world’s top carbon polluter is included in the next commitment round.
   Almost as important is to get highly populous, fast-growing developing countries, such as China (the world’s No 2 polluter) and India, in a closer cooperation.
   Under the present Kyoto format, only industrialised countries that have ratified the accord have to make specific emissions cuts in greenhouse gases.
   These nations are most to blame for global warming because they were the first to use oil, gas and coal to power their economic rise.
   Scientists say that the post-2012 ‘son of Kyoto’ must deliver swinging cuts in carbon emissions as compared to the present promises, otherwise the Earth may suffer catastrophic damage to its climate system.
   Many say annual pollution levels should be halved over the next half-century—a tall order given that emission levels today are racing ever higher and fossil fuels are enthroned in the world’s energy mix.
   Moving away from fossils carries an economic price because of the need to improve fuel efficiency and switch to technology that may be cleaner but is also more expensive and largely untested.
   The ministerial level meeting culminated a 12-day gathering that has drawn 8,700 participants.

Thousands of Islamic disciples rallied on Friday against the rise of militancy and violence in the name of Islam, reported New Age correspondents across the country.
   Imams and khatibs of different mosques termed the bombers ‘enemies of Islam’ and urged the people to resist them. They also prayed for the salvation of the nation from the bombers.
   ‘Those creating violence are enemies of Islam. Islam is for peace, not anarchy,’ said Obaidul Haque, the khatib of Baitul Mukarram National Mosque, offering prayers after the weekly congregation in the capital.
   In the wake of repeated suicide attacks at different places, the government last week requested imams to speak out against militancy after juma and bring out processions condemning the attacks.
   The state minister for religious affairs, Mosharef Hossain Shajahan, who also offered the weekly prayer at the national mosque, said he prayed for peace and prosperity of the nation.
   ‘I offered the prayer here to create awareness among the people against suicide bombers. Islam does not support subversive activities,’ Shahjahan told New Age.
   The khatib linked the recent spate of bombings with certain foreign forces, without mentioning names, for patronising suicide bombers. He called upon the government to find out the militants’ sources of finance.
   Addressing all the imams of Bangladesh the khatib said Islam was a religion of peace and it does not support violence.
   Reports from Chittagong, Khulna, Rajshahi, Barisal and Sylhet said devotees brought out similar processions from almost all the mosques of the divisions.
   Different Islamist parties, including Hijbut Tahrir Bangladesh, Nezam-e-Islami Party, Khilafat Majlish and Islami Oikya Andolan, brought out processions protesting against the suicide bomb attacks. They chanted anti-bombing slogans.
   A large police contingent was deployed in and around Baitul Mukarram as well as other mosques. Members of different intelligence agencies in plainclothes were also put on alert. Security measures also included closed circuit cameras and deployment at rooftops of high-rise buildings around the mosque and over bridges.
   The khatib at the Dhaka University central mosque stressed on resisting those who resorted to terrorism in the name of Islam and killed themselves to kill innocent people.
   Khatib maolana Khalilur Rahman, in his juma sermon, said the dos and donts were clear in Islam and those killing innocents acted against Allah. He quoted a Quranic verse, ‘Do not kill yourselves.’
   In Chittagong contingents of security forces were deployed at different mosques fearing bomb attacks by Islamist militants. The imams also delivered anti-militancy speeches.
   The police and Rapid Action Battalion were also deployed at different shrines in the city, including Garib Ullah Shah Shrine, Amanat Shah Shrine and Bayzid Bostami Shrine, as a large number of devotees visit there on Fridays.
   The imams stressed on the need to impart proper Islamic knowledge to children and adolescents so they could not be misled by fanatics.
   Muslims from different mosques gathered at Shaheb Bazar Zero Point in Rajshahi and blasted the suicide bombers.
   Imam Samity president Mobarak Karim was in the chair while, general secretary Masud Ullah, Sonadighi mosque imam Taiyabur Rahman, Rajarhata mosque imam Kawser Hossain, Rajshahi University Islamic studies teacher Tayeb Rahman Nizami and maolana Mufti Khalil addressed the rally.
   A large procession was brought out from the shrine mosque of Hazrat Shahjalal in the Sylhet city strongly condemning the suicide attacks.
   In Khulna, imams of different mosques delivered sermons against militancy during before juma. They termed the militant activities in the name of Islam illegal.
   The imams urged the people to inform law enforcers about militants and hand them over.
   A procession will be brought out on Sunday 10:00am from Dakbangla in the Khulna city protesting against terrorism where people from all corners of the city are expected.

