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The inter-bank money market continued its pre-Eid volatile ways with the overnight borrowing rate, known as the call money rate, hitting a record high of 75 per cent Wednesday on unabated liquidity demand.
   Fund managers said Wednesday’s peak clearly indicates that some banks, wallowing in excess liquidity, are taking advantage of the cash crunch faced by smaller players and are channelling their excess funds at high rates of interest.
   The central bank’s intervention through repo auction has been inadequate to cool the market, they felt. The Bangladesh Bank, however, has described the situation as temporary
   and expects the market to ease next week.
   During the first two working days after the Eid vacation, the higher call rate primarily was seen to be a reflection of ‘adjustment transactions’ as banks were under compulsion to pay off pre-Eid borrowing.
   Ahead of Eid, the banks faced tremendous pressure of cash withdrawal by clients, exhausting their liquidity and forcing them to even compromise with the Cash Reserve Ratio requirement.
   The CRR of many banks dipped to as low as three per cent.
   Now they need to deposit the additional amount to make up for the shortfall.
   Banks have to maintain an average four per cent CRR fortnightly as per rules.
   In most of Wednesday’s deals, nationalised commercial banks, the major players in the money market, charged 50 per cent while the rates averaged above 60 per cent in cases of lending by private banks.
   ‘One reason is that a larger amount of cash that was withdrawn before Eid is still in people’s pockets and many raw hide traders are yet to deposit money with banks,’ said a branch manager of the state-owned Janata Bank.
   ‘So, banks are facing a temporary shortfall of cash, pushing up the inter-bank transaction rate,’ he said.
   Bangladesh Bank infused about Tk 310.50 crore at 10 per cent annual interest into the market against a demand of Tk 631.50 crore in the late hours Wednesday, having little impact on the market.
   ‘We cannot channel huge funds into the market as there would be an inflationary pressure in the economy,’ said a senior official of the Bangladesh Bank.
   He was of the view that the market would be stable by next week when a large amount of cash will be deposited at the banks.
   The Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha reports that the central bank in a statement on Wednesday said the temporary liquidity crisis would have no permanent impact on bank borrowing by clients.
   The crisis has been created following the massive withdrawal of cash from banks on the eve of Eid-ul-Azha, itsaid.
   ‘This high rate of interest in the call money market is absolutely temporary,’ the statement said.

The last few weeks has seen the exchange rates for the US dollar offered by nationalised commercial banks to be significantly different from those offered by private commercial banks. Consequently, the greenback has been selling for lower in the kerb market than by private banks.
   The dollar was sold for as high as Tk 63.30 by private banks in the inter-bank foreign exchange market on Wednesday while the nationalised banks’ average selling price was Tk 59.90, continuing the trend seen over the past weeks when private banks have consistently traded the dollar at a rate of Tk 2 to Tk 3.5 higher than the rate offered by nationalised banks.
   Though the dollar has become stronger in the international market in the last few weeks, the nationalised banks have responded little to the turnaround while private and foreign banks appear to be following the market trend.
   ‘It appears that the market is ready to pay a higher rate for the dollar,’ said a senior banker. ‘But exporters and forex remitters are not getting the benefit of the higher rate as most business is done through nationalised banks.’
   He added that the lower rates quoted by nationalised banks seem to be an attempt to artificially keep the taka appreciated. Despite the official announcement of adopting a freely floating exchange rate system, the Bangladesh Bank has continued its intervention to keep the exchange rate stable through the nationalised banks.
   In the kerb market, the dollar has also been selling at a lower rate than the rates offered by private banks. The kerb market rates have kept in line with the official rates of the nationalised banks.
   On Wednesday, traders purchased the dollar at Tk 59.90 on an average, reflecting lower demand kerbside.
   ‘As nationalised commercial banks are quoting the dollar at a lower rate with good amount of supply, unofficial transactions have gone thin,’ said a trader at Motijheel.
   A banker said the demand for the dollar was increasing due to the higher import bill of oil as the global price was hovering at around $50 per barrel for the last couple of months.
   Although the central bank projected that a five per cent growth in import of oil would contribute little to the balance of payment, it at the same time predicted an additional burden of economic subsidy worth $689 million in the current fiscal year.

