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The fares of rail, road and river transports will go up by 14 per cent to 25 per cent soon because of the December 22 increase in fuel prices.
   The government increased the prices of kerosene and diesel by about Tk 3 a litre to minimise losses of the state-run Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation and to check smuggling of the fuels into India.
   Train fares, except for the economy class, will soon be increased by 15 per cent, official sources said.
   The Bangladesh Railway board meeting, scheduled for this week, will decide on other issues.
   A recent railway board meeting approved the fare increase for cargoes and passenger services. The minister for communications, Nazmul Huda, was in the chair.
   Road transport fares on inter-district routes will increase by 15 per cent to 25 per cent as the Bangladesh Road Transport Association on Sunday decided to implement the fare chart approved by the government from January 16.
   The Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Passenger Carriers’ Association at a meeting in the past week also decided to increase river transport fare by about 14 per cent from January 8.
   A Bangladesh Railway official said the increase in train fares would be effective on cargoes, parcel services, and the deluxe and first-class services.
   People, especially of the lower and lower-middle classes and the businessmen, would be affected by the increase in fares, circle concerned feared.
   It will create a negative impact on export-oriented industries as most export consignments and imported raw materials are carried by train, the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters’ Association president, Annisul Huq, said.
   ‘I opposed the proposal for the increase and requested the authorities not to increase charges for container transport,’ Annisul, also a railway board member, said.
   The Consumers Association of Bangladesh general secretary, Kazi Faruk, said it would adversely affect the common people and small businessmen who use train as a mode of transport.
   The government should stop the processes as the people are burdened with price increase of essential commodities, he said.
   The official sources said the railway authorities, citing increase in diesel prices at a meeting with the communication ministry on December 2, proposed a gross increase in fares.
   Diesel price in the past few years has increased a lot, but the train fare has not been increased, the authorities said.
   The communications ministry disagreed on increasing the fare for the economy class.
   The ministry then approved the revised fare increase, which will be placed for final approval at the board meeting this week, an official said.
   He said fare for carrying parcels and such other things would also be increased in line with the new decision.
   The railway in 2003–04 carried 4.20 crore passengers and 34.5 lakh tonnes cargoes with a turnover of Tk 435 crore.
   It has fixed the turnover target at Tk 489 crore for the current financial year, the railway sources said.
   The road transport owners said they would charge the fare fixed by the government, which will increase the fare between 15 and 25 per cent.
   They said they used to charge less than what has been approved by the government to stay competitive.
   The association secretary general, Asraf Khan, said the fare would be implemented only on the routes where the transport operators charge less than what is approved.
   ‘We have decided to implement the chart to minimise the operation cost,’ said Asraf.
   He said the bus operators usually charge between Tk 0.30 to Tk 0.50 a kilometre. But from January 16, the owners will charge Tk 0.72 for buses and Tk 0.75 for minibuses.
   Expressing resentment at the increase in fuel prices, the transport owners’ meeting demanded that the government should readjust the fare chart in line with the fuel price increase.
   The government in February 2002 fixed Tk 0.72 a kilometre for buses and Tk 0.75 for minibuses. The association said about 80,000 buses and minibuses, mostly run by diesel, ply the roads.
   The inland water transport association vice-chairman, Badiuzzaman Badal, on Sunday said that they had sent a proposal to the Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority for approval in this regard.
   He said the fare would not be increased without government approval. ‘We hoped that the authorities will approve the increased fare by this week.’
   He said the launch operators now charge Tk 0.75 a kilometre for a distance below 100 kilometres and Tk 0.65 a kilometre for a distance above 100 kilometres.
   According to the proposed fare chart, the operators will charge Tk 0.85 for a distance below 100 kilometres, which is 13 per cent more than the current fare, and Tk 0.75 for a distance above 100 kilometres, which is 15 per cent more.

