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A 29-kilometre circular waterway from Sadarghat to Ashulia has finally been opened for the people on Thursday.
   The prime minister, Khaleda Zia, inaugurated the first phase of the waterway in a ceremony as chief guest at the Ashulia landing station.
   The LGRD and cooperatives minister, Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan, and the communications minister, Nazmul Huda, also addressed the function as special guests. The shipping minister, Akbar Hossain, presided over the function.
   Ten landing stations — at Swarighat with two pontoons, Kholamora, Basila, Rayerbazar, Lalbagh, Shinnirtek, Birulia, Aminbazar, Gabtoli and Ashulia — have been set up under the first phase. Four of the stations are considered to be the major ones.
   A total of 16.5 lakh cubic metres of soil has been dredged to increase the navigability of the 29.50km channel.
   The depth and width of 16km channel from Sadarghat to Mirpur Bridge is 12 feet (3.66 metres) and 200 feet (60 metres) and the depth and width of the 13.50 km channel from Mirpur Bridge to Ashulia is 8 feet (2.44 metres) and 120 feet (36.5 metres).
   Two BIWTA passenger launches will start plying this route from today.
   The launches will leave the Ashulia landing station for Sadarghat at 9:00am and 10:00am in the forenoon at 4:00pm and 5:00pm in the afternoon.
   Besides, a sea truck will also be available for the people who want to go pleasure cruising. It will leave the Ashulia station at 4:00pm for Sadarghat.
   The first phase of the waterway, involving about Tk 36 crore and covering 29.5 kilometres of the Buriganga and Turag between Sadarghat and Ashulia, began in July, 2000.
   People will now be able to travel and carry goods from Ashulia to Sadarghat, the trading heartland of Dhaka.
   Nearly one lakh people are expected to commute and 6,000 tonnes of goods to be carried on the route daily, said an official of the BIWTA.
   After completion of the first and second phases, the total length of the circular waterway will be 110 kilometres, as at present 40 kilometres of waterway exists from Kanchpur to Narayanganj-Munshiganj-Sadarghat.
   The second phase of circular waterway, which will cover 40.5 kilometres from Ashulia to Kanchpur via Tongi, is waiting for the approval of the Planning Commission, and is expected to be start by June.
   The project concept paper of the second phase of the waterway, involving a cost of Tk 294 crore, was submitted to the shipping ministry in January, said the official.
   The second phase of the waterway, from Ashulia to Kanchpur Bridge via Tongi, will be completed under three organisations — Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority, Dhaka City Corporation and the Local Government and Engineering Department.
   The BIWTA will be the leading agency in completing the second phase.
   The BIWTA’s task will be to create scope of transportation by improving the navigability of Turag, Tongi Khal and Balu River.
   After the inauguration ceremony Mannan Bhuiyan, accompanied by Huda and Akbar, traversed the route in two BIWTA launches and inaugurated three landing stations at Shinnirtek, Gabtoli and Aminbazar.
   The BIWTA launches took one and a half hours to ply the 11-kilometre route from Ashulia to the Shinnirtek landing station.

The prime minister, Khaleda Zia, Thursday opened the circular waterways around the capital on its outskirts, Ashulia, to mitigate traffic congestion in the mega city and help develop its communications system.
   The 29-kilometre circular waterway project stretching from Sadarghat to Ashulia involves Tk 36 crore.
   ‘My government believes in the politics of development and development should be carried out in conformity with our tradition and natural, geographical and social realities.’
   She said the Sadarghat-Ashulia waterways has been developed in the first phase, the second phase will start soon.
   ‘The commissioning of the circular waterways will make an alternative way of communications, help traffic and movement of people and goods, will reduce travel cost and also protect the environment.’
   She said the rivers Turag, Shitalakshya and Balu, along with the Tongi canal, will be excavated in phases when the waterways from Sadarghat to Tongi will be commissioned.
   Begum Zia directed the concerned authority to immediately start the second phase of the project which will cover the waterways from Tongi to Sadarghat.
   A river port, land station and bus stoppage will be established at Tongi. ‘The water ways will reduce traffic congestion on roads in Dhaka and Narayanganj.’
   She expressed her optimism that the waterways would help flourish tourism industry.
   ‘But is not enough to open the waterways but it will need regular excavation and re- excavation of the river routes to keep those functional.’
   Khaleda called for stopping river pollution, grabbing of river and initiative for ‘green river’ movement through afforestation on the banks of the rivers.
   ‘A lot of problems can be solved if the waterways are utilised properly,’ she said adding that the process of utilising natural resources, opportunities and potentials for the people’s good could be called ‘Discovery of Bangladesh.’
   ‘The commissioning of waterways around Dhaka is a part of that process.’
   She declared, after the Maahkhali flyover, another fly-over would soon be opened at Malibagh. The construction of fly-over from Jatrabari to Gulistan will start without delay, she said.
   With the shipping minister, M Akbar Hossain, in the chair, the LGRD and cooperatives minister, Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan, communication minister, Nazmul Huda, lawmaker, SA Khaleq, secretary to the shipping ministry, M Rafiqul Islam and the chairman of the Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority, Dr Reaz Hasan Khandakher, also spoke.

