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The government has assured the International Monetary Fund that it will soon introduce merit-based salary structure in the civil service, linking pay with performance of public servants, according to sources in the finance ministry.
   The assurance comes after the multilateral lending agency, in a report, asked the government to develop a plan for reforms in the civil service and to align future pay hikes with its structural improvements.
   The report also stressed rationalisation of the size of the civil service, introduction of a systematic and transparent performance-evaluation procedure for merit-based salary increase and promotion, improve of recruitment procedures and minimisation of public expenditure, source in the finance ministry told New Age.
   The World Bank will provide assistance for the programme, styled ‘civil service reforms’, which aims at replacing duration of service with merit and performance as the criteria for promotion, the sources added.
   The chairman of the sixth pay commission, Mujibul Hoque, expressed serious reservation about the proposed reforms when talking to New Age on Tuesday.
   The reforms will trigger serious dissatisfaction in the bureaucracy, eventually resulting in deterioration in the quality of the civil service, said the former cabinet secretary.
   The finance and planning minister, M Saifur Rahman, has recently written to the IMF, conveying the government’s readiness to introduce a merit-based salary structure in the civil service.
   ‘Moreover, starting in FY06, the government will combine attrition with a selective hiring freeze to reduce employment while eliminating unnecessary and redundant posts,’ he wrote. ‘To ensure medium-term fiscal sustainability, we will work with the World Bank on a plan for civil service reform.’
   Saifur also laid out a four-point objective of the reforms. ‘Rationalising government employment; decompressing the pay scale; establishing a systematic and transparent performance evaluation procedure for merit-based salary increases and promotion; and introducing a tighter link between pay and performance.’
   The pay commission chairman said the term ‘merit-based salary system’ was borrowed. ‘To the best of my knowledge, no government in the world has the system.’
   He feared that ‘political consideration will get priority in the name of merit’ and said it was ‘impossible to introduce the system in the public sector’.
   Instead, he suggested, the government should redefine and make more comprehensive the criterion of performance for promotion.
   ‘Should there be reforms in the promotion system, it must be based on performance,’ agreed Mujibul, who was also a finance secretary. ‘However, to make the system work, we need strong supervision.’
   A high official in the finance ministry said the civil service reforms plan was a political decision. ‘It is actually a political decision, which still has the scope for exclusion or inclusion of any idea relating to reforms in the civil service.’
   Currently, the number of public employees is about eight lakh, including one lakh cadre-service officials.

The prime minister, Khaleda Zia, on Monday asked the law minister, Moudud Ahmed, to maintain a low profile over the presidential amnesty to a convicted killer.
   The instruction came as a government inquiry found that the law and the home ministries had played an instrumental role in expediting the presidential order.
   The presidential order has stirred a controversy and the parliamentary standing committee has questioned the role of both the ministries leading to the order. A member of the committee, Suranjit Sengupta, has also levelled allegation of foul play against the Prime Minister’s Office.
   However, the prime minister and the top brass of the government remain ‘convinced’ that the presidential amnesty of Mohiuddin Ahmed Jintu, a former Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal leader who was convicted in a double murder, was not unfair, a senior minister and member of Khaleda’s kitchen cabinet told New Age on Tuesday.
   Modudu on Tuesday filed a defamation suit against the Supreme Court Bar Association general secretary, Enayetur Rahim, for a remark that the law minister had negotiation with Jintu in Sweden for the amnesty.
   The government launched the inquiry on Saturday after Moudud had blamed the home ministry for facilitating the amnesty order during a meeting of the parliamentary committee on July 21.
   ‘The home ministry, which sought the opinion of the law ministry on the petition seeking the president’s mercy, did not mention the execution of two others convicted in the same crime in the summery note to the law ministry,’ Moudud told reporters after the meeting.
   The inquiry found that a Dhaka martial law court, in 1982, sentenced Jintu, along with two others, to death for murdering businessmen Abdul Khaleq Rana and Firoz Al Mamun of Demra in the capital.
   The then chief martial law administrator, HM Ershad, granted amnesty to another person, who was sentenced to jail by the same court for involvement in the murder.
   After evading arrest for more than two decades, Jintu surrendered to a Dhaka court in January and appealed to the president for mercy saying he had been implicated in the murder case on ‘political ground’ as he was a leader of Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal, student wing of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party.
   In his petition to the president, Jintu claimed to be the founder of the Sweden chapter of the BNP and said he had been despite not being named in the first information report of the case and the absence of an eyewitness against him.
   The home ministry sent a summery to the law ministry for legal opinion, echoing Jintu’s claims and suggesting that he was wrongly awarded the death penalty by the martial law court, against which there was no scope for appeal.
   The home ministry sent the summery, for the second time, to the law ministry as there were flaws in the latter’s reply, the senior minister said.
   Finally, Jintu was granted amnesty within 10 days of his surrender.

A Dhaka court on Tuesday issued a warrant of arrest against the general secretary of the Supreme Court Bar Association, Enayetur Rahim, as a result of a defamation case filed by the law minister, Moudud Ahmed, for allegedly making a ‘false
   statement’.
   The Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate, Mohammad Mizanur Rahman, fixed July 31 for next hearing of the case.
   The court also exempted Moudud from making a personal appearance before the court during hearing of the case.
   Appearing before the court, the law minister lodged the suit with the chief metropolitan magistrate’s court, saying Enayet had tarnished his reputation and lowered his dignity by making a false statement about him.
   Enayet issued a statement on Monday alleging that Moudud had managed presidential pardon for former leader of Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal Mohiuddin Ahmed Jintu, who was convicted and sentenced to death in a double murder case.
   In the statement, published in different dailies on Tuesday, Enayet claimed that when Moudud was in Sweden as a guest of Jintu, they had come to an understanding about pardon for the latter.
   In the complaint, stated before the court, Moudud said Enayet had made a totally false statement in order to tarnish his image.
   He told the court that he had visited Sweden only once during the tenure of this government. He was in Sweden from April 20 to April 24 on an official tour to attend an international conference in Stockholm, and Jintu was given presidential pardon in January.
   Such a statement involving him in the process of managing presidential clemency for Jintu is politically motivated and baseless, he said. ‘I did not know Jintu, I had not even heard his name earlier. In spite of being an educated person, the SCBAs secretary tarnished my reputation by making a false statement about me, which violates the professional ethics of a lawyer.’
   By making such a derogatory and false statement, Enayet has committed the criminal offence of defamation, which is punishable under the Penal Code, Moudud said in his complaint.
   The president of the Supreme Court Bar Association, Mahbubey Alam, told reporters on Tuesday that Moudud had filed the suit in order to divert the people’s attention from the main issue.
   Enayet told reporters that he had made the statement after obtaining full proof to substantiate his allegations. He said he would fight the legal battle.