Secretaries of 13 ministries and divisions of the government are thinking of not submitting reports to the Anti-Corruption Commission, defying the notices it had issued to them on Saturday.
   The commission on Saturday issued notices to the secretaries to submit reports within four days, detailing information of the whereabouts of 1,028 cars. The cars purchased for different projects under the ministries are missing after the completion of the projects.
   Sources in the government said the secretaries might not reply to the notices, but instead the Cabinet Division might send a letter to the commission seeking explanation for the notices as, according to them, they were not issued in compliance with the Anti-Corruption Commission Act 2004, under which the commission was formed.
   The decision on the issue, however, is yet to be made, and the secretaries have just started discussing the matter among themselves, a secretary told New Age on Sunday.
   According to sources, the secretaries conferred among themselves on the telephone on Sunday. They also talked to the cabinet secretary, Saadat Hussain, and the establishment secretary, Safar Raj Hossain.
   Before taking any decision, the secretaries are also thinking of bringing the issue to the prime minister’s notice, the sources added.
   This is the first instance of an inquiry by the commission into any allegation of corruption.
   The notices were issued to 13 secretaries, including those of the Local Government Division, the Rural Development and Cooperatives Division, the Economic Relations Division, the Ministries of Health and Family Welfare, Information, Agriculture, Education, Primary and Mass Education, Women and Children Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications and the Bureau of Statistics.
   Deputy Director (administration) of the defunct Bureau of Anti-Corruption, Abdul Hannan Mridha, signed the notices as ‘deputy director (administration) of the commission’.
   According to sources, the secretaries are of the opinion that the notices cannot be considered to be notices issued by the commission because, according to the act, there is no such post in the commission at this moment.
   The decision to issue the notices, however, was not approved in any meeting of the commission, said a source in the commission.
   A member commissioner of the three-member commission, Moniruzzaman Mian, told New Age on Sunday, ‘I came to know about the notices from newspaper reports just this morning.’
   The staffers of the commission, however, are going ahead with investigations into a number of allegations that they have received recently, though the first instance of such investigation has already given rise to questions, even in the commission itself.
   The commission on Sunday formed a three-member inquiry committee, comprising officers of the defunct bureau — Mir Md Joynul Abedin, Akter Hamid Bhuiyan and Ashraful Islam — for an inquiry into an allegation of tax evasion in importing wheat.
   According to the allegation, a business firm, Messers Ria International, had imported 2,000 tonnes of wheat from India last year.
   In the letter of credit, made at the Babubazar branch of the Mutual Trust Bank, it quoted $176 per tonne as the price of the wheat. After importing the wheat, the firm quoted the price $110 per tonne in the bill of entry at the Darshana border, and paid the tax on the price quoted in the bill of entry. Thus, the firm had evaded tax of $19,800.
   The commission also sent a letter to the Bangladesh Bank governor on December 30, seeking information of irregularities in letters of credit and bills of entry in importing goods.

The High Court on Sunday stayed the appointment of AMM Reza-E-Rabbi as the secretary of the Anti-Corruption Commission.
   A High Court bench of Justice MA Matin and Justice AFM Abdur Rahman also issued a rule nisi on the government to show cause within three weeks why the appointment would not be declared illegal. The stay will continue till disposal of the rule, ordered the court.
   The court came up with the order after hearing a writ petition filed by an advocate of the Supreme Court, Bashiruddin Zindegir, challenging the appointment of Rabbi, a former additional secretary to the government, given on December 22.
   Moving the writ, petitioner’s counsel, Rafiqul Islam Miah, argued that the appointment by the government was contrary to section 16(1) of the Anti-Corruption Commission Act, under which the commission is formed.
   The section empowers the commission, not the government, to appoint its secretary, he argued.
   By appointing the secretary, the government has made questionable the independent entity of the commission and the appointment of Rabbi is a clear violation of the law, he contended.
   Rafiqul Islam Miah with Moniruzzaman moved the case for the petitioner and additional attorney general, Fida M Kamal, and assistant attorney general, Razik-Al-Jalil, appeared for the state.

The government on Sunday sanctioned creation of posts of personal staffers of the chairman and commissioners of the Anti-Corruption Commission.
   The sanction was given in accordance with section 30 of the Anti-Corruption Commi-ssion Act 2004. The commission earlier proposed creation of the posts, said sources in the commission and in the government as well.
   The office of the commission will be shifted soon to the building at Agargaon which is being used by the Bureau of Statistics.
   The staffers of the now defunct Bureau of Anti-Corruption may not be accommodated in the new office at this time as they are, according to the act, yet to be deemed staffers of the commission, said a source in the commission.
   Sources, both in the commission and the government, said the new office of the commission is being furnished at this moment.
   The commission had recently visited the office building, sources said, adding that the office is being shifted as both the commission and the government are of the opinion that it is important to make a ‘difference’ between the commission and the defunct bureau.
   Two senior ministers told New Age on Saturday that there would be no office of the commission in the building it is now using at Segunbagicha.
   A member of the three-member commission also admitted the fact. After framing the rules and procedures on absorption, sources said, the commission will select and absorb only the ‘fit’ bureau people after proper scrutiny, and then the staffers will be accommodated in the new office.
   Section 35 of the Anti-Corruption Commission Act 2004 says, ‘The bureau has to be dissolved on the date of the formation of the commission and the assets, powers, rights and other facilities of the bureau have to be vested in the commission on the dissolution of the bureau.’
   It also said the staffers of the bureau will be deemed the staffers of the commission, subject to subsection (2), which says, ‘The commission will keep the people of the bureau in the service of the commission whom it may think fit upon a proper scrutiny in such manner as the commission determines and the government will withdraw the rest of the bureau staff.’
   Quoting the section, the two ministers told New Age that the commission at this moment has no staff except the three commissioners. The commission is looking for its secretary and may fill the post soon, said a source in the commission.

