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The millennium development goal to halve poverty bears no significance, as yet, for Bangladesh in the absence of a concrete target. The problem is further aggravated since there are no established or acceptable benchmarks based on which the progress may be assessed.
   The first target of the development goal is to ‘halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people whose income is less than $1 a day’ according to the UN Millennium Project.
   The official website mentions that the ‘dollar a day’ poverty line corresponds to dollar in Purchasing Power Parity terms and not nominal dollars.
   A report jointly published by the government — mainly the General Economic Division of the Planning Commission and the Economic Relations Division — and the UN country team assessing Bangladesh’s progress to meet the Millennium Development Goals by 2015, wrongly states that 58.8 per cent of the population earned less than one dollar per day (in Purchasing Power Parity) in 1991-92, which decreased to 50 per cent in 2000, implying a reduction rate of about one percentage point per year.
   Consequently the media hoopla and the bevy of publications based on the MDG report become mere rhetoric and a rather futile exercise. These figures quoted by the report contradict those of international as well as other national publications.
   The Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper drafted in 2005, which the MDG report considers a focal instrument to eradicate poverty, states two different figures of poverty headcount derived from the same data set — one by the World Bank and the other by economists Binayak Sen and MK Mujeri.
   The paper mentions that based on the Household Income and Expenditure Survey of the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, the World Bank found that poverty was 58.8 per cent in 1991-92 and 49.8 per cent in 2000. Another estimate by Sen and Mujeri finds that poverty was 49.7 per cent and 40.2 per cent during the two years.
   The paper dismisses the World Bank figures. ‘The methodology of the [World Bank] estimate does not permit an assessment of longer-term poverty trends unlike the [Sen and Mujeri] estimate.’ It goes on to say that other data sources also tend to support the Sen and Mujeri estimate.
   Furthermore, the survey of the statistics bureau was done based on ‘Cost of Basic Needs’ method and does not yield a figure for people’s income.
   The most recent World Development Report 2005, published by the World Bank, states that the percentage of population earning less than one parity dollar a day was 36 per cent and that earning less than two dollars was 82.8 per cent in 2000.
   The latest Human Development Report 2005, published by the United Nations Development Programme, also indicates similar figures.
   Both these publications also mention that the national poverty line was at 49.8 per cent in 2000. But none of the publications provide figures in terms of Purchasing Power Parity for 1990, which is the base year for Millennium Development Goals.
   The Purchasing Power Parity is a rate of exchange that accounts for price differences across countries, allowing universal cross-country comparisons of real output and incomes. Parity dollars signify equivalent purchasing power in the domestic economy of the United States.
   Shamim Hamid, team leader of the MDG report writing team, also principal officer of the UN resident coordinator’s office, told New Age on Sunday that all quarters concerned had agreed on the data provided in the report.
   She said given the wide array of information available, the figures presented in the report may be different from others. ‘But they fall within a certain range that corresponds to other data sets.’
   But Sabira Yesmin, senior assistant chief of the General Economic Division of the Planning Commission, one of the government departments involved with the MDG report, admitted that the figures quoted in the MDG are erroneous. ‘We have already informed the UN team about it and an initiative is on to publish another report soon.’
   She said the figures quoted were actually the national poverty lines of those periods, which correspond to the statistics bureau survey’s figures. ‘The poverty line is based on a “cost of basic needs” and include both food and non-food items. These figures are in no way comparable with “dollar a day” figures.’
   In contrast to the MDG report’s figures — 49.8 per cent people earning less than one parity dollar a day in 2000 — the UNDP figures indicate that the proportion population was actually 29.1 per cent, differing by more than 20 percentage points.
   There is further confusion regarding the goal to halve poverty, more specifically halving the ‘dollar a day’ poverty line and the value of parity dollars.
   Shamim said parity dollars could not really be converted into the local currency since it was a relative index and signified purchasing power more than anything else. ‘Tk 65 in Bangladesh has significantly more purchasing power than a dollar does in the United States.’
   She said the figures were derived from the UNDP’s estimates and World Bank figures.
   Debapriya Bhattacharya, executive director of the Centre for Policy Dialogue, a research organisation, told New Age on September 19 that the value of a dollar in parity terms often varied. ‘One dollar is generally valued between 1.4 to 1.6 dollars in the parity index.’
   But he disagreed that the ‘dollar a day’ poverty line referred to parity dollars. Regarding the first development goal he said, ‘The target is to halve the proportion of hungry, those with an intake lower than 2,100 kilo calories per day.’
   Atiur Rahman, chairman of Unnayan Shamannay, a research and advocacy organisation, told New Age on September 19 that ‘dollar a day’ referred to nominal dollars. ‘It does not refer to parity dollars.’
   Regarding the value of parity dollars he said, the per capita GDP in parity dollars divided by the real per capita GDP would yield the value.
   However the Social Watch, an international organisation, in its report ‘Roars and Whispers’ categorically mentions that the poverty line refers to parity dollars.
   Atiur happens to be the chairperson of Social Watch Bangladesh and has recently authored ‘a people’s progress report’ assessing Bangladesh’s progress on the Millennium Development Goals, published by the People’s Forum on MDG, Bangladesh.
   Rashed Mahmud Titumir, a trustee of Innovators, a research organisation that has also published a report on the development goals, said the organisation had not questioned the authenticity of figures quoted in the national MDG report. ‘We merely provided a linear trend based on the information of the report.’
   Abul Barakat, general secretary of the Bangladesh Economic Association, said there were such indicators in Bangladesh that defined the poverty line in terms of money. In other words there is no way of knowing whether one is above or below the poverty line based on income.
   Regarding the value of parity dollars he said, ‘Based on the GDP in parity dollars and the nominal GDP, each parity dollar should be worth around Tk 15.’
   Bangladesh’s GDP per capita was 1,602 parity dollars in 2000 according to the Human Development Report 2002. According to the annual report of the Bangladesh Bank, per capita GDP was Tk 18,511 in 2000, which converts to $368 (at an average of 50.3 taka to the dollar, according to Bangladesh Bank estimates).
   This yields that one nominal dollar is equivalent to 4.35 parity dollars, implying that each parity dollar is just over Tk 11.5.
   The figures of the national MDG report would imply that almost half — 49.8 per cent — of the population in Bangladesh earned less than Tk 11.5 per day or Tk 345 per month in 2000.