There is no wrong in the presidential clemency for Mohiuddin Jintu and the president has done it by exercising his constitutional jurisdiction and applying his conscience, said the minister for law, justice and parliamentary affairs, Moudud Ahmed.
   The minister said this at a news briefing in the conference room of the Chittagong Hill Tracts affairs ministry on Tuesday.
   The issue of presidential clemency dominated the briefing, although it was arranged to explain the success of the alternative dispute resolution mechanism and the Financial Loan Court Act.
   The minister said, ‘There is no conflict between the law ministry and home ministry on the issue. Only some quarters are out to create a conflict.’
   The president gave the clemency by applying his wisdom based on a summary sent to him by the home ministry, he said.
   Jintu was a leader of Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal and was wrongly implicated in the double murder case. He was not named in the first information report of the case, Moudud said, adding that he was sentenced to death although there was no witness against him.
   A martial law court gave the ruling and there was no scope for appeal against the verdict, he said.
   The presidential clemency was not given on a political consideration, rather Jintu was implicated in the case and sentenced to death on political grounds, said the law minister.
   ‘A a lawyer and educated man, the secretary of the Supreme Court Bar Association, Enayetur Rahim, should have condemned the death penalty given by a martial law court, but unfortunately he has questioned the clemency,’ said the state minister for law, Shahjahan Omar.
   Describing the success of alternative dispute resolution, the law minister said 7,974 cases were disposed of in two years after the introduction of the mechanism by amending the Civil Procedures Act.
   The government amended the Civil Procedures Act and initiated the mechanism on February 2, 2003 to infuse dynamism into the judicial system. After that, 7,974 cases were disposed of, with 2,513 cases in the current year, Moudud said.
   He said the government realised default loans of Tk 2,359.89 crore out of a total of Tk 9416.74 crore in the period under the Financial Loan Court Act.
   Without the amendment, it would have been difficult to realise Tk 20 crore on average a year, the minister said.
   Law secretary Alauddin Sardar, public relations officer Parikshit Chowdhury and other senior ministry officials ministry were present.