Some 2,000 people started a march towards the northern district of Kurigram in protest against an Indian plan to inter-link trans-boundary rivers, which, according to environmentalists, will wreak havoc on lower riparian Bangladesh.
   The Dhaka-Chilmari march, organised by the International Farakka Committee, will also raise the demand for due share of the Ganges water.
   Leader of the Bangladesh chapter of the committee, Sadeq Khan, delivered the introductory speech before the march began from the National Press Club in the morning.
   The marchers carried placards and banners that read ‘Save our Rivers, Save Bangladesh’.
   Organisers claim 2,000 people joined the march initially and expect more people to join before the two-day programme ends today.
   The organisers will hold a rally at Chilmari, on the bank of the Brahmaputra, at the end of the march, demanding of the Indian government to scrap the river-linking project.
   Beside the rallies at Chilmari, there would be a nightlong cultural programme aiming to build awareness among the people about the adverse ecological effects of the Indian project.
   The marchers also demanded cancellation of the 1996 treaty signed between Bangladesh and India for due share of the Ganges water through the controversial Farakka barrage.
   They also raised their voice for shares of other international rivers flowing through the subcontinents as per international laws.
   The Workers Party of Bangladesh president, Rashed Khan Menon, Bangladesher Samajtantrik Dal leader Shubhrangshu Chakrabarty and journalist Faiz Ahmed addressed the pre-march gathering.
   Menon said the proposed river-linking project will affect Bangladesh seriously but the government was not taking any step to solve the problem.
   He said the problem could be solved through bilateral dialogue.
   The International Farakka Committee in a statement urged the international community to come forward to protest against an Indian ‘conspiracy’ to turn Bangladesh into a desert by implementing the river-linking project.
   It said the Farakka barrage has become a death trap for Bangladesh and the proposed river-linking project would be more dangerous than the barrage.
   In many parts of Bangladesh, desertification has already begun as an adverse impact of the dam.
   The statement termed the proposed project contradictory to any international law related to sharing of water from trans-boundary rivers.

Load shedding, which had been hovering at around 600mw in the last two weeks, reached about 900mw on Thursday with the sudden rise in temperature and continued shortage of gas supply.
   Almost all the districts, including different parts of the capital, suffered frequent power outages even in the off-pick hours, disrupting water supply to Boro fields and hampering studies of the examinees of Secondary School Certificate examinations.
   The demand for power shot up to around 3700mw on the day due to sudden rise in temperature from normal demand for about 3500mw in the last week, officials of the Power Development Board claimed.
   They, however, said the demand for power was between 3750mw and 3800mw due to the rising temperature.
   But the power board could generate only 2825mw because of shortage of gas supply the officials said adding that although gas supply increased to 550 million cubic feet from 500mmcf, there was still a shortage of about 100mmcf of gas.
   The Haripur CDC power plant with a capacity of 350mw has remained closed for a month for overhauling, which also aggravated the power crisis, they said.
   The power authorities were forced to shed 250mw of power in the capital alone on Sunday.
   Frequent power outage hit almost all the city areas, including Mirpur, Dhanmondi, Tejgaon, Lalbagh, Moghbazar, Gulshan, and Badda.
   Chittagong underwent a load shedding of around 125mw, Khulna and Rajshahi 110mw each, Comilla 70mw, Sylhet 40mw, and Barisal and Rangpur 20mw each.
   Sources in the Rural Electrification Board said the Boro irrigation is facing setbacks because of continuous power outages.
   Officials of Palli Bidyut Samities under the board informed the state minister for power, Iqbal Hasan Mahmood, at a meeting in the city on Thursday that they were not getting sufficient power for running water pumps in different areas, including northern districts.
   One of the officials in Rangpur said they were getting only 13mw of power as against the demand of around 30mw for irrigation.
   The SSC examinees in the capital and elsewhere in the country, who would sit for the examinations from March 10, are facing trouble in their studies because of the power outages.
   Officials of the power board said the power situation might be improved by March as the Haripur plant might come into operation on March 5.
   ‘Petrobangla might increase gas supply as 100 mmcf of gas will be injected to national grid from Moulvibazar, Habiganj, and Sangu gas fields,’ said an official.

