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The government asked the schools across the country to carry out school-based assessment of students of Class VI to IX, instead of the existing evaluation based solely on examinations.
   While some schools, especially in Dhaka, have begun implementing the assessment, schools mostly outside Dhaka are yet to receive the directive.
   The education minister, M Osman Farruk, at a press conference on September 1, 2005 declared that the new assessment system would be introduced in every school from January 2006. But facing severe criticism from media and educationists, the ministry later shelved the move.
   Sources said the directorate of secondary and higher education revived the initiative last month through a circular, announcing the launch of the SBA system as soon as possible.
   The SBA system sets 10 criteria to evaluate a student’s performance and allots 30 marks for it, while reserving 70 marks for the semester examinations. The final results of a student’s performance will be calculated by adding the two scores.
   The 30-mark evaluation will be based on attendance, interest in learning, performance in solo and group assignments and presentation, behaviour, values, honesty, leadership quality, punctuality, participation in cultural functions, achievements in sports, etc.
   On June 15, six months into the current academic session, the director general of secondary and higher education, Dilara Hafiz, issued the circular announcing that the system would be implemented as quickly as possible in all government and non-government schools across the country.
   ‘The government had postponed its decision to introduce a uni-track curriculum for secondary school students for one year, but not implementation of the SBA system,’ the circular said.
   ‘In March 28, the Secondary Education Sector Improvement Project director sought the education ministry’s further instruction to proceed with the SBA system as per the previous notification,’ Dilara said explaining why the circular had been issued.
   A number of officials attending an education ministry meeting on the issue on February 9 recommended that the SBA system should be deferred for one more year along with the uni-track curriculum.
   On the other hand, a ministry document reads, ‘The project director of the SESIP expressed the view that the SBA could be introduced under a uni-track or the existing multi-track [education].’
   ‘The chairman of the meeting, who is also the secretary of the education ministry, observed that implementation of the SBA should not be postponed,’ it also reads.
   ‘After the meeting, the ministry instructed the secondary and higher education directorate to issue a circular, stipulating that all schools should implement the SBA system as early as possible,’ Dilara said, noting, ‘Teachers have been in a dilemma over the implementation of the SBA.”
   There are about 17,000 secondary and junior-secondary schools with more than two lakh teachers and 86 lakh students in the country.
   The SESIP is a Tk 490-crore project that recommended introducing a uni-track curriculum and the SBA system from 2006. But, immediately after the education ministry circular had been issued in this regard, the media along with the educationists launched an intense campaign against it, as the government did not have the necessary preparations for implementing the decision properly.
   The educationists and the guardians of secondary school students also fear that the SBA system may make way for widespread corruption by fuelling the profiteering trend of private tuition.
   School teachers, too, apprehend that they may come under attack if they do not give full of high assessment marks to certain students. ‘Locally influential people may come down on the teachers, if they do not give their children the full 30 per cent SBA marks,’ said Jamal Uddin, a teacher at the Nalchhity Merchants’ High School in Jhalakathi.
   Besides, as an official of the directorate of secondary and higher education pointed out on Thursday, ‘Most of the teachers are yet to receive the training necessary for implementing such a project.’
   ‘The system will collapse, as the teachers have no clear idea about it,’ noted a teacher of the Upendra Biddyapith in Mymensingh.
   On the other hand, National Curriculum and Textbook Board chairman Gazi Mohammad Ahsanul Kabir said the SBA system would ensure proper evaluation of a student. ‘The system has been successfully implemented in many countries like New Zealand, Australia and Malaysia and will dramatically improve the quality of classroom education in Bangladesh,’ he told New Age.
   He said, ‘If it succeeds, the government will introduce the system up to Class X for the secondary school certificate examinations from 2009.’

Taka has lost its value against the US dollar by 8.58 per cent during the just-concluded fiscal year, standing at Tk 69.73 at the end of June on weighted average basis.
   The rate was Tk 63.75 per dollar at the end of June 2005, down 5.2 per cent from Tk 60.43 per dollar of a year back, Bangladesh Bank statistics showed.
   Trend of exchange rate in the 2005-06 fiscal year saw some excessive depreciation during February-April period before it started appreciating marginally in May.
   The central bank statistics showed that taka depreciated by 5.24 per cent between July-February period of the last fiscal year.
   But the scenario reversed in March with taka losing 10.75 per cent value against dollar from June 2005 level as demand for the greenback exceeded its supply in the market.
   Banks faced some shortage of dollar in the inter-bank foreign exchange market mainly due to higher pressure from inflated import bills and heavy purchase of dollar by the nationalised commercial banks from the market.
   Payments against import of oil, which saw price volatility for the last few months, forced the state-owned lenders, traditionally the major suppliers of dollar to the local currency market, to rely heavily on the market for the greenback.
   The situation, however, started to ease by the last quarter of the fiscal year 2005-06 as taka depreciated by 8.80 per cent in April 2006 over June 2005.
   ‘While the overall current account balance had been positive over the July-March period, the financial account and balance of payments shortfalls engendered some day-to-day volatility,’ said the Bangladesh Bank Quarterly.
   ‘Maturing liabilities for FY05 oil imports on deferred payment basis, and lower receipts of external development assistance caused the latter imbalance,’ it observed.
   In fact, improvement in both the supply and demand sides finally eased the pressure on exchange rate as well as current account.
   The higher inflow of remittances and robust growth of export improved the supply of greenback in the market in the last quarter significantly.
   The remittance inflow in the third quarter of the fiscal amounted to $1.29 billion while in the last quartet it rose to $1.33 billion.
   Again, export earnings in February-March period stood at $1.72 billion rising rose to $1.88 billion in April-May period of the last fiscal year.
   ‘Robust growth of exports and remittances, reinforced by a slower growth in imports however had led to a favorable current account balance,’ said the central bank publication.
   The balance of payments statistics up to May’06 also reflected the trend as the current account balance had a surplus value of $403 million against deficit of $730 million in the same period of previous fiscal.
   The merchandise trade gap also stood lower at $2.73 billion in July-May period of fiscal year 2005-06 which was $3.1 billion in the 11 months of previous fiscal year.
   The Bangladesh Bank quarterly also said that both the nominal and real effective exchange rates continued to show a trend towards depreciation during the third quarter of last fiscal year that is expected to render Bangladesh exports more competitive internationally and encourage inward remittances.
   But there is wide belief that the central bank still utilises its mechanism to artificially control the exchange rate so that taka remained overvalued against the major currencies.

