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Intelligence agencies have identified 10 Islamist non-government organisations that are channelling funds to various Islamist extremist outfits and fuelling Islamic militancy in Bangladesh.
   A report of the intelligence agencies, submitted to the home ministry a week after the August 17 chain-bombing, suggested vigilant monitoring of the activities of these organisations and taking strict action against them.
   The organisations are Revival of the Islamic Heritage Society, Rabita Al Alam Al Islami, Society of Social Reforms, Qatar Charitable Society, Al Muntada Al Islami, Islamic Relief Agency, Al Forkan Foundation, International Relief Organisation, Kuwait Joint Relief Committee and the Muslim Aid Bangladesh.
   All these organisations are based in different Middle Eastern countries and have been active in Bangladesh for years.
   The report recommended immediate banning of the Revival of Islamic Heritage Society.
   The report was prepared by three intelligence agencies — the National Security Intelligence, the Special Branch of police and the Defence Forces Intelligence — after a six-month investigation of the Islamic NGOs working in Bangladesh.
   The government ordered the above-mentioned agencies to carry out the investigation after the rise of three Islamic extremist outfits — Al Hikma, Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh and Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh in greater Rajshahi division. All the three outfits have been banned.
   The investigators found that more than 100 foreigners, from different Middle East and African countries, have been working in the organisations illegally. ‘They came to Bangladesh with tourist visas and joined the organisations without getting work permits,’ said the report.
   The report said that no government agencies, not even the Bureau of NGO Affairs, were aware of the illegal foreigners who had been staying in the country for years.
   ‘These persons should be identified and the nature of their activities should be verified,’ said a top official of the Special Branch.
   He added that intelligence agencies had been working hard to trace these foreigners.
   The government is considering the illegal stay of the foreigners a major crime and may go for stringent action against them due to the recent rise of Islamic militancy and the frequent bomb blasts in the country.
   ‘Five such persons who worked in the Revival of Islamic Heritage Society have already been deported from the country and the rest may face the same punishment,’ said a home ministry official, adding that some might also be arrested.
   The report detected a ‘deep-rooted’ relation of some leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami and Islami Oikya Jote, two major components of the alliance government, and their other affiliated organisations with these Islamist NGOs.
   These organisations, the report says, are very interested to work in Chittagong, especially in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, which should be looked into.
   ‘They show interest to work in the region to preach Islam and convert non-Muslims but a thorough investigation is needed to know their real intention,’ the report observed.
   The investigators opined that they needed another six month to carry out a thorough investigation into the country’s Islamist NGOs and uncover the nature and extent of their activities.

The Human Development Report of the United Nations Development Programme dwells on three pertinent issues in the context of the recent G8 summit making lofty pledges for highly indebted African nations and a world summit of the United Nations to review progress on the millennium development goals.
   It calls for reshaping international cooperation in aid, trade and security to attain the goals, which would otherwise be impossible given the current rate of progress worldwide.
   Referring to the Monterrey Consensus, which laid out the broad agenda to achieve these goals, the UNDP administrator, Mark Malloch Brown, writes in the foreword, ‘…this report persuasively argues, that agenda simply will not succeed unless we can decisively resolve bottlenecks currently retarding progress at the pace and scale that are needed over the next decade in three broad areas: aid, trade and conflict.’
   It has been argued that a bulk of foreign aid, with a number of conditions attached, finds its way back to its country of origin by way of imports, goods and consultancy fees. Some argue that increasing amounts of foreign aid makes governments ‘lazy’ or idle about its fiscal discipline and mobilise its own resources in social sectors such as health and education. Some others have found foreign aid to be highly skewed towards trade partners of the donors, implying propagation of self-interest.
   The report dispels the view that aid is a one-way act of charity. ‘In a world of interconnected threat and opportunities aid is an investment as well as a moral imperative — an investment in shared prosperity, collective security and a common future. Failure to invest on a sufficient scale today will generate costs tomorrow.’
   At present, rich countries collectively spend 0.25 per cent of their national income on aid, which is much below the UN target of 0.7 per cent, says the report. ‘Yet for every $1 that rich countries spend on aid they allocate another $10 to military budgets. Just the increase in military spending since 2000, if devoted to aid instead, would be sufficient to reach the long-standing UN target…on aid.’
   The report suggests that tied aid or aid with a number of conditions attached should be done away with. ‘There is a simple method for tackling the waste of money associated with tied aid: stop it in 2006.’
   Trade has been dubbed as one of the most significant vehicles for human development. Lending agencies and international organisations along with the developed countries of the north have eulogised on the potency of trade, and thus insist on breaking down trade barriers for free global trade.
   However, poor countries are seldom allowed to trade their way out of debt, due to unfair terms.
   Acknowledging that trade is a means to human development and not an end in itself, the report calls for fairer terms of trade. ‘The world’s highest trade barriers are erected against some of its poorest countries are three to four times higher than those faced by rich countries when they trade with each other.’
   Agriculture, sustaining a significant portion of the global population, is a special concern and one of the major stumbling blocks towards an agreement at the World Trade Organisation. The report summarily points out the problem in three words, ‘rich country subsidies’.
   The report says since the round of WTO negotiations, when the rich countries promised to cut agricultural subsidies, they have actually increased them. ‘They now spend just over $1 billion a year on aid for agriculture in poor countries, and just under $1 billion a day subsidising agricultural overproduction at home — a less appropriate ordering of priorities is difficult to imagine.’
   The potential markets of the poor countries are then flooded with the cheap subsidised produce of the rich. Such subsidies, as the report points out, further deprive the poor countries of their sources of income. ‘Cotton farmers of Burkina Faso are competing against US cotton producers who receive more than $4 billion a year in subsidies — a sum that exceeds the total national income of Burkina Faso.’
   The report’s stand on trade is quite in line with that of the least developed countries. It calls for deep cuts in domestic support for agriculture by the rich countries — domestic support should not be more than 5 to 10 per cent of the total value of production — and an immediate suspension of export subsidies.
   It also calls for cuts in barriers to developing country exports, protection of policy space human development since a number of multilateral rules are inconsistent with national poverty reduction strategies.
   In the context of agreements — bilateral as well as regional — striving towards higher compliance standards than those set out in the WTO and mostly imposed by rich countries on their poorer trading partners, the report calls for a commitment to avoid ‘WTO plus’ arrangements.
   Regarding security and conflict, the report points out that violent conflict has shifted to the poor nations — two of the 10 lowest countries on the human development index were democracies and nine experienced conflict since 1990s, five of the 10 countries with the lowest life expectancy suffered conflict in the last 15 years, nine of the 10 countries with the highest infant mortality rates have suffered conflict recently.
   The report does not shirk away from spelling out that the developed countries also play a role in furthering these conflicts but stops short of naming names. ‘The “failure” of states such as Afghanistan and Somalia was facilitated by the willingness of external powers to intervene in pursuit of their own strategic goals.’
   It goes on to say that weapons export and a share of the natural resources help to sustain and intensify these conflicts.
   In this regard the report calls for a new deal on aid with commitments for long-term and predictable aid financing, greater transparency in resource management and cutting the flow of small arms.