The government has simplified approval procedures of development projects with introduction of a single project proposal instead of two, and timeframe of 70 days for finalisation of any project instead of the existing 105 days. It has also empowered the planning ministry to approve development projects whose worth is up to Tk 25 crore instead of the present Tk 10 crore, sources in the planning commission told New Age.
   The new policy guidelines, aimed at streamlining development activities and speeding up the project approval procedure, have recently been approved by Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, and will come into effect from March 27, said a notification of the planning ministry.
   The notification, recently circulated to all government ministries, warned all planning wings of ministries to strictly follow the latest regulations.
   The new guidelines have also raised the financial authority of the planning ministry which has been entrusted with the power of approving technical projects worth Tk 1 crore instead of the existing Tk 50 lakh, while the minister has been awarded power to approve up to 20 per cent higher expenditure for a revised project, instead of the present 10 per cent.
   According to the new policy, development project proposal (DPP) has been introduced in place of project concept paper (PCP) and project proforma (PP) as the total approval procedure of a project, either funded by local or external sources or both, must be completed in 70 days, not 105 days.
   Only development projects involving above Tk 25 crore will, from now on, be placed
   in the meeting of the executive committee of National Economic Council (ECNEC)
   for approval, according to the new formula. The limit
   was above Tk 10 crore in the present regulations, sources said.
   According to the new formula, the ministry concerned has to prepare DPP in consultation with officials of the Planning Commission, a move that will empower ministry officials to prepare projects, officials in the planning ministry told New Age.
   ‘The objectives of the new guidelines are not only to shorten the approval procedures of the development projects but also to streamline the development wings of all ministries,’ a high official in the Planning Commission told New Age.
   ‘Officials posted in development wings of the ministries are being imparted training on the new guidelines in a bid to make the task easier.’
   The regulations, however, for the first time said that foreign aided technical projects in the private sector would also be included in the Annual Development Project.
   The provision has been kept in the regulations to assess total foreign aid to the country, a high official in the Economic Relations Division told
   New Age. Currently no accounts of aid flow to the country’s private sector are maintained.
   Multilateral lenders have for long been demanding that the government simplify the complex project approval process and empower the planning ministry with more financial authority in terms of project approval.
   The country’s constant failure to implement the ADP is largely caused by the complex procedures for project approval, said officials.
   The latest regulations would help the country’s development in terms of optimum level of ADP implementation once they are followed strictly, they added.

The advisory committee, formed on February 17 for screening of the staffers of the defunct Bureau of Anti-Corruption to absorb them in the Anti-Corruption Commission, is yet to start functioning.
   The committee was scheduled to visit the commission’s office at Agargaon and meet the chairman and the commissioners on Thursday. However, the chief of the committee, former comptroller and auditor general M Hafizuddin Khan, who was also an adviser to the caretaker government in 2001, missed the programme.
   Other members of the committee, former vice-chancellor of the Islamic University of Technology Professor Anwar Hossain, member of the Public Service Commission, Abdur Rauf, former secretary Shah Abdul Hannan and additional establishment secretary Abu Md Maniruzzaman Khan, however, had a meeting with the chairman and the two commissioners.
   The other member of the six-member committee, who would be an officer of army having the rank of brigadier general, is yet to be named, said sources in the commission.
   Sources hinted that formation of a reception committee incorporating a controversial bureau officer, Abdul Hannan Mridha, in it to facilitate the meeting between the ACC chairman, Justice Sultan Hossain Khan, and the advisory committee might be the reason behind Hafizuddin not attending the programme.
   Hafizuddin, however, told New Age over telephone that he was busy in pre-scheduled programmes on Thursday and failed to go to the commission.
   He also said the formation of the reception committee was not fair.
   The chairman of the commission told reporters on Thursday that neither he nor any of the members of the commission was aware of forming such a committee.
   He described it as an offence and said appropriate action would be taken against the people behind it.
   The commission at its meeting on Thursday decided to attach 10 officers of the defunct anti-corruption bureau to the commission for conducting investigations into a number of allegations of corruption filed with the commission, the commission sources said.
   Earlier on February 17, the commission decided to attach temporarily the bureau staffers to the commission.
   The Cabinet Division on February 28 made a notification not to attach or get any bureau staff to work for the commission before the screening.