The foreign ministers of the seven member countries of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation are scheduled to meet in Dhaka on August 1-2 to review the implementation status of the plan of action taken at the 13th SAARC summit, official sources said.
   Prior to the council of ministers’ meeting, foreign secretaries of the SAARC countries will meet between July 31 and August 1 and the meeting of the programming committee will be held on July 30, the foreign ministry sources said.
   Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Nepal and Bhutan are the members of the regional forum.
   The meeting of the SAARC foreign ministers will put special emphasis on issues like trade in services, communications links
   among the member countries, establishment of the SAARC energy center and finalising operation modalities of the SAARC poverty alleviation fund, which were incorporated in the 53-point plan of action of the Dhaka Declaration adopted at the 13th SAARC summit, held from November 12 to 13 in Dhaka, according to the provisional agenda of the meeting.
   The agenda was finalised at an inter-ministerial meeting, held at the foreign ministry here on July 13. The meeting presided over by the foreign secretary Hemayetuddin, was attended by representatives from different ministries and divisions concerned of the government.
   The foreign ministers will also review the implementation status of the decisions taken at five ministerial-level meetings held so far in Dhaka after the 13th summit.
   The SAARC ministerial-level meetings, held after the 13th summit, were—first Safta ministerial council, third SAARC health ministerial meeting, first SAARC home ministers’ meeting, and seventh SAARC environment ministers’ meeting.
   The Dhaka Declaration decided to incorporate trade in services in the South Asian Free Trade Area agreement, which is based on trade in goods. A study on trade in services in the SAARC countries is likely to be undertaken prior to incorporating the area with the Safta agreement, sources in the commerce ministry told New Age.
   The council of ministers’ meeting will discuss extensively on the SAARC regional multi-modal transport issue, on which a study report was also submitted to all seven member-countries for a decision.
   ‘Dhaka would soon finalise its position on transport connectivity among all seven member-countries of the forum based on the study report,’ a high official in the foreign ministry told New Age.
   ‘Prior to the meeting of the council of ministers, our foreign and communications ministries would hold discussions on the matter to finalise the country’s position.’
   The 13th summit decided that the finance ministers of the SAARC countries would finalise the operation modalities of the forum’s poverty alleviation fund. The meeting was held on July 11 in Islamabad. But the finance minister, M Saifur Rahman, did not attend the meeting. However, a deputy secretary of the finance ministry attended it, sources said.
   The forthcoming meeting will review the status of establishing the SAARC energy center in Islamabad, which was also decided at the 13th summit.
   Besides, the meeting of the SAARC foreign ministers will review the implementation status of opening of counters for SAARC nationals at the international airports in the region, special incentives for SAARC nationals visiting countries of the region and special rates for them, sources said.

At least 28 teenage girls, taunted and harassed by hoodlums, committed suicide in the last four years, their deaths exposing the vulnerability of young women in the society plagued by lawlessness.
   Harassment of girl students in front of schools and colleges or on their way has been on the rise in every neighbourhood of the city. But most of the victims endure it silently and avoid filing complaints with the police fearing further troubles.
   According to psychiatrists, the victims, devastated by such regular harassment, often take their own lives as they find no alternative to register their protest in a society where lawlessness is all pervasive.
   Hamida Akhter Begum, a professor of psychology at the Dhaka University, told New Age on Saturday, ‘as the girls and their families do not get any help from the law enforcers or the society, the victims often commit suicide in desperation.’
   She referred to a recent news report which said that some 28 girls had committed suicide to get rid of such harassment by local hoodlums.
   Such harassment, widely known as eve-teasing in Asia, includes obscene remarks, verbal abuses, pats, push or pinch and leering she said.
   ‘Every family should be careful about the teenage girls, helping them by every means possible if they are in such troubles,’ she said.
   Quite often groups of boys are seen standing in front of girls’ schools and colleges hurling offensive remarks or leering at passing girls. Such behaviour not only comes from wayward young men, but sometimes also from rickshaw pullers, transport workers and pedestrians.
   On Thursday, Bijli Akhter Swapna, 13, a student of class VI, committed suicide after being regularly taunted by local hoodlums in the city’s Pallabi area.
   Hundreds of girls stop going to schools or colleges every year to avoid such regular harassment, according to an annual report on ‘repression on women- 2005’ conducted by Bangladesh National Women’s Lawyers Association.
   Most of the cases show that the victims of such harassment sometimes approach local leaders for justice, but are rebuked for allegedly being ‘over smart,’ and wearing ‘bad dresses’.
   On August 23, 2001, Simi, a final year student of Narayanganj Fine Arts Institute, committed suicide after she was called a ‘bad girl’ when she went to local leaders for justice.
   The Repression on Women and Children (Prevention) Act-2000 has provisions for imprisonment of up to seven years for harassment of girls including obscene gesture.
   An amendment to the act in 2003 changed the provision and said no one can be charged with sexual harassment until it is physical. People who harass girls and women at public places can no longer be tried under the act.
   The government defended the amendment saying that the provision was much abused to harass rivals. Plaintiffs failed to prove the cases of such harassment at public places. The change angered women’s rights activists.
   Harassment of girls is still a punishable offence under the Dhaka Metropolitan Police Ordinance. The penalty is up to a year’s imprisonment with a fine up to Tk 2000.