Just outside the Netrakona town, in a village called Gajnipur, the house, widely known as Morelbari, looked lifeless although cries of grief pierced the winter morning every once in a while.
   A number of villages crowded the yard where inside a coffin lay the body of Khawaza Haider Hossain, draped in white burial cloth.
   The 38-year-old cultural activist was one of the seven victims of Thursday’s suicide blast in Netrakona, supposedly carried out by the banned Islamist organisation Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh.
   ‘Oh Allah, please give me back my son. I cannot bear the pain anymore,’ cried Rahela Khatun.
   Standing by her side and holding her hand was Shiplu, her grandson. The 11-year-old knows his father will never take him to school again.
   His mother, Shahnaz, could not cry any more. ‘What would happen to us? Who will look after my children?’
   Her questions found no answer.
   Shiplu was at school, taking the final examinations of Class V, when Haidar was struck down by the bomb in front of the Udichi office. He was the joint secretary of the cultural organisation.
   The villagers, who thronged the house to pay their last respect, cannot believe he is gone.
   ‘He was a jolly man and a very popular singer,’ said Abul Bashar, a friend.

Sheikh Hasina, the president of Awami League and the leader of the opposition in Jatiya Sangsad, reiterated on Friday her claim that the BNP-Jamaat alliance has links with Islamist militants.
   She was addressing as the chair a Khulna divisional public meeting of the opposition alliance at Circuit House ground in Khulna. Several thousand activists from different districts of Khulna division joined the rally.
   Hasina called to strengthen the ongoing movement to oust the BNP-Jamaat alliance government and to make a list of corrupt people in the ruling parties who have accumulated wealth during the government’s rule.
   The government is not sincere about putting an end to militancy and bomb attacks, she alleged, adding that the government’s unwillingness to take effective action against militants led to the deaths of hundreds of innocent people in bomb blasts one after another.
   She asked her party men to build up resistance in each locality to resist and eliminate extremists.
   ‘Terrorist and militant acts are happening in the country with the patronisation of the government so that the people remain anxious and cannot organise a movement against price hike, unemployment, closure of mills and general insecurity,’ she alleged.
   She said the opposition alliance’s movement would continue until reforms in the caretaker administration and electoral system were done and the government was overthrown.
   Awami League leaders Sajeda Chowdhury, Abdur Razzaq, Tofail Ahmed, Abdul Jalil, Suranjit Sengupta, Abdul Mannan, Obaidul Kader and Sheikh Fazlul Karim Selim, Workers Party president Rashed Khan Menon and general secretary Bimol Biswas, JSD faction president Hasanul Haque Inu, Ganatantri Party president Nurul Islam, Zahirul Islam of Ganoforum, Samyabadi Dal secretary Dilip Barua, Gano Azadi League president Alhaj Abdus Samad, Tofazzel Hossain of Ganotantrik Mojdur Party, National Awami Party secretary Enamul Haque and Communist Forum joint convener Asit Baran Roy also addressed the rally.