Bangladesh retains its position in the category of ‘medium-developed country’ in the UNDP Human Development Index with its rank at number 139 among 177 countries, but it is not on track for meeting any of the Millennium Development Goals.
   In the Human Development Report 2005, Bangladesh scores 0.520 points in index value compared to 0.963 index value achieved by top-listed Norway and 0.281 by lowest-ranked Niger. Bangladesh equals the value attained by Ghana which has been ranked the 138th in the list. Bangladesh was in the 138th position last year.
   ‘The danger is that we will be missing the targets of the Millennium Development Goals,’ said Larry Maramis, resident representative of the United Nations Development Programme, at the launching ceremony of the report titled ‘International cooperation at a crossroads: aid, trade and security in an unequal world’ in Dhaka, as elsewhere around the globe, on Wednesday.
   The report juxtaposed both Bangladesh’s positive and negative aspects of development performance. It said that the country ‘has recorded some of the developing world’s most rapid advances in basic human development indicators’ and that it ‘is still a desperately poor’ country — average income is $1,770 (purchasing power parity) — and income poverty has been falling relatively slowly.
   Ahead of the world summit on review of the UN Millennium Development Goals on September 14-16, the report has referred to inequality (of various dimensions) as the major stumbling block and called for reshaping international cooperation in three specific areas: aid, trade and security. ‘Addressing inequalities can accelerate progress towards the millennium goals.’
   Citing unfair trade rules that favour developed countries, the report said the import duty of the United States for countries like Bangladesh and Vietnam is roughly 10 times higher than most countries of the European Union. ‘The world’s highest trade barriers are erected against some of its poorest countries,’ it added.
   However, the UNDP’s local chief said if Bangladesh is to maintain its impressive progress up the Human Development Index, political parties need to seek common ground for effectively addressing issues of human security.
   ‘Over the past decade Bangladesh has been a leading light in improving human development and should seek to lead the way for other countries as the world looks to achieving the Millennium Development Goals,’ Maramis said.
   The millennium goals are a series of eight time-bound goals aimed at reducing poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy, environmental degradation, combating HIV/AIDS and ending discrimination against women by 2015.
   And Bangladesh’s major targets include lowering poverty rate to 29.4 per cent from the current one of 49.5, raising universal primary education enrolment to 100 per cent from 82 per cent, and improving gender equity to 100:100 from current the ratio of 55:71.
   The country’s human development gains since 1975 are said to have been impressive and since 1990 the country, along with China and Uganda, marked a 20 per cent increase in the index, which involves three aspects — good health, education and the standard of life.
   Explaining the report, member of the General Economic Division of the Planning Commission, Quazi Mesbahuddin Ahmed, said social indicators are mostly positive although much more needs to be done and Bangladesh’s problem is with sustainability despite ‘impressive per capita income’.
   Prepared on the basis of data of 2003, the 2005 report attributed Bangladesh’s success in human development to a number of factors such as active partnership with civil society, well targeted aid and social programmes, extended health programmes, and increased education and income opportunities for women.
   The UNDP report mentioned that Vietnam and Bangladesh have both accelerated the pace of child mortality reduction; in this Bangladesh has overtaken India over the last decade. Had India matched Bangladesh’s rate of reduction in child mortality over the past decade, some 7,32,000 fewer children would have died this year, the report claimed.
   The report also pointed out that violent conflict is a significant barrier to human development. Nine out of ten countries with the highest infant and under-five mortality rates, and eight out of ten countries with the lowest primary school enrolment ratio, have experienced conflicts.