A dynamite explosion in a north China village killed 20 primary schoolchildren when their classroom collapsed on top of them, state media said on Thursday.
   The dynamite, stored illegally in a coal mine owner’s house in Puxian county, Shanxi province, buried the children and some of their teachers at the nearby school, the Beijing News said.
   Local press reports said at least 20 children died and the Beixinzhuang elementary school was badly damaged in the Wednesday afternoon blast in Huogou village, Shanxi province.
   However, the Communist Party secretary of Kecheng township, which governs the village, said only 10 people died.
   ‘The latest confirmed figure is 10 dead, eight adults and two children,’ the secretary, surnamed Cao, said.
   The adults were all men and the two children were girls. Seven people have been injured. The owner of the explosives also died,’ he said.
   The state-run Xinhua news agency put the death toll at 11.
   A journalist from the local Shanxi Metropolitan Daily said the police had cordoned off the area and were refusing to allow reporters near the school.
   ‘It was a very small school, with only 17 to 18 students. Only a few students died. Nine students were injured,’ she said.
   ‘The explosion killed many people in the homes around the blast,’ she added.
   She expressed concerns that local officials would seek to cover up the blast as it occurred just days ahead of the annual meeting of the National People’s Congress, or parliament, in Beijing.
   Traditionally, this is a politically sensitive time when the central government takes a dim view of local man-made disasters.
   A businessman in Kecheng, who said he was a Communist Party member, also said he feared the local government could try to cover up the incident.
   ‘Since this happened at a school, during the daytime, they can’t cover it up as usual,’ he said.
   Investigators have not ruled out the possibility of suicide, Cao added.
   The explosives were being stored in the home of local mine operator, Lu Maolin, who died in the blast. Lu’s wife was also injured, the Beijing News said.
   Shanxi province is China’s largest coal mining region, and mining accidents occur regularly.
   China claimed Thursday that the government in neighbouring Hebei province has worked vigorously to cover up the deaths of five child laborers.
   China has experienced a wave of deadly attacks, including stabbings and bombings, at schools in recent months, culminating in the shutting down of 10,000 kindergartens and 2,000 schools.

The pro-royal government in Nepal said Thursday it was stockpiling food as it braced for more protests by Maoist rebels and tightened security, asking citizens to carry identity cards.
   The announcement came after the rebels warned last weekend they would launch a nationwide general strike in mid-March unless King Gyanendra gave up absolute power which he seized February 1.
   The government, named by Gyanendra after he took power, said it would store enough food and fuel to last at least two months in the Kathmandu valley, home to 1.5 million people where Nepal’s ancient capital is located.
   ‘The government will stockpile essential commodities like food and petroleum products to meet the needs of the valley’s population for at least two months,’ said the commerce secretary, Dishesh Chandra Pyakurel.
   The rebels called off a crippling 14-day nationwide transport blockade last Saturday staged to protest against Gyanendra’s takeover that sent food prices soaring.
   Maoist leader Prachanda — his name means ‘the Fierce One’ — said rebels had ended the blockade to ease hardship on citizens.
   But he warned the rebels would launch a countrywide general strike March 14 unless the king abandoned his power grab.
   The general manager of the national food commission, Khel Bahadur Shrestha, said: ‘As per the policy of the government, we have continued to store more and more foodstuffs’.
   ‘It is felt necessary to store more food in the capital as events like blockades and strikes in the country could hamper supplies in the capital.’
   In its latest move to enforce a security crackdown, the government published a notice in the state-run daily, the ‘Gorkhapatra’, urging citizens to carry identity cards at all times.
   ‘Security personnel have been mobilised to maintain peace, law and order and provide security to the public,’ the notice said.
   ‘To enable security forces to conduct their duties and for people’s own safety, those who enter and leave the Kathmandu valley are asked to carry with them identification papers such as citizenship cards or voter cards,’ it said.
   People are asked to ‘show these to security personnel whenever asked’, the notice said.
   The announcements came after the government Wednesday ordered journalists to obtain all their reports on security issues from the army and police, forbidding any independent reporting on the revolt.
   The international community has reacted sharply to Gyanendra’s power seizure, with India and Britain suspending military aid vital to Nepal’s fight against the rebels, while Washington is considering a similar move.
   Gyanendra’s takeover ‘probably emboldened’ the Maoists and they now are in a ‘stronger position,’ a senior US state department official, Donald Camp, said Wednesday in Washington.
   The United States was weighing the risks of suspending its assistance to Nepal, Camp told a Congressional panel.
   ‘Strong arguments have been made to stop such assistance. ... At the same time, nobody wants to see Maoist gains ...,’ he said.
   ‘We have made it very clear to the government that in the current political situation our security assistance could very well be affected,’ he added.