Hundreds of Israeli troops moved in and out of Lebanon Saturday, taking control of a village and engaging Hezbollah militants by land, sea and air as part of the country’s limited ground campaign, reports AP.
   Four civilians were killed and seven others were wounded on various locations when the Israeli fighter bombers fired missiles at transmission towers in the central and northern Lebanese mountains, knocking three television stations off the air and cutting phone links to some regions.
   Around 10 Israeli armoured vehicles crushed a border fence and entered Lebanon, driving past a UN observation post, an AFP correspondent reported.
   Armoured personnel carriers and bulldozers crossed the border at Avivim, around 35 kilometres from the Mediterranean coast, driving past an observation post of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon.
   ‘This is only a pinpoint operation,’ said army spokesman Jacob Dalal.
   The United States is rushing a delivery of precision-guided bombs to Israel, which requested the expedited shipment last week after beginning its air campaign against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, The New York Times reported Saturday, citing unnamed US officials.
   The decision to expedite the weapons to Israel was made with relatively little debate within the administration of president George W Bush, the officials said Friday on condition of anonymity.
   Early Saturday Israeli soldiers backed by artillery and tank fire moved into the large village of Maroun al-Ras on the Lebanese side of the border and took control, military officials said on condition of anonymity.
   Lebanese security sources, who also spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information, disputed the account though, and said that the Israeli military had made incursions of only a few hundred yards into the Maroun al-Ras and Yaroun villages.
   But an AP reporter on the Israeli side of the border saw Israeli troops head into Maroun al-Ras and said they were still fighting with some Hezbollah militants. At one point, a half-ton bomb hit a Hezbollah outpost near Maroun al-Ras.
   UN peacekeepers on the border said Israeli forces withdrew on Friday night from the village of Marwaheen, just inside Lebanon, but were still pre- sent further east in Maroun
   al-Ras, scene of fierce fighting arlier this week, reports Reuters.
   Witnesses said Israeli warplanes launched repeated raids on the town of al-Khiam, just north of the border. They also struck near the port of Tyre and destroyed five trucks in east Lebanon.
   Hezbollah fired rockets from fields around the southern town of Marjayoun, witnesses said. Israeli medics and the army said at least 10 rockets hit towns across northern Israel, wounding 10 people and damaging two houses.
   Israel has been building up its forces at the border and has called up 3,000 reserves. The defence minister, Amir Peretz, has talked of a possible land offensive to halt rocket attacks.
   But Israel is wary of mounting another invasion, only six years after it ended a costly 22-year occupation of the south. Nineteen soldiers have already been killed in the latest conflict.
   Thousands of Lebanese civilians have fled north fearing Israel will invade and expand an 11-day-old bombardment of Lebanon which has killed 348 people, mostly civilians.

The assistant officials who have begun going door-to-door for voters’ roll update, especially in Dhaka, are facing problems as the process is complicated and most tenants, who were enlisted as voters in the existing roll, have moved to new addresses.
   Some officials who started their job in the city have become frustrated and apathetic, slowing down the work.
   Some officials said the campaign would not get going well until they are assured of better payment. Some assistant registration officers also feared the campaign may not see immediate success as a number of assistant officials seemed unwilling and requested to be counted out because of the work pressure and small amount of money in return.
   ‘Complicated procedures and uncertainty over the receipt of the poor remuneration discouraged the officials concerned in carrying out the job seriously,’ said an assistant election officer.
   ‘I visited 17 houses in two days… the tenants, who were earlier enlisted as voters, have moved to new addresses. But nobody in these houses, including the owners found interested to make any claim that the tenants moved,’ an assistant official at Kazipara of Mirpur said.
   ‘How I can drop the names of the previous tenants, who were enlisted as voters and moved to new addresses,’ said the assistant official. He said the officials are lacked in training to carry out the job properly.
   Some other assistant officials, who appeared not pressed to complete the job, expressed similar views.
   ‘How can I visit door-to-door when I need to spend the past two days in my school?’ said a school teacher, who is supposed to visit 517 voters at Mirpur.
   ‘Apart from moving out of tenants, most prospective voters were also not at home when I went to update the roll. After conducting my job at school, it becomes difficult for a teacher to visit a house day after day to update the roll,’ said a woman teacher at Agargaon.
   The 20-day campaign initiated by the Election Commission to update the voters’ roll with door-to-door information collection got off to a sluggish start on Friday. The job is scheduled to be completed by August 10.
   The updated voters’ roll will be used in the next general elections, scheduled during January 2007.
   The commission appointed 1,35,487 assistant officials for door-to-door visits to update the roll, which contains the particulars of 7,64,27,771 voters. On an average, an assistant official will deal with 564 voters.
   Field-level officials said the task of updating a list was more complicated than preparing a fresh list.
   ‘The procedure is complicated and time-consuming. During the preparation of a fresh voters’ roll, enumerators register voters only after collecting individual information during door-to-door visits. Now they need to find out how many people of a household are on the roll, how many should be dropped and how many will be registered as new voters.
   ‘I visited a five-storey building and found seven voters there. I had to spend two hours to find out the seen voters on the list,’ said an assistant official of Ward 41 in Dhaka. The assistant officials suggested that the timeframe for the job should be extended.
   Private news agency BDNews reported that lack of training of the assistant officials put the much-delayed implementation of the EC decision in question.
   Aminul Haque Bhuiyan, assistant registration officer for Ward 41 in Dhaka, was worried about the shortage of manpower. Eight of the 20 assistant officials he appointed on Saturday applied to be relieved of their duties on medical grounds just on the second day of the house-to-house visit.
   Najmun Nahar Shahin, headmistress of the Sher-e-Bangla Nagar High School, said the eight assistant officials, who are on the institution’s teaching staff, had not applied for leave.
   Bhuiyan said the assistant officials under him lost their interest as they considered the task a hectic job because of the complicated procedures. The Election Commission should train them up as it happened in the case of enumerators, he suggested.
   Haji Ashraf Ali School assistant headmaster Mohammad Sohel Miah held the same problem for the failure of the commission initiative. The officials often fail to understand the job as they are not trained.
   An assistant official, Shahida Begum, who is a schoolteacher, was disappointed at the reluctance of the voters. She said, ‘In my area, people are reluctant to enrol their names as voters.’

