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Two days, Friday and Saturday, have been made weekly holidays and government office timing has been extended by an hour.
   The cabinet at its regular meeting on Monday approved the changes in weekly holidays and office timing.
   Office hour will run between 9:00am and 5:00pm, in place of 4:00pm, on weekdays.
   The changes, applicable for all government, semi-government and autonomous offices, will come into effect on Friday.
   The decision was made to cope with soaring oil prices and deficiency in electricity generation, an influential minister told New Age after the meeting.
   The meeting also approved a bill seeking amendments to the Pure Food Ordinance 1959 with more stringent provisions against food adulteration.
   It also approved in principle the Micro-Credit Regulatory Authority Bill seeking enactment of a law for the establishment of a regulatory body for non-governmental organisations dealing with micro-credit.
   The meeting discussed a number of mechanisms, including compulsory shutdown of markets and shopping malls in the evening, switching on streetlights on one side of the roads, and control over the use of government vehicles to control power and energy consumption.
   The meeting empowered the finance ministry to detail out and make effective the mechanisms.
   The finance ministry will finalise the details in consultation with the energy ministry and the mayors, said the sources present at the meeting.
   The economists and businessmen, however, criticised the decision on weekly holidays, although they are in favour of two-day weekly holidays.
   They said the decision would have serious impact on economy and foreign trade, as most countries enjoy weekly holidays on Saturday and Sunday and a holiday on Sunday in some others, including Pakistan.
   The decision will cut off communications with the outside world for three days a week, they said.
   Weekly holidays were extended to two days in June 1997 by the Awami League government. It decided on office hour from 8:00am to 2:00pm.
   The present government, however, cut short weekly holidays to Friday and decided on office hour from 9:00am to 4:00pm from Saturday to Wednesday and from 9:00am to 1:00pm on Thursday in October 2001, just after its assumption of office.
   The Pure Food (Amendment) Bill, slated to be placed in Jatiya Sangsad in the next session, proposes the establishment of courts to deal with offences related to food.
   Class I magistrates or sessions judges will be placed in each court, with power to hold summary trial as prescribed in the Code of Criminal Procedures.
   The convicts will have the right to appeal against the court judgement before district and sessions judges.
   The appeal against the judgement of the district and sessions judge and against a penalty above Tk 1 lakh and rigorous imprisonment of more than two years will be filed before the High Court, the bill proposes.
   The bill says a food adulterator will be punished with rigorous imprisonment of six months to three years or with a fine of Tk 5,000 to Tk 2 lakh or with both. The punishment will vary depending on the types of offence.
   The Micro-Credit Regulatory Authority Bill will be placed again before the cabinet after scrutiny to be made by the law ministry.
   The cabinet approved the bill in principle with a few changes, said the sources.
   The bill proposed a provision for running banks by the NGOs dealing with micro-credit. The cabinet, however, decided to delete such provision, the sources said.

A significant portion of the fund that the Islamic organisations in Bangladesh receive every year from foreign Islamic bodies is being used for the cause of Jihad, said the police after having carried out an investigation.
   The investigation, launched after the August 17 countrywide chain-bombing, reveals that money is apparently being used for the cause of Jihad in the name of various religious activities like construction of mosques, madrassahs, orphanage centres and training of imams.
   The investigators, tasked with inspecting local non-government Islamic organisations and verifying their financial status, have already found proofs of the channelling of money to the Jihad fund.
   ‘Money is taken away from the funds received to spend for the cause of Jihad,’ an official of the Special Branch official told New Age.
   There are no statistics of the funds arriving in Bangladesh but sources in the NGO Bureau estimated that the amount ranges from Tk 400 crore to Tk 500 crore per year.
   Investigators say the money is used to enlarge and strengthen the Jamaatul Mujahideen, Al Hikma and Alhe Hadith Andolon, by recruiting youths and motivating and training them to fight for turning Bangladesh into an Islamic state.
   The Kuwait-based Revival of Islamic Heritage Society and Al Haramine (banned throughout the world) are the organisations which provide funds for the cause of Islamic revolution, they added.
   It was found that the Revival of Islamic Heritage Society in 2001 donated Tk 27 lakh to the Jihadi fund of Alhe Hadith Andolon’s leader, Dr Asadullah al-Ghalib, in the name of Tawheed Trust.
   Ghalib, Rajshahi University’s Arabic teacher, got contracts of the Society to construct mosques, madrassahs and orphanage centres, through which he made a huge amount of money. Ghalib is being tried for engineering the bomb blasts at NGO offices and cultural functions in the northern part of the country.
   To channel the money to Ghalib’s fund, said police, the Society deceived seven madrassahs located in Bogra, Rajshahi, Bagerhat and Satkhira districts. The Society, as per recommendations of Tawheed Trust, started funding the madrassahs in 1993 but stopped doing so in July 2001
   ‘The sudden stoppage of funds made the madrassahs incapable of managing food, housing and educational expenses for 269 orphans,’ said a police officer who is investigating the Islamic NGOs and their bank accounts.
   In January 2002 the principal of the Tawheed Trust, Abdus Samad, wrote a letter to managing director of the Society’s Bangladesh branch, Abdul Aziz Khalaf Malullah, informing him that the Trust was not receiving any money. Later, in October, he wrote him another letter but received no response.
   An official of the Society said that funding was stopped because of a request from Dr Ghalib who said he himself wanted to distribute money among the orphans. But Ghalib did not do so and used the money for cause of Jihad.
   Ghalib’s nephew Sadrul Alam, who was arrested in Chittagong last week, reportedly told the police that a huge sum of money was drawn from a bank in Chittagong through a cheque signed by Ghalib before the August 17 bomb blasts.
   The police, after investigating the activities of the Revival of Islamic Heritage Society, recently submitted a report to the home ministry, recommending immediate banning of the organisation.
   Al Haramine, after beginning its activities among the Rohingyas of Cox’s Bazar in 1992, spent some Tk 200 crore for the construction of 80 madrassahs and four orphanages in the country before being banned at the end of last year.
   Some 14 foreigners had worked in the banned organisation. Seven persons, including its country director, Sudanese national Hasan Adam, were arrested in September 2002.
   Police later extracted sensitive information from them on the activities of the organisation and its financing of the training camps of militants.
   Some 575 registered Islamic NGOs are now active all over the country with foreign funds coming from Libya, Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Iran and Egypt. Funds also come from countries like India, Pakistan, US and UK.
   Building religious institutions like madrassahs, mosques and places for ablution, and training imams and muezzins and those who carry messages of Islam to the masses are the objectives of these organisations.
   These organisations can’t use the funds for any other purposes, either overtly or covertly. But some NGOs like Revival of Islamic Heritage Society have been using the money for recruiting youths and training them.
   According to the investigators, there are 35 large Islamic NGOs, known as mother organisations, which usually give sub-contacts to the small NGOs or distribute funds among them.
   The NGOs prepare their audit reports every year, describing their work and the money they have used. NGO Bureau sources said they were deceived by the NGOs who hid the covert expenditure for Jihad by inflating expenses for building mosques and madrassahs.