The Power Division on Thursday directed the authorities concerned to ensure uninterrupted power supply for irrigation during the boro season, and to shed power in urban areas, if needed, so that the irrigation is not hampered.
   ‘Farmers are cultivating crop aplenty this season to recover the losses they suffered during the recent flood. Their efforts must not go in vein because of power outages,’ said the state minister for power, Iqbal Hassan Mahmood.
   He gave directives to the officials of both the Rural Electrification Board and the Power Development Board to ensure that power supply to the boro cultivating areas is not disrupted.
   ‘There is a problem of power shortage. If needed, shed power in urban areas in the interest of unhindered power supply to rural areas,’ he said, while speaking at the closing session of a three-day review meeting of the REB.
   The electrification board organised the meeting to review the annual performance target agreement of the Palli Bidyut Samities for the 2004-05 fiscal at the REB head office in the city.
   The minister suggested that the samity officials should ensure quality service in distributing electricity to their rural clients, and in updating recovery of bills as well.
   The REB chairman, Helaluzzaman, said as many as 67 PBSs brought 58,14,140 clients in 42,698 villages across the country under the board’s electricity network.
   He informed the meeting that three more samitis would be formed in the country soon.
   REB members Golam Mostafa Kamal, Abdul Halim Mollah, Khalilur Rahman, Mahfuzur Rahman, Syed Sarwar Hossain and other senior officials of the board along with presidents and general managers from 67 PBSs attended the meeting.

The Awami League president, Sheikh Hasina, on Thursday asked the party leaders to set off a ‘vigorous’ anti-government movement by bringing an end to the intra-party feuds.
   ‘You have to bring an end to factional feuds to intensify the anti-government movement. If you fail to do so, the current spell of movement will not be vigorous,’ Hasina, also the leader of the opposition in parliament, told the district and upazila level leaders.
   A number of district and upazila unit presidents and general secretaries, who stayed overnight in Dhaka after attending Wednesday’s rally at Paltan Maidan, met Hasina in groups based on regions at her Sudha Sadan residence.
   The leaders said they had been inspired by the Wednesday’s major showdown and had met the party chief to take special instructions to strengthen the party activities and intensify the movement.
   ‘As we found sprit among the leaders and activists after attending the grand rally, we met the party chief to get special instruction from her to strengthen the current movement,’ a leader of Mymensingh told New Age.
   Pointing out various problems to intensify the anti-government movement, Hasina suggested them the measures to be taken to strengthen party activities at the grassroots level and toughen the movement.
   About united movement with the like-minded parties, she asked for giving priority, if needed, to the leaders of other parties to form the ‘actions committees’. She earlier instructed the party men from the Wednesday rally to form the ‘action committees’ in their respective localities to expedite the fall of the BNP-led government.
   ‘The corrupt, looters, autocrat and unqualified alliance government must be thrown away from power through united movement. Lives of the people could not be saved otherwise,’ she told the Rajshahi district unit leaders.
   The Awami League chief said it is the government blueprint to eliminate her party by hurling bombs and grenades. ‘But it would never be successful.’

The police in Rajshahi and Naogaon are yet to act on a government directive to arrest Bangla Bhai, self-proclaimed leader of the Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh, a recently-banned Islamist organisation.
   When asked about such allegation of the law enforcers’ silent spectators’ role with regard to the crackdown on the troublemaker militants in the northern part of the country, the superintendent of police in Naogaon, Jamil Ahmed, refused to comment on the issue.
   The government declared two Islamic militant organisations, including the JMJB, banned on February 24.
   Meanwhile, the local people in Raninagar and Atrai under Naogaon said the police was yet to make any effective operation in the areas although Jagrata Janata men were roaming about.
   Sources said most of the JMJ cadres, including Hemayet Hossian Himu, Abdus Salam, Adul Master, Titumeer, Hobibur Rahman Hobi of Atari and Raninagar thanas, have been still roaming in the area regularly that makes people panicky.
   Talking to the newsmen, the Atari thana officer-in-charge, Mizanur Rahman, told that the persons roaming around were not accused in any case and had no charge against them, police could not go against them.
   Regarding the killing of the retired Army personnel, Sheikh Farid, by Bangla Bhai cadres in 2004, the OC said, ‘There is no eyewitness of the killing, so we could not arrest any body in this regard.’
   Locals said the police visited villages of Atari and Naogaon along with the JMJB cadres to arrest the men of the Purba Banglar Communist Party.
   As the JMJB cadres are still active in the areas, hundreds of people, including Bhugara union council chairman, Janbox, under Atrai thana, Kaligram union council chairman, Shahidul Islam, under Raninagar thana and Goutam Silal of Borgachha union council in the same police station have left their residences.
   Locals said basically the banned Islamist group cadres still have control over the area under the tacit support of the police.
   In Bagmara, the police are yet to frame any charge on 71 JMJB militants who were arrested after the locals had lynched three armed cadres on January 22. They continued refusing disclosure of any information to the police though they had been taken on police remand twice. Locals said due to the relaxed attitude of the police, the government directives are not being followed.
   The Bagmara OC, Golam Kibria, told newsmen that police sincerely tried to extract information from the JMJB activists through interrogation.
   According to the local people, several JMJB cadres like Mahatab Khamaru, Mamun, Omer Ali, Nazu, Khalil, Salam and Lutfor continued their toll collection in the area even after the imposition of ban on the militant organisation.
   Sources said the Jagrata cadre, Mahatab Khamaru, keeps regular contact with the Rajshahi superintendent of police.