Bandits on Saturday looted cash and valuables from a compartment of the Upaban Express train near Tejgaon railway station in Dhaka.
   The bandits injured six passengers during the scuffle.
   The passengers managed to capture one of the bandits in the train.
   One of the injured passengers identified a bandit, who was also admitted to Dhaka Medical College hospital. He was then captured.
   The injured passengers were Helal Uddin, 25, son of Abdul Motaleb of Bara Jamai in Moulvibazar, his younger brother Mohammad Sohel, 20, younger sister Rumana, 17, and their three uncles Faruq Ahmed, 40, Lutfar Rahman, 40 and Keramot Ali, 36.
   The victims said the gang of eight robbers boarded a second-class compartment of the train coming from Sylhet at around 6:00am when the train was moving slow towards Kamalapur Railway Station.
   The gang attacked the passengers and stabbed them before looting Tk 60,000 in cash, three mobiles sets, ornaments and others valuables.
   As the victims cried out for help, people from others compartments captured Sumon, 25; his other associates managed to jump out of the train.
   ‘As we were about to get down from the train, three of the gang members attacked us and stabbed my younger brother Shohel before snatching his mobile,’ Helal told New Age at the hospital. ‘All my family members came to Dhaka to attend a wedding ceremony at Mohammadpur.’
   The passengers beat up Sumon until he fell unconscious. He was later handed over to the Tejgaon police.
   The local people and other passengers took the injured to the hospital where were under treatment till the evening.
   As Helal was admitted to the hospital, he found one injured bandit, Manik alias Manikkya, who attacked them also admitted to the same ward with injuries in the leg.
   The police arrested Manik in possession of a sharp weapon from the hospital.
   The police handed over Sumon to Kamalapur railway police station after primary treatment. Manik was under treatment in the hospital. A case was filed with the Kamalapur railway police in this connection.

The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has been lobbying Muslims to be more active in seeking an end to Israel’s continuing assault on Gaza and Lebanon, his office said Saturday.
   ‘The silence of the United Nations... and some Western countries’ support for Zionist atrocities against defenceless children and women calls for a more active role by Muslim nations to put an end to these attacks,’ Ahmadinejad said.
   The president, a fierce opponent of Israel’s existence, also held telephone talks with leaders from Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, and called for an emergency meeting of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference.
   In a separate letter to the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, the Iranian foreign minister, Manoucheher Mottaki, urged him to step up efforts to halt the ‘savage attacks by the Zionist regime’.
   Meanwhile, leading Democrats attacked the US president, George W Bush, on Friday for losing control of the Middle East by neglecting specific regional powers and sending the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, on only a brief crisis trip.
   Democratic National Committee chairman and former White House hopeful Howard Dean said Rice’s planned regional tour was an ‘important first step’ but that she would have trouble finding a solution of the Lebanese conflict.
   Two other leading Democrats said Bush was losing traction in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because his administration was already overstretched with crises ranging from North Korea and Iran to the war in Iraq.
   Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev described Israel’s military bombardment of Lebanon as an ‘absurd’ over-reaction to Hezbollah attacks Saturday.
   Gorbachev, in Australia for an environmental conference, said he respected Israel’s right to retaliate against a Hezbollah attack but he said Israel’s reaction was ‘not proportional to the things that caused these flashes in the first place’.
   Gorbachev also said the US president had taken a contradictory position on the current violence.
   ‘On the one hand I believe that the president initially said that the Israeli reaction was justified,’ Gorbachev said.
   ‘At the same time I saw that he was suggesting that he didn’t want an escalation in that conflict.
   The protest against the Israeli bombardment continued throughout the world.
   ‘Peace for Lebanon!’ rang the chant of thousands of protestors who took to the streets of London Saturday in one of several rallies across Britain against Israel’s offensive in the Middle East.
   Waving Lebanese and Palestinian flags and banging drums the demonstrators demanded an immediate end to the Jewish state’s bombardment of Lebanon and Gaza that has left hundreds of people dead.
   About 1,000 demonstrators gathered in the heart of Brazil’s largest city Friday to protest Israeli air and sea strikes against Lebanon that saw seven Brazilians killed in the bombardment, police said.
   Shops and schools closed in the main city of revolt-hit Indian Kashmir on Saturday in a strike called by a Muslim separatist leader.
   More than 10,000 people marched through Australia’s largest city Saturday calling for an end to Israeli attacks on Lebanon.