Bangladesh needs international mediation to get rid of the mega-project by which India plans to interlink trans-boundary rivers, said the water resources minister, Hafiz Uddin Ahmed, on Wednesday.
   ‘We would draw attention of the international community as we need international mediation to settle difference of opinion with India on their mega-project that aims to interlink trans-boundary rivers by withdrawing water unilaterally from common rivers,’ the minister told journalists after a meeting with a delegation of the Global Water Partnership, an international organisation working on integrated water resources management, at his Secretariat office in Dhaka.
   ‘International organisations, including the Global Water Partnership, can play a role in minimising disputes on sharing of water,’ Hafiz Uddin Ahmed told Peter Rogers and Simi Kamal, members of the GWP technical committee.
   The president of the Bangladesh Water Partnership, Quamrul Islam Siddique, the water resources secretary, Abdul Aziz, the member of the India-Bangladesh Joint River Commission, Tawhidul Anwar, the additional director general of the Bangladesh Water Development Board, Giasuddin, and Imaduddin of the Integrated Water Modelling were also present at the meeting.
   The World Bank had played a significant role in minimising disputes on sharing of water between India and Pakistan and on sharing of water of the Mekong river in South East Asia, the minister also told the GWP team.
   He said that he requested the prime minister, Khaleda Zia, to raise the issue [river interlinking project] at the SAARC summit as the issue deserves attention of the top political leaders of South Asia.
   The minister told the delegation that the Indian initiative would be another ‘death trap for Bangladesh, even more deadly than Farakka, a massive barrage upstream of the river Padma.
   He said, ‘Bangladesh will be ecologically and economically affected as it is heavily dependant on water from the Brahmaputra to maintain ecological balance and water quality besides keeping the river network in order’.
   The massive project is estimated to cost $112 billion (at 1990 price levels) and envisages creation of 30 inter-basin links to transfer water from surplus to deficit basins and prevent surplus water from flowing into the sea.
   Peter Rogers, also a professor of the Harvard University, USA, told the minister that Bangladesh needs to gather authentic data based on scientific study on impacts of the river interlinking project.

The environment and forest minister, Tariqul Islam, on Wednesday urged members of the civil society to raise their voice against India’s proposed river-linking project that would adversely affect Bangladesh’s environment and bio-diversity.
   ‘Bangladesh’s overall environment has already experienced huge devastation due to Farakka Barrage.
   ‘So, the planned linking of common rivers for withdrawal of waters unilaterally and the construction of cross-dam at Tepaimukh by India will degrade again the country’s state of atmosphere heavily.’
   The minister was inaugurating a daylong regional workshop on climate change in Chittagong as chief guest.
   The workshop was organised by the ministry under its ‘Formulation of the Bangladesh Programme of Action for Adaptation to Climate Change’ programme in the PATC auditorium.
   The state minister, Jafrul Islam Chowdhury, spoke at the inaugural session of the workshop with the secretary, Shoeb Ahmed, in the chair.
   The workshop was part of a series of such programmes aiming to include the views and opinions of filed level stakeholders in finalising a national action plan on how to adapt the climate change properly and continue the development process without harming the environment and bio-diversity.
   About 150 government officials, teachers, journalists, public representatives, farmers, physicians and development activists participated in the workshop.
   Tariqul said highly industrialised and developed nations had contributed to making endangered the global environment through their reckless practice in the name of development but poor and developing nations were to bear the brunt and mostly affected due to man-made disasters.
   He said at least 27 districts would turn into a desert, crop production would decrease considerably, salinity at coastal region increase manifold, water crisis would be acute in dry season and the country would witness untimely flood due to the Indian proposed project.
   The minister said countries vulnerable to natural disasters like tidal surge, earthquake and tsunamis should find out common and effective strategies by protecting environment and bio-diversity to lessen the attack of natural fury in a bid to reduce loss of lives and properties.
   He said the nation, which earned independence and rights of its language through continuous struggle and blood-bath, was born to live keeping its head high in the world and will not backtrack from its efforts to realise legitimate rights.