The law enforcers have launched a hunt for the suspected masterminds of the countrywide nearly simultaneous bomb blasts that killed three people and injured more than 150 on August 17.
   The masterminds were named by the arrested persons, now being questioned in custody, and the law enforcers have prepared the list.
   In Chittagong, the police and intelligence officials have launched a massive hunt for one Abul Kalam Azad alias Mohammad, who reportedly commanded the militants involved in the August 17 bomb blasts in the port city.
   Mohammad’s name came up in the statements given by the five arrested Islamist militants to the Joint Interrogation Cell’s (JIC) members, said concerned sources.
   Sources in the JIC said that the arrested militants could not give details of Mohammad apart from the information that his real name is Abul Kalam Azad, who hails from Cox’s Bazar and is a student of the Islamic Studies department at Dhaka University.
   Messages were already sent to Cox’s Bazar and Dhaka authorities to track down Mohammad the mastermind, the sources said, adding that he had gone to Chittagong to organise the bomb blasts at 20 spots in the port city.
   A highly placed source said that so far a list with the names of 19 militants involved in the bomb blasts has been prepared and hunt is on to nab all of them.
   But most of them seem to have gone into hiding to escape arrest. On being pressured by the high-ups, the police began the drive and nabbed five militants, including the nephew of Dr Asadullah al-Ghalib, on Wednesday, said the source.
   The source, quoting the arrested militants, said that Jhautala Madrassah was used as the base of the banned Islamist outfit, Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh.
   In Gazipur four suspected militants, arrested for involvement in the August 17 blasts, were placed on police remand on Monday.
   One of them, Rokonuzzaman, was placed on five-day remand while the others, Asmat Ali, Hamidur Rahman Manik and Sirajul Islam, were remanded by police for three days.
   Three others, Khaleq Madani, Alauddin and Khandakar M Ibrahim, were sent to jail after being arrested under Section 54 of the Criminal Code of Procedure.
   Based on the statement of Rokonuzzaman, the police have already recovered two hand grenades and bomb-making materials from Bilashpur area of Gazipur town. He was sent to the JIC for further questioning.
   Meanwhile, the police have launched a manhunt for 50 people named by the arrested persons during interrogation.
   Local people alleged that the persons who were involved in the bomb attacks used Najibullah Dakhil Madrassah in Sreepur area for their training base about three months before the August 17 blasts.
   A source in the Gazipur police said that the police recovered the planning map of the August 17 blasts in Gazipur town after raiding a house in Bilashpur area. Its owner has been missing since August 17.
   In Bagerhat, Barkatullah Al Morshed, director of a madrassah-cum-orphanage, on Monday made his confessional statement in the district magistrate’s court in connection with the August 17 blasts in the south-western district town.
   The police arrested him from the madrassah at Kaldia on August 24 and placed him on remand twice.
   According to court and police sources, Barkatullah confessed that he had planted the bomb that exploded at Bagerhat Rail Road on August 17 in the court of a first class magistrate.
   He also stated that Gazi Abdullah, a madrassah teacher of Chitalmari upazila in Bagerhat district, gave him the bomb for planting at the busy Rail Road, but said he did not know anything about other bomb explosions in the town.