With no pause in the violence in the Middle East diplomatic efforts were under way this weekend to break the stalemate, although there were few signs that Israel’s main backer, the United States, was ready to exert any pressure.
   The US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, is due to arrive in Israel next week, at a time when many observers say the conflict has drawn the two allies into an even tighter embrace than normal, with the Bush administration and Israel now viewing Hezbollah and its backers, Syria and Iran, as their common enemies.
   But Washington is conscious of growing international demand for a ceasefire, and is concerned about the impact of the fighting on Lebanon and its own project for Arab democratisation, analysts said.
   After visiting Israel and meeting Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas, Rice will attend a conference in Rome Wednesday which will bring together the core group on Lebanon, which includes France, Britain, Lebanon, the European Union, Russia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Italy, the United Nations and the World Bank.
   But Rice warned demands from many of those nations for an immediate ceasefire belonged in the ‘old’ Middle East as they ignored what Washington said was the cause of the conflict, the proxy use of Hezbollah by Iran and Syria.
   ‘A ceasefire would be a false promise if it simply returns us to the status quo,’ Rice said.
   ‘This is a different Middle East. It’s a new Middle East. It’s hard, We’re going through a very violent time,’ she said.
   The United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, warned that any Israeli invasion of Lebanon would see a dramatic escalation of Hezbollah attacks and said Syria and Iran should be involved in resolving the crisis.
   He also lobbied on behalf of an international security force in the border region that Israel so far has refused to back as its troops mass near southern Lebanon where the Hezbollah militia is based.
   Britain has warned Israel that a ground invasion of Lebanon could have disastrous consequences, the Financial Times newspaper reported on Saturday.
   ‘This is a very dangerous situation: this could be a turning point,’ Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett told the paper in an interview, as international fears mounted of a full-scale war.
   ‘A miscalculation, a mistake, could have dramatic effects, and that I find deeply alarming.’
   The German foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, left Saturday for a two-day visit to the Middle East during which he will go to Egypt, Israel and the Palestinian Territories in search of a diplomatic solution.
   ‘The number of victims among the civilian population, in particular southern Lebanon, is alarming,’ he said before leaving Berlin.
   His French counterpart Philippe Douste-Blazy warned in Cairo that the continuation of the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah could lead to the destruction of Lebanon and called for an immediate ceasefire.
   ‘We have to acknowledge the extreme seriousness of the situation ... call for an immediate halt to hostilities and find all the conditions for a ceasefire,’ he said after meeting the Egyptian foreign minister, Ahmed Abul Gheit.

The Supreme Court Bar Association leaders on Saturday asked the chief election commissioner, MA Aziz, and his two colleagues to resign by July 31.
   They also urged the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party and the Awami League-led 14-party opposition combine to start a dialogue immediately to reach a consensus on reforms in the caretaker government system and the Election Commission.
   They were speaking at a roundtable held in the association’s hall room, with its president M Amirul Islam in the chair.
   It was decided that the association would send letters signed by the participants conveying the meeting’s opinions to the president, the prime minister and the chief justice.
   The chief election commissioner and the other election commissioners must go and the caretaker government system must be reformed to sustain the democracy, said Gano Forum president Dr Kamal Hossain.
   He called upon all to start social mobilisation to realise the demands.
   ‘We do not have any problem with the existing laws. The problem is with our mindset. We are used to politicising everything. We do not have any sense of social ethics, honesty and respect for the constitution,’ Kamal said with regrets.
   In his turn, the convenor of the citizens’ committee, Rehman Sobhan, remarked, ‘If the government does have a will to hold a free and fair election, it will have to solve the crisis through negotiations with the opposition.’
   The chief election commissioner is still violating the constitution and the Supreme Court directives on preparation of the voters’ roll, former election commissioner Justice Nayeemuddin Ahmed told the roundtable.
   He advised all to keep a close eye on the chief election commissioner’s relationship with the government high-ups.
   Justice KM Sobhan said the two major political parties of the country should step forward to resolve their differences through discussion within a certain period.
   The chairman of the editorial boards of the dailies Ittefaq and New Nation, Mainul Hossain, identified politicisation of all institutions, commercialisation of politics and sales of candidature to corrupt businessmen and bureaucrats as the major problems of the democracy.
   Mainul, also a former president of the bar association, demanded a legislation banning judges and civil and military bureaucrats from getting involved in politics.
   Barrister Rokanuddin Mahmud, National Press Club president Reazudding Ahmed, former cabinet secretary Mujibul Haque, former SCBA presidents Ozair Farooq and Mahbubey Alam, editor of the daily Bangladesh Observer Iqbal Sobhan Chowdhury, SCBA secretary AM Aminuddin, Badrul Alam Majumder of the Citizens for Good Governance, cultural activist Nasiruddin Yusuf Bacchu, and economist Atiur Rahman took part in the discussion, among others.

The Japanese foreign minister Taro Aso’s scheduled visit to Bangladesh is very significant and it will have a positive impact on Dhaka-Tokyo bilateral relations, says the foreign secretary, Hemayetuddin.
   Taro Aso arrives in Dhaka on Monday on a two-day goodwill visit at the invitation of his Bangladeshi counterpart, M Morshed Khan.
   He will hold official talks with Morshed on July 25. Bilateral, regional and international issues will be discussed during the talks.
   ‘All aspects of our bilateral relations would be discussed and we will seek out new areas of cooperation,’ Hemayet told the news agency on Saturday.
   Hemayet said the visit is ‘extremely significant’ as Japan is Bangladesh’s largest development partner. Japan, a economic superpower, contributes immensely to Bangladesh’s economic and infrastructure development.
   Sources indicated that during the official talks Japanese assistance might be sought for establishing deep seaport in Chittagong and the Padma multipurpose bridge.
   During his brief visit here, Taro Aso is expected to meet the president, Iajuddin Ahmed, and the prime minister, Khaleda Zia.
   An official source said Japan could possibly offer to send a Japanese election-monitoring team for the upcoming general election in Bangladesh.