Dhaka may allow a trans-border gas pipeline from Myanmar to India through Bangladesh only if New Delhi agrees to provide Nepal with adequate road transit facilities for access to the Mongla port, said highly placed sources in the government.
   The transit issue will top the agenda when commerce secretaries of Bangladesh and Nepal meet either at a bilateral meeting on January 12 or on the sidelines of the SAARC summit, likely to be held sometime in February, officials in the commerce ministry told New Age Saturday.
   ‘From an economic point of view, Bangladesh can use the issue of providing gas pipeline transit in exchange of India’s cooperation in giving adequate road transit to Nepal for making the Mongla sea port and the Banglabandha land port usable,’ a key figure in the government told New Age.
   The prime minister, Khaleda Zia, will soon sit with the finance and planning minister, M Saifur Rahman, the foreign minister, M Morshed Khan, and the state minister for energy and mineral resources, AKM Mosharraf Hossain, to discuss the issue prior to a tri-nation meet.
   Energy ministers of Myanmar, Bangladesh and India are scheduled to meet in Yangon on January 11-12 to discuss ways and means to install the proposed trans-border gas pipeline. ‘The meeting between the prime minister and her key colleagues will give the state minister necessary mandate for discussing the issue in Myanmar since it is a sensitive issue in terms of politics and security,’ a source in the ministry said.
   Meanwhile, the commerce secretaries of Nepal and Bangladesh, whenever they meet, will discuss ways to increase Kathmandu’s trade volume through the Banglabandha land port, which remains unutilised because of India’s ‘non-cooperation’.
   The secretaries last met in 2002 and were scheduled to meet in 2004 but the meeting fell through.
   Officials in the shipping ministry officials said although India had agreed to extend road transit time for Nepal through its chicken neck-shaped territory, it had not yet developed required infrastructural facilities for the purpose.
   The commerce ministry officials suspect that the Indian authorities are ‘unwilling’ to lose revenue it receives by facilitating imports and exports through Kolkata port to and from Nepal, a land-locked country.
   Nepal’s entire overseas trade, excepting those with India, Bhutan and China, is transacted through the Kolkata port under a bilateral agreement signed in 1960.
   Bangladesh and Nepal signed a transit agreement on September 1, 1997, but the proposed route — Kakarvita-Fulbari-Banglabandha — remains a non-starter because of various impediments, including infrastructure and time-limit of two hours.

The High Court on Sunday stayed for two weeks a government order banning publications of the Ahmadiya Muslim Jamaat.
   The High Court bench of Justice MA Matin and Justice AFM Abdur Rahman also issued a rule nisi on the government to show cause within three weeks why the order would not be declared illegal and void.
   The court passed the order on a writ petition, filed by former deputy general manager of the Bangladesh Bank, AK Rezaul Karim, Masud Alam Ragib Ahsan of Odhikar, Hayat Mamud of Sammilita Samajik Andolon, Sultana Kamal of Ain o Salish Kendra, Shirin Akter of Karmajibi Nari, Ruhul Quddus of Jatiya Ainjibi Parishad and Khushi Kabir of Nijera Kori, challenging the ban imposed by the home ministry through an order on January 8, 2004.
   Earlier on December 21, 2004, the vacation bench of Justice ABM Khairul Haque directed the government not to publish gazette notification of the ban till January 2, when the court reopens after the winter vacation. As the matter came up for hearing on Sunday, an advocate of the Supreme Court, ABM Nurul Islam, prayed to be an amicus curiae in the case. The court rejected the prayer saying it was yet to issue any rule in the case.
   Nurul, however, submitted a photocopy of a document to the court and said it was the gazette notification of the ban.
   The petitioners’ counsel, Kamal Hossain, told the court that he and also his clients did not know about the gazette notification.
   The additional attorney general, Fida M Kamal, also told the court that neither he nor the office of the attorney general was aware of the notification.
   He said he had nothing to argue about in the case, as the office of the attorney general was yet to get any instruction from the government.
   Fida said he had no objection to the stay order and the rule nisi.
   The action was taken in the face of agitation by militant religious groups that demanded that the Ahmadiyas should be declared non-Muslim.
   The government in its order said certain ‘objectionable’ views contained in the publications had or might hurt religious sentiments of the majority of the population.
   Dr Kamal with Sara Hossain and Tanzibul Alam moved the case for the petitioners.

With many thousands still missing, rescuers in the part of Southeast Asia that suffered most from last weekend’s earthquake and tsunami stood ready to call off their search for survivors. US forces pressed ahead with one of their biggest relief missions ever with the death toll likely to hit 150,000.
   Hungry Indonesians welcomed a dozen American Seahawk helicopters as they delivered biscuits, energy drinks and instant noodles to devastated villages on the west coast of Sumatra, closest to the epicentre of the largest earthquake in four decades and the first place hit by the walls of water it sent surging across the Indian Ocean.
   More than 80,000 were killed on the island, and officials say that number could climb past 100,000. No survivor has been found for three days.
   Relatives of the missing gave agonising descriptions of their loved ones on television Sunday, clinging to hopes they hadn’t been fatally crushed by rubble or taken by the sea.
   Officials were pessimistic.
   ‘There is very little chance of finding survivors after seven days,’ the head of Indonesia’s search team, Lamsar Sipahutar. ‘We are about to stop the search-and-rescue operations. If you survived the earthquake, you probably were killed by tsunami.’
   India was insisting there was still hope for survivors, though the search was essentially over in Tamil Nadu state, which bore the brunt of the country’s sea surge.
   Experts were also concerned about survivors’ emotional health. Thousands were grappling with horrific images of the death and destruction. Health professionals said some survivors can’t sleep or eat, or are afraid of the dark, the water or being alone.