The cabinet committee on purchase on Wednesday decided to send a £8.6 million compensation demand of the British contractor of the Bhairab Bridge to the law ministry for its opinion, as the committee felt that the compensation amount was too high.
   ‘The law ministry will decide whether the huge amount will be paid to the contractor or whether the case would be fought out in the international court,’ said a member of the committee, who is also a state minister.
   Immediately after the inauguration of the 1-2 kilometre Bangladesh-UK Friendship Bridge on the Meghna on September 10, 2002, Edmund Nuttal Limited placed a claim for £14 million on 13 grounds, including delay in getting permission for dredging, topographical data collection and hartals, which the contractor claimed had taken extra 227 days to complete the bridge.
   As the Roads and Highways Division and Halcrow, the consultant firm, raised objections to the contractor’s demand, the communications ministry formed a three-member Dispute Adjudication Board, which recommended payment of £8.6 million to the contractor.
   Later, the executive committee of the National Economic Council approved the revised proposal for the payment more than two years after the completion of the bridge, popularly known as the Bhairab Bridge.
   The purchase committee, chaired by the finance and planning minister, M Saifur Rahman, also criticised the role of Ataur Rahman, an ex-executive engineer of the Roads and Highways Department and a member of the adjudication board, for his incapacity to defend the country’s interest during the dispute, said meeting sources.
   Edmund Nuttal began construction of the bridge on the Meghna on November 3, 1999 and completed it on September 8, 2002.
   The purchase committee also approved the giving of a Tk 44.18 crore contract to an Indian firm, IRCUN India, for modernising and upgrading the signalling and inter-locking system of 12 railway stations on the Sylhet-Akhaura railway line on a turnkey basis, and a Tk 80.80 crore contract to an Indonesian company, PT Industri Kereta API, for procurement of 50 BG carriages for Bangladesh Railway.
   The committee approved the awarding of a Tk 30 crore contract to a management firm, International Development of Ireland, for restructuring the nationalised commercial bank, Janata Bank, under the World Bank-funded bank modernisation project.
   The committee also decided to re-tender for procuring three rubber tyre gantry cranes for container handling at Chittagong Port.
   However, the committee dropped two other agenda for time constraint.
   The agenda were a Tk 305 core procurement of equipment for setting up new digital exchanges and expansion of the existing exchanges in the districts and upzilas, and installation of the optical fibre link connecting Chittagong and Cox’s Bazar under the submarine cable project.

A US military transport helicopter crashed in bad weather in Iraq’s western desert Wednesday, killing 31 people, all believed to be Marines, in the deadliest incident for US troops since the war began, officials said. Guerrillas killed five American troops and eight Iraqis.
   A Bush administration official said there were no survivors from the crash and that the cause was not immediately known.
   The CH-53 Sea Stallion, which was carrying personnel from the 1st Marine Division, went down about 1:20am near the town of Rutbah; about 220 miles west of Baghdad, while conducting security operations, the military said in a statement.
   A search and rescue team has reached the site and an investigation into what caused the crash was under way. The administration official said there was bad weather at the time.
   The official said Wednesday all 31 people killed in the crash were believed to be US Marines — the most American service members to die in a single incident in Iraq. It was also the deadliest day for US forces since the March 2003 invasion.
   ‘We are saddened anytime there is loss of life of our troops in harm’s way,’ White House press secretary, Scott McClellan, said.
   The previous single deadliest incident for US troops was also a helicopter crash: a November 2004 collision of two Black Hawk helicopters that were trying to avoid ground fire, killing 17 service members. Earlier that month, a Chinook transport helicopter was shot down by shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missile near Fallujah, killing 16 American soldiers and wounding 26.
   In Iraq’s Anbar province, four US Marines were killed in fighting, the military said in a statement.
   The statement gave no further details, but WABC reporter Jim Dolan, who was embedded with the troops who were attacked, said the deaths came when guerrillas ambushed a Marine convoy leaving the town of Haditha, west of Baghdad, hitting a vehicle with a rocket-propelled grenade.
   A US soldier was killed and two others wounded Wednesday in an attack on a US patrol north of Baghdad, the US military said in a statement.
   The US military has lost at least 33 helicopters since the start of the war, including at least 20 brought down by hostile fire, according to a study by the Brookings Institution.
   The deadliest day for American troops during the initial invasion of Iraq was March 23, 2003, when 26 Americans were killed in a number of separate incidents. The president, George W Bush, declared major combat over on May 1, 2003, but fighting has continued.
   Last month, a suicide bomb exploded at a mess tent in a base near Mosul, killing 22 people including 14 US soldiers and three American contractors.
   Seven people were killed in a car bomb attack Wednesday on a police station in the powderkeg city of Kirkuk, as guerrillas aimed to make good on threats to escalate violence ahead of Iraq’s landmark elections.
   A string of other attacks rocked Iraq on Wednesday, including several against polling centres, as rebels stepped up their campaign intimidation ahead of Sunday’s polls, the first in the post-Saddam Hussein era.
   Major General Turhan Yusef, police chief in the ethnically-divided northern city of Kirkuk, said three policemen, two soldiers and two civilians were killed in the blast.
   Another car bomb exploded in a market area in Kirkuk, he said, but could not give immediate details.
   A car bomb attack wounded four US soldiers on the perilous airport road in Baghdad, while another four American troops were wounded when a booby-trapped vehicle exploded in the town of Tikrit, north of the capital.
   Local officials reported one civilian killed in the blast in Saddam’s hometown.
   Rebels pounded eight polling stations with rockets, mortar shells and bombs within a few hours in the same restive regions, Iraqi police and local officials said.
   Three were hit in Baquba and two others outside the troubled town. A voting centre
   came under rocket fire in the town of Dhuluiyah, and another was hit by a bomb blast near Samarra.
   A bomb also went off near a school in Baghdad that like many other schools is being turned into a polling station for the elections.