Ask any sane person to identify the worst impediments holding up multi-dimensional development of the country for that matter, and you will invariably get a list: poverty along with disparity in distribution of the national wealth; illiteracy along with different systems of education for the rich and the poor; gender disparity, particularly in terms of social, political and economic empowerment of women; the non-functional parliamentary democracy and consequent lack of accountability of the Executive; and the increasing influence of religious fundamentalists on the political psyche of a growing number of people, etc.
   But the finance and planning minister of the government of the BNP-led four-party alliance, Saifur Rahman, has identified, on July 25, the local media to be the ‘worst enemy’ of the country for projecting ‘our negative image’.
   Media bashing has always been a favourite activity for Saifur Rahman, particularly when in power. He made similar comments only the other day.
   ‘Some 100 to 150 local newspapers are harming Bangladesh most. They are tarnishing the image of the country abroad by means of writing fictitious news stories every day,’ Saifur told a seminar on March 12 this year.
   Earlier, during another diatribe against the country’s media on August 27, 2003, the finance minister found the ‘media coverage of the incidents of murders and kidnaps’ ‘negative’ and called it a ‘nuisance’…‘rubbish’ for ‘we often get embarrassed by the foreign media when they ask us about this kind of negative news’.
   Saifur is not, however, the lone media basher in the government. Prominent among his comrades is the communications minister, Nazmul Huda, who publicly ‘wondered’ on October 21 last year as to ‘whether the journalists should be brought under the jurisdiction of the RAB (Rapid Action Battalion) for their information terrorism’. Notably, the RAB is presently accused of 119 extra-judicial murders of crime suspects.
   However, any media outfit committed to uphold the causes of the people can be left with no option but to keep the public informed adequately about, along with many other things, the deeds and misdeeds of the government leaders and functionaries. And the rulers’ annoyance with the democratic media is usually caused by the unveiling of the government’s failures to serve the democratic causes of the people. The ministers in general, and the finance minister in particular, have, therefore, reasons to get annoyed with the local media.
   The BNP-led four-party alliance, of which Saifur Rahman is a top-ranking leader, pledged before the last general elections in October 2001 that the political combine, if voted to power, would meaningfully address two very serious problems that the country was suffering from under the government of the Awami League: pervasive corruption and erosion of law and order.
   The people in general, and the electorate in particular, pinned their hopes on the alliance, understandably because they genuinely wanted to eradicate the corrupt practices of the political class, and thereby those of its bureaucratic accomplices, and thus, at the same time, shed the notorious international image of being the most ‘corrupt nation’ of the world — an infamy that the government of Awami League had earned for the country for the first time in 2001.
   Besides, the people desperately wanted to get law and order restored, which was being eroded every passing day under the Awami League regime, thanks to the government’s shameless patronisation of the party’s hoodlums across the country. The rest is known to everybody: The four-party alliance was voted to power, with the two-thirds majority in parliament.
   But the electorate, three and half a year after the assumption of power by the alliance, has genuine reasons to feel cheated. The country continued to appear as the ‘most corrupt nation’ in the global scenario every year under the four-party regime, while the extra-judicial murders by the law enforcing agencies, and that too in the name of restoring law and order, have become the order of the day. There is an additional menace — spiralling of the prices of essential commodities, which the government even refuses to recognise, let alone address.
   The extent of corruption under the present regime can be judged by the observations that an apparently frustrated finance and planning minister, Saifur Rahman, has recently made about the phenomenon. ‘Corruption has gripped every ministry of the government,’ admitted Saifur, who had consistently been protesting against the finding of the Berlin-based anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International that Bangladesh was the most corrupt nation of the world. Clearly, Saifur has given up. ‘There is no angel in any ministry…Corruption, more or less, is everywhere...I can name the ministries one by one, from education to communications, where corruption is pervasive,’ the minister reportedly said while replying to a question from an opposition lawmaker on July 5. The minister even admitted, obliquely though, that the ministries that he heads are also not free from corruption. ‘If I initiate action against the corrupt (tax) officials, the entire Revenue Division will become empty. I can’t do this as I have to run the office.’ The situation is horrendous, indeed.
   It is not Saifur Rahman alone who is talking about corruption. The ruling party MPs, serving bureaucrats and top businessmen, not to mention the political opponents of the ruling four-party alliance, are also publicly accusing each other of indulging in corruption.
   Some top bureaucrats and business leaders were seen, at a luncheon meeting of the American Chamber of Commerce in Bangladesh in the city on July 6, trading sharp verbal barrages on the extent of corruption that they are responsible for.
   The business leaders asserted that sections of government officials and employees hold a significant share of black money amassed by means of corrupt practices, while the senior government officials in reply argued that ‘it takes two to tango’.
   Only two days after the incident, some ministers and ruling party MPs were locked in a bitter quarrel at a meeting held in the capital to find out ways and means of ensuring development in 19 coastal districts.
   The ruling party MPs, particularly Shahjahan Omar, also the state minister for law, justice and parliamentary affairs, found the Water Development Board to be a ‘demon’, the officials of which ‘were eating up all the [development] money and delivering nothing to the people’. The MPs were demanding an ‘authoritative supervisory’ role for themselves in the implementation of the development programmes in the coastal region, covering 147 upazilas with nearly 3.5 crore people.
   While defending the WDB officials, an establishment under the ministry of water resources, the minister concerned, Hafizuddin Ahmed, reminded his fellow MPs of the ‘need to see our own faces in the mirror’. ‘No section is free of corruption, and corruption starts from the top,’ the minister said, pointing out that the ‘intervention of influential quarters’ stand in the way of ‘fair tender process to award development works’. One does not need to be a big pundit to understand that the ‘influential quarters’, mentioned by the minister, belong to the top rung of the political combine now ruling the country, which, again, explains the alarming trend of enormous wealth being concentrated in the hands of a few having access to the corridors of power.
   As regards the ruling alliance’s electoral pledge to ensure law and order, the government frequently claims successes, a claim that it bases on the extra-judicial murders of a good number of notorious crime suspects by the armed law enforcing agencies like RAB, Cheetah, Cobra, etc.
   The thinking section of the society has hardly any reason to believe that the extra-judicial elimination of some hardened criminals will eventually solve the law and order problem, particularly in the absence of genuine governmental commitment and subsequent programmes to effectively address problems like unemployment, glaring economic disparity, political patronisation of hooliganism, etc that perpetually produce and reproduce criminals across the country. The proposition seems quite correct from a recent New Age report that ‘a new generation of criminals has emerged and is out to fill the void created after the elimination of hardened and identified criminals or their escape from the capital because of frequent arrests and fatal crossfire incidents’, or from a recent Manavjamin report that the RAB has prepared a list of 927 persons, including teenagers, who are allegedly involved in various crimes like murder, extortion, drug peddling and arms smuggling.
   Clearly, the governmental claim of success in containing violent crimes is nothing but a bubble, which will burst any time. The government’s programme of extra-judicial murders of crime suspects has rather added a new dimension to the violent crimes — violence committed illegally by the law enforcing agencies, to which have fallen victim a good number of proven innocents so far.
   Worst of all, the government seems to be least bothered about the fact that arbitrary elimination of crime suspects, without observing the democratically required legal procedures, gives credence to the propaganda at home and abroad that Bangladesh is a failed state — a state incapable of taking care of crime suspects within the framework of its criminal justice delivery system. Saifur Rahman, zealously trying to prove the journalists to be the country’s worst enemies, does not seem to be aware of the dangerous disservice that the government is rendering to the country by way of sponsoring extra-judicial murders of the crime suspects.
   In addition to the failure to fulfil the electoral pledge of combating corruption and containing crime, the incumbents have burdened the people with another affliction, that of soaring prices of essential commodities — a cruel reality for the millions of people that the government even refuses to recognise, let alone address.
   Prime Minister Khaleda Zia claimed in the parliament on July 9 that there has been no significant increase in the prices of the essential commodities in the first place, and accused ‘some newspapers’ of ‘making exaggerated’ reports on the price situation ‘for nothing’.
   But the next day, on July 11, came out the government report on retail prices of different essential commodities, which showed that the prices of different varieties of rice — fine, medium and coarse — varied from 4.5 to 5 per cent in a month and from 17.5 to 19 per cent in a year.
   The report, prepared by the Trading Corporation of Bangladesh and the Department of Agricultural Extension, categorically said that the present retail prices of the fine varieties rice are Tk 22-25, of medium variety Tk 19-21 and coarse Tk 16.50-18 — the prices were Tk 21-24, Tk 18-20 and Tk 16-17 a month ago, and Tk 19-21, Tk 16-18 and Tk 14-15 a year before.
   The same report showed that the percentage of monthly price hikes for essentials like green chilli, onion, egg, hilsa, garlic, potato, red lentil, salt and sugar are 214.29, 25, 15.38, 15.15, 12.36, 11.76, 7.77, 4.34 and 2.90 respectively. The percentage of annual price increase was 120 for green chilli, 9.37 for onion, 3.13 for eggs, 18.75 for hilsa fish, 66.67 for garlic, 18.19 for red lentil, 16.39 for sugar and 9.09 for salt.
   Besides, another government department, the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, found that the price hike of essentials has increased the core inflation rate in the month of May this year.
   Price hike of food, fuel, and increase in house rent and transport costs have pushed the point-to-point inflation rate up to 6.9 per cent in May, up by 0.3 percentage point from April, according to the BBS’s statistics. The inflation rate, calculated on consumer price index (base: 1995-96 = 100), was 5.62 per cent in the same period a year back.
   The BBS’s data shows that the food inflation (point-to-point) rate rose to 8.26 per cent while non-food inflation rate remained stable at 4.44 per cent in the month of May. But the prime minister ignored the data processed by her own government, and accused ‘some newspapers’ of ‘making exaggerated’ reports on the price situation ‘for nothing’.
   Many a respected citizen found the prime ministerial assessment of the price situation ‘really perplexing’, because, as they reportedly told various media outfits, her comments proved that the government was not at all aware of the price hike of the essentials adversely affecting the common people, and therefore there would be no comprehensive government strategy to mitigate the sufferings of people.
   But a recent development, again reported by the local media, proves that the government is actually quite aware of the situation arising out of the price hikes, and it is quick to address the problem, when it comes to the prime minister, ministers, state ministers, deputy ministers and members of parliament: the government has already prepared draft bills, seeking a substantial amount of increase in their salaries and remunerations in the wake of the soaring price of consumer goods. The bills are ready to get approved in the next cabinet meeting, and are expected to be adopted by parliament during its next session.
   Understandably, people like Saifur Rahman do not like the media to report such hypocrisy of the political power pirates, but the media knows that refraining from exposing this government’s failures is rather tantamount to betraying the country and acting as its enemy.