The law enforcement and intelligence agencies prepared a list of the suspected suppliers of the bombs used in the simultaneous attacks across the country on August 17. With the new list of the bomb suppliers, the police further intensified the drive widening its dragnet to catch the suspects, police sources said.
   Police headquarters sources said they had got the names of those who had supplied bombs to field-level activists of Jamaatul Mujaheedin Bangladesh to carry out the countrywide bombings that left three people killed and 150 injured. ‘The law enforcers with the lists have begun a drive across the country to nab the bomb providers,’ a top police official told New Age last night.
   He said none of the suppliers could be arrested so far in the ongoing crackdown on the perpetrators.
   He said the drive also aimed at apprehending the leaders and activists of Janajuddha faction of the outlawed Purba Banglar Communist Party, reportedly involved in the chain bombings.
   ‘Drive to arrest Janajuddha men began after state minister for home affairs, Lutfozzaman Babar disclosed on Sunday that Jamaatul Mujaheedin and Janajuddha had joined hands in carrying out the attacks,’ said a home ministry official.
   He said that the law enforcers, especially the Rapid Action Battalion, had been asked to nab the Janajuddha men. ‘The death of Soyeb, a regional leader of Janajuddha and a close aide of its chief, Tapan Malitha, in RAB crossfire in Khulna was the first result of the intensified drive.’
   Police headquarters sources said police were asked to check residential hotels in every district of the country in search fore the perpetrators.
   ‘The boarders will be interrogated thoroughly and if anyone fails to come with satisfactory answer will be taken to the custody,’ another top police official said, adding perpetrators of the August 17 might be hiding there having fake names.
   Meanwhile, a team of the detectives visited Tangail, where members of the Janajuddha from Kushtia and Satkhira had reportedly met the activists of Jamaatul Mujaheedin several days before the bombings.
   The team interrogated Delwar Hossain, arrested from Tangail and now in police custody. During interrogation, he disclosed about the meeting of the two sides.
   The investigators, meantime, confirmed that Jamaatul Mujaheedin activists came from Gazipur, Tangail and Narsinghdi to carry out the attack in the capital.
   They said the investigation of the bombing was in the right direction and would be able to totally unearth the whole story behind the unprecedented attack.

A statement of the BNP’s senior joint secretary general Tarique Rahman, in an interview with the BBC, reportedly suggesting the probable presence of the international terrorist organisation Al-Qaeda in Bangladesh and its involvement in the August 17 countrywide series of blasts scared a section of the government and BNP leaders.
   ‘We are scared about the possible consequences of the report aired by the BBC quoting Tarique Rahman, which was subsequently published in local newspapers,’ a policymaker of both the government and the ruling party told New Age Monday afternoon. ‘His statement pushed the government, the investigation agencies working on the [August 17] blasts and finally the party to peril.’
   BBC Sunday evening quoted Tarique as saying that international terrorist organisations such as Al-Qaeda might have carried out the August 17 blasts in connivance with some guided people of Bangladesh.
   ‘It is my personal opinion that the same things happened in the United States and Britain a few days ago. People there have been the victims of international terrorism and what has happened here is continuation of those acts of terror,’ Tarique, also son of the prime minister, Khaleda Zia, reportedly told the BBC.
   Asked whether Al-Qaeda, widely blamed for the terrorist attacks in the west, had any link with the August 17 countrywide blasts, Tarique said it might be a part of the international conspiracy to carry out the blasts.
   On the probable presence of international terrorist organisations in Bangladesh, he said one or two of them might have links with a section of misguided people responsible for the countrywide blasts.
   ‘I do not understand what prompted him [Tarique] to make such statements that may create confusion in and outside the country,’ an adviser to the government told New Age.
   Tarique Monday afternoon, however, gave a clarification on the report aired by the BBC.
   ‘A misunderstanding surfaced regarding the interview taken by the BBC on September 4 on the August 17 countrywide bomb blasts.
   The presenter of the BBC London office made a mistake,’ Tarique said at a briefing at the BNP chairperson’s office, Hawa Bhaban, at Banani in Dhaka.
   ‘They [BBC producers] admitted making the mistake,’ he claimed. ‘I neither admitted nor denied anything when they [BBC] asked me a question mentioning a name of an organisation,’ he said.
   ‘I told “it might be,”’ Tarique said. ‘I did not mention any name.’ Tarique denied entertaining any question of journalists present at the briefing.
   The government on numerous occasions, meanwhile, dismissed the possibility of the presence of international terrorist groups in Bangladesh.

