Main Page «
Metro «
Business «
International «
Sports «
National «
Editorial «
Op-Ed «
Home «
Timeout «
Letters «

Archive «
Launch Supplement «
Special Supplements «

The Law Commission passed a decade on Saturday while it is yet to be made effective, with the implementation of only five of the total 72 reports it has so far submitted to the government.
   The attitude of the successive governments of taking no notice of its recommendations has frustrated the commission, formed on September 9, 1996 to identify the causes of delay of the justice delivery system and to recommend reforms of and amendments to the existing laws, justice delivery system and enactment of laws.
   The commission submitted 40 reports to the previous government of the Awami League recommending reforms of and amendments to various laws such as the Administrative Tribunal Act, Admiralty Act, Financial Loans Court Act, Trade Mark Act, Copy Right Ordinance, Arbitration Act, Law Commission Act, Family Court Ordinance, Ombudsman Act and criminal laws, amendment to the constitution for the separation of the judiciary from the executive, and enactment of new laws for allowing a person to be a candidate for not more than two parliamentary constituencies at a time and for the forfeiture of illegally acquired property of public functionaries, and acid control.
   The Awami League government implemented none of the reports during its five-year tenure, said sources in the commission.
   The commission submitted the remaining 32 of the 72 reports to the present BNP-led government, recommending reforms of and amendments of the existing laws such as the Special Powers Act, provisions for arrest without warrant, remand and bail under the Code of Criminal Procedures, Trade Mark Act, provisions for pre-emption, temporary injunction, appeal against and revision of court orders and time limits for civil cases under the Code of Civil Procedures, laws on prisons, Arbitration Act, Contempt of Court Act and Divorce Act and enactment of laws such as prohibition of smoking in public places, provisions for voting rights for expatriate Bangladeshis, information technology, Right to Information Act, Secured Transaction Act, Patents and Designs Act, Citizenship Act, uniform family code and Domestic Violence Act.
   The present government has so far implemented three of the 32 reports, submitted during its tenure. The Patents and Designs Act and Arbitration Act were reformed and the Prohibition of Smoking in Public Places Act was enacted.
   It also implemented one of the 40 reports, submitted to the Awami League government — the enactment of the Acid Control Act 2002.
   The insignificant rate of implementation of its reports by the successive governments has frustrated the commission, as the rate is much higher in India and Pakistan.
   The Indian law commission has so far submitted 201 reports to the government after its establishment in 1956. The recommendations contained in 96 reports have been fully implemented by the government, 34 reports have not been implemented and 65 reports are at different stages of consideration.
   The Pakistan law commission has so far submitted 65 reports to the government and a number of the reports have been implemented.
   Former law minister Abdul Matin Khasru of the Awami League government, however, denied the allegation of not implementing the Law Commission reports.
   He told New Age on Saturday, ‘We have implemented the recommendations, which we considered necessary.’
   He said his government had repealed the Indemnity Ordinance 1975 and set up a cell in the Ministry for Women and Children Affairs for the prevention of violence on women and children in accordance with the Law Commission recommendations.
   The sources in the commission said the Awami League government had referred those issues to the commission seeking its opinion on legality of repealing the ordinance and establishment of the cell and the commission opined in favour of the government contentions.
   The present law minister, Moudud Ahmed, also denied the allegation, saying, ‘We have implemented a number of recommendations of the commission and some other reports are in the process of implementation; some other reports bear nothing for implementation.’
   ‘For example,’ he said, ‘in its reports, the commission has said there is no reason for enactment of a new law repealing the Special Powers Act and for the enactment of a uniform family code and we have not accordingly proceeded any further.’
   He said his ministry sent the commission report on the enactment of Right to Information Act to the information ministry.
   He said the commission had recommended the introduction of alternative dispute resolution mechanism for out-of-court settlement of cases related to financial matters and his government introduced the system in all civil cases.
   ‘We have reformed a number of laws and justice delivery systems to ensure expeditious disposal of cases, to restrict temporary injunctions and to make the provisions for bail in some criminal cases more stringent in accordance with the commission recommendations,’ he said, adding that although the recommendations were not implemented exactly, the government has done more than what was recommended.
   The commission chairman, Justice Mustafa Kamal, however, told New Age on Thursday none of the successive governments consulted the commission in the enactment of laws.
   He said the Indian parliament consults the law commission in the enactment of any law while Jaitya Sangsad of Bangladesh has never sought any opinion of he commission regarding any enactment.
   He said the present government consulted the commission in the enactment of none of 152 laws it has so far made.
   He said, ‘There is nothing in the Law Commission Act that requires the government to consider the recommendations of the commission, but a section the act provides that the government will submit a report to the parliament
   each year in its first session
   in relation to implementation of the report of the commission, while no such report has so far been placed in the parliament.’
   He said nothing but the will of the government is needed to make the commission effective.