People residing in the villages around the Tengratila gas-field believe that the recurring blow-outs at the site were perpetrated intentionally by the foreigners.
   ‘They simply came to destroy our resources and are doing it effectively with the support of the uparwallahs,’ said Mokhles, a shopkeeper at Tengratila marketplace, pointing at an engineer of Niko Resources.
   He asserted that if the company did not have the support of the high-ups, it could not have stayed on after the January 7 blow-out. And even after the second blow-out on June 24 it has been allowed to go on operating the gas-field, he said.
   A local field-level employee of Niko Resources, wearing an orange helmet, echoed Mokhles, but when he was approached to elaborate on his opinion, he left the place, saying, ‘Talking to you might cost me my job’.
   An elderly villager, Azmatullah, who saw the drilling by the Burma Oil Company at this site in the 1950s, said those engineers had much more expertise than these people. ‘They did drilling in an open space and no accident occurred, but this company made a mistake in its first attempt.’
   The old man said that for unknown reasons the government closed down the gas-field and it was given to this company a few years back.
   ‘I heard the company had Indian investors and most of the engineers are Indian too, and they are responsible for the explosion,’ he said.
   Everyone in the villages believes that recurrence of the blow-outs was the result of an international conspiracy.
   ‘It must be a conspiracy, otherwise similar accidents cannot take place one after another,’ said Azmatullah.
   Hazrat Ali, a former member of the local Union Council, elaborated on the local people’s thoughts.
   ‘All here believe that there are sub-surface connections between the gas-fields in Bangladesh and India, and if Bangladesh pumps out the gas from the local fields the gases of the Indian fields will come down and fill the fields of Bangladesh,’ he said.
   ‘So the Indians have engaged the company to make the field inoperable,’ he said. Most of the people present there agreed with him.
   Whenever a foreigner comes out of the project site, he has to face abusive remarks from the locals.
   ‘They’re lucky as they don’t know Bangla. Had they known the language it would have become tough for them to live here,’ said Mokhles.
   Another local, Habib, who lives by rowing boats or driving auto-rickshaws, tried to prove the truth of their suspicion. ‘Brother, if they were not responsible for the accidents, why did they flee after both the blow-outs?’ When the first blow-out took place, no siren blew nor was any cautionary notice issued, and all the foreigners left the place. ‘They knew what was going on,’ he added.
   Habib, who seemed to have had some schooling, was certain that the company had ‘managed’ the high-ups of the country.
   ‘If our suspicion was not true, we would have ministers or opposition leaders coming to see what is going on here,’ he said. ‘Only the energy adviser and some local lawmakers came here and met the company officials.’
   The lawmakers tried to contact the local people but the senior officials simply avoided them, said the villagers.
   Security personnel, including armed police, have been deployed in the area, and the locals think they have been stationed there for protecting the foreigners.

The political parties, mostly unfamiliar, were divided over the Election Commission’s proposal for preparing a fresh voters’ roll before the next general elections as the commission began its three-day dialogue on the issue.
   The representatives of 38 political parties attended the dialogue on the first day with the chief election commissioner, MA Aziz, in the chair, but they apparently failed to make any distinction between the revision of the existing voters’ roll and the preparation of a fresh roll.
   Among the political parties that attended Tuesday’s dialogue, 20 parties suggested for revising the existing voters’ roll and 17 suggested for a fresh role. Only one party refrained from giving its opinion.
   Sixty-nine political parties were invited on the first day to give their views, but 31 political parties did not turn up.
   The chief election commissioner, however, was happy with the dialogue on the first day and said that the success of the dialogue would depend on the meetings in the next couple of days.
   He said his dialogue process would not be hampered even if the Awami League refused to join the meeting.
   ‘The number of major parties is four — BNP, Awami League, Jamaat-e-Islami and Jatiya Party (Ershad). If three of them attend the dialogue, ‘it is unlikely that the dialogue will be meaningless,’ he said.
   He, however, said he was still hopeful of the Awami League’s joining the dialogue.
   Replying to a question, Aziz also raised a question about the representation of the main opposition in the parliament. ‘Although the Awami League is the main opposition party in the parliament, how many constituencies does it represent in the parliament?’ he said.
   The Election Commission invited 114 political parties for the dialogue, but the main opposition party in the parliament, the Awami League, and its allies, earlier turned down the commission’s call for joining the dialogue.
   For today’s dialogue, the commission has kept a slot for the Awami League in the morning, for the Jatiya Party (Ershad) at noon, and for the 11-Party Alliance and other left parties in the afternoon.
   MA Aziz opened the dialogue at 10:00am on Tuesday in the hall room of the Election Commission Secretariat, welcoming the participants.
   Aziz said, ‘The existing electoral laws do not allow the commission to prepare a new voters’ list. But some quarters made a demand for a fresh voter list. So we are holding the dialogue and the commission will assimilate the views of the parties.’
   Taking part in the discussion, most participants talked about issues including how to strengthen the Election Commission digressing from the issues of voters’ roll, but the chief election commissioner and two other commissioners –– MM Munsef Ali and KM Mohammad Ali –– often stopped them asking the speakers to stick to the point of discussion.
   The parties that suggested for the revision of the voter roll are the Bangladesh Jatiyatabadi Awami League, Liberal Democratic Party, Freedom Party, Bangladesh Jatiya People’s Party, Bangladesh Bastuhara Party, National Patriotic Party, United Peoples Party, Tafsili Jati Federation, Liberal Party Bangladesh, Jatiya Daridra Party, National Awami Party (Mushtak), Bangladesh Krishak Sramik Mukti Andolan, Bangladesh Republican Party, Forward Party, Jatiya Biplabi Front, Bangladesh Muslim League (Yousuf), Bangladesh Islami Biplabi Andolan, Bangladesh Sramik Oikya Jote, Bangladesh Islamic Party and Bangladesh Khelafat Andolan,
   The parties that suggested for a fresh voters’ list are Bangladesh Liberal Democratic Party, Sushil Samaj Karmi, Bangladesh Sarbahara Party, Bangladesh National Congress, National Democratic Party, Progressive Party, Jatiya Party (Manju), Bangladesh Krishak Sramik Awami League, National Awami Party (Bhasani), Samriddha Bangladesh Andolan, Bangladesh Muslim League (Jamir Ali), Bangladesh People’s Party, Bangladesh Nejam-e-Islam (Rashid), Bangladesh Nejam-e-Islam (Latif), Bangladesh Islami Front, Bangladesh Muslim League and the Islamic Constitution Movement.
   The general secretary of a faction of Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal (Rab), Abdul Malek Ratan, attended the dialogue, but walked out of the meeting as he was not allowed to talk on any issues other than the voters’ roll.
   As per the schedule, the Jatiya Party representatives, led by its secretary general Sheikh Shahidul Islam, reached the Election Commission Secretariat at 10:00am, but declined to sit with the unfamiliar political parties.
   The commission, however, talked to the Jatiya Party representatives separately.