Beyond the massive toll in human life, tsunamis which tore apart Indian Ocean coastlines are set to pose a global mental health catastrophe as thousands of people live haunted by the sudden, ferocious wall of water.
   From tourists whose holidays turned apocalyptic to survivors gnawed by guilt, to many outsiders whose only connection to the horror was watching its aftermath on television, the scale of the tsunamis has few modern comparisons.
   One parallel is the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, but this time tragedy has ravaged regions where mental health services range from limited to non-existent, experts say.
   ‘We are worried that people are going to need psychological counselling. These communities just don’t know how to do that,’ said a spokeswoman for the World Health Organisation in South Asia, Harsaran Pandey.
   ‘We are putting a team together but obviously a 10-person team can’t help millions. We have to work with each country’s national health services,’ she said.
   Psychologists say survivors often suffer vivid flashbacks, with the mere sound of a wave or emergency siren enough to make them relive the nightmare.
   Mohamad Fikri Rahim, 11, was in Malaysia’s Penang island on the fateful day when he was caught by violent waves ‘as high as coconut trees and blackened with mud,’ said his mother, Rahibah Osman.
   He cries in his sleep and shouts ‘No, no!’, his mother said.
   ‘I don’t know what he’s talking about, but when I ask him, he starts to cry,’ she said.
   Others suffer more silently, feeling a need to cling to loved ones or re-assess their priorities after the realisation of how fragile live can be.
   In badly hit Car Nicobar island, an injured Indian Air Force pilot, Flight Lieutenant S Srinivasa, said the killer waves ‘have completely changed our outlook.’
   ‘We nitpicked about safety, rules and textbook procedures,’ he said. ‘But now we are more stoic because dear earth has its own mysterious ways which are beyond our control.’
   The head of psychiatry at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Adelaide, Australia, Professor Sandy McFarlane, said the disaster would stay with victims in some form or another for the rest of their lives.
   ‘They are haunted with images and memories of what’s happened and in a sense they become trapped in a sort of time warp by these experiences and find it difficult to move on from them.’
   McFarlane said survivors were often ‘riddled with fear,’ suffering sleep disorders and anxiety attacks.
   A clinical psychologist at the Mental Health Association of Hong Kong, Yeung Lai-ying, said the tsunami would affect survivors no matter what their age or background.
   ‘Human beings have assumptions about the world. Most of them think the world is good and meaningful. But disasters break their assumptive world, make them feel helpless,’ Yeung said.
   Many survivors feel guilt even though they had no control over the tsunamis, which were set off when the most powerful earthquake in 40 years tore deep under the earth near Sumatra on December 26.
   Australian woman Raeshell Tsang, who was in Phuket for her honeymoon, returned to Sydney admitting guilt at ‘abandoning’ the Thai people who had been so kind to her.
   ‘Part of me feels I should have been there for them,’ she told reporters.
   When family members have been killed in a natural disaster, survivors often have an overwhelming sense they should have done more, said the head of the emergency psychology group of the German association of psychologists¸ Clivia Langer.
   The trauma can eventually lead to post-traumatic stress disorder, whose first symptoms are shock and numbness and a feeling of unreality which may last a few days, Malaysian psychiatrist Lim Chee Min said.
   After that come fear and anxiety—constant worrying, panic attacks or nightmares about death and dying.
   The disorder can be triggered by anything that reminds a person of the tsunami—water, being near the beach or violence.

The Bangladesh high commissioner to Sri Lanka, Yakub Ali, handed over relief materials to the Sri Lankan deputy foreign minister, Wiswa Warnapal, at the Bandarniake International Airport in Colombo on Sunday.
   Yakub assured Warnapal that the Bangladesh government would do everything possible to help Sri Lanka in this hour of unprecedented devastation caused by tsunami, according to a message received in Dhaka.
   The second consignment of the Bangladesh’s relief goods also reached Colombo Sunday by a Bangladesh Air force transport aircraft. The third consignment will reach shortly.
   A Bangladesh Navy ship will reach Colombo on January 5 with additional relief materials and logistic supports for the tsunami victims in Sri Lanka.
   Bangladesh government has also decided to send medical and engineering teams from the Bangladesh Armed Forces, seven water purification plants, four Gemini boats and two bell helicopters to Sri Lanka.
   Two medical teams comprising 48 personnel from the Bangladesh Army, Navy and Air Force along with emergency relief materials reached Colombo on December 30 by the aircraft.
   The Bangladesh task force is self-equipped to run field hospitals.