The Sammilita Sangskritik Jote, a coalition of cultural activists, scaled down its victory day programme in the context of a recent bomb attack at a cultural organisation in Netrokona.
   Usually the cultural activists set up eight stages in the city for its three-day ‘Victory Day’ programmes beginning from December 14. But this year they have decided to set up only three stages — the island in front of the Teachers-Students Centre on Dhaka University campus, Dhanmondi Mukta Mancha and Central Shaheed Minar.
   ‘We reduced our programme venues due to a fear of blasts. We do not want to take any risks,’ Golam Quddus told New Age on Friday. The cultural organisation has been holding Victory Day programmes since 1990.
   Cultural activities in the city almost came to a standstill in the evening when bomb blasts rocked a corner of the country. The situation prompted the organisers of various cultural events to postpone most of the programmes, said sources.
   Khairul Anam Shakil, secretary of the Chhayanaut said cultural activists are determined to carry on despite all odds. He said Chhayanat would carry out its planned Victory Day programme as usual.
   Mamunur Rashid, chairman of Bangladesh Group Theatre Federation, said, ‘We will not quit theatre activities. Rather, we will be more careful about security during the show.’
   A group of cultural activists feared that the gathering on Victory Day might be reduced due to tight security and
   the government might discourage attending cultural functions.

The LDCs@MC6, a platform of civil society organisations, will keep an eye on negotiators of the least developed countries as well as those from developed and developing countries during the sixth ministerial conference of the World Trade Organisation scheduled in Hong Kong, December 13-18.
   The announcement was made at a press conference at the Dhaka Reporters Unity on Friday.
   Ziaul Hoque Mukta, a director of Karmojibi Nari, a women’s rights organisation, presenting the keynote address, said the demands of the least developed countries have been consistently similar at all the WTO ministerials including the one at Hong Kong.
   He said the negotiators of the least developed countries were often not committed to these demands and thus agreed to concede on key points. ‘We have observed that the government trade representatives from LDCs do no take a strong stance on their declared position during the ministerial conferences,’ said Mukta.
   Over one hundred social activists along with representatives of 11 civil society organisations are expected to attend the conference.
   Citing a six-point demand, Mukta urged the developed and developing countries to grant the poorest traders in world, duty and quota free market access for their agricultural and non-agricultural products. He also demanded free movement of labour from the poor countries to other richer countries.
   The platform also demanded relaxed rules of origin and technical assistance to the poorest WTO members so they are able to deal with their lack of production capacity. The LDCs@MC6 also demanded there should be ‘no patent on life’.
   ‘Our demands are quite similar to the positions of the LDC governments,’ said Rezaul Karim Chowdhury, general secretary of Campaign for Good Governance — Supro.
   He said the platform will focus on the interests of the least developed countries and try to involve civil society organisations from other LDCs to raise a collective voice at the global trade forum.
   Reza said the Global Call to Action against Poverty supported the demands of free market access and free movement of labour under mode 4 of the services agreement.
   The executive director of Voice, Ahmed Swapan, Abul Hossain from Labour Forum in WTO also spoke among others.
   The civil society organisations included the Centre for Policy Dialogue, Unnayan Onneshan, INCIDINE, Karmojibi Nari, Supro, Action Aid Bangladesh, Jagarta Juba Sangha, Lokoj, Ubinig and Voice. Representatives of these organisations are scheduled to attend the ministerial conference.

Political parties and parliaments, police and judicial systems are the most corrupt bodies in the world, according to a global study of perceptions of corruption published Friday.
   For the second year running, respondents in 45 out of 69 countries worldwide put political parties at the top of the list for kickbacks and bribes, global campaign group Transparency International said.
   They were followed by parliaments or legislatures and the legal system and judiciary, TI’s 55,000-person survey ‘Global Corruption Barometer 2005’ found.
   But the problem also extends to education, with serious consequences for students and the development of countries concerned, TI argued, launching a separate report entitled ‘Stealing the Future: Corruption in the Classroom’.
   Both documents were released to coincide with the United Nations international anti-corruption day.
   Overall, citizens of 48 countries believed corruption had increased over the last three years while only six—Colombia, Georgia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Kenya and Singapore—said it had decreased.
   In 13 countries—Bolivia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, India, Israel, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines and Venezuela—more than 50 per cent felt corruption increased a lot.
   Africans and Latin Americans felt most negative about the past.
   The future offered a more mixed bag with 12 countries expecting corruption to fall but 34 were pessimistic.
   TI chairwoman Huguette Labelle described corruption as ‘a major problem of our times’.
   ‘Its most deadly impact is on the poor,’ she said. ‘If people are pessimistic, they will not feel they can do something about it.
   ‘The results of the survey are a call for alarm. It can change, but it requires leadership, will and pressure.’
   The 85-page education report meanwhile, cites evidence from 10 countries revealing corruption including bribes to secure admission to school to passing university exams.
   Giving examples, it said a poll at two major universities in Bosnia-Hercegovina revealed bribes for passing exams and selling diplomas were commonplace.
   In Brazil, a study found that poor municipalities lose up to 55 per cent of their federal school subsidies to fraud in procurement.
   In Mexico, the average family reportedly paid 30 dollars (25.50 euros) each year in kickbacks and bribes for access to supposedly free education.