The ground-floor flat of a six-storey building at East Basabo, rented by Ataur Rahman Sunny alias Hasan, a younger brother of Shaikh Abdur Rahman — chief of the banned Islamist outfit Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh — was used as the control room for the August 17 countrywide blasts.
   This was revealed by two JMB militants, Noor Azam Yasir and Belal Hossain, when they made their confessional statements before the chief metropolitan magistrate’s court on Monday.
   Another militant of JMB, Abdur Rahman Masud, arrested from Gazipur, also made his judicial confession to the court the same day.
   In his statement, Yasir, a crippled man, said that he, along with his wife Aleya Ferdousi Ayesha, has been living on the ground-floor flat rented by Sunny in Basabo since February this year.
   The couple was engaged in writing on Islamic issues to earn a living, but Ayesha did not know about the involvement of her husband in the JMB, he stated.
   Two other JMB militants, Belal Hossain and Akramul Islam, also used to live in the flat and they helped the couple to distribute the write-ups.
   On August 16, Yasir, along with JMB information technology expert AHM Shamim, wrote the leaflets of the JMB, and the printed copies were taken away by Sunny at night. Sunny paid Tk 2 lakh to them for the work on August 21, he stated.
   Yasir said that Sunny had brought a carton to the flat in July but did not tell them anything about its contents. Later, the joint team of the police and the Rapid Action Battalion seized the carton, which contained bomb-making materials, including 700 capacitors, from the house on September 8, he said.
   Earlier, Yasir was in front of a procession led by Siddiqul Islam Bangla Bhai — the chief of another banned Islamist outfit Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh — towards Rajshahi from Bagmara in 2004. Later, he lost his leg and the cost of treatment was borne by the JMB, he said.
   Yasir, however, said that he did not know about the bomb attacks and said he regretted the incident. Belal Hossain in his statement said that Ataur used to give him Tk 3,000 every month for his work for the JMB.
   Their statements were recorded by metropolitan magistrate Nani Gopal Biswas and then they were sent to jail in the evening.
   Another JMB militant, Masud, a second year student of Aleem at Tamirul Millat Madrassah in Gazipur, confessed that he had planted a bomb in front of the Rajuk Trade Centre at Khilkhet on August 17.
   He got arms and bomb-making training at a madrassah in Narsingdi, he said.
   After recording his statement, metropolitan magistrate Mir Ali Reza sent him to jail.
   With these three, a total of six JMB activists have made their confessional statements before the court in Dhaka in the last two days.
   Another JMB activist, Abdullah Sheikh, 45, confessed his involvement with the bomb attacks to the first class magistrate’s court in Bagerhat on Monday.
   The police had arrested Abdullah Sheikh from Chitalmari upazila in the district on September 21.
   In Khulna, the police detained an imam of a mosque from village Tilak under Rupsha upazila on early Monday for his suspected link with the August 17 blasts.
   The man, Khairul Alam, the imam of the Baoidanga mosque, was absconding since August 20, three day after the blasts.
   Meanwhile in Bagerhat, Ahle Hadith leader Daud Sheikh, arrested from Mollarhat on September 9 with leaflets and textbooks relating to the Islamist Jihad movement, was placed on a five-day remand for interrogation on Monday.