A deadly triple bombing targeting Muslims in western India has served as grim reminder of India’s festering terrorism problem with analysts saying violence is spreading across the nation.
   Thirty-one people were killed and 300 hurt when bombs exploded near a mosque in Malegaon in Maharashtra state Friday as Muslims prepared for the festival of Shab-e-Barat, or the night of blessing, when they pray for the dead.
   Muslims in India attended peace and prayer rallies nationwide Saturday to denounce serial bomb blasts.
   Muslim leaders said the three bombs outside a mosque and graveyard were aimed at stoking religious violence in the town, which has a history of sectarian clashes and is located in the western state of Maharashtra.
   ‘The killing of innocent people who were offering prayers is an un-Islamic act,’ said Maulana Khalid Rashid, a member of the All-India Muslim Personal Law Board.
   ‘It is an attempt to divide Hindus and Muslims and we should stand united,’ he said.
   The national government had ordered state administrations to impose tight security to prevent any revenge attacks over the blasts, which occurred as hundreds of Muslims left the Nurani mosque following Friday prayers.
   Immediately after the blasts, some Muslim leaders went around Malegaon in police jeeps asking people through loud speakers to maintain peace.
   ‘I appeal to people not to believe any rumours. The situation is under control. Please do not touch any unattended objects,’ cleric Mufti Mohammed Ismail pleaded.
   Meanwhile, forensic experts had collected some material from the scene but it was too early to say who was behind the attacks, said district police chief PK Jain.
   Nobody has claimed responsibility for Friday’s bloodshed.
   India avoided blaming any group for those blasts but described them as a ‘terrorist act’ designed to stoke communal tensions.
   A curfew was slapped on Malegaon and the police was put on high alert the state.
   The president of the ruling Congress Party Sonia Gandhi and the home minister, Shivraj Patil, visited the site of the blasts and some of the injured in hospital.
   In New Delhi, the national government alerted state administrations to prevent Hindu-Muslim violence after the blasts.
   In a statement, the prime minister, Manmohan Singh, called on the country to remain calm.
   ‘It just keeps getting worse,’ said the Times of India above a picture of a blood-stained Muslim man, his hand resting on the forehead of a wounded companion in hospital.
   ‘There’s a far greater dispersal of attacks than before,’ said Ajai Sahni, an intelligence analyst who tracks terrorist groups in South Asia.
   ‘Earlier you had a much higher number of total fatalities in terrorist attacks but they were all concentrated in (insurgency-hit) Jammu and Kashmir. We find now these attacks are being dispersed across the country,’ said Sahni.
   The Mumbai attack came four months after at least 15 people were killed and 60 wounded in three explosions in the holy Hindu city of Varanasi.
   Last October, 66 people were killed when three blasts ripped through markets in the Indian capital New Delhi on the eve of a major Hindu festival.
   Indian security forces have been battling for 17 years to crush a separatist uprising in Indian Kashmir.
   ‘Now there is fear across many parts of India that anything could happen which wasn’t the case three or four years back,’ said Kanchan Lakshman, a research fellow at India’s Institute for Conflict Management.
   Whatever group was responsible was ‘out to exploit India’s Hindu-Muslim fault lines’ said Rahul Bedi, correspondent of Jane’s Defence Weekly.
   Muslims make up over 130 million of mainly Hindu but secular India’s one billion-plus population.
   The bombers’ plan is ‘to see that different sections of the society clash and create more difficulty, more turmoil,’ said the home minister, Shivraj Patil.
   The blasts came days after the prime minister, Manmohan Singh, warned India of more bloody attacks and stressed the need for better intelligence.
   ‘Reports suggest terrorist modules and ‘sleeper cells’ exist in some of our urban areas, all of which highlight the seriousness of the threat,’ Singh said.

The government stands face-to-face on electoral reforms with the opposition alliance led by the Awami League as the combine is set to enforce its final-round agitation to push for its demands.
   Some diplomatic and business quarters, meanwhile, appear willing to make a number of simultaneous efforts to make the ruling and the opposition parties sit for a dialogue to reach a consensus on the electoral reforms and avoid confrontation.
   Sources in diplomatic and business circles said their main objective was to ensure that the 2007 general elections could be held with participation of all major political parties, including the Awami League, which threatens to thwart the polls if their reform demands are not met.
   ‘We will begin the final round of our agitation programmes against the government shortly to realise our demand for electoral reforms,’ AL presidium member Amir Hossain Amu told New Age last Thursday.
   The AL and its allies have called a countrywide dawn-to-dusk hartal today to protest Wednesday’s police assault on their leaders.
   Today’s hartal coincides with the beginning of 23rd session of the Jatiya Sangsad, which is scheduled to sit at 5pm today, with the opposition already declaring to refrain from attending the opening session.
   The AL-led opposition alliance has also declared to besiege the Prime Minister’s Office on September 12 Tuesday to press home the demand for electoral reforms.
   The opposition will announce its next course of action, including a one-point ‘oust-the-government’ movement, from a grand rally scheduled for September 18 in Dhaka.
   The government, meanwhile, has asked the law enforcement agencies to prepare a massive security blanket in the capital for three days from today from the apprehension that the opposition activists might create chaotic situations, said a home ministry source.
   Several thousand law enforcers drawn from the police, Bangladesh Rifles and Armed Police Battalion will be deployed at different strategic points in the capital as well as in the port city of Chittagong to frustrate any such untoward situation.
   The latest heat in the country’s politics has generated after the prime minister, Khaleda Zia, and her archrival, AL president Sheikh Hasina, rebuffed each other’s position over the electoral reforms.
   Khaleda blamed the Awami League for creating ‘anarchy’ in the name of movement for electoral reforms while Hasina blamed the BNP for hatching conspiracy to rig the 2007 polls to remain in power.
   As a part of a diplomatic move to reduce the differences between the BNP and the Awami League, the US ambassador in Dhaka, Patricia A Butenis, is scheduled to meet the BNP secretary general and LGED and cooperatives minister, Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan, on September 17 at the latter’s residence to discuss a number of political issues.
   Her initiative comes after the US assistant secretary for South Asia, Richard Boucher, suggested two options to end the current political impasse, which are a dialogue between the two major parties or to follow the constitutional provisions.
   ‘…There are two options — either sit down and have a dialogue or follow the constitutional ways. It is always better that the major parties would sit and settle things,’ he told journalists on August 3, wrapping up a two-day official visit to Dhaka.
   Butenis is also likely to call on the AL general secretary, Abdul Jalil, shortly.
   The next polls will not be credible without the participation of the major political parties, she reportedly told a function on Wednesday.
   A section of business leaders are also planning moves to reduce the gap between the two major contending parties — the AL and BNP.
   ‘We will take some specific steps shortly to reinforce our efforts to bring the AL and the BNP leaders to the dialogue table,’ the president of Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Mir Nasir Hossain, told New Age on Thursday.
   Nasir met the BNP secretary general last week and reiterated the business community’s call to sit for a dialogue with the Awami League.
   Nasir also said he would call on the AL general secretary to renew the same call when the latter returns home from abroad this week.
   The country’s business leaders last July requested both Mannan Bhuiyan and Abdul Jalil to hold a secretary general-level dialogue.
   The government policymakers, meanwhile, are planning to extend the parliament’s autumn session, which usually is short, four-to-five-day session, only to maintain constitutional obligations, to two weeks to pave the way for such a dialogue.
   ‘The Jatiya Sangsad would sit for 10 to 12 days,’ Mannan Bhuiyan told New Age last Tuesday.
   ‘It is easier to get key leaders of both the treasury and the opposition benches under the same roof, as they usually hang about the House when it is in session,’ a senior minister, who also is a BNP vice chairman, told New Age on Wednesday.
   Mannan Bhuiyan said on Wednesday, ‘The door is open for discussion…The proposal for dialogue is still there. If the opposition comes along, the dialogue can be held any time.’
   Asked about the degree of possibility of holding the dialogue, when the prime minister was saying the next polls would be held as per the constitution, Bhuiyan said speeches at rallies and proposals for discussion are not the same things.
   ‘The prime minister made the offer for a dialogue in parliament… So there should not be any problem in discussing the reform proposals,’ he explained.
   The proposed dialogue has been put on ice for long, although the two sides exchanged eight letters in six weeks from March 31 last.
   The main reform proposals are for the chief adviser to the caretaker government to be a person acceptable to all parties, the defence ministry to remain under the chief adviser instead of the president during the interim government’s tenure, and to reconstitute the Election Commission.
   According to the constitutional provisions, the coalition government has to hand over power to the caretaker government headed by the immediate past chief justice of the Supreme Court.