The government has prepared a list of criminals who could be security hazards during the twice postponed 13th summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation on November 12-13, and has asked law enforcers to crack down on them.
   The government has also asked the border security guards to stop the country’s fugitives and any terrorists or terrorist groups of SAARC nations from entering Bangladesh before the end of the summit.
   The decision was taken at the ninth meeting of SAARC security committee at the home ministry on Wednesday, which endorsed the strategy of providing maximum security with use of minimum force during the summit.
   ‘Steps to hold the summit peacefully have been taken earlier and today we have reviewed those steps,’ the state minister for home affairs, Lutfozzaman Babar, told journalists after the meeting.
   Against the backdrop of the recent nearly simultaneous incidents of bombing across the country, the meeting discussed the safety and security of the SAARC leaders and took a number of decisions to check any criminal or subversive activities.
   As there are links between local criminals and other criminals of South Asia according to an intelligence report, law enforcement and intelligence agencies have been asked to be extra vigilant.
   It is apprehended that terrorist groups like al-Qaeda, Maoists and ULFA may have joined hands with local criminal groups like the outlawed Purba Banglar Communist Party and Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh to carry out subversive activities during the SAARC summit.
   Police officials who attended the meeting said that the above-mentioned list was prepared on the basis of previous records of the criminals.
   Most wanted criminals and the leaders of Islamist extremist outfits and ultra-leftist groups like Sarbahara dominate the list. Police officials declined to disclose the number of listed criminals but confirmed that the list is large.
   The Dhaka Metropolitan Police have also prepared a list of teenaged criminals who will be kept under close watch.
   The law enforcing agencies have been instructed to watch the citizens of India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan and the Maldives before and during the summit to prevent any attack on them.
   The meeting asked the police to inquire about the foreigners staying illegally in the country and conduct block raids in the slums, residential hotels, motels and guesthouses where criminals may be hiding.
   The heads of government and state of SAARC nations will stay in Sheraton Hotel, but those who accompany them might be staying in other places and the criminals might swoop on them, so steps have been taken to protect them, said meeting sources.
   The border will be sealed off to prevent intrusion of criminals from neighbouring countries. The Bangladesh Rifles and Coast Guard have been instructed to intensify their vigilance to foil intrusion attempts.
   ‘There will be such a strong security blanket that the listed criminals won’t be able to enter the capital during the summit,’ said a top police official after the meeting. He added that special operations will be carried out in the capital and adjacent areas before and during the summit.
   To ease traffic congestion and maintain discipline in the city, the meeting ordered the concerned authorities to expel unauthorised rickshaws and 20-year-old vehicles from the capital.
   The Tejgaon Truck Stand will be relocated temporarily to the open space at the eastern end of Bangladesh Railway near Farmgate, so that the by-pass road can be used to ensure smooth vehicular movement during the summit.
   The RAB will use helicopters to watch the city and six dog squads will patrol the capital to ensure fool-proof security. To tackle any terrorist activity, the meeting emphasised the need for coordinated operations of the 33 agencies engaged at the Zia International Airport
   All the nations excepting Sri Lanka have already confirmed that they will join the summit scheduled on November 12 and 13.
   Sri Lanka could not confirm its attendance due to its presidential election which is also scheduled at that time, but it will make the decision in a day or two, said meeting sources.
   Home secretary, chief of protocol of the foreign ministry, inspector general of police, directors-general of Special Security Force, Bangladesh Rifles, Ansars, Rapid Action Battalion and Coast Guard, and commissioner of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police were present at the meeting.

Son of a former Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh leader in Habiganj was arrested in connection with the August 17 serial blasts and those arrested earlier in Dhaka, Chittagong, Khulna and Bagerhat were on Wednesday taken on fresh remand.
   The Jaipurhat administration is preparing a list of the members of banned Islamist outfit Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh active in the district.
   In Habiganj, the police arrested Shamim, 25, son of Maulana Saidur Rahman, a former amir of the district unit of the Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh. The police, however, did not disclose details of his arrest.
   In Dhaka, Ishrat Ahmed Sirajee, reportedly a close associate of former Islamic Foundation director Maulana Farid Uddin Masuod, was again placed on a five-day remand.
   The police produced Sirajee, also a joint bank account holder with Masuod, before the court of metropolitan magistrate Rafiqul Islam seeking a 10-day remand, but the court granted remand for five days.
   The police told the court that Sirajee had joint accounts with Masuod in different banks and was one of the prime financiers of the near simultaneous bombings across the country on August 17 that killed three persons and injured over 150.
   The five Islamist militants — Mohammed Sadrul Alam, Arshadul Alam, Jahangir Alam, Abdus Sattar Mollah and Ahmed — arrested on August 31 from Khulshi in Chittagong city were placed on a seven-day fresh remand. On completion of their seven-day remand in the joint interrogation cell, the police produced them before the court of metropolitan magistrate Muksedur Rahman with a prayer of eight-day remand and the court granted seven-day remand. In Khulna, Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh leader Masud bin Ishaque, arrested on Monday, was placed on a 12-day remand.
   He will be sent to the joint interrogation cell in Dhaka for interrogation, the police said.
   The police arrested him from Khalishpur area of the city and recovered a notebook containing land and cell-phone numbers of Dr Asadullah al Galib, chief of Ahle Hadith Andolan Bangladesh, and Abdur Rahman, chief of JMB.
   Masud reportedly took part in the Afghan war along with many others from Bangladesh.
   In Bagerhat, Abdullah Gazi, a teacher of Shaildaha madrasha in Chitalmari and also a suspected leader of JMB, was placed on 8-day remand.
   The police arrested Abdullah on Tuesday on the basis of statement of Barkatullah Al Morshed, who confessed to have planted the bomb that exploded at Bagerhat Rail Road on August 17.
   He also said that Abdullah had given him the bomb to plant at the busy road.
   Meanwhile, the Jaipurhat administration has initiated a process to make a list of the members of JMB active there.
   Apart from taking information from the arrested, the superintendent of police is holding view exchange meetings to make the list.
   The police super also called upon the people to help and provide them (police) with information about the JMB activists and their possible threats or sabotages in the area.
   The police administration is organising the meetings in collaboration with the local representatives, journalists and other social workers.