Dhaka and New Delhi agreed to move forward with further discussion on the proposed tri-nation gas pipeline project, but remained firm on their respective stances as the Indian petroleum minister, Mani Sankar Aiyar, ended his Dhaka visit on Monday.
   Aiyar had a series of meetings with Bangladesh leaders and the discussions everywhere focused on the pipeline issues.
   Dhaka insisted on its three conditions for allowing India to take gas from Myanmar through Bangladesh, but New Delhi asked Dhaka not to tag the bilateral issues with the energy project.
   Dhaka earlier wanted permission to transmit power from Nepal and Bhutan through India; transit rights through India for supply of goods from the two Himalayan nations; and measures by New Delhi to correct the huge trade imbalance against Bangladesh. India, however, objected to bilateral issues being linked to the pipeline project.
   Aiyar arrived in the morning on a one-day goodwill visit at the invitation of the foreign minister, M Morshed Khan.
   During his daylong stay Aiyar had meetings with the prime minister, Khaleda Zia, the finance minister, M Saifur Rahman, and the energy adviser, Mahmudur Rahman, besides a parley with Morshed.
   ‘The dialogues were constructive and satisfactory and we are moving forward,’ Aiyar told journalists.
   He said he had briefed the Bangladesh leaders about New Delhi’s position on the project and also the other options India thought of in case of Dhaka’s failure to join the project.
   Meeting sources said New Delhi had asked Dhaka to discuss the three conditions in an appropriate forum, instead of linking it to the pipeline project.
   Mahmud admitted the differences and said New Delhi had raised objection to linking the bilateral issues with the gas pipeline project that involved three countries.
   He argued at the meeting that the demands Bangladesh had put forward were very much essential for the growth of the Bangladesh economy. ‘Even India will be benefited if our economy grows and the market is expanded.’
   Aiyar said he had learnt about Dhaka’s position and would convey it to the cabinet on his return to India.
   ‘I have generally stated my views and also heard the foreign minister … I also wish to state that there are other areas of cooperation,’ he said after emerging from his meeting with Morshed.
   ‘We have had a very constructive dialogue and have consensus for moving forward,’ he said after his meeting with Mahmud.
   On Aiyar visit, the foreign secretary, Hemayetuddin, said at a briefing in the evening that the discussion had ended on a positive note, but he said Dhaka had not shifted from its three conditions.
   Mahmud, at his meeting with Aiyar, raised the three issues and asked Delhi to fulfil the conditions before reaching any agreement on the pipeline project.
   ‘They [India] told us that the issues were not negative but those could not be linked with the pipeline project. But India assured us of considering the issues positively,’ he told reporters after the meeting.
   He said the Indian minister had told the meeting that the three countries would be benefited had there been a gas pipeline through Bangladesh.
   Mahmud pointed to Aiyar about $2 billion trade imbalance in favour of India and sought effective measures to minimise the gap.
   As Aiyar said the issues raised by Dhaka were between India and Bangladesh and these could be resolved bilaterally and it should not be linked with the tripartite affair, Mahmud proposed the formation of a bilateral working committee to work on the trade-gap issues.
   Aiyar told Mahmud that it was not in the Indian petroleum ministry’s jurisdiction to take steps to reduce the trade gap.
   He said there was a joint working group of the commerce ministries of the two countries which could take up the issue.
   Meanwhile, sources in the meeting between Aiyar and Mahmud alleged that the Bangladesh delegation had gone to the meeting without any preparation.
   ‘Although it was a goodwill visit, the Indian delegation was prepared to talk about the gas pipeline and related issues. Everyone knew the condition issues might come up for discussion. But we were caught off guard,’ regretted a source who was present at the meeting.
   He said almost all the officials were asked to attend the meeting minutes before the arrival of the Indian minister and no official was briefed.
   Aiyar also called on the leader of the opposition and the Awami League chief, Sheikh Hasina late in the afternoon where they also discussed about the pipeline project.
   ‘The tri-national pipeline issue was featured in our discussion. I sought her assistance on this issue though it was not in the hand of opposition, but I talked with her as it is good tradition of the democratic system to exchange views with the opposition leader,’ Aiyar told reporters after the meeting with Hasina.
   The Awami League general secretary, Abdul Jalil, who was present at the meeting, told reporters that Aiyar memorised his experience with the family members of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and sought co-operation on implementation of the pipeline project.
   Aiyar arrived in Dhaka with a sprained leg and was immediately taken to Apollo Hospital from where he attended all meetings in a wheelchair. He returned to Delhi late at night on Monday by a special flight.
   Initially, Aiyar was scheduled to reach Dhaka on a two-day goodwill visit beginning September 5 but later it was deferred by two days, beginning September 7.
   Later, in a last-moment change Aiyar came to Bangladesh on Monday shortening his visit.