Tension prevails in the Khalishpur industrial belt in Khulna after a labourer was killed and least 200 were injured in sporadic clashes on Thursday.
   The labourers of the industrial belt are now holding fresh agitation programmes to push for their eight-point demands that included the payment of all their dues in arrears.
   The millers and the local people have hoisted black flags atop their houses and business centres from Friday morning and brought out processions in protest at the killing and police attack on labourers during rallies and procession.
   The regional unit convener of the Jute, Yarn, Textile Mill Workers and Employees’ Unity Council, Sardar Motahar Uddin, Hafizur Rahman Bhuian, Mohammad Jahangir Hossain, Abdur Rauf Biswas, Ashraf Hossain, Tariqul Islam, Kawsar Ali Mridha, Hemayet Uddin, Bellal Hossain and Syed Arab Ali led and addressed the processions and rallies.
   The labourers carried black flags and most shops and shopping centres were closed. Traffic on the BIDC Road has been thin from Friday. No policemen were seen in the area on Saturday.
   The Khulna Metropolitan Police said a committee, headed by assistant commissioner (crime) Samir Kumar Kundu, had been formed to investigate the incident.
   The jute mill workers, under the banner of the Khulna–Jessore regional unit of the Jute, Yarn and Textile Mill Workers and Employees’ Unity Council, said they would enforce a daylong hartal in Khulna and hoist black flags atop their houses on Sunday.
   The millers announced to bring out a procession from the Khalishpur industrial belt on Monday afternoon.
   They will also begin a blockade of railway and highway for an indefinite period in the city on Tuesday to protest against the killing and to push for their demands and compensation to the family of the labourer who was killed in police firing, said a release.
   The demands also include smooth power supply, allocation of enough money to buy jutes for the mills and reopening the closed mills in the region.
   They put out a call for tougher movement to push for their demands and said the government would be liable if any untoward incident takes place during the agitation programmes.
   Sardar Motahar told New Age they had been compelled to announce fresh action programme.
   The labourer who was killed in the police firing was earlier identified as Hanif. But he was Sheikh Nur Mohammad alias Jashim, an irregular labourer of te Crescent Jute Mills Limited.
   He was buried in his village home at Senhati of Dighalia in Khulna on Friday.

The workers and employees of the state-run Qoumi Jute Mill called a dawn-to-dusk hartal in the district for today to press home their 8-point charter of demands.
   The demands include payment of arrears, allocation of raw jute for the mill, repair of equipment, payment of dues for the workers under the golden hand shake programme, reopening of Sirajganj Cotton Mill and reduction in rising cost of weaving materials.
   The jute mill workers announced the shutdown programme at a protest rally held at Bazaar Station on Saturday with the Jute Mill Workers’ Association president, Abdul Khalek, in the chair.
   The meeting was addressed, among others, by the association general secretary Md Suzabat Ali, the district Awami League president Abdul Latif Mirza and the district Communist Party president Ismail Hossain.
   The agitating workers and employees brought out a stick procession and staged demonstration in the town. They also voiced concern over the killing of a worker in Khulna.
   Earlier on Thursday, the workers laid siege to the administrative building of the mill and stopped the production as the deputy manager refused to pay their arrears. The production has not been resumed yet.