The Awami League on Tuesday came down heavily on the chief election commissioner, MA Aziz, for his remark on the party for not taking part in his dialogue with the political parties on preparing the voter list.
   The party leaders at its meeting with the acting president, Zillur Rahman, in the chair, condemned the chief election commissioner saying that it was unexpected from a person holding a constitutional post.
   His remark that ‘the dialogue will not wait for anyone even if the main opposition party does not take part’ proves his partisan mentality, the AL leaders said.
   The meeting also decided to not take part in the dialogue terming its ‘meaningless’.
   The AL leaders said it was a routine work of the Election Commission to prepare a voter list and holding talks on the issue was unnecessary.
   The meeting held at the party chief’s Dhanmondi office in the afternoon also decided to hold demonstrations and rallies across the country on July 30 in protest against the price hike of essential.
   Presidium members Abdur Razzak, Tofail Ahmed, Suranjit Sengupta and Sheikh Fazlul Karim Selim were present in the meeting.

Hundreds of thousands of Muslims may be considering leaving Britain in fear of an anti-Muslim backlash in the wake of the July 7 London bombings, a new survey has revealed.
   Nearly 63 per cent of British Muslims polled said they had considered whether they want to continue living in the United Kingdom, with the over-35 age-group feeling much more vulnerable about their future than their younger counterparts, in a Guardian-ICM survey published on Tuesday.
   Britain’s Muslim population is estimated at 1.6 million, which means more than half a million may be considering leaving.
   Fears of racial attacks also seems to be snowballing as the news spreads that one in five Muslims surveyed say either they or a family member has suffered hostility or racial abuse since the attacks.
   While the British authorities claim that there have been 1,200 incidents of Islamophobia since the bombings, the new poll implies that the figure could be much higher in reality.
   Community leaders among Bangladeshi Muslims in the UK have, however, rubbished these poll results calling them ‘exaggerated’ and ‘unrepresentative’.
   ‘Bangladeshi Muslims are scared but the way the British police and other authorities have handled the isolated incidents of Islamophobia has reassured us greatly,’ said Dr Md Abdul Bari, a leader of the Muslim Council of Britain.
   According to Bari, who also chairs the East London Mosque in London’s Banglatown, Bangladeshi Muslims have not expressed any of the sentiments that the Guardian-ICM poll claims Muslims feel.
   ‘I have just returned from a meeting with [London] Mayor Ken Livingstone, and he reassured me that every incident of Islamophobia — no matter at the workplace or on the street — will be dealt with, with a strong hand,’ he said.
   Bari, however, admits that the number of unreported acts of religious hatred could be quite high.
   Raden Siddiqui, 25, a Bangladeshi student who lives in London’s Islington area, says it has been business as usual for him and his Bangladeshi friends within a few days since the London bombings.
   ‘No Bangladeshi Muslim I know has seriously thought about going back because of Islamophobia,’ he told New Age. ‘It is true that I am thinking about buying a car but that’s because I think it’s unsafe to ride the tube or buses,’ he said.
   Bangladeshi restaurateurs in London say Brick Lane, which is famous for its Bangladeshi restaurants, is already approaching normality and few people among them are scared of attacks.
   ‘Why should we be scared that they killed some Pakistani man in Leeds,’ said Ripon, manager of a Brick Lane restaurant. ‘We demolished hundreds of temples after they [Hindu nationalists] broke the Babri Mosque in India. By comparison the British are saints — they don’t even say two harsh words when we walk past them on the street.’
   He blamed the Bangladeshi media of being alarmist and exaggerating the anti-Muslim backlash that the community is experiencing.
   British-born Muslims are suspected to have set off the four bombs set off in London on July 7 killing over 50 people and wounding more than 700. Nearly eight in 10 Muslims believe Britain’s role in Iraq’s invasion was a factor leading to the bombings.

Nepal’s anti-graft commission on Tuesday sentenced former prime minister Sher Bahadur Deuba to two years in prison for corruption over a road contract, officials said.
   Deuba, who said he would challenge the verdict, was sacked as prime minister in February when King Gyanendra seized power to combat a Maoist rebellion that has claimed around 12,000 lives since 1996.
   He was arrested in late April on two corruption charges levelled by the powerful anti-graft commission established by Gyanendra, but cleared in June of one.
   Tuesday’s conviction was linked to the granting of a contract in a road building scheme which formed part of the 464-million dollar Malachi Water Project to supply drinking water to the parched capital.
   Enraged by the verdict, supporters of Deuba demonstrated in front of the Royal Commission for Corruption Control’s office in Kathmandu, witnesses said.
   The gathering was broken up by riot police, who waded in with batons, injuring at least 12 people, a witness said.
   Former public works minister Prakash Man Singh was also jailed for two years after being convicted on the same charge. The two men were also each given hefty fines.
   ‘The two have been sentenced to two years in prison and a fine of 90 million rupees ($1.26 million) each for their involvement in corruption,’ commission chairman Bhakta Bahadur Koirala said.
   ‘Four others charged in the same case—the contractor, engineer, former secretary and director of the Malachi Water Project—have been sentenced to one to two years in prison and fined 22 million rupees to 90 million rupees,’ the official said.
   ‘They had given a contract to the private company which had insufficient working capital which did not pass the pre-qualification test as well,’ he added.
   Deuba, who claimed the charges were part of ‘character assassination’ by the royalist government set up after the king seized power, remained silent when the verdict and sentence was read out, witnesses said.
   He later proclaimed his innocence and said all he had done was try to provide drinking water to the people of Kathmandu.
   ‘We do not accept the verdict and will challenge and fight against it. Now we will discuss the next step to be taken with the political parties,’ he told reporters, referring to seven political groups who have formed an alliance since Gyanendra’s takeover.
   Singh said he and the others were targeted because they opposed the king’s takeover.
   ‘The verdict was given to those who have opposed the February 1 move of the king,’ he said. ‘It is also a political vendetta against the political parties who had launched a (anti-royalist) movement ... It’s a move to punish them. We have been framed under fictitious charges.’
   Deuba had refused to testify before the commission, which Gyanendra said he had set up to fight corruption which is rife in the impoverished nation.
   Deuba is the most senior politician to be jailed by the body which has sweeping powers of arrest and punishment.