Israel has opened a safe maritime and air corridor to allow humanitarian aid shipments to reach Lebanon, the head of the Israeli army coordination office said on Saturday.
   ‘We have authorised a 50-mile-long and five-mile-wide (80 by eight kilometres) safe passage to the Beirut port for ships and aircraft,’ major Asahel Avraham said, apparently referring to helicopters.
   ‘We have announced that any nations that wished to support the humanitarian aid efforts for Lebanon could do so in coordination with us.’
   Avraham noted, however, that no international body such as the United Nations had yet contacted Israeli authorities with such a request.
   ‘Following requests and information concerning the many shortages, we have opened a corridor for the delivery of humanitarian aid to Lebanon,’ Israeli chief of staff Dan Halutz said on Friday.
   ‘All countries wanting to send this type of aid can do so by coordinating with Israel,’ he added.
   The same passage has been used for the evacuation of foreigners from Lebanon, which has been placed under a land, air and sea blockade by the Israeli army since the outbreak of violence on July 12.
   Jan Egeland, UN undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs, has been pressing for humanitarian routes through north Lebanon to Beirut by road, and free entry points for sea bound cargo through Tripoli, Tyre and Beirut ports.
   He has also asked for the reopening of Beirut international airport to humanitarian flights.

The Bangladesh civil service coordination council, a coalition of 26 cadre services of the Bangladesh Civil Service, is likely to initiate a movement to push for its 10-point demands that include administrative reforms to get rid of the present bureaucratic administrative system and establishment of work and profession based public administration.
   The leaders of coordination council will seek an appointment with the Prime Minister, Khaleda Zia, to realise the first demand, the organisation president, Nurul Huda, told New Age on Saturday.
   If denied any appointment or the meeting fails to bring about positive results, the council, which represents all services of the government excepting the administration cadre, will go for movement, he said.
   A general meeting of the council, held on July 6, came up with the decision.
   The meeting also iterated the 10-point demand and elected a 59-member executive committee with Nurul Huda, an engineer, as its president and agriculturist Nazrul Islam as secretary general.
   The 10-ponit demands include posting the members of the cadre services to the posts of assistant secretary to secretary, introduction of six-tier pay-scale for all Class I officials to eradicate discrimination, establishment of a permanent pay commission and a service commission, amendment to the Warrant of Precedence on the basis of pay-scale, appointing to the posts of deputy secretary and above on the basis of tests to be conducted by Public Service Commission, de-politicisation of the public administration and the Public Service Commission, reorganising the district development coordination committee with a public representative as its chairman, giving effect to the circular declaring the ministers as the head of the ministries or departments, establishment of elected local government at every tier of the administration and implementation of the 12-point directive of the Supreme Court for the separation of the judiciary from the executive.

The court is at loggerheads with the police over producing the victims of the February 25 Phoenix building collapse at Tejgaon who have not yet received compensation.
   The chief metropolitan magistrates’ court blamed the police for not producing the victims. But the police said now it was not their responsibility to produce the victims as they had already submitted a list to the court for paying compensation.
   ‘We cannot hand over the cheques to the remaining victims as the investigation officer does not produce them together,’ said the magistrate Shafiq Anwar, who was assigned for distributing Tk 1.2 crore in compensation among all the victims.
   Earlier on 24 April, the court handed over cheques of Tk 55.5 lakh to the 24 injured, out of total 43, and the families of 12 dead out of the 16. But the remaining victims were asked to appear in the court after two days, court sources said.
   ‘We stopped payment on April 26 following the confusion over the list of the victims and their families,’ the magistrate said adding that the court later asked the investigation officer to submit a proper list of the victims and produce them together.
   The investigation officer, Shafiqul Islam, also an inspector of the detective branch, said that he had already submitted a list of the victims and the court would now summon them to receive the compensation.
   Some victims might be excluded from the list as they were not in the capital city, he said. ‘It may not be only reason to stop the payment.’
   The investigation officer on March 23 submitted a reported to the court detailing the names and addresses of 16 people killed in the building collapse with 43 injured.
   But the Tejgaon police sued eight top company officials, including its chairman, Deen Mohammad, for their negligence of duty that killed 20 people and injured 43.
   Deen Mohammad along with his employees was granted bail after he had deposited Tk 1.20 crore to the chief metropolitan magistrate, Jalal Ahmed, on March 27 for paying compensation to the victims. The High Court asked him to fix compensation and grant them bail.
   The lower court issued ruling that the families of the deceased would get Tk 3 lakh each, three maimed workers Tk 2 lakh each, and 24 seriously injured Tk 1 lakh each. Besides, 16 others who sustained minor injuries would get Tk 50,000 each.
   The rests of Tk 16 lakh would be kept with the court funds to meet needs of the victims in future.
   But a 17-year old worker Nikhil who sustained injuries in the hand said, ‘The court is yet to pay my compensation, although my name is on the list.’

Two persons were shot dead by the cadres of the United People’s Democratic Front, an anti-CHT peace treaty group, in Guimara area under Khagrachhari early Saturday.
   The victims were identified as Anil Chakma, 30 and K Pru Marma, 35, – supporters of the CHT peace treaty, BDR sources said.
   Local sources said a group of armed UPDF cadres called out Anil and K Pru from their houses at Guimara in Matiranga early morning and opened fire on the two killing them on the spot.
   The UPDF killed the two persons as a sequel to the killing of one of their associates at Panchhari on Thursday, the sources said.
   On information, members of the Bangladesh Rifles went to the spot and cordoned off the area. Sensing presence of BDR members, the UPDF cadres fired shots. The BDR personnel also fired several round of shots in retaliation.
   The UPDF cadres, however, managed to flee.
   Kalapa Chakma, a UPDF cadre was killed on Thursday in Logang area under Panchhari when the BDR members and UPDF cadres were locked in a gun battle. Some weapons were recovered and five UPDF men arrested in connection with the incident.