Officials are considering an unprecedented proposal to ban women from performing the five Muslim prayers in the immediate vicinity of Islam’s most sacred shrine in Makkah. Some say women are already being kept away.
   The issue has raised a storm of protest across the kingdom, with some women saying they fear the move is meant to restrict women’s roles in Saudi society even further. But the religious authorities behind the proposal insist its real purpose is to lessen the chronic problem of overcrowding, which has led to deadly riots during pilgrimages at Makkah in the past.
   It was unclear why the step was being considered now, but officials say they have growing concerns about overcrowding, particularly at Makkah’s Grand Mosque. The mosque contains the Kaaba, a large stone structure that Muslims around the world face during their daily prayers.
   The chief of the King Fahd Institute for Hajj Research, which came up with the plan, told The Associated Press Thursday that the new restrictions are already in place. There have been word-of-mouth reports of women being asked to pray at new locations away from the white-marbled area surrounding the Kaaba in recent weeks.
   But Sheik Youssef Khzeim, deputy chief of the Presidency of the Two Holy Mosques Affairs, a Saudi government organisation in charge of implementing the proposal, denied the reports, saying the old arrangements that allow women to pray in the Kaaba’s vicinity are still in effect. He said if any woman were asked to move to the back ‘it’s only to maintain order.’
   ‘This is still a study and nothing has been implemented,’ Khzeim told the AP.

Opposition combine activists set fire on Saturday to three privately-owned buses in Dhaka and brought out processions to drum up support for the countrywide dawn-to-dusk hartal called by the combine led by the Awami League for today.
   The combine called for the hartal in protest at police action during its Wednesday’s programme of siege of the Election Commission.
   The government has tightened security to check untoward incidents and deployed more than 10,000 law enforcers, including the Armed Police Battalion and the Riot Control Division personnel and the Ansars members, at different city points.
   Ambulances, newspaper vehicles, chemist’s shops, and garbage and other emergency vehicles will remain outside the purview of the 6:00am–6:00pm general strike.
   Official sources said the law enforcers’ deployment would include about 25 platoons of the Bangladesh Rifles members and 22 platoons of the Armed Police Battalion addition to the Rapid Action Battalion personnel.
   A bus of the City Paribahan was set on fire near the Al-Helal police box at Arambagh at about 5:00pm.
   Fire was set to a Narayanganj-bound bus of the Bandhan Paribahan at Zero Point at 6:25pm. The activists also set fire to a bus at Section 10 at Mirpur at about 7:30pm. The opposition alliance and its Dhaka city unit held two separate meetings to make the hartal successful.
   The city unit decided on four spots where the leaders and workers would gather during the programme of siege of the Prime Minister’s Office on September 12.
   The places are Bangla Motors crossing, Mohakhali crossing, Russell Square at Dhamondi and the Met Office at Agargaon.
   The leaders put out a call for the government to stop police oppression during the hatral. They said the government would bear the responsibility for any untoward incidents otherwise.
   Chaired by the city unit Jatiya Samjtantrik Dal president, Mir Hossain Akther, the meeting was also addressed by Hasanul Haq Inu and the Awami League’s joint general secretary Obaidul Quader.
   Another meeting, chaired by Awami League presidium member Amir Hossain Amu in the central Awami League office, was attended by Awami League presidium member Tofail Ahmed and Suranjit Sengupta, and Workers Party president Rashed Khan Menon and general secretary Bimal Biswas.
   The meeting decided to hold preparatory meetings in 21 districts on September 21, to make the September 18 programme of grand rally in Dhaka successful.

The visiting National Democratic Institute delegation on Saturday discussed the preparations for the upcoming general elections with the Election Commission and expressed concerns at the massive hike in voters’ number in the updated list.
   ‘We discussed various issues including the process of holding a free and fair election, and reforms in the electoral laws and rules. We also expressed our concerns at the huge increase in the number of voters,’ leader of the delegation, Tom Daschle, a former major and minority leader of the US Senate, told the media following the meeting.
   ‘They wanted to know about the huge rise in voters’ number and we explained why and how it happened,’ said the secretary to the EC Secretariat, Abdur Rashid Sarker.
   The Chief Election Commissioner, MA Aziz, on the other hand, said, ‘They had an information gap; and we provided them with the information they asked for. They expressed their views.’
   The CEC, his three colleagues and EC Secretariat officials attended the meeting.
   The other delegation members are Mike Moore, a former prime minister of New Zealand, Mu Sochma, a former women affairs minister of Cambodia, Thomas Barry, NDI deputy director for Asia, and Owen Lippert, NDI Bangladesh resident director.
   The five-member delegation held a series of meetings in the last two days. It met the leader of the opposition in parliament, Sheikh Hasina, the Jatiya Party chairman, HM Ershad, the Jamaat secretary general and social welfare minister, Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid, the law, justice and parliamentary affairs minister, Moudud Ahmed, the vice-chairman of Bangladesh Bar Council, Rokanuddin Mahmud, the BRAC chairperson, Fazle Hassan Abed, and economist Professor Ataur Rahman.
   During the NDI-Hasina meeting at her Dhanmondi party office, she expressed the fear that the way the government had set the state mechanisms, free and credible polls could not be possible without implementing the opposition’s reform proposals.
   The updated voter list was also discussed at the meeting, Hasina’s son Sajeeb Wazed Joy, who was present at the meeting, told reporters.
   Meanwhile, news agency UNB reported that the NDI delegation on Friday exchanged views with the ruling alliance partner Jamaat-e-Islami leaders, who assured that the polls would be free and impartial with the participation of all political parties. Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid led a five-member party delegation at the talks.
   About the much-talked-about proposed dialogue on electoral reforms, the Jamaat leaders said the government was ready to accept any reasonable proposals from the opposition, but the discussions could not take place due to what they said was the opposition’s illogical objection to the government negotiation team.
   The Jamaat leaders termed the opposition’s demand self-contradictory, as on the one hand it had been saying that the chief adviser to the caretaker government should have to be appointed in consultation with all parties and on the other had been opposing talks with Jamaat.
   News agency BDNews reported that emerging from the meeting with the NDI team Ershad said they discussed the issues of reforms to the caretaker government and the election system, among other things.
   He said no question would have arisen about Justice KM Hasan taking over as the head of the next caretaker government, if the age limit for the Supreme Court judges had not been extended.
   According to another BDNews report, the NDI delegation on Saturday observed that the EC had a flawed perception about the real situation in the country. Rokanuddin Mahmud disclosed this to journalists after a luncheon meeting with the team at a city hotel.
   He said the NDI delegates also told them that there was a high possibility of the main opposition party boycotting the next parliamentary elections.
   About his meeting with the NDI delegation members, Moudud Ahmed said he told them that, though Justice Hasan had earlier held a party position, he discharged his responsibilities as the chief justice neutrally, which nobody questioned then. According to him, the constitutional provision concerned means no political person will be a member of the caretaker government.