Bangladesh kept alive the hopes of a win in the one-day international cricket series Wednesday, beating Zimbabwe by 40 runs in the third match at the MA Aziz Stadium in Chittagong.
   With the remaining two matches scheduled to take place at the Bangabandhu National Stadium in Dhaka on January 29 and 31, the hosts now trail the series 2-1.
   The Bangladesh skipper, Habibul Bashar, won the toss for the first time in the series and elected to bat.
   The openers, Nafees Iqbal and Rajin Saleh, justified the decision and put on 58 runs, the first time Bangladesh scored 50-plus in the last 20 matches.
   Rajin played the sheet-anchor role with a sedate 93-ball 77 that featured six fours and one six. His fifth ODI half-century came off 65 deliveries.
   Useful contributions came from Nafees (24), Aftab Ahmed (38), Bashar (26) and Mashrafee bin Mortaza, who scored a run-a-ball 21 with a six and a four as the hosts scrambled to 244 for nine in 50 overs.
   The score should have been much higher had not the middle-order blues struck Bangladesh yet again.
   Mohammad Ashraful was particularly to blame as he danced down the wicket only to be beaten by a flighted delivery from Barney Rogers and stumped for 11.
   Rajin should have also converted his fifty into a hundred but threw his wicket in the end, trying a premeditated drive and giving an edge to Dion Ebrahim who scooped a smart single-handed catch.
   The middle-order batsman had just pulled the previous Elton Chigumbura delivery over mid-wicket for a six before he went for the rash stroke.
   The Zimbabwean skipper, Tatenda Taibu, tried eight bowlers. Tinashe Panyangara, Prosper Utseya and Brendan Taylor captured two wickets each conceding 59, 33 and 23 runs respectively.
   Bangladesh new-ball bowlers Mashrafee and Nazmul Hossain bowled a tight line and length, making sure that the Zimbabweans could not cut loose in the first 15 overs.
   Zimbabwe scored 50 in 13.5 overs and 100 in 28.5. The asking rate went past six runs an over in the 22nd over and shot up to eight in the 35th over.
   Barney Rogers hit the fourth fifty against Bangladesh but was out leg before wicket to a Khaled Mahmud delivery that clearly landed outside the leg stump. His 51 came off 81 balls and featured four boundaries.
   Dion Ebrahim and Hamilton Masakadza scored 1 and 9 and the resistance came from Brendan Taylor (26), Chigumbura (27 off 18 balls 6X1, 4X2) and the inspirational captain Taibu (42).
   Taibu ran out of patience and holed out to Manjarul Islam at backward point off Mashrafee to put Bangladesh on the verge of a win. Taibu was the seventh batsman to fall on 181.
   Left-arm spinner Manjarul, who had an awful time with the bat, emerged the match winner with career-best figures of four for 34 runs. He was also adjudged man of the match.
   Enamul Haque Jr was fined 25 per cent of his match fee and was reprimanded by the match referee, Roshan Mahanama, for showing frustration by bouncing the ball hard on the pitch during the dying stage of the match.
   Taylor was also reprimanded for overreacting.

Leaders of the Awami League and 14 left-leaning parities demanded ban on the Islamic militant organisation, Jagrata Muslim Janata, and arrest of Bangla Bhai and his associates.
   They called upon the Bagmara people to forge a unity to lodge protest against the Muslim Janata activists.
   The call came at a rally at the Sripur Primary School ground organised on Wednesday in protest against killing of AL leader Mahabur and attack on the life of the Sripur union parishad chairman and president of the Tahirpur municipality unit of AL, Makbul.
   Presided over by the Bagmara upazila AL acting president Matiur Rahman Tuku, the rally was addressed, among others, by Workers Party politburo member, Fazle Hossain Badsha, AL central committee leader, Nurul Islam Thandu, the Rajshahi city AL president, Masudul Haque Dulu, the secretary, AHM Khairuzzaman Liton, the district AL president, Tajul Islam Md Faruque, the joint secretary, Ibrahim Hossain, former minister Jinatunnesa Talukder, CPB leader Enamul Haque, JSD leader Abdullahhil Masud Shibli and Bagmara upazila AL secretary Jakirul Islam Sentu.
   The protesting leaders at the rally said BNP and Jamaat have deployed militant cadres in Rajshahi area to achieve special political gain.
   In the name of cleansing PBCP extremists and terrorists, the Bangla Bhai cadres have resorted to collecting tolls, looting houses, fishes from water bodies and killing AL and left party leaders and activists in a cool brain, they complained, adding that these militant group continued repression on progressive leaders and activists of Rajshahi, Bagmara, Atrai, Naogaon, Naldanga and Natore.
   The leaders accused a deputy minister, a state minister, some lawmakers loyal to the ruling BNP and Rajshahi SP Masud Mian of backing the Bangla Bhai cadres. More than 5000 people attended the protest rally.
   Meanwhile, the Bagmara police arrested seven persons on Tuesday night raiding different villages of Bagmara.
   The arrested are Abdus Sattar, 45, a Jatragachhi madrassah teacher,  Abdul Aziz, 45, Mozammel Haque, 35, JMJ cadres Quasem, 30, Mainul Islam,30, and Ashraful.
   The Bagmara police claimed that additional police personnel had been deployed in some villages and the hunt for terrorists was on.