Some 59.16 per cent examinees have come out successful in this year’s Higher Secondary Certificate examinations under seven education boards. This is the highest pass percentage in the decade and is more than 12 per cent higher than that of the previous year.
   The results of HSC examinations under seven education boards, Alim, Fazil and Kamil examinations under the madrassah education board, and HSC business management and vocation and diploma in commerce examinations under the technical education board, held in May-June, were published simultaneously on Monday.
   A total of 2,45,549 examinees passed out of 4,15,088 students who appeared in the HSC examinations under the Dhaka, Chittagong, Comilla, Sylhet, Jessore, Barisal and Rajshahi boards.
   The percentage of successful students in the seven education boards is 59.16, substantially higher than 47.74 per cent in 2004, 38.43 per cent in 2003 and 27.42 per cent in 2002.
   This year’s pass percentage is the highest in the decade, and the pass percentage crossed the 50 per cent mark for the second time. The pass percentage was around 56.05 in 1999, and 46.40 per cent in 1995.
   Some 64.74 per cent of the examinees were successful in the HSC-equivalent Alim examinations under the madrassah board, while 58.08 per cent of the students were successful in the HSC business management, vocational and diploma in commerce examinations under the technical education board.
   The results were tabulated in grade-point average with a record 5,509 students of seven education boards scoring a maximum 5. Twenty-three students got GPA 5 under the madrassah board while two students got GPA 5 under the technical education board.
   In 2004 the number of students with GPA 5 was 3,047, rocketing up from only 20 in 2003 when the letter grade examination system was introduced.
   Of the 2,38,295 male examinees, 1,43,293 students or 60.13 per cent passed, while 1,02,256 female examinees or 57.84 per cent came out successful out of 1,76,793 female students who appeared in the HSC examinations.
   The Rajshahi Education Board topped the list with 65.93 per cent students passing the exams, while Sylhet Education Board was at the bottom of the list with the lowest pass percentage of 44.40.
   A total of 1,32,120 examinees appeared in the HSC examinations under the Dhaka Education Board, of whom 70,711 came out successfully with a pass percentage of 53.52. A total of 2,804 students got GPA 5.
   Some 18,061 passed the examinations out of 32,807 examinees under the Chittagong Education Board, which achieved a pass percentage of 55.05. A total of 485 students got GPA 5.
   About 1,03,281 examinees appeared under the Rajshahi Education Board, of whom 68,096 passed; the pass percentage of the board was 65.93. A total of 1,177 students got GPA 5.
   A total of 68,214 examinees appeared in this year’s HSC examinations under the Jessore Education Board. Of them 43,452 came out successfully, and the pass percentage of the board was 63.70. Some 492 students got GPA 5.
   Some 34,218 examinees appeared under the Comilla Education Board, and 20,550 came out successfully. The pass percentage of the board was 60.06. Two hundred and ninety-two students got GPA 5.
   About 27,343 students sat for exams under the Barisal Education Board, and among them
   17,085 came out successfully, giving the board a pass percentage of 62.48. The number of students who got GPA is 151.
   A total of 17,105 examinees appeared under the Sylhet Education Board, and among them 7,594 passed. The pass percentage was 44.40. Some 108 examinees got GPA 5.
   About 47,157 examinees appeared in the Alim examinations under the country’s Madrassah Education Board, and among them 30,555 came out successfully. The pass percentage was 64.74.
   A total of 28,946 examinees took part in the HSC (Business Management), Diploma-in-Commerce and HSC (Vocational) examinations under the Bangladesh Technical Education Board. Among them 15,969 came out successfully. The pass percentage was 59.98.
   Education minister Osman Farruk expressed satisfaction at the results. ‘The results show that the education system is improving and students are more studious,’ he told reporters.
   He said that this year’s pass percentage would have been higher if the students had done well in the English and mathematics examinations.
   Education state minister ANM Ehsanul Haq said that when the present government started the drive against copying in 2002, the pass percentage dipped to around 27 per cent. ‘Now, as the cheating has been stopped, students are studying more and there is a qualitative change in education also,’ he claimed.
   Earlier Farruk and Haq, accompanied by the education boards’ chairmen, handed the result sheets to Prime Minister Khaleda Zia at her office on Monday afternoon.

One hundred and thirty-one educational institutions fired blanks in this year’s HSC or equivalent examinations.
   Not a single student from these institutions passed the exams. They include 83 madrassahs and 14 colleges under the Dhaka Education Board, 13 under Rajshahi, 8 under Jessore, 7 under Barisal, 4 under Chittagong and one each under Comilla and Rajashahi boards.
   Education minister M Osman Farruk said stern action would be taken against the institutions.
   He said no institution would be given any preferences based on political consideration.
   Farruk said the number of institutions firing blanks decreased to 131 this year from 281 last year as the government took actions against such institutions last year.
   He claimed that the percentage of pass increased by around 12 per cent this year from the previous year. He attributed the success to the government’s punitive measures.