The eighth Jatiya Sangsad goes into its 23rd session today with the boycott by the lawmakers of the main opposition Awami League.
   The Awami League lawmakers are, however, likely to join in other sittings of the session, likely to be the last of the present parliament, to push for electoral reforms.
   ‘It is likely to be the last session of the present parliament,’ the parliament speaker, Jamiruddin Sircar, told journalists on Saturday. ‘The session may have 10 to 15 sittings.’
   The business advisory committee will meet at 4:30pm today to decide on the duration of the session.
   The Awami League lawmakers may not join today’s sitting as the party enforced a countrywide dawn-to-dusk general strike to protest at the police atrocities on the party leaders and to press home its demands for electoral reforms.
   ‘We will not join in the Sunday sitting as we will be on street to enforce the hartal,’ Awami League presidium member Kazi Zafrullah MP told New Age Saturday evening. ‘We are yet to decide whether we should join the remaining sittings.’
   The eighth parliament ends its five-year term on October 27. It went into the first session on October 28, 2001.
   After the dissolution of the parliament, the prime minister, Khaleda Zia, also BNP chairperson, will hand over power to the interim non-party caretaker government for parliamentary elections scheduled for January 2007.

The prime minister, Khaleda Zia, has expressed deep shock at the loss of many lives in bomb blasts on Friday at Malegaon in Maharastra of India.
   In a message to the Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh, Khaleda on Saturday said: ‘We express our total solidarity with the people and the government of India as you try cope with the consequences of this unfolding tragedy’.
   ‘Our condolence and sympathy specially go to the families of the victims’ she said adding, ‘the perpetrators of these mindless acts of terror have committed a most heinous crime. We strongly condemn this act of violence and we are confident that they will be brought to justice.’

Saddam Hussein rejected overtures from al-Qaeda and believed Islamic extremists were a threat to his regime, a reverse portrait of an Iraq allied with Osama bin Laden painted by the Bush White House, a Senate panel has found.
   The administration’s version was based in part on intelligence that White House officials knew was flawed, according to Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee, citing newly declassified documents released by the panel.
   The report, released Friday, discloses for the first time an October 2005 CIA assessment that prior to the war Saddam’s government ‘did not have a relationship, harbour or turn a blind eye toward’ al-Qaida operative Abu Musab al-Zarqawi or his associates.
   As recently as an Aug 21 news conference, president Bush said people should ‘imagine a world in which you had Saddam Hussein’ with the capacity to make weapons of mass destruction and ‘who had relations with Zarqawi.’
   Democrats singled out former CIA director George Tenet, saying that during a private meeting in July Tenet told the panel that the White House pressured him and that he agreed to back up the administration’s case for war despite his own agents’ doubts about the intelligence it was based on.
   ‘Tenet admitted to the Intelligence Committee that the policymakers wanted him to ‘say something about not being inconsistent with what the president had said,’’ Intelligence Committee member Carl Levin, D-Mich., told reporters Friday.
   Tenet also told the committee that complying had been ‘the wrong thing to do,’ according to Levin.
   ‘Well, it was much more than that,’ Levin said. ‘It was a shocking abdication of a CIA director’s duty not to act as a shill for any administration or its policy.’
   The administration ‘exploited the deep sense of insecurity among Americans in the immediate aftermath of the Sept 11 attacks, leading a large majority of Americans to believe — contrary to the intelligence assessments at the time — that Iraq had a role in the 9/11 attacks,’ said senator Jay Rockefeller, D-W Va, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee.
   Asked whether the wrongdoing amounted to criminal conduct, Levin and Rockefeller declined to answer. Rockefeller said later he did not believe Bush should be impeached over the matter.
   According to the report, post-war findings indicate that Saddam ‘was distrustful of al-Qaida and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime.’ It quotes an FBI report from June 2004 in which former deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz said in an interview that ‘Saddam only expressed negative sentiments about bin Laden.’
   The report concludes that post-war findings do not support a 2002 intelligence community report that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear programme, possessed biological weapons or ever developed mobile facilities for producing biological warfare agents.
   A second part of the report finds that false information from the Iraqi National Congress, an anti-Saddam group led by then-exile Ahmed Chalabi, was used to support key intelligence community assessments on Iraq.

At least 10 Florida journalists received regular payments from a US government programme aimed at undermining the Cuban government of Fidel Castro, The Miami Herald reported on Friday.
   Total payments since 2001 ranged from $1,550 to $174,753 per journalist, according to the newspaper, which said it found no instance in which those involved had disclosed that they were being paid by the US Office of Cuba Broadcasting.
   That office runs Radio and TV Marti, US government programmes broadcast to Cuba to promote democracy and freedom on the communist island. Its programming cannot be broadcast within the United States because of anti-propaganda laws.
   The Cuban government has long contended that some Spanish-language journalists in Miami were on the US government payroll.
   The Herald said two of the journalists receiving the payments worked for its Spanish-language sister publication, El Nuevo Herald, and a third was a freelance contributor for that newspaper, which fired all three after learning of the payments.
   Journalism ethics experts called the payments a fundamental conflict of interest that undermines the credibility of reporters meant to objectively cover issues affecting US policy toward Cuba.
   They compared it to the case of Armstrong Williams in 2005, when it was revealed that the Bush administration had paid the prominent conservative pundit to promote its education policy, No Child Left Behind, on his nationally syndicated television show.
   Jesus Diaz Jr, president of the Miami Herald Media Co and publisher of both newspapers, said the payments violated a sacred trust between journalists and the public.
   The other seven journalists worked for Spanish-language television and radio stations and newspapers in the Miami area. They reported for their organisations on topics ranging from Cuban culture to exile politics and US-Cuban relations. Many appeared as guests or hosts on TV Marti and Radio Marti programmes, the Miami Herald said.
   Pedro Roig, director of the Office of Cuba Broadcasting since 2003, said he had sought to improve the quality of news by, among other things, hiring more Cuban exile journalists as contractors. He told the newspaper it was the journalists’ responsibility to adhere to their own ethics and rules.