You don’t have to be an astronaut anymore to experience walking in space. All you need is $35 million and the willingness to risk your life.
   A private Virginia firm that already has sent three super-rich men to the international space station for $20 million each announced Friday it would offer an even rarer adventure: A stroll outside the space station for an extra $15 million.
   ‘It is the holy grail of spaceflight; it’s something very few of the astronauts and cosmonauts have done,’ said Eric Anderson, chief executive of Space Adventures Limited.
   Added former NASA spacewalker Kathy Thornton, who is on the firm’s advisory board: ‘It’s just sort of the feeling of freedom, that you are your own satellite.’
   With the blessing of the Russian space agency, Space Adventures is arranging for the first spacewalking tourist to go into orbit in about a year or so, Anderson said. The trip would involve a launch in a Soyuz capsule, an eight-day stay aboard the international space station and a 90-minute spacewalk in a Russian spacesuit. An extra month would be added to the six-month cosmonaut training.
   NASA, which has grudgingly accepted Russian-initiated space tourism, would not comment on the proposal.
   ‘They’re going to be right outside the door for an hour-and-a-half tethered to the ship,’ Anderson said. ‘Of course, they will have a cosmonaut with them.’
   Former astronaut Tom Jones, who is on Space Adventures advisory board, said spacesuits are reliable, but the biggest risk is ‘doing something stupid inside because you are not on top of the situation.’
   ‘If you don’t have that comfort level with that suit, that’s when you can get a panic attack,’ he said.
   In the end, he added, a spacewalk is worth the risk.
   ‘It’s such a beautiful experience physically,’ said Jones, author of the memoir ‘Sky Walking.’ ‘It brought tears to my eyes.’

The recommendations of the judicial inquiry commission formed after the late night incidents at Shamsunnahar Hall at Dhaka University on July 23, 2002 gathers dust even after the passage of four years.
   The first commission, manned by a sitting judge of the Supreme Court, was formed to investigate the incidents in which the attacked the residents and arrested 18 girls to defuse their agitation against some irregularities.
   The commission of Justice Md Tafazzul Islam put forth 11 recommendations in its 175-page report with a 500-page annexure, submitted on September 3, 2002 to the home affairs ministry.
   The commission recommended that another commission should be formed to amend the university orders of 1973 to ensure transparency and neutrality in the appointment of the vice-chancellors and other executives of public universities.
   The report also held senior police officials, leaders of the ruling BNP’s student front Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal, vice-chancellor, hall provost and the proctorial staff of the time for the incident.
   The commission observed that given the circumstances, there was no need for a police raid on Shamsunnahar Hall at that night. No bloodshed or other such threatening situation took place at the hall, the report said.
   The persons blamed by the commission for the incident are still in service. No departmental or any other action has been taken against any of them, and no one has been punished.
   Anwarullah Chowhdury, who had to step down in the face of student agitation following the incident, has rejoined the department of anthropology after serving as high commissioner of Bangladesh to Bahrain.
   Nazrul Islam, who was then proctor, is still teaching at the psychology department, and the Chhatra Dal leader Lucy is involved in BNP politics, and Shanta joined the civil service and the proctorial staffs have been retained in their positions.
   No punitive action has been taken against the police officials who were blamed in the report. Kohinur Mia, who was then additional deputy commissioner of the Detective Branch, has now been made deputy commissioner of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police (west).
   At dead of night on July 23, 2002 the police stormed into the hall and attacked the residents at the order of high up in the government to ‘protect’ some Chhatra Dal leaders. The police arrested the girls and took them to the Ramna station.
   The police broke up a procession that protested the unprecedented incident and injured a number of students and teachers the next day. Amid public disapproval and concerted protest, the government formed the judicial inquiry commission on July 27, 2002 to look into the matter.
   Sixty-nine witnesses were cross-examined by the commission.
   Two other inquiry committees were also formed by the police and the Dhaka University and the reports are yet to be made public. Some recommendations of the reports were leaked out and remained unimplemented.
   The committee formed by the university said intolerance, lack of mutual trust and conflict between the provost and the house tutors of the hall caused the trouble.
   The report cautioned the assistant proctors and recommended transfer of hall employees, and action against the house tutors and Jannatul Kanon, one of the masterminds, and reviewing the proctorial rules.
   The university syndicate formed a committee to review the proctorial rules, but the committee could not file its report till date.
   The committee formed by the police submitted its report on August 7, 2003 and found none of their officials guilty.
   Different student organisations chalked out programmes to mark the day today. The Awami League-backed Chhatra League will bring out a candle-light procession from the Central Shaheed Minar to the gate of Shamsunnahar Hall at midnight past Sunday.
   The Bangladesh Chhatra Union will paint the walls in front of the hall at 11:00am, bring out a candle-light procession from the Raju Memo- rial Monument at 7:00pm and screen two documen- taries made on the July 23 incidents in front of the hall at 7:30pm.