Sajib Wajed Joy, son of the Awami League chief, Sheikh Hasina, on Sunday began consultation with the party wings, targeting to secure 200 parliamentary seats in the next general elections to bring the party back in power.
   Sajib, who arrived in Bangladesh on December 22 from the United States and ‘still undecided to join politics formally’, observed intra-party feuds had caused the election debacle in the 2001 general elections.
   ‘We need to begin work to get 200 seats, of which 180 must be secured, in the 300-seat parliament in the elections. Intra-party disputes should be settled for this,’ Sajib is quoted to have said by one of the leaders who attended a closed-door meeting.
   Joy talked with the leaders of two Awami League front organisations —Bangladesh Swechchhasebak League and Bangladesh Chhatra League — at Sudha Sadan, Hasina’s residence, on Sunday. He will meet the leaders of the central, city and national
   committees of the Bangladesh Juba League, the party’s youth front, and the Bangladesh Juba Mahila League today.
   During the consultation, the leaders of the front organisations requested Sajib to join in politics to persuade more than one crore new voters in the next elections.
   In response, he told them that it was not that much necessary to join politics to work for the country and the people as his mother and other party leaders were duly playing their roles.
   He gave an assurance that he would be with them during the next general elections as he feels that the Awami League ‘must go to power by any means. ‘ Addressing the Swechchhasebak League leaders, Sajib said there is no democracy in Bangladesh and no decency is left in the present-day politics. ‘Both democracy and decency need to be restored. I will try positively.’
   While addressing different units of the Chhatra League, Sajib said the entire Awami League across the country was divided over personal rivalry which resulted in polls defeat in 2001.
   ‘All should work together to ensure the victory in the next general election,’ he said, urging all concerned to leave behind petty personal interests. ‘Otherwise, the party and the country will be in ruins.’
   The Swechchhasebak League president, Bahauddin Nasim, general secretary Pankaj Nath, central committee leaders Matiur Rahman Moti, BM Shafiqul Islam, Mahbubur Rahman Talukder, Chhatra League president Liakot Sikder, and general secretary Nazrul Islam Babu also spoke on the occasions.

The total market size of medicinal and aromatic plants in Bangladesh is about Tk 100 crore, 90 per cent of which comes from import, according to a survey by the Development of Biotechnology and Environmental Conservation Centre.
   The executive director of the centre, Dr Ferdousi Begum, said the medicinal and aromatic plants that are produced in Chittagong, Sylhet, Khulna and Mymensingh’s hilly lands and other areas can meet only 10 per cent of the domestic demand for raw materials for preparation of herbal medicine.
   Rest of the raw materials are being imported from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and China, she added.
   Eighty per cent people of the developing countries use herbal medicine for their primary health care, the World Health Organisation says.
   International market size of medicinal and aromatic plants is $62 billion with 15 per cent growth per annum. This market size will be $5 trillion in the year 2050.
   Sources said India, the largest exporter of raw medicinal and aromatic plants and processed plants for herbal medicine, fetches Rs 1000 crore every year from its export.
   Pakistan exports this item worth $21.8 million annually while Thailand earns $14 million from export of medicinal plants.
   The consumer markets for medicinal plants are China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, the United States and the United Kingdom.
   According to the biotechnology centre, a total of 422 ayurvedic and unani medicine companies use raw medicinal plants, mineral and animal resource for preparation of drugs.
   Ferdousi told New Age that about 600 types of medicinal and aromatic plants are produced across the country.
   She said lack of documentation on traditional knowledge on medicinal plants and unplanned collection of such plants posed a threat to the existence of these plants.
   Moreover, she lamented, there is no control on trading of such plants.
   Some popular and common raw medicinal plants, sale of which rampant in the local markets, are Ghritakumari (Aloe Vera) dry leaves (per kilogram is charged from Tk 2.5 to Tk 5), Amloki (phyllanthus emblia) fruit (selling per kg
   Tk 40), Anantamul (hemidusmus indicus) root ( selling
   per kg at Tk 75), Arjun (terminalia ajuna) barks ( Tk 35 per kg), Ashok (saraca asoca)
   bark (Tk 24 per kg), Bohera (terminalia bellirica) fruits (Tk 12 per kg) and Aggor (aquillaria agallaocha) ( Tk 26,000
   per kg).
   Ferdousi said ministries of agriculture, environment and forests, health and family
   welfare, science, and information communication technology and different non-governmental organisations are working in this sector but there is lack in coordination at national level.
   Medicinal plants are not only used in preparation of ayurvedic and unani medicines but around 125 types of such plants are being used in allopathic medicines.
   Raw medicinal and aromatic plants are also used in herbal cosmetics, toiletries and nutritional foods. The biotechnology centre source further said a research centre on medicinal plants styled as the Bangladesh Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants would be set up soon.