The state minister for home affairs, Lutfozzaman Babar, iterated his determination that the law enforcers would arrest the Islamist vigilante, Bangla Bhai, whenever and wherever he is found.
   He asked the law enforcers to keep law and order. ‘We don’t know any Bangla Bhai or English Bhai. We want peace and we’ll do everything to keep law and order,’ Babar told the newsmen Wednesday after a meeting on law and order in the ministry.
   Babar said the law enforcers could not arrest the Islamist leader as he had been absconding.
   The prime minister’s directive, too, could not be implemented for the same reason, he said. ‘But the police have arrested 64 followers of the militant leader.’ He claimed that law and order has improved.
   The state minister earlier presided at a meeting which reviewed the steps taken to keep law and order before Eid-ul-Azha.
   The meeting observed that some makeshift cattle markets on the main roads had created traffic congestion in the capital.
   It also decided to make an arrangement for more vehicles much before Eid for easy communications of the home-bound passengers from the capital.
   About the activities of the doping group, the meeting decided to gear up awareness programme at all bus and launch terminals and railway stations.

The Border Security Force and miscreants of India have reportedly killed 297 Bangladeshis over the past four years, said Odhikar on Wednesday.
   ‘Frequent intrusions into the Bangladesh territory by the BSF, shooting down of innocent people, abduction and hijacking have created a humanitarian disaster-like situation on the frontiers,’ said a statement, issued by the human rights coalition.
   Scanning newspaper reports and investigating through other sources of information from July 2000 to July 2004, the organisation compiled a report that also says the BSF and the miscreants violated human rights of more than 1,500 people.
   The report, however, did not mention the number of casualties by the Bangladesh Rifles.
   Most of the people killed by the BSF are innocent peasants, says the report adding that the authorities have failed to minimise the number of incidents despite having a number of flag meetings at different tiers ranging from the level of company commanders to the director general.
   Odhikar said the BSF had arrested 451, abducted 390 and raped three women besides killing 297 and injuring 407 during the period.
   First six months of 2004 saw the killings of 34 Bangladeshis. The numbers were 43 in 2003, 105 in 2002, 94 in 2001 and 21 between July and December in 2000.

The government has remained firm in its decision of offloading the power distribution system from the Power Development Board in phases, despite strong opposition from its employees.
   ‘The government’s ultimate target is to limit the activities of the PDB only in power generation as it has failed to overcome its woes of systems loss,’ said a top official in the Ministry of Power, adding that the power board’s systems loss currently stands at 29 per cent.
   Some PDB employees have been agitating for the last one month against the government’s move to hand over its distribution line to the Rural Electrification Board, fearing that their illegal income would be stopped for good, he said.
   The power board has already handed over 5,036 kilometres of transmission lines under a deal made in 2002 that calls for transfer of a total of 9,400 kilometres of lines to the Rural Electrification Board by December 31, 2004.
   Initially, the PDB was due to hand over the power lines to the REB by July 2004 under the package agreement.
   The PDB could not hand over 4,364 kilometres of power lines to the REB as per the instruction of the power ministry due to strong opposition from its officials and employees.
   The power ministry ordered the PDB on December 10 to hand over the electric lines to the REB by December 31, 2004 as per an agreement with the World Bank to make a Tk 450 crore credit available from the lending agency.
   But the PDB failed to complete the transfer of the power lines as activists of the collective bargaining agents in the PDB staged demonstrations and rallies to force the authorities concerned to drop the hand-over programme, said sources.
   The power division on Wednesday reached a consensus with the CBA leaders that the distribution area — municipality and district headquarters — of the board with less than three megawatts consumption capacity would be handed over to the REB.
   The division also formed a five-member committee headed by joint secretary Wahiduddin Nabi to review the handover programme of the PDB’s distribution lines.
   The committee has been directed to submit its report within three weeks with details of the distribution system hand-over programme.
   The ministry directed the CBA leaders not to create any obstacle in handing over PDB’s distribution areas that have a minimum power consumption capacity of less than three megawatts, and asked the REB officials to return the areas with consumption capacity above three megawatts to the PDB.
   The state minister, however, told CBA leaders that if the PDB’s performance does not improve, distribution areas with consumption capacity of above three megawatts would also be handed over to the REB or other power-supply agencies.
   The cost of the deal was Tk 640 crore — Tk 300 crore for the power lines and Tk 150 crore for power bills that remained outstanding with consumers of those distribution areas during handover. The royalty was Tk 90 crore.
   The REB had taken over 5,036km of electric lines, including 400km in urban areas, until July last year, but it has so far paid only Tk 190 crore to the PDB.
   Under the agreement, the REB is responsible for collecting the arrears and giving the same to the PDB.