The finance and planning minister, M Saifur Rahman, has stressed on reciprocity from New Delhi in making any deal on tri-nation gas pipeline and also blamed ‘lack of candour’ for creating roadblocks to Indo-Bangladesh bilateral negotiations.
   ‘At one stage, one has to be fair and you must make up your mind first. We want reciprocity for the gas pipeline,’ he told reporters after the Indian petroleum minister, Mani Shankar Aiyar, called on him at the Bangladesh Secretariat on Monday.
   Saifur expressed Dhaka’s readiness to exclude trade issue from the pipeline negotiation and bring that (trade) under a different package to be discussed by the commerce ministries of the two countries. He still tagged resolution to the issues of transit to and import of electricity from Nepal and Bhutan with the pipeline issue.
   He, however, regretted that leaders of India and Bangladesh talk ‘too much without substantial works’ and ‘we do not speak from the heart,’ leading to a state that hinders the process of signing any agreement on issues such as the one on gas pipeline.
   His observations contrasted the Indian minister who had all his euphoria about his series of meetings with the Bangladesh leaders, including the prime minister.
   ‘I am going back optimistic. I will be back as soon as possible and we will hopefully sign the agreement,’ said Aiyar, sitting on a wheel chair.
   Asked about Dhaka’s demand for allowing Nepal’s transit through Indian territory, Aiyar said they had no problem in developing infrastructure required for movement of vehicles to and from Nepal.
   Dwelling on the Indian response to Bangladesh’s demands, Saifur said Aiyar had taken the issues into consideration and would report back to the Indian cabinet. ‘I think they (Indians) are serious about the pipeline issue,’ he added.
   Saifur was in the meantime briefed by the foreign affairs minister, M Morshed Khan, about the outcome of the gas pipeline talks.
   The finance minister maintained that the two sides should sign the agreement immediately as the process of setting up of the pipeline would take at least two and a half years.
   He also felt that the issue of Indian nod to transit and import of electricity from Nepal and Bhutan should come under one package of gas pipeline issue while the trade matters should be dealt by the commerce ministries of the two countries.
   ‘I am not a fanatic about trade matters and such issue does not worry me,’ he said adding that if Bangladeshi items are cost-effective they could be marketed in India.

The cabinet committee on purchase on Monday approved Hesfibel, the giant-killer bidder from Turkey, which won the technical and the financial offers in the international re-tender for the installation of fibre-optic cables from Chittagong to the Jhilongjha landing station in Cox’s Bazar to connect with the submarine cable.
   The purchase committee meeting, chaired by the finance and planning minister, M Saifur Rahman, approved Hesfibel’s Tk 28.41-crore offer to install the 170-kilometre fibre-optic cable to access the information superhighway.
   Hesfibel will use the equipment of the Canadian telecom manufacturing company Nortel for laying the cable.
   Earlier, a ten-member evaluation committee of the Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board led by its chairman, Abdul Maleque Akhand, selected Hesfibel, from among seven bidders that took part in the re-tender. The first tender was cancelled by the purchase committee on grave charges of irregularities.
   Hesfibel was established in 1990 at Kayseri in Turkey to produce fibre-optic cable.
   The purchase committee in March asked the board to float a fresh tender rejecting the board’s proposal to award the contract to Siemens of Germany at a cost of about Tk 49.60 crore, although it was the highest bidder.
   The committee also directed the ministry to take action against the officials and other power-brokers involved in the tender manipulation.
   After Monday’s meeting, Saifur said the government had saved Tk 22 crore awarding the contract to Hesfibel over the Siemens bid.
   The board floated the fresh tender in April and opened the bids on May 8.
   The bidders are international telecom equipment manufacturers including Alcatel of France, Hesfibel of Turkey, Siemens of Germany, Samsung of Korea, and Huawei Technologies, ZTE Corporation, and China National Railway Construction of China.
   Of the bidders, ZTE offered Tk 19.10 crore, national railway Tk 21.17 crore, Hesfibel Tk 28.78 crore, Huawei Tk 31.63 crore, Samsung Tk 36.89 crore, Alcatel Tk 36.94 crore, and Siemens Tk 42 crore, sources said.
   After scrutiny, the telephone board proposed Hesfibel to the ministry and asked it to forward the proposal to the purchase committee for its approval.
   After approval from the Prime Minister’s Office, the telephone board will sign a deal with the company to install the cable within four months from the day of the signing of the deal.
   ‘The people will get the benefit of the submarine cable by the end December,’ said a top ministry official.
   Bangladesh joined the 16-party SE-ME-WE-4 (Southeast Asia, Middle East and Western Europe) submarine cable project and signed the consortium contract in Dubai on March 27, 2004 for the mega-project on transcontinental submarine cable.
   The cable will be around 20,000 kilometres long, including the main trunk line and branches, and cost about $500 million to install.
   State-owned telecom providers of Bangladesh, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Italy, Thailand, Algeria, Tunisia and France, along with Indian private carriers Bharti and VSNL, are members of the consortium.
   The executive committee of the National Economic Council on March 24, 2004, approved the Tk 657-crore project for laying the submarine cable, which also includes installation of optical link between Chittagong and Cox’s Bazar.
   The cabinet committee also approved another telecom project for the installation of ‘Outside Plant’ by NCC, a local contractor at the cost of Tk 25 crore under the digital exchange installation project in Dhaka, Chittagong and Sylhet through EDCF loan of South Korea.
   The meeting also approved appointment of a consultant firm for the Asian Development Bank-assisted Emergency Flood Damage Rehabilitation Project 2004.