A suicide car bomb hit a bus packed with Iraqi National Guards on Sunday, killing 26 people in the deadliest attack of its kind in four months on Iraqis cooperating with US forces to secure a January 30 election.
   Two bombers in an explosives-laden vehicle veered into the path of the bus and blew it up outside a US military base near the town of Balad, north of Baghdad.
   Hours later, insurgents killed three policemen on patrol close to neighbouring Samarra, and shot dead a member of the city’s governing council as well as his driver and bodyguard.
   The attacks in the Sunni heartland, where loyalty to the deposed president, Saddam Hussein, runs strong, were the latest targeting Iraq’s fledgling security forces and government officials in a bloody campaign to scare voters away from the polls.
   A National Guard officer said the car bomb killed 25 soldiers on the way to their posts. Relatives wept over the men’s bodies at a local mosque. ‘My son, my son,’ one man wailed as he clutched at a wooden coffin.
   A civilian bystander also died in the blast.
   US and Iraqi officials ushered in the New Year with warnings of an expected spike in pre-election assaults by guerrillas trying to drive out US-led forces and topple Iraq’s American-backed government.
   ‘Those responsible for this attack ... are trying to prevent democracy in Iraq,’ said a military spokesman in Tikrit, Major Neal O’Brien. ‘They will not be successful.’
   On Saturday, the al-Qaeda Organisation of Holy War in Iraq led by Jordanian al-Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi released a video of five Iraqi security men being shot dead in the street.
   A statement posted on an Islamist Web site along with the video vowed that the group would ‘slaughter’ other Iraqis it brands collaborators with foreign occupiers.
   Sunday’s bombing was the deadliest suicide attack against Iraqi security services since mid-September, when at least 47 people were killed outside a Baghdad police station.
   Guerrillas have killed hundreds of security force members since the US-led invasion in 2003. Many Iraqis wonder how police and National Guards will be able to protect voters when they can barely protect themselves.
   Guerrillas assassinated two local government officials for Diyala province, northeast of Baghdad, and an Iraqi police major outside his home in Baghdad on Saturday, signalling they would persist with their campaign in the New Year.
   On Sunday, guerrillas ordered all municipal workers out of the main local government building in the town of Sharqat, near the volatile northern city of Mosul, and blew it up.
   In the al-Qaeda-linked group’s video, masked militants lined up five National Guardsmen, their hands bound behind their backs, and shot them from behind. Passers-by stopped to watch.
   ‘To the families of civil defence forces, the National Guard and the police we tell you to say your final goodbyes to your sons before you send them to us. Our reward to your sons is slaughter,’ a masked militant said in a statement.

Vegetable processing units and irrigation projects will get 20 per cent rebate on electricity bills from January 1, according to a December 30 office order of the finance ministry.
   The latest decision increased the number of such benefited sectors of agro-based industries to 15, in a bid to boost the agro-based industries, sources in the finance ministry told new Age.
   Earlier, the finance ministry in July 2004 gave similar rebate to 13 agro-based sub-sectors like fruit processing, milk processing, processed food from potato, salt, lentil, coconut oil, fish feed and seed processing units, etc.
   The government will give subsidy to the Dhaka Electric Supply Authority, the Dhaka Electric Supply Company and the Rural Electrification Board to make up for the loss they will incur because of the rebate, sources said.
   It is learnt that the latest decision was taken at the suggestion of the agriculture ministry, which recommended rebate for cold storages as well.
   Finance ministry sources, however, said similar rebate for cold storages would be considered later.

The Rapid Action Battalion is being equipped with the latest technologies and intelligence equipment to fight against crime and criminals.
   A digital database of the criminals has also been made to identify them and the elite force is being given training to use the software as well as other computerised equipment.
   The equipment, including digital trunking walkie-talkie, night vision binoculars, video conferencing, electric shock baton, close-circuit camera, anti-robbery briefcase and digital voice recorder, have already been procured, said a source in the battalion. Some other equipment and weapons are to arrive soon, he added.
   The communication equipment has been imported from New Zealand while the intelligence equipment from various European and Asia-Pacific countries.
   The RAB in the capital has set up three node stations having ultra-high frequency for wireless communication.
   Setting up of the auto vehicle location is underway on completion of which it would be possible to monitor at least 22 vehicles at a time. It could be used for making contact with the base stations and if it fails the base will be able to know about the immediate action.
   The auto vehicle location will work with the global positioning system and with the scanned map of the Dhaka city and its suburbs. It will be added to the digitised map nationwide in future.
   A man pack radio set has already been procured and it will be used during any operation in remote areas. The handy equipment will be able to build its own base station for walkie-talkie communication within 20 kilometres.
   The RAB has already started radio/wireless communication by establishing their own communication backbone with towers, antenna, node stations, server and associated equipments. Its frequency bandwidth permits video and audio streaming and wide area networking, data transfer, sending SMS, one-to-one person communication, multiple communication and with the landline phone and the cellular phones.
   High tech machines will also be used during interrogation, operation and investigation of criminals and their activities.
   About the introduction of digital database, senior RAB officials said transferring data through the high-tech communication across the country would be a revolutionary step. ‘It will work amazingly fast to detect the criminals and arrest them and we will come out of the present trend to wait for days to get the profile of a criminal.”
   Major Ihteshamus Samad Choudhury, the second in command of RAB-4 unit, told New Age on Sunday that introduction of the modern equipment would help us a lot to resist crime. ‘The integrated systems and facilities will strengthen our capacity to handle the law and order.’
   The RAB has already built its own intelligence set comprising latest forensic inputs, dog squad, high-tech metal detector and other equipment.
   The elite force, which came into action in June 2004, has 5,000 personnel from three defence forces — the police, BDR and Ansar.