A central leader of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party on Monday stepped down accusing Jamaat-e-Islami, an alliance partner of the government, of being linked to recent bombings at shrines in the country.
   The party’s international affairs secretary, Najibul Bashar Maizbhandari, submitted his resignation to the party chairperson and prime minister, Khaleda Zia, and sent copies to the secretary general, Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan, and the PM’s political secretary, Haris Chowdhury.
   Najibul, a former member of parliament, said the ‘anti-mazar and pro-Moududi’ Jamaat-e-Islami was involved in bomb attacks at the shrines. ‘It is very clear and that is why, urs mahfils at the shrines are being banned,’ he said.
   ‘I take my position against violence in the name of religion, bomb attacks and creators of anarchy,’ he said.
   He told New Age Monday evening, ‘I have resigned from the BNP to clear my stance against Jamaat-e-Islami and fundamentalism.’
   ‘I do not want to be in a party which is influenced by Jamaat,’ he said. ‘Jamaat might have links with the recent serial blasts.’
   ‘The government did almost nothing as bomb attackers did not even spare the shrines,’ said Najibul, also president of Bangladesh Dargah-Mazar [shrine] Federation.
   He resigned from the Jatiyatabadi Olama Dal, BNP’s front organization of Islamic clerics, about two months back.
   ‘I would float a new party on October 3,’ he said.
   Najibul was elected MP with Awami League nomination in 1991 and joined BNP in 1995.
   He was elected parliament member in February 15, 1996 elections but did not get party nomination for June 12 election in 1996.
   Meanwhile, apparently perturbed by his daughter not getting a nomination for the reserved seats for women in parliament, Gayeshwar Chandra Roy, a joint secretary of the party, also threatened to quit.
   Gayeshwar met Bhuiyan at his residence on Sunday and wanted to know ‘what is the use of being in touch with the party?’.
   Gayeshwar, former general secretary of Jatiyatabadi Juba Dal, however, declined to comment on the issue.

Four activists of the Bangladesh Chhatra League were injured as two bombs went off on a procession of opposition student bodies at Dhaka University on Monday.
   Witnesses said the bombs exploded at the tail of the procession with big bangs and covered the area with thick smoke shortly after the procession was brought out from the Madhu’s Canteen at noon.
   Chhatra League, the student front of the Awami League, and its six allies brought out the procession in protest against the recruitment of pro-government student leaders as upazila election officers.
   The injured — Chhatra League central committee member Ratan, Lalbagh thana unit general secretary Manik, Salimullah Hall unit joint secretary Faruq, Dhaka College unit activist Saju — were given first aid at Dhaka Medical College Hospital.
   The blasts triggered panic in the entire Arts Building area. The students attending classes in the Arts Building and the Lecture Theatre came out of their classrooms and ran helter-skelter alongside others outside the buildings for shelter.
   The police cordoned off the blast site and found remains of crude bombs and marks of explosion on the road and on the boundary wall of the Institute of Business Studies. The proctor, Professor Firoz Ahmed, visited the site.
   Some Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal activists, who were in the Madhu’s Canteen during the blasts, clashed with a group of the Chhatra League activists after the blasts. Both Chhatra Dal and Chhatra League blamed each other for the blasts.
   The Dhaka University unit president of Chhatra Dal, Hasan Mamun, at a rally in front of the DUCSU Building said the Chhatra League had thrown the bombs on its own procession to make the campus volatile.
   ‘They have precedence of such activities and did so on May 31 in front of the Arts Building,’ he said. The Chhatra League president, Liakat Sikder, said it was a planned attack to divert attention from the Chhatra Dal infighting and was done as per instructions from the Hawa Bhaban, the office of the BNP chairperson.
   The Progressive Students’ Alliance, a coalition of eight left-leaning student bodies, urged the university authorities to take action against the culprits. ‘They are the university authorities who know the miscreants and always keep their eyes closed about them [miscreants],’ said the Chhatra Union president, Baki Billah.

The Irish Republican Army paramilitary group has completely disarmed, general John de Chastelain, the Canadian ex-military chief overseeing Northern Ireland’s disarmament process, announced on Monday.
   ‘We are satisfied that the arms decommissioned represent the totality of the IRA’s arsenal,’ de Chastelain told a press conference in Belfast after delivering a report on the process to the British and Irish governments.
   De Chastelain was flanked by Andrew Sens and Tauno Nieminen, his colleagues on the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning, the body charged with paramilitary disarmament.
   Also present were two clergymen who witnessed and verified the IRA’s destruction of its weapons caches, one each from the Catholic and Protestant churches.
   The clergymen were ‘certain about the exactitude of this report’, Methodist pastor Harold Good, one of the pair, told the press conference.
   While expected, de Chastelain’s announcement marks a potentially historic step in ending more than 30 years of inter-community violence in Northern Ireland, in which more than 3,500 people have died.
   In July, the IRA announced it was calling off its armed struggle for a united Ireland and would campaign purely politically in the future, pledging also to destroy its weapons.
   However, some Protestant politicians have expressed scepticism about the process as it was not photographed, as they demanded.
   But de Chastelain was adamant.
   ‘Over the past number of weeks, the members of the commission have engaged with the IRA representative in the execution of our mandate to decommission arms,’ he said in an opening statement.
   ‘We have now reported to the British and Irish governments that we have observed and verified events to put beyond use very large quantities of arms which we believe include all the arms in the IRA possession,’ he said.
   ‘We have also made an inventory of them.’