Transport fares are likely to go up soon as road and water transport owners have planned on an increase in the context of the recent increase in the price of fuel.
   Launch fares are likely to go up by 29.41 per cent. The owners have decided to place their proposals to the authorities concerned today.
   Bus owners are still undecided whether they would increase fares or follow the existing chart.
   The government is expected to sit with the representatives of bus and truck owners’ association on September 8 in this regard.
   The district bus owners’ organisations have called for strikes protesting against the increase in fuel price.
   The Bangladesh Road Transport Owners’ Association on Monday announced a 48-hour countrywide transport strike beginning Wednesday in protest at the price increase and demanded cancellation of route permits for the buses run by the Bangladesh Road Transport Corporation.
   The Jessore District Transport Workers’ Union Coordination Committee called another two-day strike on 18 routes in the south-west on Tuesday and Wednesday in support of their five-point demands.
   The Barisal Bus Owners’ Association has been enforcing a 48-hour strike, which began Monday dawn, to realise their 10-point demands and protest against the frequent fuel price increases.
   Launch fares will increase to Tk 1.10 per kilometre for the first 100 kilometres and Tk 1.00 thereafter. The earlier rates were Tk 0.85 for the first 100 kilometres and Tk 0.75 thereafter.
   The decision was made at a meeting of the owners’ association on Monday. The association’s proposal will be submitted to the Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority chairman today, said Badiuzzaman Badal, senior vice-chairman of the Bangladesh Inland Waterways Passenger Carriers’ Association.
   The transport agency chairman, Hasan Khandokar, told New Age on Monday that they had not heard anything of launch fare increase. ‘We will decide in this regard after we get the formal proposal.’
   In June, the launch fare was increased to Tk 0.85 from Tk 0.75 a kilometre for the first 100 kilometres and Tk 0.75 from Tk 0.64 thereafter.
   The bus and truck owners’ associations have held a number of meetings to decide on the increase in fares.
   ‘We did not make any final decision. But there is no option but to increase the fares,’ said GM Siraj, the association president.
   The government earlier formed a committee, headed by MA Momen, chairman of the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority, to rationalise bus fares.
   The demands of the owners intensified after the latest price hike on September 4, said Momen.
   The government in January 2003 fixed Tk 0.72 a kilometre as fare for buses on long routes and Tk 0.75 for minibuses.
   Lawmaker Shahjahan Khan, president of the Bangladesh Sarak Paribahan Samiti, told New Age that the owners would be capable of keeping the rate unchanged if the price of spare parts of the vehicles did not increase.
   Some bus owners by Monday increased their fares although a formal decision and government approval were pending in this regard.
   The Faridpur Transport Owners’ Coordination Council called a 12-hour transport strike between 6:00am and 6:00pm for today.
   The Faridpur Minibus Owners’ Group general secretary and Coordination Council leader, Shah Alam, said the transport owners find it really hard to remain in the business because of frequent in increases fuel prices, tyres and spares.
   A countrywide transport strike was announced on Monday at an emergency meeting of the Bangladesh Road Transport Owners’ Association at its Bakchar, office in Jessore with its central committee president, Abdur Rahman Khan, presiding.

A Boeing 737-200 jetliner crashed Monday into a densely populated suburb of the Indonesian city of Medan moments after take-off and burst into flames, killing at least 143 people.
   The Mandala Airlines jet bound for Jakarta slammed into buildings just outside the perimeter of Medan’s Polonia airport early in the morning, killing 104 of its 117 passengers and crew and 39 people on the ground.
   The updated figures were given by acting North Sumatra governor Rudolf Pardede after the province’s governor Rizal Nurdin was killed in the crash.
   ‘The dead victims total 143, composed of 104 passengers and crew and 39 residents,’ Pardede said in a statement in the country’s third biggest city.
   ‘The surviving passengers currently under treatment number 13,’ he said, adding that four residents were still in hospital.
   Local Red Cross official Heriansyah said bodies were believed still under the wreckage, which was scattered for hundreds of metres. Many of the dead on the ground were minibus passengers hit by debris.
   Some 30 houses were damaged and gutted by fire. Wreckage of the plane and at least five burned vehicles littered the usually busy main avenue bordering the airport.
   Corpses were gathered for identification at Adam Malik, the hospital nearest the airport. Most were charred beyond recognition and many were incomplete.
   Crumpled vehicles, bicycles and destroyed houses littered the area, where soldiers and police earlier carried away charred and mutilated corpses and struggled to keep curious crowds at bay.
   Passenger Rohadi Sitepu told Metro Television from hospital that he and five other people seated in the back of the plane in Row 20 had all survived.
   Mandala Airlines was set up in 1969 and is one of several low-cost airlines that fly across the vast Indonesian archipelago. It is 90 per cent owned by a foundation set up by the army strategic reserve Kostrad. Monday’s crash was one of Indonesia’s worst in recent years.
   In November last year an MD-82 plane belonging to the budget carrier Lion Air crashed in the central Java city of Solo, killing 26 people and injuring over 100.