The parliamentary standing committee on public undertakings has summoned the minister for posts and telecommunications to the next meeting of the body to dispel confusion about the T&T mobile.
   The decision to summon the minister was made at a committee meeting at Jatiya Sangsad on Sunday.
   The committee observed that the authorities had fixed a high call rate of the T&T mobile service to prove it a losing concern. ‘The ministry should explain why the call rate should not be below Tk 2.5,’ a committee member said at the meeting.
   The chairman of the committee, Abdul Aleem, presided over the meeting where whip, Rezaul Bari Dina, Salah Uddin Ahmed, Alamgir M Mahafuz Ullah Farid, Faruk Khan, Wadud Bhuiyan and Dr Syed Abdullah M Taher, attended.
   The posts and telecommunications, and energy and mineral resources secretaries, and chairmen of the Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board and the Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation were also present.
   The meeting asked the authorities to take reasonable decisions keeping pace with the people’s aspirations, and to include competent persons in the board of directors of the company.
   The lawmakers discussed other related matters, including the importance to play role in rationalising charges of the private cell-phone operators. They also discussed overall activities of the Bangladesh Parjatan (tourism) Corporation and its subordinate organisations.
   The existing vacancies, additional manpower, and statements and accounts on production, income, expenditure, and audit performance were discussed.

Top bureaucrats claimed Sunday that the poverty reduction strategy paper was completely a home-driven policy paper and multilateral lending agencies did not influence its preparation.
   ‘We have prepared the document without any foreign consultant and we have not taken any prescription of the donors,’ said the principal secretary to the prime minister, Kamal Uddin Siddique.
   The government itself funded the preparation of the policy paper and even ministers did not intervene, he told a press conference on the draft of the PRSP, titled ‘Unlocking the Potential: National Strategy for Accelerated Poverty Reduction’ at the Planning Commission in Dhaka.
   Echoing Siddique’s view, the finance secretary, Zakir Ahmed Khan, said there was no conditionality from the lending agencies on preparing a full-fledged PRSP rather it was part of a global exercise following the Washington Consensus. ‘This is good for us that the donors do not ask to follow certain things.’
   But, the finance secretary failed to give any specific answer on how the PRSP would be adjusted with the ongoing policy and reform activities under the guidance of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
   In the face of a series of questions from newsmen the bureaucrats, however, admitted that the strategy paper had been prepared on the basis of backdated statistics on poverty situation.
   ‘In an underdeveloped country like ours, statistics are not updated,’ said Kamal Siddique and hastened to add that many countries, even India, have drawbacks on updating statistics.
   He also said the strategy paper itself stressed the need for updating statistics.
   In reply to another question, he said it was the finance minister’s jurisdiction whether the draft would be discussed in the parliament or not. ‘He [finance minister] will take the initiative on consultation of draft with politicians and we will make arrangement for a dialogue with civil society and development partners.’
   On disseminating the draft to the members of the public, Kamal Siddique said that it would be available in website within few days.
   Taking part in the discussion, Quazi Mesbahuddin Ahmed, a member of the general economics division of the planning commission, said that growth on non-farm sector has also widened income disparity in the country.
   ‘The PRSP suggests coverage of the low income people through social safety net programme,’ he added.
   He said that employment generation through incremental investment is the key to reducing the country’s poverty level to a certain extent.
   Among others, Professor Ali Taslim, director general of the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies, Quazi Sahabuddin, Hossain Zillur Rahman and Kaniz Siddique spoke on the occasion.

A leader of an underground outfit was killed in a shootout between his associates and the police at village Bhatkoi under Raninagar upazila in Naogaon early Sunday.
   The people of village Amirpur caught Sweet, also known as Tiger Killer, 26, Saturday afternoon and handed him over to police. He is a fugitive criminal wanted in a number of cases, the police said.
   Sweet confessed his involvement in a number of murders and also provided clues about firearms.
   As per his statement, the police took him to Burir Pukur at south Hindupara on a mission to recover the arms. The associates of Sweet opened fire on them prompting to retaliation. At one stage Sweet was shot dead.
   The police recovered six rounds of bullet and other weapons from the spot.

Pakistan has outnumbered Bangladesh with their troops in peacekeeping operations coordinated by the United Nations.
   A massage received in the Dhaka office of the United Nations said Pakistan will have 8,395 troops on January 7 which will be higher than any other countries of the world. India will have 4,340 forces on the date.
   A UN official said Bangladesh had 8,212 forces in November 2004, while Pakistan 7,503 and India 3,735.
   According to a statistics, the United Nations has now peacekeeping operations in 16 countries and destinations across the world with 63,909 troops from 103 countries.