The number of US troops killed in Iraq has topped 1,500, an Associated Press count showed Thursday after the military announced the deaths of three Americans, while car bombs targeting Iraqi security forces killed at least four people in separate attacks.
   Two suicide car bombs exploded outside the interior ministry in eastern Baghdad Thursday, killing at least two policemen and wounding five others, police Major Jabar Hassan said. Officials at nearby al-Kindi hospital said 15 people were injured in the blasts, part of the relentless wave of violence since the January 30 elections.
   Another car bomb targeting a police convoy exploded in Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of the capital, killing one Iraqi policeman and a civilian, the US military said. Six police and 10 other civilians were also wounded.
   Amid the violence, the interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, extended the state of emergency, first announced nearly four months ago, for another 30 days until the end of March. The order remains in effect throughout the country, except in northern Kurdish-run areas.
   The latest reported American deaths brought the toll to 1,502 since the United States launched the war in Iraq in March 2003, according to the AP count.
   The military said two US troops died Wednesday in Baghdad of injuries suffered when a roadside bomb struck their vehicle. Another soldier was killed the same day in Babil province, part of an area known as the ‘Triangle of Death’ because of the frequency of insurgent attacks on US and Iraqi forces.
   At least 1,140 Americans have died as a result of hostile action, according to the defence department. The figures include four military civilians.
   Since May 1, 2003, when the president, George W Bush declared that major combat operations in Iraq had ended, 1,364 US military members have died, according to the AP count. That includes at least 1,030 deaths resulting from hostile action, the military said.
   The tally is based on Pentagon records and AP reporting from Iraq.

The energy and mineral resources ministry will extend, for the fourth time, the contract with a North Korean company by three months to develop the Madhyapara hard rock mine as it has failed again to complete the job.
   The ministry is now planning to go for commercial production of around 5,500 tonnes of hard rock daily in June, after completion of the development work in May.
   Although the North Korean company, Nam Nam, was supposed to complete in six years the development work of the mine in Dinajpur by June 2001 after it was given the job in 1994, it missed three deadlines. The last one was on February 28.
   The cost of the project has increased till the third deadline by around Tk 580 crore from the original cost of around Tk 680 crore because of the delay of the development work, said sources in the ministry.
   They said labour, machinery, maintenance costs have increased and taka has depreciated against dollar over the last ten years.
   A North Korean delegation, led by Kim Yonl Sul, vice minister for foreign trade, on Thursday requested the state minister for energy and mineral resources, AKM Mosharraf Hossain, to extend the February deadline by three months.
   The delegates said 95 per cent of development work had been completed and the company would make the mine ready for commercial production by May with ‘their best effort’.
   They apprised the minister that the company would bear the additional maintenance cost for the three months.
   A rock-crushing machine is yet to be brought to Bangladesh, for which the development work has been delayed, they said.
   The team also requested the minister to give the company operation and maintenance charge of the mine after completion of the development work.
   Mosharraf told New Age after the meeting that the company will be given three more months to finish the work.
   He said the company as well as the ‘bureaucratic tangle’ of the country were responsible for deferring the deadline several times.
   The company had financial problems and the administration delayed several times the approval of different components of the project, the minister claimed.
   He said that the delegation told him that the North Korean prime minister or deputy prime minister would attend the inauguration ceremony of commercial production of hard rock from the mine in June.
   Mosharraf said that he told the delegation that the ministry would consider giving the Korean company operation and maintenance work of the mine.
   The mine’s area, spanning over 1.2 square kilometres, has a reserve of around 174 million tonnes of hard rock and granite, said sources in Petrobangla.
   Around 1.65 million tonnes of hard rock will be produced annually from the mine, once commercial production begins. The annual demand for hard rock in the country is around 2.5 million tonnes, which needs to be imported.
   Operator of the mine, Madhyapara Granite Mining Company Limited, a subsidiary of Petrobangla, extracted a total of 3.25 lakh tonnes of hard rock from the mine during the development period till January, 2005.
   About 2.74 lakh tonnes of hard rock were sold to different government and non-govt organisations at the price of Tk 15.55 crore.
   Madhyapara hard rocks were used in constructing the Bangladesh-China Friendship Conference Centre in the capital.