The United States on Sunday officially asked for emergency aid from the European Union and accepted assistance from the United Nations, as countries around the world pledged help for the hundreds of thousands left homeless by Hurricane Katrina.
   While the US president, George W Bush, initially politely refused offers of aid, the White House reversed course as the magnitude of the destruction wreaked across an area of the US Gulf Coast the size of Great Britain became clear.
   From London to Kuwait City to Manila, governments around the world pledged help in the form of money, food, emergency workers and oil supplies.
   Some countries suffering major problems of their own, including Indonesia and Afghanistan, were among those lining up to offer help to the nation that is the world’s largest donor of aid.
   Washington has asked the 25-member EU for aid in the form of blankets, medicines, water and half a million food rations, the European Commission said.
   The French foreign minister, Philippe Douste-Blazy, said France would send its entire stock of emergency supplies, including tents, blankets, cooking equipment and camp-beds, pre-positioned on the French Caribbean island of Martinique for just such an eventuality.
   Britain was to send 500,000 military ration packs to the devastated regions, the ministry of defence said Sunday.
   Germany shipped 25 tonnes of food aid to the flood-stricken regions over the weekend, the defence ministry said Sunday.
   An Italian military plane was expected to leave Sunday for the United States with first aid kits for 15,000 people, as well as infant food, blankets, pumps, water-purifying devices and inflatable rafts.
   The US also accepted an offer of UN assistance and consultations were underway on how to best complement US aid efforts, a UN spokesman said Sunday.
   Kuwait is offering $500 million in oil products, energy minister Sheikh Ahmad Fahd al-Sabah told the official KUNA news agency on Sunday.
   Qatar had pledged $100 million on Sunday.
   Canada said Sunday it was sending thousands of camp-beds, blankets and medical supplies after a request from Washington for help.
   War-torn and desperately poor Afghanistan has offered $100,000 in disaster relief aid, the US embassy in Kabul announced Sunday.
   The Indonesian government, still coping with the aftermath of the December 26 tsunami, has offered to send 40 medical doctors to the United States.
   South Korea on Sunday offered to donate $30 million in cash as part of its planned humanitarian aid, officials said.
   Over the weekend Norway offered the United States 10 million kroner ($1.6 million) to help relief efforts.
   Sri Lanka — also still recovering from the December 26 tsunami which devastated the island’s coastlines and killed 31,000 people — said it had donated $25,000 and asked doctors to help.
   China said it would offer $5 million, while Japan said it had proposed sending an emergency rescue team. India said it will provide $5 million.
   Cuba and Venezuela, two Latin American countries often singled out for criticism by the administration Bush were among the first to offer humanitarian assistance.

The Criminal Investigation Department, Chittagong on Monday started the process of collecting the sample of the skeleton of businessman Jamal Uddin Ahmed Chowdhury to send it to Singapore for DNA test soon, sources said.
   The CID is also taking preparation to submit a charge sheet on the Jamal abduction case, accusing 19 persons, including Maruf Nizam, younger brother of local BNP lawmaker Sarwar Jamal Nizam, sources added.
   The decision for DNA test was taken in line with the demand raised by Jamal’s family to dispel the doubts about the identity of the victim after his remains were exhumed from Kanchannagar in Fatikchari upazila, they said.
   Anwar Hossain, investigation officer of the Jamal abduction case, visited the residence of Jamal at Chandgaon on Monday and asked his family members to provide necessary information about their blood groups and other samples for DNA test.
   Anwar told New Age that in the first phase, the sample of the skeleton would be taken to Dhaka for sending it to Singapore immediately for DNA test.
   He also informed that the samples to be collected from Jamal’s mother and other family members would be sent to Singapore in the second phase.
   ‘The officials at our headquarters had already communicated with a Singapore hospital to run the DNA test. As per their order, I’m collecting the samples to take it to them within two days for sending to Singapore,’ he said.
   Forman Reza Liton, eldest son of Jamal, said they would extend all supports to the investigation officer as per his advice made during the visit to their residence.

Two Bangladeshi youths in Australia have been on hunger-strike for more than two weeks to protest against, and stop, their impending deportation. The foreign ministry knows nothing about the matter.
   Their two-week-long hunger-strike has given rise to a hue and cry in Australia and received wide-spread media attention.
   The Australian media reported that the two men, who are in their early 20s, have been refusing food for 14 days at Sydney’s Villawood Detention Centre in the hope that their hunger-strike would prompt a review of their visa applications.
   The Australian immigration authorities have started special monitoring of those two Bangladeshi detainees whose hunger-strike has entered the third week.
   Major Australian media outfits including ABC News and Australian Radio reported the hunger-strike as a breaking event on Sunday, although Bangladesh foreign ministry officials said they are not aware of the incident.
   Director of the American and Pacific wing, Suaqib Ali, and director-general of the consular and welfare wing of the Bangladesh foreign ministry told New Age that they have not heard the news of the hunger-strike as yet.
   Quoting immigration officials, the Australian media reported, ‘The youths say they would rather die than be returned to Bangladesh and one of them has reportedly told a fellow detainee that he will start refusing water if the Immigration Department does not acknowledge his protest.’
   Both youths were examined by a doctor for the past two days and were checked again on Sunday afternoon, said the spokesperson.
   But the spokesperson of the Australian Immigration Department reportedly said that the hunger-strike would not change the outcome of their cases. ‘The department does not respond to these sorts of actions. All cases are decided on their merits.’
   In the meantime the Refugee Action Coalition, a refugee advocator in Australia, said the detainees feared prosecution in their home country and harboured concerns for their own safety.
   ‘The Immigration Department has always maintained a hard line (against hunger-strikes), but the fact is that it has been protests like this that have brought the plight of detention centres to the mainstream public,’ said a spokesperson of the coalition.