Farmers in the north, battered by a near-drought situation which has made them dependent on fuel and fertiliser to save the aman farming, are now in trouble n view of dearth and increased prices of the two agricultural inputs.
   Less or no rainfall has in recent months doubled the consumption of diesel and fertiliser. Some traders are making windfall profits by creating an artificial shortage and increasing the prices.
   The poor and marginal farmers, who have never depended on irrigation in the past, are now forced to buy diesel and fertiliser after borrowing money. In many cases, they are not getting fuel even for extra payment.
   They are buying diesel between Tk 38 and Tk 40 a litre while the government has fixed the price at Tk 33.50. Retailers have been charging between Tk 320 and Tk 340 for a sack of urea while the government price is Tk 265.
   ‘We have spent all our savings, even by mortgaging everything we have. But our struggle has become hard because of money mongers,’ said Noor Mohammad of Charshiberkuti at Kulaghat in Lalmonirhat. ‘It has been a suffocating for farmers.’
   He said he never had irrigation for aman farming, But this has become essential for him this year because of no rainfall, said the frustrated farmer, who has farmed aman on two bighas of land.
   Noor Mohammad, along with his son Mahidul, was irrigating the land, after buying two seers (0.93kg) of diesel for Tk 72.
   Zoynal, who was weeding grasses in a nearby field, said he had harvested aman without irrigation in the past year. Pointing to cracks that the field has developed, he said he had irrigated the field for three times, but it was quickly drying up.
   The absence of rainfall has put the farmers in a difficult situation. They are renting shallow irrigation pumps while the financially solvent people are buying pumps to irrigate the paddy fields.
   Malek Mia, a mechanic at Kulaghat Bazar, said he had a difficult time to meet the demand of the growers. ‘I have orders for 500 irrigation pumps this season,’ said Malek, who usually remains jobless this year other years.
   At the landing point of the River Dharla, boatmen said they had never seen such ‘waterlessness’ of the river at this time of the year. ‘The river should have been full to the brim, and the adjacent areas should have been under water by now,’ said Karim Mia, pointing to the river which has almost dried up.
   The dealers said they were not getting the required fuel from the depots. They alleged fuel supply remained smooth only when the depot people were handsomely bribed. ‘This has pushed up the price,’ said a dealer in the Lalmonirhat district headquarters.
   He said most dealers were running short of diesel supply and they anticipated more troubles in the coming weeks if the unusual absence of rainfall continues during the peak monsoon.
   Ashraful Alam of Shimulbari at Phulbari upazila in Kurigram appears to have given up in despair. ‘I have irrigated my filed three times, and if the dry spell continues, I will need to irrigate the filed twice more,’ he said. Two-thirds of the paddy fields in his village are in a similar situation.
   Many farmers are now willing to irrigate their fields, but they fail to do so as there are no channels. ‘We did not create channels as we never needed them,’ said Mozammel Hossain of the village.
   The dealers and sellers said the absence of rainfall coupled with continual smuggling of diesel had caused a severe shortage this year. Many farmers alleged the dealers had created the crisis to make extra money.
   In view of diesel’s being smuggled, the government has imposed a restriction on lifting fuel, but the sufferers, who are poor farmers, said the illicit trade continued in full swing with the help of law enforcers.
   In Lalmonirhat, where situation is taking a serious turn in the absence of rainfall even in first week of September, everyone is hoping for rainfall. But their hopes fade away with each passing day, with sun scorching the aman plants.
   Jatiya Party lawmaker GM Qader, who is now on a visit to Lalminirhat, feared a disaster in the north if the government failed to take step to make up for the food deficit to be caused by poor aman production.
   ‘There is an impending famine in the region,’ he said. ‘There will be a huge food deficit if there is no rainfall in a week. And the government is yet to wake up to the crisis as it is busy with political chores.’

Increasing number of unauthorised visitors is frequenting the Bangladesh Secretariat as the government’s tenure nears its end.
   Most of these people visit the administrative headquarters to pursue different files and personal affair at the ministries hampering the secretariat’s regular activities.
   A New Age investigation found that many a visitor enters the secretariat without an entry pass. They, in most cases, accompany the members of parliament and influential political leaders while some of them take the advantage of the influence of the personal secretaries of the ministers and state ministers.
   ‘Since we cannot force any lawmakers to abide by the rules, we seek their cooperation in discharging our responsibility. When we request the lawmakers to obtain passes for those in his vehicle, some become abusive and threaten with dire consequences,’ an on-duty security personnel told New Age helplessly.
   Commenting on the issue, the food and disaster management minister, Chowdhury Kamal Ibne Yousuf, told reporters last month at his office, ‘I feel very uncomfortable whenever I come to my office here. Nowadays I prefer staying outside the secretariat lest I should find a large number of visitors waiting for me.’
   At present, at least 1,500 people with various purposes visit the secretariat badly affecting the normal activities of the ministers and high officials of different ministries though the number was almost half even a few months back, according to the home ministry records.
   Persuasion by unauthorised persons is seriously affecting the official activities of the ministries of the LGRD and cooperatives, the housing and public works, education, and food and disaster management, said sources at the secretariat. More than 100 visitors, on an average, come to each of these ministries daily, said the sources.
   As per rules, officers at the joint secretary-level or above, and a personal secretary of any minister/state minister are allowed to issue 10 entry passes each and no one is allowed to issue a pass in advance.
   The government has taken comprehensive measures to modernise the security system at the secretariat. But the officials concerned are issuing passes every day exceeding their allowance ridiculing the government move to ensure foolproof security at the highest seat of administration.
   About the control over issuance of visitors’ passes, the state minister for home affairs, Lutfozzaman Babar, after a meeting on the security of the secretariat recently told reporters that measures were underway to make new rules in this regard. ‘A committee headed by a joint secretary is expected to give recommendations on the issue soon,’ he mentioned.