Three aides of Asadullah Al Ghalib, chief of the banned Jamaatul Mujahideen and also the chief of a faction of Ahle Hadith Movement, were sent to Dhaka from Gopalganj on Thursday for interrogation at the Joint Interrogation Cell.
   All the three men, Abdus Samad Salafi, ASM Azizullah and Nurul Islam, were being interrogated at the cell on Thursday night.
   The outcome of the interrogation could not be known as the investigators remained tight-lipped.
   However, a source said that the investigators were examining the computer disks and documents seized from the Ahle Hadith office in Rajshahi on Wednesday. The police were also in a hunt for recovery of more documents from the office in Rajshahi and elsewhere in the northern region.
   New Age Gopalganj correspondent reports that heavy police escorted the three aides of Ghalib to Dhaka.
   The three arrestees were brought to Gopalganj from Rajshahi jail on Tuesday and the police took them on a 10-day remand on Wednesday.
   They were shown arrested in a case filed with Kotalipara thana of the district in connection with a robbery at a BRAC office in January.
   Meanwhile, New Age correspondent from Lalmonirhat reports that the militants of Bangla Bhai, another aide of Ghalib, sent letters to 10 journalists of Lalmonirhat with death threats.
   Receiving the letters on Tuesday, the worried journalists registered a general diary with Lalmonirhat police station seeking security for them.
   The Bangla Bhai men in the letter stated that they would start their activities in the district and they need assistance from the journalists for the purpose.
   ‘If the journalists will not support, they would be punished as per the organisation’s rule’, the letter said, adding that the punishment would be completed within March.
   The recipients of the letters were S Dilip Roy of the Daily Star, AKM Mainul Haque of the Jugantor, Abdur Rob Suzan of the Prothom Alo, Mofazzal Hossain of the Ajker Kagoj, Mukul Mahbub of the United News of Bangladesh, Jahangir Alam Shahin of the Janakantha, Milon Patwari of the Manabzamin, Gokul Roy of the Sangbad, Shafiqul Islam Kanu of the Ittefaq and Belal Hossain of the Bhorer Kagoj and the Korotoa.
   It is apprehended that the militants of Bangla Bhai, also the chief of banned Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh, may have taken shelter in the char areas of the district.

The former additional Khulna superintendent of police, Mofazzel Hossain, was sent to jail after he had been produced before the court on Thursday after a three-day remand.
   The police said Mofazzel, during the remand, did not disclose any information to the police. He denied all allegations brought against him, said the police.
   The Khulna Metropolitan Police sources said Mofazzel was closed to the Dhaka police headquarters for his alleged connection with outlaws on February 14 and arrested on February 15 from Dhaka in the case of attempt to murder of Khulna-based staff correspondent of the daily Jugantr.

Two hundred and fifteen out of 317 government high schools in the country have been running without any headmaster for the last two years, officials at the Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education have told New Age.
   Besides, 100 posts of assistant headmaster have also remained vacant for around two years.
   Either assistant headmasters or senior teachers are now doubling as headmasters at the schools.
   Sources in the directorate said the de facto headmasters face difficulties in discharging their duties as many teachers do not obey them. ‘Besides, these acting headmasters do not have any training, so they cannot deal with the administration efficiently. They also cannot prepare academic plans properly due to non-cooperation by many senior teachers.’
   On the other hand, as senior teachers have to engage in administrative jobs they have not been able to take classes and thus the number of experienced teachers at these schools is now reducing.
   Officials in the directorate attributed the current situation to the stalemate in promotion of senior assistant teachers to assistant headmasters between 1999 and 2002.
   According to rules, every assistant headmaster has to continue his job in his respective post for three years before he is promoted to the post of headmaster.
   The officials said 68, out of 317 high schools, have second shifts which require 68 additional assistant headmasters.
   The director (secondary) of the directorate, Professor M Khorshed Alam, told New Age on Saturday that around 100 assistant headmasters were promoted as headmasters in early 2003 but the vacant posts of assistant headmasters could not be filled immediately. ‘I see no move of the government to recruit new headmasters.’

The government has not yet appointed a new chairman and commissioners to the Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission.
   The posts fell vacant on January 30 upon expiry of the contractual appointments of the chairman, Syed Marghub Murshed, and the commissioners, who were appointed on January 31, 2002 on three-year contracts.
   The contractual appointments of QM Farooq, who served as vice-chairman and commissioner of the systems and service department, Khandakar Abu Bakar, commissioner of the legal and licensing department, and M Rezaul Haque, commissioner of the engineering and operation department, also expired on the same day.
   The post of the commissioner of spectrum management has been vacant since February 17, 2004 after NH Chowdhury joined a project of the United Nations Development Programme as consultant for capacity building of BTRC officials.
   Some telecom companies, who obtained public-switched telecom network licences recently to operate landline telephony, said they could not open letters of credit to import telecom equipment as they need clearance from the commission.
   As the top posts have been vacant for a month, no one in the commission is authorised to give clearance for the equipment, said the managing director of a company.
   An official of the commission said any decision for approval of import of telecom equipment and granting of various licences is taken at the board meeting of the commission, presided over by the chairman and attended by the commissioners.
   ‘But as all the posts have remained vacant for one month, it is not possible to hold any board meeting, which usually takes place once a month,’ said the official.
   However, sources in the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications said the government has decided to appoint Mazharul Haque, a former relief and disaster management secretary, as the next vice chairman of the commission, and Abdus Salam, a retired judge, may be appointed as a commissioner.
   But the government is yet to choose the chairman and two other commissioners.
   Officials at the ministry
   hinted that a decision may be taken by the first week of March to select the persons for the posts after getting a directive from the Prime Minister’s Office.