The Anti-Corruption Commission has turned into a debating club having failed to come up with fruitful decisions on any issue despite repeated meetings since its formation on November 21, 2004.
   The commission is yet to finalise its rules of business, make necessary rules and prepare its organogram, thus remaining practically inoperative even after 66 days of its formation.
   The commission held a meeting on Wednesday with a nine-point agenda but could not come up with any concrete decision, said inside sources.
   ‘We have discussed all the agenda, but no specific decision has been taken excepting that of sending a letter to the finance ministry asking it to release funds for engaging a legal expert to frame the draft rules,’ the chairman of the commission, Justice Sultan Hossain Khan, told reporters.
   The nine-point agenda includes rules of business of the commission, appointment of a secretary to the commission, appointment of a legal consultant to frame the draft rules, the draft rules on investigation and inquiry, organogram, the draft rules on appointment and terms of service of the sanctioned 36 posts and the procedure for screening of the staffers of the now-defunct Bureau of Anti-Corruption deemed fit for absorption in the commission.
   The heads of the commission, however, could not agree on any decision on any of those agenda.
   The set of draft rules, prepared by a commissioner, M Maniruzzaman Miah, on appointment and terms of service of the sanctioned 36 posts, was discussed at the meeting.
   The meeting, however, could not take any decision on the issue, as one commissioner of the three-member commission observed that he would have to go through the draft, said sources.
   Miah also placed the draft organogram, which he had prepared after being asked to do so by the commission.
   He proposed creation of 897 posts of officers and employees in the commission, including a secretary, eliminating some tiers of the defunct bureau and excluding the post of director-general, sources said, adding that Justice Sultan was advocating the creation of the post.
   According to the sources, Justice Sultan and commissioner Maniruddin Ahmed also want to increase the posts to about 1,200 in the organogram.
   Miah told New Age after the meeting that he would place the organogram in the meeting of the commission again, detailing the charter of duties and terms of appointment for each proposed post.
   Though the commission decided on January 15 to engage a legal expert to frame the draft rules, the terms and conditions for appointment of the legal expert are yet to be finalised, said inside sources.
   Due to lack of such rules, the commission cannot recruit its necessary staffers, nor screen the staffers of the now-defunct Bureau of Anti-Corruption who are deemed fit for absorption in its service.
   The commission on Wednesday sent a letter to the finance ministry, asking it to release funds for engaging a legal consultant. The decision of sending the letter was adopted in the meeting.
   The commission, however, could not decide on the appointment of its secretary, as a writ petition on the issue is now pending with the Supreme Court.
   The High Court on January 2 stayed the appointment of AMM Reza-E-Rabbi as the secretary of the commission and issued a rule nisi on the government to show cause within three weeks why the appointment would not be declared illegal.
   According to sources in the government, it will not challenge the rule, but it will file an application with the court saying that the rule has already lost its cause of action, as the government has cancelled Rabbi’s appointment.
   The commission will go for fresh appointment of its secretary after the disposal of the writ petition, Miah told New Age.