At least 17 people were killed and over 100 injured in road accidents in different parts of the country on Friday and Saturday.
   Of the deceased, 13 people were killed in accidents in Faridpur, Mymensingh, Munshiganj, Gopalganj and Manikganj and Savar in Dhaka on Friday while four in Khulna, Gazipur, Noakhali and Dhaka on Saturday.
   In the capital, an unidentified man was killed by a bus under Mahakhali Flyover near Setu Bhaban at about 6:30pm Saturday.
   In Faridpur, five people were killed and 51 others injured, eight of them critically, as a bus skidded off Faridpur-Barisal road in Nagarkanda upazila while the victims were going to attend the urs of Atrashi peer in the district.
   Witnesses and the police said the accident took place at about 2:30pm when a Faridpur-bound bus they were travelling in from Natore plunged into a roadside ditch, leaving three passengers dead on the spot.
   The injured were admitted to Faridpur Medical College Hospital where Monirul and Nazrul died.
   In Mymensingh, three people were killed and 40 injured as a bus crashed into a roadside ditch in Trishal upazila early Saturday.
   Witnesses said the accident took place on Mymensingh-Dhaka Highway at Boilor around 6:00am when a wheel of the Munshiganj-bound bus punctured.
   Seven of the injured passengers were admitted to Mymensingh Medical College Hospital.
   In Munshiganj, a carpenter was killed in a road accident at Sadar Bazar in Tongibari upazila on Saturday.
   Witnesses said Narayan Mondol, 45, son of Kartik Mondol of Kathadia village in the upazila, was critically injured when a Munshiganj-bound tempo from Tongibari hit him on a bailey bridge in the morning.
   Narayan was taken to Dhaka Medical College Hospital where doctors pronounced him dead.
   In Manikganj, two people were killed in separate road accidents on Dhaka-Aricha Highway on Friday.
   Of the deceased, Nikhil Chandra Sutradhar, 40, was crushed under the wheels of pickup van in Paturia ferry ghat area early Friday.
   In another accident, one person was killed and 10 cattle traders were injured when a cattle-laden truck tumbled into a roadside ditch at Bat Baur early Friday.
   The accident occurred as the driver lost his control over the steering, killing truck helper Shaheen, 32, instantly.
   Two people were also killed in Savar and Gopalganj on Friday in different road accidents.
   In Gazipur, a shopkeeper was killed as a truck hit him at Masterbari in sadar upazila Saturday noon.
   In Khulna, One person was killed and three others were injured when a bus hit one person at a roadside tea-stall at Battola on Khulna-Mongla road Saturday.
   The police said a Pirojpur-bound bus from Khulna knocked Goldar Hossain and then rammed into a tea-stall injuring three customers.
   In Noakhali, a passenger was killed and 20 others were injured when two buses skidded off Begunganj-Laxmipur road and fell into a ditch.
   The injured were admitted to the local hospital.
   Traffic on the road remained suspended for two hours during the salvage work.

More people kill themselves each year than die from wars and murders combined, but most suicides could be prevented, two international experts on suicide said on Friday.
   Some 20 million to 60 million try to kill themselves each year, but only about a million of them succeed, said Dr Jose Manoel Bertolote of WHO.
   The ones who do end their lives 'are tragic situations where help could have been provided,' said Brian Mishara, president of the International Association for Suicide Prevention in France.
   The two men spoke to reporters on the sidelines of a UN seminar marking this Sunday's World Suicide Prevention Day.
   Suicide rates could be reduced if countries would limit access to pesticides, guns and medication and do a better job of treating people with depression, alcoholism and schizophrenia, Mishara said.
   About a third of all suicides around the world are caused by pesticides, said Bertolote. ’Dentists, veterinarians and doctors are particularly at risk for suicide-not because of their high-stress professions but because they have access to lethal chemicals and know how to handle them.’
   Those who lose a job abruptly are more likely to kill themselves than people living in poor social conditions for long, he said.
   Also, people living in countries where suicide is illegal like Singapore, Lebanon and India are less likely to seek help if they have suicidal thoughts, for fear the government may punish them, Mishara said.

Malaysia's former prime minister Mahathir Mohamed lost an election Saturday in his home state of Kedah to become a delegate at a key political assembly, state media said.
   The ruling United Malay National Organisation had been fearful that Mahathir would use its November general assembly to step up his attacks on the government, which have sent shockwaves through Malaysian politics.
   Mahathir, who dominated UMNO for more than two decades until leaving office in 2003, received 227 votes from 472 members attending the election.
   It was held at the Kedah division of Kubang Pasu which he has headed for 30 years.
   He was placed 9 among 15 candidates vying to be one of seven elected delegates sent to the UMNO general assembly, state Bernama news agency said.
   Only top office-bearers and delegates representing UMNO's nearly three million members will be given the right to address the general assembly, the party's main forum.
   Mahathir, who became one of Asia's longest-serving leaders, is credited with turning Malaysia into a high-flying industrialised economy in record time.
   But despite the immense influence he once held, Mahathir has now been accused of suffering from 'post-ministerial syndrome' as politicians lined up to pledge allegiance to Abdullah.