Much of Europe was alternately baked and drenched Saturday as the heat wave, believed to have taken more than 30 lives in the past week, continued and storms, sometimes fierce, erupted.
   In many areas the thermometer showed slightly lower temperatures than in recent days but there were warnings that the relief might be temporary.
   In France, medical authorities said 22 people have now died from the heat—up from nine two days ago. They included a child of 15 months, four labourers and two homeless people.
   The updated count brought to 31 the number of people who are believed to have died since the start of the week in western Europe, including two new victims reported in Spain.
   National radio started broadcasting messages to the elderly Saturday, explaining the effects of the heat and how to combat them and giving a telephone advice-line number.
   French forecasters have placed the eastern half of the country on ‘orange’ alert—the second highest level—warning of more peaks at the weekend. Temperatures were expected to reach 38 degrees Celsius (100 degrees Fahrenheit) in the Rhone valley, though cooler weather was forecast for Sunday.
   Authorities in Budapest are distributing water in some of the most frequented areas of the city to keep people from dehydration.
   Trains on several routes across the country have been ordered to lower their speed owing to problems with the tracks caused by heat.
   In Britain forecasters warned that the present relief, welcome after Wednesday—which saw the hottest July day on record—was likely to be followed by another heat wave next week.
   ‘We will have another heat wave similar to this week,’ said forecaster Steve Randall from the Meteorological Office.
   Those with inclination and the money, a newspaper reported Saturday, could cool off with a luxury ice-cream—a cone costing a chilling 30 pounds (44 euros, 55 dollars).
   In Italy temperatures were set to reach 40 C over the weekend, and the regions of Liguria in the northeast and Umbria in the centre were placed on the highest level of alert.
   In Berlin the building union IG Bau launched a publicity campaign under the slogan ‘Don’t Get Burned’, and distributed tubes of sunscreen cream at work-sites.

The police have allegedly started mass arrest in the capital in a preemptive action to foil opposition’s six-day road march programme against the government beginning on July 25.
   The Awami League-led 14-party combine will organise the road march towards the capital and its adjacent points to press for reform of the caretaker government system and the Election Commission for holding free and neutral elections.
   Intelligence sources informed the government about possible violence and subversive acts during the opposition’s agitation. It was learnt from reliable sources that, the government may take a hard line during the opposition’s agitation programme.
   Meanwhile, ahead of the road march, the police began crackdown mainly on Awami League and its front organisations – Juba League and Chhatra League – in Dhaka City and its adjacent towns.
   In the last two days, at least 30 people, including five AL leaders, have been arrested from Lalbag and Kamrangirchar areas, said a Dhaka city Awami League statement on Saturday.
   ‘Besides the mass arrest, the police are continuously searching the houses of AL leaders at Lalbag and Kamrangirchar,’ the statement said.
   The arrested are convenor of Ward-64 Jubo League Rinku, vice president of Ward-60 AL, M Hossain and Ward-60 Swechchha Sebok League leaders Kalu and Sukani Babul.
   Police sources, however, said the arrests were made in routine course of policing activity.
   The joint secretary of the Dhaka City Awami League, Haji M Selim protested at the ‘mass arrest’ and demanded immediately release of the AL leaders and workers.
   In Mirpur, the police frequently resorted to ‘harassment’ at the house of former MP Kamal Majumdar. The police arrested Dhaka Krishak League
   general secretary Golam Rasul and Ward-92 Juba League leader Dablew.
   The Mirpur Awami League will stage rally and procession today in protest against the police arrests and harassment.

The leader of the opposition in parliament, Sheikh Hasina, goes to Tungipara in Gopalganj today on a two-day visit.
   Hasina, also the Awami League president, will leave Dhaka for Tungipara in the morning by road, party sources said.
   She will place wreaths and offer fateha at the grave of the late president Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on the day.
   On her way to Tungipara, the Awami League chief will address several wayside rallies, the sources said.
   During her two-day visit, she will attend a number of organisational programmes including view-exchange meetings.

The European Union has formally applied to the SAARC Secretariat for getting observer status in the South Asian regional forum, diplomatic sources said.
   The European Commission Delegation in Dhaka has sent a letter to the ministry of foreign affairs seeking the observer status as Bangladesh currently holds the chairmanship of the SAARC.
   The EU support the SAARC process and is also monitoring developments with regard to the implementation of the South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA) Agreement in the region, according to diplomatic sources.
   ‘There is immense scope for cooperation between the SAARC and the EU and steps would be initiated to deepen relations among member states of the two groupings once the EU is given the observer status,’ said an official.
   The SAARC brings together the South Asian countries of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
   The grouping, in its 20 years of existence, has not made significant progress because of the suspicion and bilateral disputes among member nations, especially India and Pakistan.
   The SAARC summit held in Dhaka in November 2005 had decided to make Afghanistan the eighth member of the regional grouping.
   China and Japan have been accorded observer status in the forum and the United States and South Korea have also expressed their desire to be associated with the SAARC.
   The next SAARC summit is scheduled to be held in New Delhi in January 2007.
   Sources said the EU is convinced that the SAARC could play a useful role in strengthening regional cooperation through dialogue.
   In 1996, the European Commission and the SAARC Secretariat signed a memorandum of understanding on cooperation. This MoU has notably provided the ground for technical assistance on trade matters from the EC.
   In 1999, the EU and the SAARC agreed to cooperate on improving market access for SAARC products to the EU, working towards a cumulation of rules of origin for SAARC products for exports to the EU, giving a technical support for the establishment of the South Asian Free Trade Agreement and supporting the harmonisation of SAARC standards.
   The commission is currently designing a new, broader programme of cooperation with the SAARC aimed at promoting the harmonisation of standards; facilitate trade; raise awareness about the benefits of regional cooperation; and strengthen business networking in the SAARC area.

Two children drowned in the River Rejo and Makariadeva canal at Ukhiya in Cox’s Bazar on Thursday.
   The police and the family said two-year-old Ayesha drowned in the river at the Totorbil point.
   Ayesha was recovered dead from a place one mile off her house at Totorbil after an hour.
   The police said in another incident, Helal Uddin, 11, son of Rafique Uddin at Ualapalong, drowned in the canal as he was catching fish.
   The body was found in the canal after an hour. Helel was a student of Class VII of the Ukhiya High School.