Leaders of 40 bar associations on Friday urged the people, and especially lawyers, to join hands in a united movement against bomb attacks, particularly those on judges, lawyers, litigants and the police.
   The appeal came at an extended meeting of the Bangladesh Bar Council held on Friday at its auditorium with its vice-chairman, Rokanuddin Mahmud, in the chair.
   Bar Council sources said 69 presidents and secretaries of 40 bar associations across the country attended the closed-door meeting, where the media were not allowed in.
   The presidents and secretaries of the bar associations, including the president of the Supreme Court Bar Association Mahbubey Alam and president of the Dhaka Bar Association Addus Sabur, also urged the Bar Council to take up action programmes against Islamist militancy and extremism on the basis of consensus.
   The next course of action will be fixed at the council meeting of the Bar Council, meeting sources said.
   Expressing their grave
   concern over the Islamist militancy the country faces, the bar leaders said there is no scope of doing politics with the issue.

Swadhinata Stambha, a monument being constructed at the Suhrawardy Udyan in memory of those who sacrificed their lives for the country between 1948 and 1971, will be completed by June 2006, six months after the schedule.
   The monument, being constructed under a Tk 76 crore project, could not be completed as per the schedule because of some complexities over the project cost, a source in the Liberation War Museum said on Thursday.
   The project, which includes an underground theatre, an underground museum containing historic documents and a 157-seat audio-visual auditorium, was taken by the Awami League government in 1997 and the cost was fixed at Tk 81 crore.
   But the cost was re-fixed at Tk 171 crore by including a 150-feet high glass tower in the project that led to the suspension of the project work in 2001.
   The liberation war affairs ministry then formed a 14-member expert committee, which, after evaluation recommended completion of the project by reducing the cost at Tk 76 crore and set the December 2005 deadline, said the source.
   The project director, Rezaul Karim, said about 70 per cent of the construction work had already been completed and rest of work would be finished by June, 2006.
   The monument is likely to be opened for public viewing in late June or early July, he added.
   Meanwhile, near-completion of the project has raised question among the city dwellers whether people would come to visit the monument as the park remains occupied by floating sex workers, drug peddlers, vagabonds and muggers after evening.
   The park has become an insecure and dangerous place for the visitors, said a house tutor of Muktijoddha Ziaur Rahman Hall of the Dhaka University, who was used to walk there in the morning and in the evening. ‘I no more go to the park.’
   Rezaul, however, said the situation would improve with the inauguration of the monument.

The Awami League-led opposition parties were working out a draft to reply to the prime minister’s formal invitation to a national dialogue on the recent spate of suicide bomb attacks that rocked parts of the country.
   Rashed Khan Menon, convener of the draft committee of the 11 opposition parties, was preparing the draft to explain why they would not join the dialogue.
   The prime minister, Khaleda Zia, on Tuesday invited the leader of the opposition in parliament, Sheikh Hasina, as well as other political parties, and professional bodies for the dialogue. The Awami League immediately rejected the invitation, saying that resignation of the government was only way to get rid of the situation.
   Party sources said the opposition parties had prepared a nine-point reply including three options for dialogue about the oppositions’ proposal for the caretaker and electoral reforms.
   ‘The entire nation is united against evil designs of militants so there is no need for the PM’s call for dialogue. Rather, we hope the government will take initiative to deal with the problems to keep the democratic process running,’ the draft says.
   It deplored that the prime minister refrained from taking any action even after some ruling party lawmakers claimed that a section of the alliance government was involved in Islamist militancy.
   Accusing the government of patronising the militants, the draft observed that it was blaming them on the one hand and inviting them to a dialogue on the other. ‘In such circumstances, the dialogue will not bring any positive result in resolving the crisis.’
   The opposition parties at a Thursday night meeting discussed the draft and decided to finalise it after consulting with Gana Forum chief, Dr Kamal Hossain. After being finalised, the letter will be sent to the prime minister, sources said.