Israel launched more air strikes in Gaza Monday despite the Hamas saying it would halt rocket attacks, casting a shadow over prime minister Ariel Sharon’s bid to stave off a leadership challenge.
   The Israeli air force conducted six overnight raids and bombed a field used as a missile launch site by militants in an upsurge of violence that has put in doubt an expected summit between Sharon and Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas.
   Desperate to deflect accusations from his leadership rival Benjamin Netanyahu that his decision to pull troops out of Gaza a fortnight ago had bolstered the Islamist movement Hamas, Sharon’s camp said the air strikes and a series of mass arrests had forced the Islamists into a climbdown.
   But the spike in violence appeared to undermine Sharon’s argument that leaving Gaza would ease friction with the Palestinians and strengthened former premier Netanyahu’s hopes of ousting him from the helm of their Likud party which was voting to decide on the date of a leadership ballot.
   Gaza-based militants had fired dozens of rockets into Israel over the weekend, with the Palestinian Authority doing little to stop the barrage.
   After an embarrassed Sharon gave his army carte blanche to stop the attacks, Hamas announced on Sunday that its fighters would hold their fire.
   ‘Under our commitment to the national agreement made in Cairo to a cooling down period until the end of 2005, the movement announces it has stopped its operations from the Gaza Strip against the Zionist occupation,’ Mahmud Zahar, the Hamas leader in its Gaza stronghold, told reporters.
   His announcement however did not prevent a further six overnight raids on targets that the Israeli army said had been used to either manufacture or store weapons. After a gap of several hours, the air force then bombed an open field in northern Gaza which it said had been used to fire rockets.
   Although two members of Hamas and two Islamic Jihad militants were killed in weekend air strikes, there were no reports of casualties in the latest raids.
   The screw was also turned on Islamist militants in the West Bank where a further 90 people were detained overnight, the day after more 200 were arrested in a larger dragnet operation.
   Sharon’s more immediate focus is on saving his skin within Likud as members of its central committee vote on whether to hold the leadership primary in November or hold off until April.

Bangladesh secured the fourth position out of 16 Asian countries in the Asia Democracy Index, prepared by the Singapore-based Alliance for Reform and Democracy in Asia.
   In the overall ranking, Japan topped the list, followed by Hong Kong, Taiwan and Bangladesh. The other countries that were ranked are Philippines (5th), Thailand (6th), Indonesia (7th), Mongolia (8th), Sri Lanka (9th), South Korea (10th), Pakistan (11th), Cambodia (12th), Malaysia (13th), Nepal (14th), Singapore (15th) and Myanmar (16th). In the overall evaluation, Bangladesh’s score is 53.21%.
   The index was based on six aspects of democracy: civil rights, elections and political process, governance and corruption, media, rule of law, and participation and representation.
   In civil rights and elections and political process, Bangladesh occupied the 9th position with percentage scores of 62.34% and 45.14% respectively. In governance and corruption, Bangladesh’s position is 6th with 43.35 percentage score. In media and participation and representation, Bangladesh has been placed in 7th position with scores of 57.03% and 51.44% respectively.
   What is astonishing is that in rule of law, Bangladesh was ranked second (59.94%), only after Japan. Thus overall, Bangladesh has become an upper mid-ranking country in democratic progress among the 16 countries of Asia that were evaluated.
   This reflects the fact that despite the nation’s almost static position in the UNDP’s human development index and in spite of topping the list of the most corrupt countries of the world according to the Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index (CPI), the people of Bangladesh are democratic in attitude and practice.
   The Asia Democracy Index was based on the opinion of politically aware people, extracted through the survey’s well-designed questionnaire. As claimed by the organizers of the survey, the survey samples were chosen from diverse segments of society.
   The survey design team comprised well-reputed academics, lawyers, activists and political consultants. As claimed by the alliance, they tried to find out credible organisations to carry out the survey in the 16 countries. Sampling and calculation of survey scores were done in a scientific manner, claimed the alliance.
   According to the report, the average percentage score of all the countries studied is 46.73%.
   ‘This is not a strong score and demonstrates the overall weakness of democratisation in Asia,’ the report said.

Bangladesh Petroleum Dealers, Distributors, Agents and Petrol Pump Owners Association on Monday announced they would stop selling fuel from Wednesday as the government has not yet met the association’s 12-point demand.
   Leaders of the association, which represents around 8,500 members across the country, at a press conference in a city restaurant alleged that the government breached all its commitments made to them.
   ‘We have postponed our shut down programme several times following the assurance and commitment of the government to meet our demands,’ said Mohammad Nazmul Huq, president of the association.
   Nazmul said they would stop buying and selling fuel from Wednesday as there is no option left for them following the government’s repeated breach of commitment to fulfil their ‘logical demands.’
   ‘We will stop buying fuel from oil depots and stop selling fuel from Wednesday,’ said Nazmul.
   The major demands of the association include fuel sales commission, coverage of operational loss for storage, leakage and evaporation of oil, readjustment of sales commission due to increase in other expenditures, establishment of a joint monitoring cell to check adulteration and pilferage, establishment of a testing laboratory at each filling station to check adulteration.