The prime minister, Khaleda Zia, on Saturday urged her party's field-level leaders to face the opposition's hartal and blockade like programmes politically and make people aware about the bad impact of such programmes.
   Khaleda made the call while exchanging views with presidents and secretaries of BNP's district, thana, poura units of Sirajganj district at her 30 Hare Road office in the evening.
   Around 34 party leaders, including five MPs, met the prime minister and apprised her about the organisational, political situation and the government's development projects in their respective areas.
   The BNP chairperson urged the grassroots-level leaders to work unitedly ahead of the elections as well as increase mass contact and strengthen the organisational activities.
   Briefing newsmen, the BNP secretary general, Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan, who was at the meeting, said they bagged six seats out of seven in Sirajganj in the last elections and hoped that they would get all the seven seats in the coming elections with bigger margins of vote.
   He said the position of the BNP was much better compared to the previous election time as the present government carried out massive development works in the last five years.
   The BNP senior secretary general, Tarique Rahman, PM's political secretary Haris Chowdhury, office secretary Nazrul Islam Khan were also present at the meeting.

Indian border guards pushed 75 Bangla-speaking Indian citizens into Bangladesh through Ghiba and Raghunath frontiers in Benapole on Friday night.
   The Indian police picked up them up from their houses in old Delhi last week and sent them to Haridaspur border for pushing into Bangladesh, a victim was quoted to have said.
   Later, the Border Security Force of India took them to Chhute border area, tortured them physically there and pushed them into Bangladesh territory at gunpoint, he said.
   The BSF troops assembled many Bangla-speaking Indian nationals near the Kolaroa, Sharsha and Chougachha borders to push into Bangladesh, he added.
   The victims, including women and children, were seen sitting helplessly at local rail station and different bus counters Saturday morning.
   Shawkat and Raju, two of the victims, claimed that they are the Indian citizens living in old Delhi permanently having ration cards and ID cards as Indian citizens. They also said they were the genuine voters and had been exercising their right to franchise in every national election for the last 20 years.

A Bangladeshi farmer was shot dead by the Indian Border Security Force along the Telkupi frontier under Shibganj upazila on Thursday.
   The farmer was identified as Zia, 22, son of Ainal Hoque of Telkupi village in the district.
   The Bangladesh Rifles sources said, the BSF of Churi Anantapur camp in India shot Zia dead while he was irrigating his field near pillar No. 180/4f and took away his dead body. A flag meeting was held Friday morning between the BDR and the BSF. The BSF agreed to return the dead body, the sources added.

A speeding minibus in the Shab-e-Barat rammed into a throng of devotees in front of the Shah Ali Mazar at Mirpur in the city, leaving four of them dead and 15 others injured.
   The deceased were identified as Hazi Abdul Matin, 55, owner of Tina Offset Printing Press at Mirpur-1, Mukul Hossain, 27, a hotel owner of Borobagh in Gabtali area, Babu, 22, and a beggar aged about 50.
   Police and witnesses said the minibus ran over the devotees at about 3:15am Saturday, when the driver lost control over the steering and while the devotees were roaming around the holy shrine of Shah Ali Boghdadi.
   Locals immediately rushed the injured to Dhaka Medical College Hospital and other nearby clinics.
   The condition of three including two women of the wounded -Chanchala, 35, Rahima, 36, and Yasin, 55 - were reported to be critical.
   The engine of the minibus suddenly stopped on the road in front of the shrine, described some of its passengers to the police. The driver lost control over the vehicle after it had restarted being pushed by some of the passengers.
   The angry devotees and locals nabbed the driver, Mohammad Mizan Hawlader, 36, son of Hossain Hawlader, of Deshnal village under Tungibari upazila of Munshiganj district. After a mass beating, they handed him over to Shah Ali police.
   The mob also ransacked the bus that plies the Gabtoli-Sayedabad route.
   The bodies were sent to the DMCH morgue for autopsy.
   However, the duty officer at the Shah Ali police station said the accident took place in front of Shah Ali Hotel and Restaurant when the driver lost control of the steering due to a break failure.
   He said they managed to arrest the driver and filed a case in this connection.

Two suspected leaders of Purba Banglar Communist Party were killed in shootouts between the lawmen and their accomplices in Pabna and Bagerhat on Friday and Saturday, raising the crossfire death count to 665 since June 2004.
   The dead were identified as Akkas Ali Kamar, 35, son of Mokbul Hossain, of Bhairab village under Santhia upazila in Pabna, and Mostafiz alias Jewel Shikdar, 30, son of Mohsin Shikdar, of village Ghona under Chitalmari upazila in Bagerhat.
   In Pabna, the Santhia police, acting on a tip-off, conducted raid on a hideout of criminals at Bhairab village at about 1:15pm on Saturday to nab them.
   Sensing police presence, the criminals opened fire prompting the law enforcers to retaliate.
   Although all the criminals managed to flee during the shootout, Akkas collapsed on the ground after receiving bullet in the chest, and died on the spot.
   The police recovered one shutter gun and some weapons from the place.
   In Bagerhat, a regional leader of the underground party was killed in an encounter with the Rapid Action Battalion at Chitalmari on Friday.
   Battalion sources said a RAB-6 team picked up Jewel, an accused in the district Awami League leader Advocate Kalidash Boral murder case, from a hideout in the upazila at noon.
   The team later took Jewel to Borobagh to nab his accomplices and recover firearms at around 11:30pm. As soon as the team reached the place, Jewel's accomplices opened fire on them, forcing the law enforcers to retaliate.
   As he tried to escape, Jewel sustained bullet injuries and died at Chitalmari hospital.
   The team recovered a pistol and two bullets. The police said Jewel was accused in five cases, including three murders.