A component of the four-party ruling alliance — the Islami Oikya Jote faction led by Mufti Fazlul Haque Amini MP — on Wednesday urged the prime minister, Khaleda Zia, not to harass innocent Islamic clerics over the August 17 chain bombings across the country.
   ‘I have urged the prime minister not to harass innocent Islamic clerics,’ Amini told New Age on Wednesday evening after meeting Khaleda at her office.
   Amini claims to have told Khaleda that the harassment of innocent Islamic clerics, especially of Qoumi madrassahs, will spark confusion and grievance among ordinary people who are religious.
   ‘However, I have also suggested that the clerics who are found involved with the blasts after proper investigation should be given stern punishment,’ he claimed.
   Amini quoted Khaleda as saying no innocent people, whether or not Islamic clerics, will be harassed.

Transport fare is likely to go up by 17.5 per cent as a government committee formed to fix a new fare chart for buses and minibuses on Wednesday recommended an increase by about Tk 0.13 a kilometre on the existing rate.
   Highly placed sources said the committee, headed by the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority chairman, MA Momen, recommended Tk 0.85 for a kilometre from the existing Tk 0.72 as fare for buses and Tk 0.88 from Tk 0.75 for minibuses.
   For buses, the fare will increase by 18 per cent; the minibus fare will go up by 17 per cent.
   The government increased fares in March 2003 for the last time to Tk 0.72 and Tk 0.75 a kilometre and when diesel price was Tk 20 a litre.
   The price of diesel has increased by Tk 10 up to Tk 30 a kilometre and the prices of spare parts have increased by more than 40 per cent.
   The committee sat with transport leaders earlier in the morning where the leaders proposed an increase of Tk 1 a kilometre for bus fare and Tk 1.05 for minibus fare in the context of increased fuel prices, said Saiful Alam, additional secretary general of the Bangladesh Road Transport Association. ‘We proposed the increase by calculating the fuel cost.’
   After the meeting, the chairman of the road transport agency put forth the recommendations to the minister for communications, Nazmul Huda, in the afternoon. Nazmul Huda said he would not comment on the recommendations as he was yet to see the report. ‘It is not wise to comment on the recommendations which I have not yet seen.’
   At an emergency meeting with the three transport associations on Tuesday, Nazmul Huda said transport fare would be increased by September 15 following the fuel price increase. Huda at the meeting also instructed the committee on bus fare, formed two months ago to decide on the new fare chart, to finish the task by Wednesday and the chart would come into effect by September 15.
   Huda held the emergency meeting with leaders of the Bangladesh Road Transport Association, Bangladesh Bus and Truck Owners’ Association and the Bangladesh Transport Workers’ Federation after the increase of fuel prices, following the transport association’s announcement of a strike from Wednesday. The transport associations withdraw the countrywide strike after the assurance.

The security chaos blighting the Gaza Strip claimed its highest-profile victim Wednesday when local strongman Mussa Arafat, an adviser to Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas, was assassinated by militants.
   Abbas led condemnation of the Popular Resistance Committees’ killing of Arafat, a cousin of the late Yasser Arafat, that undermined calls for calm on the eve of Israel’s departure from the territory after a 38-year occupation.
   The Israeli defence minister, Shaul Mofaz, recommended that the departure of troops from Gaza be brought forward by three days to Monday after soldiers guarding empty Jewish settlements shot dead a Palestinian teenager.
   Arafat, feared by many in Gaza for his brutal regime as head of national security, was shot 23 times by gunmen who had laid siege to his home in the south of the city before dawn.
   After a near hour-long gunfight between the assailants and his bodyguards, he was shot in front of his family and then dragged into the street where gunmen continued to pump bullets into his body.
   His killers then fled, taking hostage his son, Manhal.
   The Palestinian leader vowed that the killing ‘will not hinder efforts to impose order and the rule of law’.