The Gazipur speedy trial tribunal sentenced eight Juba League and Chhatra League activists to imprisonment for vandalising, looting and setting fire to Khowab Bhaban after the killing of the Awami League lawmaker, Ahsanullah Master.
   The tribunal judge, Md Salim Ullah, gave the verdict on Wednesday.
   The local Awami League called for a half-day hartal for Saturday in protest at the verdict and demanded immediate release of the arrested.
   They will also hold countrywide protest on Saturday and bring out a procession on Friday.
   Ahsanullah, also Sramik League executive president, was shot dead at Nayagaon High School on May 7, 2004.
   The municipal Juba League president, Anwar, and the vice-president, Rafique, were sentenced to five years’ rigorous imprisonment each and fined with Tk 5000, in default to suffer six more months in jail.
   The court sentenced Murad, Dish Sumon, Firoj, Shahidullah of Chhatra League and Tauhid of Juba league to four years’ rigorous imprisonment and fined them with Tk 3,000 each, in default to suffer three more months in jail.
   The court sentenced Nahid, a Chhatra League leader, to two years’ rigorous imprisonment and fined Tk 1,000; in default, he will remain one more month in prison.
   After the killing of Ahsanullah Master, activists of the Awami League, Juba League and other front organisations damaged and set fire to the BNP and Jamaat district offices, Khowab Bhaban and other places.
   After the verdict, the Juba League brought out a procession.
   The Gazipur municipal Awami League had a meeting at the Unisha Chattar Mukta Mancha in the town.

Two suspected criminals, including an underground party leader, were killed in the ‘crossfire’ of their associates and the police in Khulna and Naogaon early Wednesday.
   The deceased are identified as Dibakar alias Dipankar Sarkar, 35, of village Rangpur at Dumuria upazila in Khulna, and Jamiruddin alias Jamir, of village Chawktataru at sadar upazila in Naogaon.
   Informed of a meeting of an underground party, the police in Khulna launched an operation at village Rangpur.
   When they reached an enclosure in the area at about 2:00am, the criminals opened fire on the police.
   The policemen fired back. After the encounter, they found Dibakar lying wounded. His associates managed to get away.
   The police took him to Khulna Medical College Hospital where doctors declared him dead.
   The police recovered a foreign-made gun and two cartridges from the place.
   Dibakar was a suspected underground party leader and also second to the New Biplabi Communist Party leader, Shailen. He was wanted in four cases, including a murder, the police claimed.
   The police also claimed that Dibakar had been trying to reunite the New Biplabi gang after the recent police drive against crimes.
   In Naogaon, the police arrested the alleged bandit leader Jamiruddin alias Jamir at Hajirbagan at sadar upazila Tuesday afternoon.
   Based on his statement, the police, along with Jamir, went to an abandoned house near a primary school at Taratbari at about 3:00am Wednesday to arrest his associates.
   As they reached the place, Jamir’s associates opened fire, forcing the law enforcers to fire back.
   ‘Jamir was caught in the crossfire as he tried to get away and died on the spot,’ the police claimed.
   A pipe gun, a shutter gun, three bullets and eight sharp weapons were recovered from the place.
   The police claimed that Jamir had created a reign of terror in Naogaon, Jaipurhat and Rajshahi.
   An accused in four cases of robbery, he had been absconding, the police said.

A half-day strike was observed in the Galachipa municipal area in Patuakhali on Wednesday amid Section 144.
   The Nagarik Adhikar Committee, a group supported by the upazila unit BNP secretary, Abu Taleb Mia, also the municipal chairman, earlier called for a daylong strike.
   The group demanded a fresh schedule for the municipal election after an allegation of correction in voters’ lists and asked for the remo-val of fake, double-entry voters.
   They also condemned alleged vandalism and criminal activities of Tuesday which violated an order of the High Court.
   In another incident, the Galachipa upazila BNP president, Shahjahan Khan, also the official party candidate for the position of the municipal chairman, held a news briefing in his office Wednesday morning.
   At the briefing, Shahjahan announced the decision for expulsion of Abu Taleb Mia from the post of the secretary of the upazila BNP, accusing him of violating party constitution and discipline.
   He also accused KM Jahangir, the former minister and the local lawmaker, who is also a central leader of the Awami League, for instigating clashes between the factions of the BNP with the help of Abu Taleb.
   Abu Taleb denied all the allegations against him and rejected his expulsion, terming it beyond the jurisdiction of Shahjahan Khan.
   Jahangair and the Galachipa branch of Awami League denied any involvement in the internal feuds of the BNP.
   They alleged that Shahjahan Khan held the local people hostage and created a reign of terror with his activists.
   Section 144 was imposed in the municipal area at noon on Tuesday, as the two factions of the BNP clashed in the morning over the municipal elections scheduled for February 15.

A Metrolink commuter train struck a vehicle, derailed and sideswiped another train early Wednesday, killing nine people and at least 100 others, authorities said.
   Firefighters picked through twisted wreckage scattered across the tracks and carried wounded passengers from the trains to a triage centre set up in a nearby parking lot.
   ‘At this point in time we believe we have nine fatalities,’ Los Angeles fire chief, William Bamattre, told a news conference. More than 100 were transported to hospitals, he said.
   One commuter train was headed from Los Angeles’ Union Station to downtown Burbank, and the other was bound to Union Station from Moorpark, Metrolink officials said.
   ‘We rumbled and we just started to twist,’ Metrolink passenger Nelson Goyzueta told KNBC-TV. ‘We’re shell-shocked right now.’
   In a light rain, firefighters climbed ladders into windows of a battered train tipped onto its side, though it was unclear if there were any people trapped inside.
   Nearly 300 firefighters were at the scene in the suburb north of Los Angeles and 35 ambulances were taking injured passengers to hospitals, officials said.