The High Court on Sunday deferred for two weeks the hearing of the case of contempt of court against journalists of four national dailies, which printed reports on October 31 that a High Court judge was picked up by law enforcers while he was urinating beside a city street.
   The High Court bench of Justice MA Matin and Justice AFM Abdur Rahman deferred the hearing, granting a ‘time prayer’ made by the counsel of the dailies, Dr Kamal Hossain.
   Earlier on December 12, 2004 the same bench had exempted the editors, publishers, reporters and writers of the dailies from personal appearance during hearing of the case.
   The same bench on December 4 issued rule nisi on the editor and publisher of New Age, Enayetullah Khan, editor and publisher of the Daily Star, Mahfuz Anam, editor of Prothom Alo, Matiur Rahman, editor of Bhorer Kagoj, Abed Khan, publisher of Bhorer Kagoj, Saber Hossain Chowdhury, Prothom Alo writer, Anisul Huq, managing editor of the Daily Star, Syed Fahim Munaim, New Age correspondent, Shahiduz-zaman, Bhorer Kagoj correspondent, Samaresh Baidya, and Prothom Alo correspondent, Masud Millat, to explain why punitive measures would not be taken against them on contempt of court charges.
   Kamal Hossain, with Sara Hossain, Tanzibul Alam and Mostafizur Rahman, appeared for the newspapers.

Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal activists beat four police constables on the Rajshahi University campus on Sunday when the admission test of the first-year course was going on.
   The police said the incident took place when a rickshaw carrying three Chhatra Dal activists was stopped by the police from entering the one-way Paris Road from wrong direction at about 1:45pm.
   The police did not allow the rickshaw to go further and they identified themselves as Chhatra Dal activists.
   Angered, the activists snatched the batons from the law enforcers and started beating four of them.
   More policemen went to the place and started beating the activists.
   A number of university teachers, loyal to the BNP, went to the place to save the activists.

The prime minister’s parliamentary affairs adviser, Salauddin Qader Chowdhury, met the leader of the opposition in parliament, Sheikh Hasina, at the latter’s Sudha Sadan residence at Dhanmondi in the capital on Sunday.
   ‘I came to invite her [Hasina] to my son’s wedding ceremony,’ Salauddin, who was accompanied by his wife, told reporters.
   Asked, whether the opposition leader would attend the ceremony, he suggested posing the question to Hasina.
   The wedding ceremony of his son, Fazlul Quader Chowdhury, will take place on January 5.

Four persons were involved in the killings of the Siddheshwari Girls’ High School headmistress and her daughter.
   A security guard of the house, Jahangir, revealed this to the chief metropolitan magistrate’s court on Sunday.
   The masterminds and the reason behind the killings, however, could not be known.
   Jahangir said two men came to him and offered Tk 50,000 to kill the headmistress, Sabera Begum, a few days before the incident.
   They also gave some money to him in advance.
   Three young men came to the house and Jahangir took them to Sabera’s flat early December 16.
   ‘Sabera opened the door and they hacked her with Chinese axe and the slit her throat with a knife’, Jahangir said.
   ‘We killed Shampa in the same way as she saw us doing the crime,’ he stated.

The prime minister, Khaleda Zia, said her government had taken steps to ensure quality education and to create congenial academic atmosphere in the academic institutions.
   She advised students to enlighten themselves with proper education as preparation to build the nation in future.
   The prime minister was inaugurating distribution of textbooks for 2005 among primary, ebtadayee and secondary students at the International Conference Centre of the Prime Minister’s Office.
   The government will distribute nearly nine crore textbooks this year.
   The education minister, M Osman Farruk, the prime minister’s adviser for primary and mass education, Professor Jahanara Begum, the state minister for education, ANM Ehsanul Huq Milon, the education secretary, Faruk Ahmed Siddiqui, the secretary in-charge of the primary and mass education, Rafiqul Islam, and the chairman of the Bangladesh Text Book Board, Professor Dilara Hafiz, also spoke.
   Khaleda said she felt proud to see the Dhaka Book Fair, which she had introduced, turning into a tradition and urged all to further enrich the event.
   She hoped that more good books would be published and more people would be motivated to read books through the fair.
   ‘As a nation, we are struggling hard to overcome the crisis of wealth. But we can resolve the poverty of mind easily,’ Khaleda said adding the best way would be to attach importance to books in all spheres of life.
   She referred to the renaissance and industrial revolution in Europe and said knowledge and books were in the root of all these.
   The western world did not forget it, they rather still cling to books although they have already attained prosperity, she said. She also referred to sale of millions of copies of a single book there.
   ‘The efforts to build up a knowledge-based society will be successful if we can adopt this virtue of the West,’ she said.
   The National Book Centre has been established and weeklong book fair at district level and mobile book fair at the remote areas introduced at his directive, she said.

Railway communication between Dhaka and Chittagong remained suspended for three hours and a half on Sunday as the sweepers of Comilla railway station scattered turd at different places, including several rooms and platform, demanding release of their colleagues arrested earlier.
   The Bangladesh Rifles arrested two sweepers of the Comilla railway station on Saturday men for suspected involvement in smuggling.
   The sweepers in protest at the incident spread turd at different places including the station master’s office, booking office, ticket counter and on the platform, at 9:30am.
   At one stage all the jobs of the rail station were suspended and no train reached in time at the station, which suspended direct communication between Dhaka and Chittagong.
   A meeting of the district administration, police and railway authority and the sweepers was later and train service resumed at 1:00pm.