The people affected by the two blowouts at the Tengratila gas field in Sunamganj have planned to initiate a movement to realise their compensations as they are yet to get any damages, after about a month of the promise made by the energy adviser, Mahmudur Rahman.
   Tengratila Dabi Aday Sangram Parishad is scheduled to hold a rally at the Tengratila Bazar today to press home their demands.
   The affected villagers led by Sangram Parishad earlier showed black flags to Mahmud on August 11 when he visited the gas field and he assured the villagers that they would be compensated within the next one month.
   The villagers are now going to restart their movement, demanding immediate compensation, from today, as the government and the ministry concerned did not take any initiatives in this regard.
   Parishad leaders claimed that the Sunamganj deputy commissioner was rude to their organisation adviser on Saturday, when he went to meet the deputy commissioner to learn about progress in the compensation process.
   The Sangram Parishad adviser, Fazlul Haque, told New Age that Zafar Siddiquee, the deputy commissioner, became agitated instantly at the sight of him in his office and said, ‘You have shown black flags. No compensation will be given to you. Now get off and begin your movement.’
   Zafar Siddiquee said a list of the people who had been dropped off the previous list of the affected families after the January 7 blowout was sent to the ministry concerned. The money for compensations will be distributed after the ministry’s approval.
   He said the demands of the villagers in this regard were not appropriate. The people actually affected by the blow-out are getting compensations. But the people who are in the movement are not actually affected, he said.
   The Sangram Parishad convener, Azim Uddin, termed the role played by the deputy commissioner in this regard ‘mysterious.’ He told New Age that the families actually affected in both the blow-outs are deprived of compensations, which prompted them to begin the movement.
   The Parishad joint secretary, Nurul Amin, said tougher programmes would be announced at today’s rally to put pressure on the authorities concerned. He said general strikes and programmes of laying siege to administrative offices might be announced.
   Drilling of the observation well, which began on August 1, was completed on Tuesday.
   The Niko Resources Ltd stopped drilling after it had reached the depth of 636 metres and the rig used in the drilling was also shifted from the observation well site, said sources at the gas field.
   A Niko official said the next step to drill a new well will be taken on the basis of the information from the already drilled observation well. He did not comment on the possible date for the start of drilling a new well.
   Sources said more than 450 families affected by the January 7 blowout and 616 families affected by the June 24 blowout are yet to get any compensation, despite their repeated demands. Their demand for compensations now includes harassment allowance.
   The natural environment of the surrounding villages was adversely affected by the blowouts.
   The villagers are suffering from various diseases still now which spread because of contamination, the sources said.

The UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, said Wednesday he assumed responsibility for management lapses uncovered by an independent probe into the UN oil-for-food programme for Iraq.
   ‘The report is critical of me personally, and I accept its criticism,’ he told the Security Council after receiving the latest report by a panel headed by former US Federal Reserve Board chairman Paul Volcker. ‘As chief administrative officer, I have to take responsibility for the failings revealed.’
   Earlier, Volcker told the council that responsibility for the scandal ‘must be broadly shared’. ‘The responsibility for the failures must be broadly shared, starting, we believe, with member states and the Security Council itself.’
   The UN chief also conceded that he was ‘not diligent or effective enough’ in pursuing a probe after the fact when he learned that the Swiss company Cotecna that employed his son Kojo had won a large contract under the oil-for-food programme. ‘I deeply regret that.’
   ‘The evidence of actual corruption among a small number of UN staff is also profoundly disappointing for all of us who work in the organisation,’ Annan said, conceding that the management of the programme was marked ‘by weak administrative practices and inadequate control and auditing.’
   ‘The inquiry’s findings underscore the vital importance of proposed management reforms, many of which are at this very moment being negotiated among member states in the General Assembly,’ he added.
   In a preview of its report released Tuesday, the Volcker panel said its probe had revealed ‘serious instances of illicit, unethical and corrupt behaviour within the United Nations’ that had been allowed to flourish because of poor administration.
   While noting that the UN Charter designates the secretary general as chief administrative officer, it argued that the post had evolved into one where the primary role was that of the UN’s top diplomat. ‘In these turbulent times, those responsibilities tend to be all-consuming. The record amply reflects consequent administrative failings,’ the panel said, citing ‘a grievous absence of effective auditing and management controls.’
   The oil-for-food programme — which ran from 1996 to 2003, when US-led forces invaded Iraq to oust president Saddam Hussein — allowed Baghdad to sell oil to raise money for humanitarian goods the country lacked due to sanctions.

The parliament goes into the 18th session on Thursday amid a boycott of the opposition Awami League.
   The newly elected 36 women MPs, out of 45, will join the parliament session for the first time in the eighth parliament.
   The business advisory committee will sit at 4:00pm, an hour ahead of the first day’s sitting.
   The prime minister and leader of the house, Khaleda Zia, is expected to address the house on various issues, including August 17 chain bombings, price hike of fuel and essentials, and a High Court verdict declaring all martial law rules illegal.
   About 278 members, including newly elected 36 women MPs, out of 345-member house, are expected to join the session as 58 Awami League members would boycott the session.
   The AL president and leader of the opposition in parliament, Sheikh Hasina, on Tuesday said her party would boycott the session on security ground.
   The AL has been boycotting the parliament sessions since January 31 this year.
   The constitution requires the parliament to be on session at least once every two months. The last session ended in July after passing the 2005-06 budget.