Biman Bangladesh Airlines may send an aircraft to fly in the Maldives president, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, to Dhaka on February 5 when other South Asian leaders will also arrive to attend the 13th SAARC summit.
   ‘If the discussion is finalised one of Biman’s commercial flights might be diverted from Dubai to the Maldives to carry Gayum,’ the director general of external publicity wing of the foreign ministry, Zahirul Huq, told reporters on Wednesday.
   Such an arrangement is being taken because it takes a long time to travel from the Maldives to Dhaka in absence of any direct airline flight, he said.

The main opposition Awami League has decided to organise press conference once a week to brief on the country’s prevailing situation.
   ‘This weekly press conference will be held at the party president Sheikh Hasina’s Sudha Sadan residence to inform journalists about the Awami League’s stand on the prevailing situation, particularity political development’, Saber Hossain Chowdhury, political adviser to Hasina, said at an informal briefing on Wednesday.
   Saber alleged that the ruling party had swooped on opposition leaders and workers in Gopalganj ahead of a planned meeting of the BNP where Tarique Rahman is scheduled to address today.
   At least 32 activists of his party had been arrested in Gopalganj, he claimed.

The cabinet committee on purchase on Wednesday approved in principle the appointment of an Irish consultancy firm as advisory team for three years for restructuring the state-owned Janata Bank.
   The International Develop-ment Ireland was earlier selected for the Tk 30 crore project to bring the Janata Bank, one of the four nationalised commercial banks, to the point of privatisation before a stipulated deadline.
   A total of eight consultants will be employed in the lender-dictated project, called the ‘Bank modernisation and enterprise growth’ programme.
   ‘They will complete modernisation of the bank by effecting improvement in auditing, customer service and computerisation,’ the finance and planning minister, M Saifur Rahman, told journalists after the meeting at the Cabinet Division.
   The selection of the consultancy firm was also endorsed by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, which prescribed the wholesale banking sector reforms, especially privatisation of the NCBs.
   As part of the reforms, Saifur said the government would start the process of privatisation of the Rupali Bank next month.
   The IMF has reportedly deferred the release of $70 million instalment of a loan amounting to $500 million for the government’s failure to start the Rupali Bank’s disinvestment procedure.
   The disbursement of money under the IMF-dictated Poverty Reduction Growth Facility Programme depends on the government’s performance in executing reforms of the financial sector.

The prime minister, Khaleda Zia, on Wednesday urged North Korea to expand the existing bilateral relations particularly in the economic and business arena for the welfare of the people of the two countries.
   Her call came when the newly appointed ambassador of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to Bangladesh, Mun Song Mo, called on her at the Prime Minister’s Office.
   A North Korean delegation led by the vice-minister for trade will visit Bangladesh soon to explore the potentials of trade and investment, the envoy said.
   He informed the prime minister that the work on North Korea-aided Madhyapara Hard Rock Project would be completed by March and the hard rock mine would be commissioned in April.

Chaos reigned high on the rail-station in Sylhet Wednesday after the arrest of its manager following a dispute over booking train seats for a High Court judge.
   Angered by the arrest of the station manager, the employees went on the rampage, disrupting train service for three hours, witnesses and official sources said.
   The sources said Justice Mifta Uddin Chowdhury came to Sylhet to celebrate Eid on a tour programme issued by the HC deputy registrar, Dalil Uddin, on January 18, ‘without mentioning the number of necessary seats in the train.’
   Later, the Sylhet NDC office asked the station manager to reserve six VIP seats for the justice for his return to the capital.
   The judge, an inhabitant of Dirai upazila under Sunamganj, came to the rail-station at 3:00pm Wednesday for the return trip by the Parabat Express.
   When informed about the three VIP seats having been booked, he expressed his surprise and asked for allocating six sleeper seats on the Dhaka-bound Parabat Express.
   ‘As the station manager and station master tried to reseat some passengers for ensuring seats for the judge, some of them reacted and hurled insults.
   The judge later went to the circuit house and summoned the station manager.
   The station manager was taken to the police station at the directive of the judge,’ said a spot account.
   Paramilitary BDR personnel were called in to get to grips with the situation in the station area.