Taka weakened further against the US dollar on Tuesday as the greenback gained by Tk 0.05 on the inter-bank foreign exchange market.
   On the inter-bank market, the exchange rate was quoted at Tk 64.95–Tk 64.25 a dollar against Tk 64.90–64.20 the previous day.
   The nationalised commercial banks quoted Tk 64.55–64.25 against Tk 64.45–64.20 on Monday. But most private and foreign banks traded dollar at Tk 64.95.
   For importers, the exchange rate of dollar rose by Tk 0.20 over the previous day. The importers had to pay Tk 66.70 against Tk 66.50 a day earlier to open letters of credit.
   Market sources said the demand for dollar remained acute on the day because of supply shortage.
   The Bangladesh Foreign Exchange Dealers’ Association at a meeting on Tuesday decided to set guidelines for fund management on the foreign exchange market.
   Presided by the association chairman, Muhammad Tahmilur Rahman, also managing director of the state-owned Sonali Bank, the mee- ting observed that the present situation was due to ineffi- cient management of the banks.
   The meeting decided to set the guidelines in 10 days to streamline the operational activities of the commercial banks.
   The guidelines will be made to ensure so that no fund manager can play deceitfully to create artificial crisis on the market, the sources said.
   The association felt that the crisis has eased at present from the level it was a couple of months ago.
   But the pressure on exchange rate would continue as long as import demand is not contained to reduce the trade gap, the meeting sources said.

The foreign minister, Morshed Khan, on Tuesday apparently lashed at a reported move by the ‘Tuesday Group’ of western diplomats for holding an election seminar in Dhaka and categorically said Bangladesh constitution could not be changed following demand of any other country.
   ‘Foreign diplomats cannot bargain with a government like trade union. Diplomacy is no CBA job. No diplomatic norms allow a country to change the constitution of another country,’ he told reporters when his comments were sought on the Group’s planned election seminar here, likely in December.
   Morshed Khan said: ‘I don’t know about the Tuesday Group and its terms of reference, and don’t know about the contents of their discussion.
   I’ve seen in newspapers that they are planning a seminar here.’
   However, he categorically said a constitutional change could not be demanded by any diplomatic club or any country. ‘Bangladesh will run in accordance with its own constitution,’ he said, adding if any change required that would be done by elected repre- sentatives in parliament, reflecting the wishes of the people.
   ‘We value democracy, but it must be within democratic norms,’ he said and suggested that the opposition’s caretaker-government reform proposals could effectively be discussed in parliament.
   Describing foreign diplomats here as friends of Bangladesh, the foreign minister said if there were anything diplomatic or political issues with any foreign country that could be discussed bilaterally at the foreign ministry which is
   the only channel for interactions.
   He said the Election Commission would allow and invite election observers during the time of elections.
   Asked about a report of US president George Bush’s visit to Bangladesh, the foreign minister said he was not aware of it.
   He also does not know about the US president’s visit to India or Pakistan.
   About the replacement of the Bangladesh High Commi- ssioner to London, Mofazzal Karim, he said any such instruction was not issued from the foreign ministry.
   He does not know about the change.

The police expect a government decision on a proposal to sue the recently held activists of the banned Jagrata Muslim Janata for activities subversive of the state soon, say sources in the local police administration.
   The police have sought permission from the home ministry and the magistracy to bring sedition charges against 11 suspected activists of Jagrata Muslim Janata, who were arrested at Puthiapara of Paba in the Rajshahi city on July 18 during militancy training. The arrested were sent to the capital to be interrogated by the joint interrogation cell. They were produced in the court on July 25 with a plea for bail. The court, however, rejected the prayer and ordered them to be sent to jail. The JMJ activists are reported to have revealed some crucial information on their programmes during interrogation, said the investigation officer of the case.
   Enamul, one of the 11, was a close associate of Bangla Bhai and used to accompany the self-proclaimed leader of the militant organisation wherever he went, said a police official. The superintendent of the Rajshahi police, Abdullah Al Mahmud, confirmed that sedition charges would be brought against the JMJ activists. ‘We have written to the home ministry for approval and will file the case when we receive the approval.’
   The police sources said the charges could be framed tomorrow.

Twelve most popular juice brands failed to conform to the Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institution regulations in recent laboratory tests.
   The Consumers’ Association of Bangladesh, presenting three reports, at a briefing on Tuesday said all such brands also pose threat to public health.
   The association placed three reports prepared by the standards institution, International Centre for Diarrhoeal Diseases Research, Bangladesh and the laboratory of the Dhaka City Corporation.
   The association submitted samples of 12 brands of fruit juice for tests on May 23 and it came up with the results on July 11.
   The association also submitted the same samples to the ICDDR,B and the city corporation laboratory.
   The samples included mango and orange juice of Acme Aggrovet and Beverage, mango juice of Partex Bangladesh, mango juice of BRAC Dairy and Food Products, orange fruit drink, mango and orange juice of Abul Khair Condensed Milk and Beverage, Shezan marketed by Hashem Food, mango juice of Sinha Food Products and orange fruit drink of Pran Agriculture Marketing Company.
   The ICDDR,B and corporation reports contradicted the BSTI reports.
   The BSTI report says of the 12 brands, two brands — orange juice brands of Abul Khair Condensed Milk and Acme — were manufactured entirely with chemical flavours. But the ICDDR,B and city corporation reports said 97 per cent of the juice was manufactured without any natural fruit juice.
   Eight brands failed to conform to the BSTI requirements. ‘Surprisingly, all except one brand, have the BSTI approval mark,’ said Kazi Faruq, the association president.
   Acme used exceeding amount of preservative, sulphur dioxide, which may lead to asthma, said ABM Faruk, pharmaceutical technology teacher of the University of Dhaka.
   He said the manufacturers used artificial colours, which could eventually damage kidney and liver.
   The association also conducted a survey on powdered spices of 17 brands and found that the BSTI regulations were widely violated.
   It is mandatory that manufacturers of any products must carry the name of the product, name and address of the manufacturer and also of the importer, weight, ingredients and manufacturing and expiry date.
   But 58.34 per cent of the products did not carry the ingredient ratio while 41.66 per cent did not mention the name and address of the manufacturer.
   It also found that none of the packets printed the methods of use and preservation and 25 per cent did not carry the manufacturing date.
   But 23.52 per cent of the packets, which printed manufacturing date, avoided mentioning the expiry date.

Southeast Asian foreign ministers announced Tuesday that military-ruled Myanmar had given up the 2006 chairmanship of the ASEAN group, ending a months-long row that had divided the organisation.
   Myanmar had asked to defer its chairmanship so it could focus on its programme of democratic reform in a ‘critical year’ for the process, the ministers said in a statement.
   ‘We have agreed that once Myanmar is ready to take its turn to be the chair, it can do so,’ they said in a statement read to reporters by Lao foreign minister Somsavat Lengsavat.
   The 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations had been under pressure to deny Myanmar the alphabetically rotated position to spare the grouping criticism from the West, which is highly critical of the ruling junta.
   The United States and the European Union had threatened to boycott ASEAN meetings if Myanmar, which is holding democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest, had taken the helm. The Philippines is ready to take the chairmanship of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in 2006 after Myanmar stepped aside, the foreign secretary, Alberto Romulo, said Tuesday.
   ‘The Philippines understands and fully supports the decision of Myanmar to relinquish its turn to be the chair of ASEAN in 2006,’ Romulo said in a statement issued in Manila.
   ‘The Philippines is prepared to assume the chairmanship of ASEAN, after the term of Malaysia, in 2006,’ Romulo said, adding that with the cooperation of the other members, ‘I am confident in the success of our chairmanship of ASEAN.’
   Meanwhile, the European Union welcomed Myanmar’s agreement on Tuesday not to chair ASEAN next year, defusing a standoff that had seen the EU and US threaten to boycott the group’s meetings.
   But the 25-nation bloc said the move, which means that Myanmar’s internationally condemned rulers will not chair the southeast Asia group before 2007, would not change its policy on the military junta.