The Awami League-led opposition alliance on Wednesday announced a series of agitation programmes, including a countrywide, dawn-to-dusk hartal on September 18, in protest at abnormal increase in the prices of petroleum products and essential commodities.
   The Communist Party of Bangladesh, which is not in the alliance, also called a hartal for the day on the same issue.
   One of the alliance components, Gana Forum decided on not expressing solidarity with the Awami League-led opposition hartal.
   ‘Gana Forum has been opposing frequent hartals from the beginning. We have not supported the forthcoming hartal called by the Awami League-led opposition,’ the party’s presidium member Pankaj Bhattacharya told New Age Wednesday evening.
   The Awami League and other components, including Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal and the National Awami Party, decided on the agitation programmes after holding meetings with the parties and announced it after talks among the alliance leaders.
   The opposition leaders also demanded immediate withdrawal of the decision on the increase in fuel prices.
   The countrywide, sit-in demonstrations earlier scheduled for September 12 in protest at the August 17 series of blasts will remain unchanged, party sources said.
   Other programmes are a rally in the capital city on September 9 and rallies at upazila and districts headquarters on September 11.
   The Awami League at its working committee meeting on Tuesday earlier decided to call a countrywide, dawn-to-dusk hartal for Sunday. But the party waited for the opinion of other alliance components.
   The Awami League general secretary, Abdul Jalil, told the press that the party had in principle decided on calling for a countrywide general strike, but the date had not been fixed.
   The Awami League leaders after the meeting sat with the 11-Party Alliance components Tuesday night at the Gana Forum central office to discuss the issue.
   After a meeting with Awami League leaders, the 11-Party Alliance leaders at another meeting reviewed the Awami League programme and decided on calling hartal for September 18 and informed the Awami League leaders of the decision.
   After the meetings, the leaders of the Awami League and the 11-Party Alliance made the decision of calling for the hartal on September 18 and simultaneously announced the programme on Wednesday.

The Bangladesh Bank and all schedule banks will remain closed on Fridays and Saturdays, said a press release of the central bank on Wednesday.
   The decision will come into effect tomorrow, following the government decision of introducing two-day weekend. The office hours and transaction hours of the banks have also been revised accordingly. The office will remain open from 9:00am to 5:00pm with a half an hour break from 1:00pm on a working day.
   The transaction hours will begin at 9:00am and continue until 3:00pm without any break, the press release added.
   Bank branches adjoined with land ports, sea ports and airports and usually deal foreign trading will, however, remain open on the weekend and government holidays as per existing system.

The government decision for a two-day weekly holiday will not be applicable for the government and non-government educational institutions, instead they will enjoy holiday on Fridays.
   The public universities, which are autonomous in character, however, will take decision at their own forum. The government and non-government schools, colleges and madrassahs across the country will enjoy one public holiday on Fridays, a high official in the ministry told New Age on Wednesday.
   ‘The ministry will not issue any circular on this issue as the cabinet meeting on Monday with the prime minister, Khaleda Zia, in the chair took the decision for a two-day holiday excluding the educational institutions.’
   The government decision comes into effect from tomorrow.
   The Awami League government had introduced two weekly holidays in June 1997, but it was cancelled on November 5, 2001 after the Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led four-party alliance had come to power.

No developing country in the Asia-Pacific region is on track to meet all the United Nations millennium development goals by the target date of 2015, according to a report released Wednesday.
   While acknowledging the ‘dramatic progress’ in reducing poverty within the region the report said the number of people who suffer from hunger has fallen only slightly.
   Tajikistan is one of the worst countries where an estimated 61 per cent of the population goes hungry every day followed by North Korea with 31 per cent, the report said.
   The report, ‘A Future Within Reach,’ is the second in a series of regional reports prepared by the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, the UN Development Programme and the Asian Development Bank.
   ‘We are concerned about the LDCs [least developed countries],’ said the UN undersecretary general, Kim Hak-Su.
   He told a news conference to launch the report that this category involved landlocked nations with poor access to global trade, as well as tiny and resource-poor Pacific island economies.
   Kim said many of these countries are ‘off-track and ... falling further behind’ the rest of Asia-Pacific.
   The UNDP regional director, Hafiz Pasha, said the ‘location’ factor was ‘inherent’ among many of the countries facing difficulties meeting the MDG targets. ‘The least developed countries are landlocked or are small-island states which are very remote and have been handicapped.’
   Later this month world leaders are to meet in New York to discuss the progress of the Millennium Development Goals five years after being endorsed by all members of the international community.
   The MDG target the eradication of poverty, disease, hunger, illiteracy, environmental degradation and discrimination against women as the key areas to sustaining social and economic progress in all countries.
   The report noted that child malnutrition has become ‘disturbingly high’ in a number of countries.
   It said some 48 per cent of children in Nepal, Afghanistan and Bangladesh suffered from malnutrition while the number in India was 47 per cent while in terms of child mortality and maternal health the picture for the region is mixed.
   In 2003, the largest number of child deaths was in India with 2.3 million, followed by China with 650,000 and Pakistan with 481,000.
   The report said the most ‘shocking rate’ is in Afghanistan where one child in four dies before reaching the age of five.
   HIV/AIDS is also an area of great concern as is tuberculosis.
   ‘Asia and the Pacific is home to around 60 per cent of the world’s population so what happens here will have a strong bearing on the global picture,’ the report said.
   ‘While the region shows dynamism and promise, the tasks ahead are immense.
   ‘Asia is home to 71 per cent of the total number of people in the world without access to improved sanitation; 58 per cent of those without access to safe water; 56 per cent of the world’s undernourished; 54 per cent of those living in slums and accounts for 43 per cent of the world’s child mortality.’