A Boeing 747-300 leased for transportation of hajj pilgrims landed at Zia International Airports on Friday.
   A Biman press release said the 576-seated aircraft was expected to start operation from December 11 as part of the 86 flights to be conducted by Biman.
   Another 387-seated airbus 330-300 leased from the Air Cros will arrive at ZIA on December 12, Biman sources said.
   Besides, Biman will carry a good number of hajj pilgrims through its scheduled flights also.
   The prime minister, Khaleda Zia, will inaugurate the first hajj flight with 274 ballottee hajj pilgrims scheduled to take off for Jeddah on December 11 at 11:00am.

A watchlist of possible terror suspects distributed by the US government to airlines for pre-flight checks is now 80,000 names long, a Swedish newspaper reported, citing European air industry sources.
   The classified list, which carried just 16 names before the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington had grown to 1,000 by the end of 2001, to 40,000 a year later and now stands at 80,000, Svenska Dagbladet reported.
   Airlines must check each passenger flying to a US destination against the list, and contact the US Department of Homeland Security for further investigation if there is a matching name.
   The list contains a strict ‘no fly’ section, which requires airline staff to contact police, and a ‘selectee’ section, which requires passengers to undergo further security checks.
   Some 2,000 passengers checking in at Stockholm’s Arlanda airport have had to be cleared with the US authorities because of name matches on the ‘selectee’ list this year, although none was prevented from boarding, Svenska Dagbladet said.

The prime minister, Khaleda Zia, returned home Friday after attending the two-day OIC extraordinary summit in Makkah.
   On Thursday midnight the prime minister offered fateha at the Rowaza Mubarak of Prophet Hazrat Muhammad (SM) and said prayers at the Masjid-e-Nababi in Madinah.
   Earlier, the prime minister left Makkah for Jeddah by road.
   From Jeddah a special aircraft of the Saudi government carried her to Madinah.
   On November 6 she performed Umrah in Makkah.
   On arrival at Zia International Airport at 11:50am, cabinet ministers, diplomats and high civil and military officials greeted the prime minister.
   The prime minister left Dhaka for Saudi Arabia on Tuesday at the invitation of Saudi King Abdullah bin Abbul Aziz Al Saud on the occasion of the third extraordinary summit of the 57-nation OIC.
   Khaleda was given a hearty send off in Madinah.
   The prime minister led the Bangladesh delegation at the high profile Islamic summit and addressed the plenary session.
   On the sidelines of the summit, Khaleda had bilateral meetings with a number of world leaders.

The police on Friday recovered seven sacks of books, booklets and leaflets on jihad and the Afghan war near the emergency gate of Sir Salimullah Medical College Hospital in Dhaka.
   Witnesses said a hospital cleaner first saw the sacks at around 2:15am. Fearing there might be bombs inside, she informed the physicians of the matter. The physicians informed the police.
   A Kotwali police team recovered the books, which include Afghan Jehader Ajana Kahini, Allahar Pathe Mujahid written by Maulana Mufti Rafi Osmani, Taleban Shashak O Shashaner Uththan written by Maulana Mufti Jamil Khan, Allahar Pathe Jihad written by Maulana Mufti Khalilur Rahman, Keno Jihad Karbo, Jihad Bibhranti Nirasan written by Mohammad Ishaq Khan, Jihader Gantabya O Fazilat written by Shamsul Haque Faridpuri and Fajile Jihad written by Maksud Azhar.
   No one was arrested. The Kotwali police said they were yet to know any JMB link with the books.