Discovery blasted off Tuesday for the first US shuttle mission since the Columbia disaster in February, 2003 which forced the United States to completely rethink its space programme.
   Thirteen days after calling off a previous attempt to get the shuttle back in orbit because of a fuel gauge problem, Discovery lifted off into clear blue skies at the Kennedy Space Center at 10:39am (1439 GMT).
   ‘It is time for you to return to flight. Godspeed and we will see you in a couple of weeks,’ said a NASA mission control manager to the crew just before the engines were ignited.
   It was an emotional moment for the NASA experts and managers who watched horrified as Columbia broke up in flames as it re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere on February 29, 2003, killing all seven crew.
   Discovery jettisoned its ascent motors two minutes after liftoff as planned and then headed into orbit at 4,500 miles (7,200 kilometers) an hour. NASA called it a perfect launch.
   The shuttle and its seven crew, including a Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi, will spend 12 days in space to link up with the International Space Station (ISS).
   During the 12-day mission, the crew will deliver supplies and equipment to the ISS.
   Noguchi and other members of the crew will also carry out space walks to test some of the new measures introduced after the Columbia tragedy which was blamed on a small piece of insulation foam that broke off after liftoff and struck the orbiter’s left wing. It caused a crack that allowed superheated gases to penetrate the structure just minutes before the planned landing.

Investigators have identified a suicide bomber in the weekend attacks that killed scores in this Red Sea resort, saying he was an Egyptian with Islamic militant ties, security officials said Tuesday as investigators questioned dozens more people.
   The bomber who was identified carried out the devastating truck bomb attack on the Ghazala Gardens Hotel. DNA tests identified him as Youssef Badran, an Egyptian Sinai resident with ties to Islamic militants, the officials said on condition of anonymity because the release of the details had not been authorised.
   Police held members of Badran’s family for questioning and were trying to determine his associates, the officials said. Across Sinai, security forces took in 70 people for questioning Tuesday, bringing to 140 the number held since Saturday’s pre-dawn blasts.
   Also on Tuesday, an Egyptian diplomat said Pakistanis were not involved in the bombings, despite police circulating photographs of five Pakistani men a day earlier.
   Two blasts rocked the popular Naama Bay tourist strip, including the suicide truck bomb attack at the hotel. Two miles away, a third truck bomb ravaged an area called the Old Market, which is popular with Egyptians.

In the name of establishing Adarshagram to rehabilitate the so-called landless people, 65 Santal families have been evicted from their homesteads at remote Baradal village in Parbatipur upazila of the district.
   The inhuman incident took place within few days of the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the historic Santal revolt (Santal Hul) in the country.
   The evicted 65 Adivasi Santal families have been living in the 9-acre khas land for long.
   However, the local administration claimed that only two Adivasi families had been evicted. The other 16 families are Bangalee.
   Being evicted by the ‘deceitful’ and ‘anarchic’ decision of the government, the poor day-labourer Santal farmers are now passing their days under the open sky with their families. ‘Where will we go now, what will we eat?’ questioned the wailing marginalised people.
   Adivasi male members of Baradal have fled their homes in fear of police harassment as 11 people have been sued and GD filed against 22 others. Half-fed and starved Santal women are guarding their dismantled homesteads.
   Wiping out her eyes, Shanti Hajra, 35, narrated to the news agency how their houses built over decades were demolished. She said, two trucks of the police along with stick-wielding hoodlums attacked the village on July 22 at 12noon. She said, they flattened 20-30-year-old mud houses with shovels. They also felled all the trees of the village.
   ‘Sir, we have left with nothing now, our only destiny is our death,’ said 60-year-old woman Suki Tudu.
   Santal leader Allbert Saren said, ‘We Adivasis had fought for the country’s independence sacrificing our lives but the eviction drive without any prior notice proved that we are alien in our independent country.’
   The Adivasi Forum general secretary and renowned Adivasi writer, Sanjib Drang, after a visit to the affected area said, ‘Such kind of torture on Adivasis cannot be tolerated.’
   He said, ‘It is a high time that indigenous people should revolt against all kinds of repression.’
   The deputy commissioner, Surut Zaman, outright denied the allegation of evicting the 65 Santal families.
   He said, only 18 illegal grabbers had been evicted under the ‘Adarshagram Project’ of 1999. Of them, only two families belong to Santal community. A certain quarter is trying to give it a political colour, he alleged.

The state minister for power, Iqbal Hasan Mahmood, regretted on Tuesday that the South Asian power grid could not be installed for ensuring a reserve of 100,000 megawatt of power in the region even years after the plan.
   ‘For years, we have been sitting on the potential for forming a regional grid of about 100,000MW of hydroelectricity which could be generated in Nepal, Bhutan, and the Indian state of Assam,’ said Mahmood while inaugurating a three-day workshop for the energy reporters of South Asian countries at the Hotel Sheraton.
   Issues relating setting up the South Asian power grid came up for discussion at early 90’s and Bangladesh proposed for the grid after the summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation at New Delhi in 1995.
   Nepal has a potential of producing about 43,000MW of hydroelectricity, Bhutan 30,000MW, and Assam over 10,000MW. Bangladesh has also natural gas reserve to produce power.
   India, however, has not shown much interest in the installation of the grid as it has bilateral arrangements on power with Nepal and Bhutan.
   ‘It is unfortunate that no high level official talks, including the ministerial level ones, could be held over the years on the power grid. Only junior officials held few meetings without much success,’ Mahmood said.
   ‘We can still explore the potentiality of the regional power grid region which will supply the countries electricity at cheap rate,’ he hoped.
   Referring the common power pool in North American and European countries, the minister said, ‘We should take it seriously. Time has come to share the electricity.’
   Mahmood informed that power ministers from the SAARC countries will meet in Islamabad from September 29 to October 1 to formulate recommendations for the SAARC summit to be held in Dhaka in November. ‘Issues on the regional power grid would be discussed elaborately in the summit,’ he said.
   The energy and mineral resources division adviser, Mahmudur Rahman, also stressed on the potentiality of hydroelectricity in the region. He said in the coming days, those countries would compete hard which would have energy security.
   In reply to the question of one of the Indian reporters, Mahmud said Dhaka was waiting for the response of India regarding to the tri-nation gas pipeline from Myanmar to India through Bangladesh.
   ‘India and Myanmar held bilateral meeting for setting up the pipeline bypassing Bangladesh. If India thinks the pipeline bypassing Bangladesh will be economically viable they can set up the pipeline.’
   ‘If India thinks the pipeline through Bangladesh will be more viable they will come to us. We are ready for negotiation. India has to inform us what they want,’ he said.
   Journalists from Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka are taking part in the workshop conducted by the US Energy Association, and sponsored by the US Agency for International Development and the South Asia Regional Initiative for Energy.