Two suspected robbers, one of them a Myanmar national, were lynched in reprisal for the killing of a villager by the gang of robbers at Sonaichari in Chandanaish upazila early Wednesday.
   The mob also injured three robbers critically after they (robbers) had killed Abdul Mannan, 35, son of Abdus Salam Member, during a robbery.
   The police and local people said a gang of five robbers entered into the house of Salam at about 2:30am and shot Mannan dead as he tried to resist them.
   Hearing the shots, people of villages under the Dakkhin Hashimpur union rushed to the spot and caught all the five robbers.
   They beat the robbers killing Amin, 24, a Myanmar national, and Nazim, 22, of Chakaria, on the spot and injuring Salim of Chandanaish, and Priyotosh Majumder and Liton of Bahaddarhat in the city.
   The injured were rescued by the police and taken to Chittagong Medical College Hospital.
   According to their statements, the police raided Dohazari Gucchagram in the same upazila and arrested another robber, Mohammed Nasir. They also recovered a light gun along with nine cartridges from the possession of Nasir.
   With these two, 10 robbers were lynched in the district since Saturday.
   Six robbers — Ranjit, Nazim, Harun, Nasir, Alak and Elias — were beaten to death at Nayarhat in Patiya upazila on Saturday while two unidentified others at Nasirabad in the city on Monday.

An alleged mugger was set on fire after mob beating at Karwan Bazar in the city on Wednesday.
   The mugger, Rafiqul Islam, 22, robbed a rickshaw passenger early Wednesday. Pedestrians managed to capture him. After beating, the mob poured kerosene on his body and set him on fire.
   The police rescued the mugger and sent him to DMCH where he was lying in critical condition.

Dozens of opposition politicians were arrested on the fourth consecutive day of clashes between the police and pro-democracy protestors in Kathmandu on Wednesday.
   The riot-police fired teargas shells and used water cannons to disperse hundreds of protestors trying to enter a restricted zone, chanting anti-king slogans and demanding that the king should restore democracy.
   ‘Our political programme is symbolic so it will continue in the coming days until the government relents to our pressure,’ said senior Nepali Congress leader Dr Ram Sharan Mahat after being arrested for the fourth time in as many days.
   ‘The king has to restore the dissolved parliament of 2002 for these protests to subside,’ Nepali Congress leader Arjun Narsingh KC told New Age.
   King Gyanendra seized power in a military-backed coup in February this year, accusing the democratically elected government of being corrupt and of failing to tackle the country’s Maoist insurgency which has claimed over 12,000 lives since 1996.
   The clashes come in the wake of a three-month ceasefire announced by the Maoists on Friday citing reconciliation with the mainstream political parties as a ‘political way out’ of Nepal’s civil war.
   The government has not reciprocated the ceasefire, citing doubts over the sincerity of any truce called by the rebels.
   Meanwhile, the Maoists have announced countrywide political rallies starting next week, according to a statement issued by the rebel supremo Prachanda on Tuesday. The rebels are planning a massive publicity campaign at the district levels in Nepal, to bring home their demands of an interim government and constitutional assembly, the statement claims.
   The communiqué surprisingly comes only a day after four Maoists were killed by the army in Nepal’s Dailekh district, and a day after Prachanda reportedly told the party mouthpiece Janadesh that he is willing to negotiate with the king’s government in the interests of the people.
   This comes as a complete U-turn in the rebels’ position, as they had earlier dismissed any possibility of talks with the king’s government. Analysts in Kathmandu are attributing this softer stance to intense pressure, possibly brought to bear on the rebels by ‘regional powers’.
   ‘The Maoists might also be courting the [king’s] government because the political parties are still unclear on what next step towards peace is going to be,’ said analyst and ex-Maoist commander Pushkar Gautam, on Tuesday.
   It is the parties that may now be left out of the talks unless international powers demand their inclusion, Gautam thinks. ‘The king is still the one in power so they have to talk to the king,’ he added.

Iraq’s president said Tuesday that Saddam Hussein had confessed to killings and other ‘crimes’ committed during his regime, including the massacre of thousands of Kurds in the late 1980s.
   The president, Jalal Talabani. told Iraqi television that he had been informed by an investigating judge that ‘he was able to extract confessions from Saddam’s mouth’ about crimes ‘such as executions’ which the ousted leader had personally ordered.
   Asked about specific examples, Talabani, a Kurd, replied ‘Anfal,’ the codename for the 1987-88 campaign which his Patriotic Union of Kurdistan maintains led to the deaths of about 182,000 Kurds and the destruction of ‘dozens of Kurdish villages.’
   Those villages included Halabja, where thousands of Kurdish villagers were gassed in 1988.
   ‘Saddam Hussein is a war criminal and he deserves to be executed 20 times a day for his crimes against humanity,’ said Talabani.
   However, Abdel Haq Alani, a legal consultant to Saddam’s family said Saddam did not mention any confession when he met Monday with his Iraqi lawyer.
   ‘Is this the fabrication of Talabani or what? Let’s not have a trial on TV. Let the court of law, not the media, make its ruling on this,’ Alani said.
   Saddam faces his first trial October 19 for his alleged role in another atrocity — the 1982 massacre of Shiites in Dujail, a town north of Baghdad, following an assassination attempt there against him.
   The Iraqi Special Tribunal has decided to conduct trials on separate alleged offenses rather than lump them all together in a single proceeding.
   Saddam could face the death penalty if convicted in the Dujail case, the only one referred to trial so far.
   Iraqi television aired the interview so late that it was impossible to reach Saddam’s lawyer, Khalil al-Dulaimi, or officials of the special tribunal.
   Alani, however, condemned Talabani’s remarks and said the alleged confession ‘comes to me as a surprise, a big surprise.’
   ‘I have heard nothing whatsoever about this alleged media speculation,’ Alani told The Associated Press in Amman.