The cabinet on Monday approved the cable television network policy without any provision on downlinking of satellite television programmes.
   The cabinet, in its weekly regular meeting held Monday night, approved Bangladesh Workers Welfare Foundation Bill, which proposes provisions for establishment of a welfare trust for workers, and new office timing for the month of Ramadan.
   The meeting also approved in principle the proposal for the establishment of a directorate for children and Comilla University Bill, which proposes enactment of a new law for the establishment of a new university in Comilla.
   The new office timing for the month of Ramadan will be from 9:00am to 3:30pm with a 15-minute break from 1 pm to 1:15pm for prayers, said sources present.
   The cabinet also decided to enact a new law for cable television networks in line with the policy it approved.
   Though the policy proposes restrictions on outward remittance of money by way of ‘royalty payments’ to foreign channels, and frequent increase of fees by distributors, cable or feed operators without prior permission from the government, the drainage of a huge amount of foreign currency to India will continue by way of payments for downlinking the satellite television programmes.
   Currently, the country has no system of downlinking the satellite television programmes, and three pay-channel distributing companies controlled by two individuals procure the programmes from India that downlinks them.
   The omission of provisions for directly downlinking satellite TV programmes will benefit only the two individuals mentioned above and harm the country’s economy.
   According to the Workers Welfare Foundation Bill, if enacted, a welfare foundation will be set up. The foundation will work for workers’ welfare including setting up of school, college and vocational institute for their children and clinic, hospital and recreation centre for them and their family members.

The Spanish High Court Monday jailed the Syrian head of a Spanish-based al-Qaeda cell for helping to organise the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, along with a Syrian-born television reporter and 16 others.
   The verdicts handed down on 24 men accused of links to the extremist organisation brought the curtain down on Europe’s biggest al-Qaeda trial to date.
   The court sentenced Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas, alias Abu Dahdah, to 27 years in jail for conspiring in the organisation of the September 11 attacks.
   The court also found television reporter Tayssir Alluni guilty of collaboration with al-Qaeda, sentencing the Syrian-born but naturalised Spaniard to seven years in jail.
   Yarkas, regarded as the head of a Spanish-based al-Qaeda cell under investigation since 1995, had faced a record jail term of 74,377 years for ‘active complicity’ in the US attacks — 25 years for each of the 2,973 victims—though under Spanish law he would have served a maximum 30.
   Alluni, who had insisted on his innocence throughout the trial, which began last April, interviewed the group’s leader Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan weeks after the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.
   Accused of acting as a financial courier to the group while in Afghanistan, Alluni, who had faced a maximum nine-year term, said he was only doing his job as a journalist, but the prosecution alleged he was in league with al-Qaeda and its leader.
   In a verdict stretching to 445 pages, the court imposed sentences of between six and 11 years on another 16 suspects and allowed the remaining six to go free.
   Those found not guilty included Ghasoub Al Abrash Ghalyoun, who along with Dahdah and Moroccan Driss Chebli stood accused of helping to prepare the attacks on New York and Washington.
   Chebli was given a six-year sentence for conspiring to help al-Qaeda. All the accused denied the charges.
   The prosecution accused Dahdah and Chebli of organising a July 2001 meeting in northeastern Spain attended by Mohamed Atta, ringleader of the September 11 hijackers.
   Ghalyoun was quizzed about why he had videotaped the twin towers of the World Trade Centre in New York, among many other sites in the US in 1997.
   He said he was simply taking pictures as a tourist. Spanish espionage chief Rafael Gomez Menor recognised during the 10-week trial that no proof had emerged of Ghalyoun’s footage being handed over to Al-Qaeda operatives.
   Abu Dahdah, in testimony in July, called the trial a farce. Of bin Laden, he said, ‘I know absolutely nothing of this man. I condemn what happened (on September 11).’
   He also said that accusations that he headed a ‘soldiers of Allah’ group of Islamist extremists were ‘a myth—totally false,’ and insisted Islam ‘clearly says that killing children, women, elderly people is wrong, as is bringing down buildings.’

Munshiganj town Chhatra League president, Tasmiruzzaman Tapash, 23, was gunned down, and his uncle, an Awami League leader and former municipal chairman was injured on Monday morning.
   It was alleged that the incident took place following an intra-party feud.
   Soon after the murder, the police detained another uncle of Tapash, Mohammad Mohiuddin, district AL president and 14 others, including Mohiuddin’s two sons.
   Mohiuddin was taken to the police station at 9:20pm.
   The police said they were taking preparations to file a case against him under an arms act and his brother, Anisuzzaman, on charge of the killing.
   Police later conducted a search at the residence of Mohiuddin in presence of a magistrate.
   The police said they recovered a pipe gun along with two rounds of bullets from a sandbag at the garage of Mohiuddin’s house.
   Mohiuddin said the pipe gun was kept at the garage outside the house to frame him.

The National Committee to Protect Oil, Gas, Mineral Resources, Power and Port on Monday started a road march towards Tengratila from Dhaka for what it claims protection of national resources, including gas, from government’s mismanagement.
   The three-day programme began through a rally at Muktangon in the city at 11:00am where the committee leaders condemned the imposition of section 144 at Tengratila during the march and called for withdrawal of the restriction.
   Tengratila gas field is the specimen of the government’s ‘shameless activities’ to satisfy their imperialist masters, they said and demanded compensation from the Canadian Niko Resources responsible for the blow-outs at the Tengratila gas filed.
   They also blasted the BNP-led alliance government and the past Awami League government for ‘illegally’ appointing the ‘unqualified’ Canadian company as the gas field operator.
   The governments, to award the gas filed to Niko, declared the Chatak gas field abandoned, they said and demanded cancellation of all ‘uneven agreements’ signed with Niko, and punishment for the officials who led the government to sign the agreements.
   They also criticised the government for not punishing Niko, instead allowing it to continue operation at Tengratila despite the January 7 and June 24 blow-outs.
   The government formulated committee showed damage of gas worth of Tk 45 crore while the Economic Association Bangladesh found direct damage caused by the blow-outs worth Tk 6,350 crore.
   Chaired by the committee convenor, Sheikh Mohammad Sahidullah, the rally was addressed, among others, by Professor Sirajul Islam, economists Anu Mohammad and MM Akash.
   The committee, which started the march by bus, will hold rallies, conduct mass contacts, distribute leaflets on way to Tengratila and end the programme next noon after holding a rally at Tengratila.
   The marchers would halt night at Ashuganj on Monday and resume the march at 9:00am today through a rally at Bishwaroad intersection in Brahmanbaria.
   They will conclude the second day programmes through a rally at Moulvibazar from where the final day programmes will start.