A local leader of the Bangladesh Jatiya Party, Shahadat Sardar, 42, also union council member, was bombed to death and two were injured Monday night near the Eastern Jute Mills at Atra-Gilatala in the Khulna city.
   Shahadat, a resident of Maishali, was a Ward 1 union council member. The injured are Habib and Zakir.
   The local people and the police said assailants hurled two bombs at Shahadat at about 10:30 pm when the three were chatting at a tea-stall.
   Shahatat, wounded in the head, was taken to Phultala Health Complex and was moved to Khulna Surgical Clinic. The clinic referred him to Dhaka and he died on his way, the police said.
   Zakir and Habib were also injured, the sources said. But they were discharged after treatment.
   The police said Shahadat’s body was handed over to his family Tuesday noon after a post-mortem examination at the Khulna Medical College Hospital morgue.

The Communist Party of Bangladesh and the 11-Party Alliance on Tuesday urged each other to go back to the politics they had done jointly earlier.
   The CPB, a breakaway component of the 11-Party Alliance, at its national council meeting called upon the seven partners of the alliance to come back to the politics based on the spirit of the alliance.
   The CBP claimed that the alliance was formed in 1998 to strengthen the organisational activities of the left democratic forces faraway the politics of the two major political parties, BNP and Awami League.
   On the other hand, the coordinator of the 11-Party Alliance, Bimal Biswas, at a protest rally at Muktangan urged the leaders and activists of the CPB to join the activities of the alliance, saying it was heading towards right path.
   The CBP which has been abstaining from taking part in the programmes of the alliance had differed with the reform proposals of the Awami League-led opposition alliance and refrained from launching the movement with the 11-Party Alliance.
   The seven components of the 11-Party Alliance with the AL were on issue-based united and parallel movements, but the CPB was taking part in the programmes of the Left Democratic Alliance, a combine of eight parties.
   Although the seven components were launching united movements with the AL and its own programmes, the CPB was waging issue-based movements unilaterally.

Two army personnel of Myanmar trespassed into Bangladesh were handed over to its border security force NASAKA on Monday night, the police said.
   The police held them early on Monday from Thainkhali forest in Ukhia upazila and handed them over to BDR.
   The trespassers were returned at an emergency flag meeting between BDR and NASAKA the same day.

The Krishak Sramik Janata League has withdrawn its support from Jatiya Oikya Mancha, a political combine led by Dr Kamal Hossain.
   Abdul Kader Siddiq MP, president of the party, on Tuesday alleged at a press conference at the National Press Club that Kamal had deviated from his ideology.
   Kamal floated the combine on May 29 at a rally at the Paltan ground where Bikapadhra led by Baduruzzoza Chowdhury and Janata League joined the Oikya Mancha.
   He has joined the opposition alliance led by the Awami League, the main opposition in the parliament, as president of the Gana Forum, which is not acceptable, said Kader.
   Kader said Kamal, as the head of the Mancha, had vowed to strengthen healthy politics outside the ‘unhealthy’ politics of BNP and Awami League.
   The present government is engulfed with corruption and has lost its right to rule the country, party general secretary Fazlur Rahman said in a written speech at the press conference.
   He partially differed from the reform proposals of the opposition alliance and said the Krishak Sramik Janata League did not support the proposals of handing over the defence ministry to the chief adviser during the tenure of the caretaker government.
   His party will place a new reform proposal soon, said Fazlur.
   He added, despite the withdrawal of support from the Oikkya Mancha, the party did not have any disagreements with Gana Forum or Bikalpa Dhara.

Denouncing one of its lawmaker’s views as an ‘anathema of American ideology’, the United States ‘unequivocally’ rejected the idea of targeting Makkah or any other civilian or religious site by anyone.
   A statement from the US embassy in Dhaka Tuesday said the comments made last week in Florida by Congressman Tom Tancredo, of Colorado, were ‘offensive’ to the United States government and to the American people.
   ‘In no way do they reflect American policy. We unequivocally reject the idea of targeting Makkah or any other civilian or religious site by anyone,’ it said.
   The statement noted that the United States strived to be a bastion of religious freedom and tolerance. ‘Since our founding, we have constantly struggled to make our society as just and pluralist as possible.’
   World’s most cherished places of worship and pilgrimage should not be sites of violence. ‘This is true of Makkah, Jerusalem, or Rome; it is true of Christian churches, Jewish synagogues, or Muslim mosques.’
   The statement reaffirmed that the US government and people respect and honour all the great religions of the world, including Islam. The war on terror is about taking on those who commit acts of violence, which are contrary to the teaching of Islam and other faiths.’
   ‘As the president (Bush) has often said, our fight is with the terrorists, not with any nation or religion. We join the people and leaders of Bangladesh in reiterating our commitment to promoting freedom and tolerance for all people throughout the world,’ said the statement on the US government’s position as the Congressman’s pleas triggered an outrage.

A bus was set afire after it knocked and wounded two children and a pedestrian on the Manik Miah Avenue in the city Tuesday night.
   The police said a Mirpur-bound bus hit two unidentified children, aged nine to ten, and the passer-by, Abdus Sattar, while they were crossing the road in Khezur Bagan area at about 8pm.
   ‘Angered by the accident for reckless driving, the passengers of the bus set the bus on fire,’ says a spot account of the accident and arson.

A declaration suit has been filed with the third metropolitan session judge, Dhaka against 17 people, including the education secretary and chairman, controller and registrar of the Bangladesh Madrassah Education Board, for wrong printing of a Hadith book for Class IX and X.
   On behalf of madrassah students, a lawyer, Mohammad Shafiqur Rahman, filed the case on Tuesday, calling for the confiscation of all the copies of the book and suspension of sale of the books.
   The book, Miskatul Misbah, of the curriculum and textbook of the madrassah board is full of printing errors, he submitted to the court.