A three-day youth lifestyle fair, Djuice Duniya, began at the Bangladesh-China Friendship Conference Centre in Dhaka on Wednesday.
   Mobile operator GrameenPh-one organised the fair after one of its brands, Djuice. The state minister for youth and sports, Fazlur Rahman, inaugurated the event.
   The GrameenPhone managing director, Erik Ass, was present as special guest.
   The fair, focusing on the young people, features entertainment programmes including sports, music, fun and lifestyle.
   ‘The fair is a place for friendship, fun and most of all the lifestyle of youth,’ said Erik Aas
   The fair, featuring 40 stalls of mobile handsets, connections, clothes and electronic gadgets, will run till Friday and will remain open between 10:00am and 9:00pm every day.
   Special events of the fair include the One-day Baadshah competition, where three winners will be given royal treatment for 24 hours, and the fastest of finger SMS contest.
   Other activities include music and concerts, indoor games, fashion shows, and fire spinning shows. Djuice connections and mobile sets will also available in the fair. The entry fee is Tk 20. Djuice Xtra cardholders will get two tickets for the price of one.
   The proceeds of the tickets will go to the Dhaka Ahsania Mission and Grameen Shikkha.

Anti-Corruption Commission has appointed 45 class 1 and II officials on permanent basis from the now defunct Bureau of Anti-Corruption.
   The appointment was made through a gazette notification on Wednesday. Of the appointed officials, there are 13 class I officials as assistant director/district anti-corruption officer and 22 class II officers as inspectors.
   ACC sources said the commission was now scrutinising the rules and regulations to bring the officials and employees from the defunct bureau.
   The appointment procedure would be completed by this month, sources added.

Two prosecution eyewitnesses of the country’s biggest arms haul in Chittagong gave deposition before the court on Wednesday.
   The metropolitan sessions judge, AKM Anwar Hossain, recorded the depositions of sergeant Mizanur Rahman and sub inspector Sunil Kumer Sen.
   Mizan, in his deposition, said he had been posted at the port police box during the arms haul and on that day he had gone to the Chittagong Urea Fertiliser jetty at around 12:45am after being directed by the officer-in-charge of the Karnaphuli Police Station, Ahadur Rahman.
   Mizan told the court that once reaching the spot he had found Ahad, sergeant Alauddin, and a driver there.
   He also informed the court that when he reached the spot two trawlers FV Khazar Dan and FV Shah Amanat had been unloaded halfway and of the five trucks present there, two had been loaded.
   He added that at around 2:30am, the deputy commissioner and additional deputy commissioner of port zone and additional deputy commissioner of the traffic department of the Chittagong Metropolitan Police reached the scene.
   Mizan said, later the arms were brought to Dampara Police Lines with ten trucks.
   He informed the court that he had heard from locals that Hafizur Rahman, a member of the crane syndicate, Abul Kashem Madhu, proprietor of MR Traders, Din Mohammed, Absar, Latifur Rahaman and some other persons were present at the area when the arms were being unloaded.
   Sub inspector Sunil Kumar also echoed the same story before the court in his deposition.
   The defence lawyers Ahsanul Haque Hena and Rananga Bikash Chowdhury cross examined them.
   The police found 4,930 firearms, 27,020 hand grenades, 840 rockets, 300 accessories of rocket launchers, 2,000 grenade launching tubes, 6,392 magazines and 11,40,520 rounds of ammunition stuffed into 1,463 wooden boxes. The arms haul was made on April 2, 2004.

The US charge d’affaires, Judith Chammas, on Wednesday said the August 17 blasts would call into question Bangladesh’s image as a moderate Muslim-majority nation and suggested that Bangladesh government should address the matter seriously.
   With this urgency in mind the American diplomat, who now heads her country’s Dhaka mission, had a meeting with the foreign minister, Morshed Khan, at his office discussing possible US assistance in the investigation of the serial bombings across the country.
   ‘It is a very serious situation and I believe the Bangladesh government should address it in serious way,’ she told reporters emerging from nearly an hour-long parley with the foreign minister.
   Asked if the United States would send FBI agents to investigate the matter following Bangladesh’s request, she said, ‘We discussed possible ways of providing assistance…We talked about how we could be helpful.’
   She would not say if any FBI agent would participate in the investigation or possible time of their arrival here.
   Replying to a question about foreign investment, the envoy said she had read stories about overseas buyers having cancelled their trips to Dhaka following the blasts. ‘But I don’t have any specific information about that.’