Over a dozen senior opposition politicians were arrested in Kathmandu on the second day of clashes between pro-democracy protestors and the police on Monday.
   The clashes come a day after hundreds of protestors were arrested and dozens of senior politicians injured when police swooped on a political rally in the Nepalese capital.
   Riot police charged with batons and fired more than a dozen teargas shells as hundreds of protestors tried to enter a restricted area in central Kathmandu for the second day, chanting anti-monarchy slogans and demanding the country’s return to democracy.
   King Gyanendra seized power in a military-backed coup in February, accusing the democratically elected government of being corrupt and failing to tackle the Maoist insurgency which has claimed over 12,000 lives since 1996.
   The violence has ensued in the days after the Maoist rebels declared a unilateral three-month ceasefire, and a spokesperson for the rebels said they were not willing to negotiate for peace unless the king hands power over to an interim government.
   Prominent politicians from the seven-party political alliance remained arrested into Monday evening.
   ‘We tried to enter the restricted zone because the king has no right to prohibit political protests in any part of the country,’ Madhav Kumar Nepal, the leader of the mainstream communist faction CPN (UML), told New Age.
   Nepal said the eventual destination of the protestors was the Royal Palace where they planned to stage a peaceful demonstration.
   ‘With this response from the state, we are going to heighten our political movement, and take it to the countryside, now that the so-called ceasefire is in place,’ Dr Ram Sharan Mahat of the Nepali Congress told New Age, after being released on Monday.
   Mahat was injured and arrested in Sunday’s clashes but later released along with other senior leaders of the seven-party alliance.
   Meanwhile, the political parties have received the Maoists’ refusal to negotiate with the king’s government as a positive move and have vowed to refuse any Royal overtures of reconciliation unless the King relinquishes power.
   The seven-party alliance wants Gyanendra to restore the parliament. The Maoists, however, have said it will not attend talks unless an interim government takes power and declares elections to a constituent assembly.
   ‘We are fed up with repeated betrayals by this autocratic ruler and we support their [Maoist’s] refusal to sit down in talks with the king,’ said Nepal.
   The UN has welcomed the Maoist ceasefire, even as unconfirmed reports emerge from the palace that Gyanendra has cancelled his visit to address the UN General Assembly.

A suspected underground party leader was killed in a shootout between his associates and the Rapid Action Battalion at Jabusa under Rupsha upazila early Monday, raising the death figure in crossfire to 385 since June 2004.
   The dead was identified as Shoeb Uddin Shoeb, 30, regional leader of the Purba Banglar Communist Party (ML-Janajudhha).
   He was accused in a number of murder cases, including those of journalists Humayun Kabir Balu of the Bangla daily Sangram, and Manik Chandra Saha of the New Age, the police said.
   Sources said the RAB-6 personnel set up checkpoints early Monday after receiving information about the arrival of Shoeb with his three associates at Khulna.
   They beefed up their patrols and started searching vehicles at different points on the roads leading to the city and inside it.
   When Shoeb and his associates started for the Rupsha Bridge via Katakhali crossing at about 3:30am, the RAB members tried to halt their vehicle at Jabusa crossing.
   But ignoring the signal, the criminals opened fire on the RAB members who retaliated by firing resulting in a gunfight.
   Shoeb died on the spot after being caught in the crossfire, but his accomplices managed to escape, sources said. The body was sent to Khulna Medical College Hospital morgue for autopsy.
   The battalion members recovered a single-barrel gun, one revolver, eight bullets, and three cartridges from the spot. They also seized the white car left by the criminals.

All the Bangladeshi nationals living in New Orleans are safe, but most of their houses have been destroyed by hurricane Katrina that ravaged Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama of the United States.
   A spokesman of the foreign ministry said Monday Bangladeshi-American families and 15 Bangladeshi students in New Orleans, the most severely affected city, left the area before the Katrina hit New Orleans.
   A director general of the ministry, Zahirul Haque, said that a physician named Dr Hayder who was on call at the time of hurricane got stuck for over three days until he was rescued. ‘He is also fine.’
   Haque said there are three Bangladeshi families in Biloxi (Mississippi), another coastal city ravaged by the calamity. The storm-hit families are now staying with their friends in adjacent states.
   He said in Mobil (Alabama), some 40 Bangladeshis live and all of them left the area before the hurricane hit and now returned to their houses.
   ‘So far, we have no news of any Bangladeshi casualty,’ Haque said.

The UTA airlines provided $20,000 (Tk 13.16 lakh) each in compensation to the family of 15 army officers, who were killed when one of its aircraft crashed just after taking off from the Catonou airport of Benin on December 25, 2003.
   The chief of army staff, Lieutenant General Moeen U Ahmed, handed over the cheques to the families of the officers who died during a peacekeeping missions in Sierra Leon and Liberia.