A recent order of the finance ministry stipulating austerity measures requires the approval of prime minister Khaleda Zia to come into effect, said sources concerned.
   The directive, reducing revenue budget allocation for fuel by 10 per cent, would have to be approved by Khaleda to be implemented, said sources in the bureaucratic quarters told New Age.
   The 16-point order of the ministry including reduction of petroleum expenditure was issued on September 8 as an austerity measure to address the sudden pressure on the economy due to the international oil price surge.
   Sources in the Cabinet Division told New Age that they would soon submit the finance ministry directives, particularly the one on fuel issue, to Khaleda for approval.
   The division will issue circulars to all government and semi-government offices, asking them to follow the order on fuel only after she approves the order, they said.
   They argued that the fuel is consumed by vehicles used by bureaucrats as well as ministers.
   ‘Only [Khaleda] can approve the reduction of allocation for ministers, the president and her own office,’ a high official in the division told New Age.
   Currently, government officials, upwards of joint secretary level, ministers, state ministers and deputy ministers have their monthly quota of fuel and are allocated funds accordingly.
   For instance, a joint secretary is allowed two hundred litres of octane per month.
   Sources in the finance ministry agreed with the Cabinet Division’s argument.
   All other austerity measures as directed by the finance ministry will be executed by the ministries or divisions concerned, said officials of the Cabinet Division and the finance ministry.
   The other major austerity measures include ban on vehicle procurement from the revenue budget, 10 per cent allocation cut under the ‘supplies and services’ head of all government and semi-government organisations that include office maintenance, fuel, government official training, and repair and maintenance.
   The directive also asked all government and semi-government offices to show highest austerity by government employees for utility consumption including electricity, gas and water.

A high-powered three-member audit team of the government’s Audit Department on Monday began investigating the recent leakage of a large quantity of diesel from the Jamuna terminal at Patenga, said official sources.
   The government has appointed Mohammad Ali, senior general manager of the Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation, the managing director of the Jamuna Oil Company after withdrawing Ahmed Jamal Khan Chowdhury following diesel spillage from the company’s oil installation.
   Chowdhury was transferred to Liquefied Petroleum Gas Company Ltd on Sunday evening.
   As per the decision of the energy ministry, the state-owned Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation took punitive measures against the managing director of Jamuna Oil, a subsidiary of the corporation, and 11 other officials and employees, said sources.
   Besides, the corporation reshuffled the posts of a number of officials of the BPC and its subsidiaries on Sunday.
   Jamuna’s general manager (marketing), Abul Khair, was attached with the BPC, LPGCL’s managing director, Md Rezaul Alam, was transferred to BPC as senior general manager (trade and operation), and Meghna Oil Company’s general manager, Md Nizamuddin, was made Jamuna’s general manager (marketing).
   The reshuffle was a result of two incidents of irregularities, including diesel spillage, in the company.
   According to an official estimate, diesel worth around Tk 50 lakh leaked into the Karnaphuli, after overflowing from a company tanker while diesel was being taken through a distribution pipe from the Eastern Refinery in Chittagong.
   Earlier, in another incident, the authorities found that diesel worth around Tk 5 crore had been misappropriated in Rangpur.
   The internal transfers in BPC and its three subsidiaries — Megna, Jamuna and LPGCL — has given rise to apprehension in the officers of the state-owned companies.
   Some 100 casual workers of Jamuna Oil Company verbally abused the transferred officers, terming them ‘corrupt’, said insiders and police.
   They also confined its MD and DGM (commercial) in their rooms for nearly two and a half hours from 8am to press home their demand for making their service permanent before the officers’ departure.
   The police rushed to the spot and brought the situation under control.
   Sources said an organised syndicate, backed by oil company officials and employees, was allegedly involved in pilferage of huge amounts of fuel from the oil terminals based in Patenga.