The discovery of a rich cluster of hundreds – possibly thousands – of galaxies in deep space suggests the Universe evolved into its present form far sooner than was once thought, space agencies announced.
   The sphere-like cluster of galaxies is ‘the most distant massive structure yet detected in the Universe,’ the European Space Agency and NASA declared.
   The huge cluster is located some nine billion light years away, in the constellation Pisces Australis (the Southern Fish) – about half a billion light years farther out than the previous record holder for a formed galaxy, they said in separate press releases.
   The Universe is calculated to be about 13.7 billion years old, born from a ‘Big Bang,’ the explosion which spewed out the hot matter that later formed the galaxies and everything in them.
   As the light from the newly-discovered cluster has taken nine billion years to reach us, its galaxies were already formed when the Universe was a mere youth of five billion years old.
   ‘We are quite surprised to see that exquisite structures like this could exist at such early epochs,’ said Christopher Mullis of the University of Michigan.
   Until now, the earliest evidence for the timetable of galactic development has come from ‘proto-clusters’ – galactic clusters in the making – that have been dated by analysis of their light to be up to 10 billion years old.
   However, this yardstick gives no indication as to how long it takes for these wild, chaotic adolescents to mature into galaxies as we know them today.

A young man was hacked to death early Thursday in the New Market area under Sonadanga thana in the Khulna city.
   The young man was identified as Babu Sheikh, 25, son of Kalu Sheikh of New Market under Sonadanga thana.
   The Sonadanga police said an altercation took place between Babu and his rivals at around 7:00am, when his rivals hacked him seriously.

Khondokar Akhtar Hamid Paban, son of chief whip Khondokar Delwar Hossain, was sent to jail on Thursday.
   The detective police, who arrested Paban from Armanitola in Old Dhaka Monday night for suspected involvement in vandalising a telecom shop at Bangshal, produced him before the chief metropolitan magistrate’s court on Thursday at the end of a one-day remand on Wednesday.
   Seeking bail, his counsel submitted that Paban was not named in the first information report of the case filed by the shop owner and a vested quarter was trying to undermine the political image of his father by cooking up false allegation against Paban.
   Opposing the bail, the prosecutor argued that there was specific evidence against Paban and he might influence the course of justice if enlarged on bail.
   Hearing both the sides, the court sent Paban to the jail.

About 200 Bangladeshis, who stayed at Kuala Lumpur airport of Malaysia for last four
   days following expiry of an amnesty announced the by southeast Asian country for illegal immigrants on Monday, returned home Thursday night.
   ‘We had to stay at the airport without proper food, sleep and shower as we could not procure air tickets,’ Nazrul Islam, one of the returnees, told the news agency. Nazrul stayed in Malaysia for 10 years, last three years without legal documents.
   Officials at Zia International Airport said some 170 Bangladeshis returned by the Emirates flight while 15 by the national air carrier, Biman Bangladesh Airlines.
   ‘Another 15 to 20 workers are coming by the Malaysian Air Lines,’ the official said.
   The general amnesty offered by the Malaysian government ended on February 28 and the Bangladeshis took shelter at the Sepang International Airport.

Two employees of the Janata Bank Dhukuria Bera branch under Belkuchi upazila in Sirajgnaj were injured while a BNP leader allegedly tried to loot the bank on Wednesday.
   The police and the bank sources said a close relative of Abdul Barek, 32, a BNP leader, had a bank loan from the bank manager, Nur Alam.
   Centring paying back the loan, a conflict took place earlier. On this issue, Abdul Barek, accompanied by around eight men, vandalised the bank in the office hour, attacked people at the cash section and seized the guard’s weapon.
   The guard, Ansar Ali, was beaten and a Class IV employee, Nayan Talukdar, along with two employees, was injured. Seriously injured Nayan was admitted to the sadar hospital.
   The bank manager filed a case with the Belkuchi thana against Abdul Barek.
   Local sources said Abdul Barek is a BNP leader and he threatened the bank manager, claiming him a BNP leader after the incident.