Radio audience in Bangladesh is declining compared to a boom in the number of television viewers. Newspaper readership in the rural areas is also falling despite a rise at the national level.
   This was revealed by latest studies on media liberalisation. Nearly 30 per cent of the people are still ‘media dark’, implying that they have no access to any media — either print or broadcast, according to the study findings presented at a seminar on Monday.
   Addressing its opening session, the law minister, Moudud Ahmed, stressed on liberalising the government-controlled Bangladesh Betar and the Bangladesh Television to help them compete with the burgeoning private sector electronic media.
   ‘I personally do not see any reason why we will not liberalise them,’ he said, pointing out that both the major parties — ruling BNP and opposition Awami League — are committed to the autonomy of the media.
   Asked why private television is not allowed access in parliament, Moudud blamed the speaker for denying the rights of the mass media to cover parliamentary affairs. ‘I want it but the speaker does not,’ he told a private television channel.
   President of the Bangladesh Enterprise Institute, Farooq Sobhan, mentioned that successive regimes initiated media liberalisation to use it only as a political tool but not to allow real growth of the sector.
   The institute, which advocates private sector development, organised the seminar ‘Broadcast Media Liberalisation in Bangladesh’ as part of a project to liberalise the airwaves and frequencies for attracting more private investment.
   Between 1995 and 2005, proportion of radio possession declined from 40 per cent to 32 per cent, said Khalid Hassan presenting the report that covered 40,000 people.
   Newspaper readership increased to 48 per cent from 32 per cent during the period although readership in rural areas declined slightly, he said.
   The survey found that the Bangladesh Television, with terrestrial facilities, covers 75 per cent urban and 55 per cent rural viewers while private television channels cover about 35 per cent viewers in urban areas and less than one per cent in rural areas.

Millions of animals — from camels to cane toads, horses and foxes — face extermination in Australia under recommendations by a parliamentary committee.
   A population explosion of species introduced to this isolated continent since European settlement began more than 200 years ago is a growing threat to agriculture and native wildlife, the committee of inquiry has found.
   ‘The exotic species need to be eradicated,’ committee chairman Alby Schultz told AFP. ‘That’s the first point I make.’
   Shooting and poisoning would be among methods recommended by the committee, which has been investigating the problem for more than a year and will present its report to parliament by early November, he said.
   The Department of the Environment lists animals of ‘significant concern’ as including feral camels (500,000), horses (300,000), donkeys (five million), pigs (up to 23 million), cane toads, European wild rabbits, European red foxes, cats and goats.
   Some of the animals such as camels, horses and donkeys were introduced as beasts of burden. Pigs and goats were brought in as food sources by early settlers and foxes for recreational hunting. Others, such as cane toads, were, ironically, imported to eradicate agricultural pests.
   With few natural predators and vast sparsely-populated areas in which to roam, the populations have soared, putting pressure on native species by preying on them, competing for food and shelter, destroying habitat and spreading diseases.
   Shultz said the committee would recommend the
   establishment of a national body to oversee a countrywide strategy to eliminate the exotic imports and replace previously uncoordinated attempts at regional control.
   Describing the need for action as ‘very urgent’, Shultz dismissed a suggestion that it would be impossible to shoot Australia’s half-million feral camels, for example, let alone the millions of other animals.
   ‘You can, because the donkey is a classic example of that.
   ‘In Western Australia they had a wild donkey population of somewhere between 400,000 and 500,000 and they’ve basically eradicated them,’ he said.
   This had been done through shooting from helicopters after using female ‘Judas donkeys’ wearing radio collars to lead marksmen to the feral herds, and the same could be done with camels and goats, he said.
   The conservation group WWF Australia agrees there is a need to cull feral animals, programme leader for species Nicola Markus told AFP, while stressing that it should be done as humanely as possible.
   ‘WWF Australia certainly recognises that invasive species, and that includes feral animals like cats and foxes and camels and cane toads and rabbits, are without a doubt one of the most serious threats to native biodiversity that there is.
   ‘Along with land-clearing and climate change they’d be right up there,’ she said.

The US Charge d’ Affaires, Judith A Chammas, on Monday called on the Awami League president, Sheikh Hasina, at her Sudha Sadan residence and discussed various issues, including the next general elections.
   During the meeting, Chammas hoped that the next general elections would be free and fair.
   Emerging from the meeting, she also urged all the political parties to work together to hold the next general elections in a free and fair manner.
   ‘We talked about the next elections, the August 17 nationwide blasts, August 21, 2004 grenade attacks, and other unresolved crimes,’ Chammas told journalists.
   About the Tuesday Group’s move to hold a conference and government’s negative decision in this regard, Judith said, ‘I don’t make any comment.’

The riot police on Monday foiled a march of the opposition demonstrators who planned to lay siege to the Election Commission secretariat in the city demanding cancellation of the recent recruitments of election officers.
   Several hundreds protesters of the Awami Juba League, youth front of the Awami League, planned to lay siege to the EC secretariat and police stopped the marchers with barbed-wire fence after the demonstrators could proceed hardly for 200 yards from the Bangabandhu Bhaban at Dhanmondi road no 32 (old).
   The EC secretariat recently recruited about 300 election officers and it was later alleged that half of the recruited officers were the activists of Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal, a student wing of the BNP.
   As the procession led by the Juba League president, Mirza Azam MP, was stopped by police, the protesters locked in an altercation with the police and later they held a rally within a cordon of police.
   Addressing the rally Mirza Azam demanded immediate resignation of the chief election commissioner, MA Aziz.
   Mirza said the chief election commissioner had revealed
   his subservience to the ruling party by appointing partisan election officers in accordance with the government’s instruction.