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Dhaka University teachers will wear black badges today to begin their protest programmes demanding immediate release of their colleagues and students detained in connection with the August 20–22 campus protests.
   An executive committee meeting of the Dhaka University Teachers’ Association Saturday evening did not suspend the protest programmes amid requests by the authorities for not doing so.
   The decision on the protest programmes was made at an emergency general meeting of the association on Friday.
   The acting association president, Professor Tajmeri SA Islam, coming out of the meeting late Saturday night, told reporters, ‘We have convened an emergency general meeting of the association at 6:00pm tomorrow [Sunday] to review the protest programmes as they were decided at a general meeting.’
   Asked whether Sunday’s programme of wearing black badges would continue, Tajmeri, who presided over the meeting that finished at about 11.00pm, said, ‘As the programmes has not been suspended as yet, it will continue.’
   The teachers’ association at the emergency general meeting on Friday demanded that the detained teachers and students should be released by Wednesday.
   They planned to wear black badges on Sunday and stage a sit-in demonstration at Aparajeya Bangla on Monday.
   Three high officials of the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence held a meeting with the association and the university vice-chancellor, Professor SMA Faiz, on Saturday afternoon.
   Later, at around 7:30pm, the education adviser, Ayub Quadri, talked with the acting association president over telephone.
   Asked whether the teachers are under pressure, Tajmeri said, ‘We are not under any pressure. The interim government, rather for the first time, has come up with a positive response to meet our demand.’ She said, ‘Things are changing rapidly within the government.’
   She, however, refused to detail the proposals the authorities made. Explaining the position of the association, she said, ‘After the discussions with the authorities, we sat at an executive meeting at 9:00pm.’
   ‘The meeting discussed and reviewed the latest developments and did not suspend the programmes as the executive committee has no power to overturn any decision made at a general meeting of the association,’ she said, adding only another general meeting could review the decision.
   ‘We have accordingly convened called a general meeting at 6:00pm Sunday, as according to our constitution, no such meetings can be convened earlier than that,’ she said.
   Four Dhaka University teachers and 15 students were arrested after the August campus protests. They are now facing charges of violating the Emergency Powers Rules.
   A Rajshahi court on December 4 sentenced four Rajshahi University teachers to two years’ imprisonment on charge of violating the Emergency Powers Rules during student protests at the university.

Nearly 50 people were trapped under the debris of Rangs Bhaban in Dhaka after it had collapsed a few minutes before 10:00pm Saturday.
   At least 15 were injured in the collapse of the 22-storey building which the government, engaging private firm Six Star Corporation, has been pulling down since September 9.
   Altaf Hossain, a day labourer of the corporation, said he was working on the 21st floor at around 9:35pm when he saw the floors from 19th down to the sixth cave in.
   About 50 day labourers were taking rest on various floors at the time of the accident, he said.
   Traffic sergeant Kamrul Islam, on duty at the place at that time, said he heard the sound and saw the roads and buildings shaking. The injured were taken to hospital.
   Of them, Azhar, 22, and Shafiqul, 30, were admitted to Dhaka Medical college Hospital, hospital sources said.
   Another day labourer, Ronnie, said he was working on the 10th floor at the time and he managed to jump onto a pillar.
   Fire service people failed to enter the building till midnight. Six fire engines were conducting rescue work. They could rescue 12 of the trapped people. The condition of six of them was reported critical.
   The Rapid Action Battalion and other law enforcement agencies cordoned off the area. Vehicle movement was suspended on the Airport Road.

Detained former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will file a writ petition today, challenging the legality of the makeshift courtroom of a Dhaka court in the Jatiya Sangsad Bhaban complex in which she will be tried in the Tk 2.99 crore extortion case.
   In the makeshift courtroom, the Dhaka Metropolitan Sessions Judge, M Azizul Haque, is scheduled to hear the case on framing charges against AL president Hasina, her sister Sheikh Rehana who is now in the United Kingdom, and her cousin Sheikh Fazlul Karim Selim, a former minister in her cabinet, this morning.
   On December 3 the court deferred the hearing to December 9 after defence counsels on Monday filed several petitions, including one challenging the legality of holding a trial in the makeshift courtroom.
   The court, however, after hearing both the sides, rejected the defence petition, saying, ‘This court has the jurisdiction of holding the trial in this makeshift courtroom.’
   Hasina’s counsels told New Age on Saturday that they would file a writ petition to challenge the legality of the gazette notification issued by the government on November 26 for holding the trial in the makeshift courtroom.
   ‘The November 26 notification issued by the law ministry on re-location of the court is illegal as the judiciary is now independent of the executive organ of the state,’ said Syed Rezaur Rahman, one of Hasina’s counsels.
   He, however, said that in spite of filing the writ petition, they would appear in the makeshift courtroom as the court is scheduled for hearing the case this morning.
   Hasina and her cousin, Sheikh Fazlul Karim Selim, are set to be brought before the court today.
   The managing director of Eastcoast Trading, Azam J Chowdhury, filed an extortion case on June 13 with the Gulshan police, accusing Hasina and Sheikh Selim of taking Tk 2.99 crore in kickbacks from him for awarding him a contract for installation of a power plant in Siddhirganj during the 1996-2001 rule of the Awami League.
   Hasina was arrested from her husband’s house, Sudha Sadan, on July 16 and the charge-sheet was submitted on July 24, pressing charges against Hasina, Selim and Rehana, although Rehana was not named in the first information report filed by Azam J Chowdhury.
   A supplementary charge-sheet was submitted to the court on December 2, indicting the three under Section 384 of the Penal Code for extorting Tk 2.99 crore from Azam.
   The original charge-sheet pressed charges against them under Section 385 for threatening Azam in order to make him pay the bribe.
   After hearing a writ petition on July 30, the High Court remanded Hasina on bail in the case and directed the government not to proceed further with the case under the Emergency Powers Rules.
   The High Court also issued a rule on the government to explain in two weeks why placing the case under the emergency rules would not be declared illegal.
   But the Appellate Division on August 2 stayed the order, following an appeal by the government, and asked the High Court for expeditious disposal of the writ petition filed by Hasina. The rule is yet to be heard.

The acting Awami League president, Zillur Rahman, on Saturday demanded release of the detained party president, Sheikh Hasina, before Victory Day, December 16.
   He said if the government did not want to lift the state of emergency at the moment, the least it should do was to immediately withdraw the ban on politics.
   ‘The country is severely affected by cyclone… It’s essential for her [Hasina] to be beside the people in their time of distress. So, we strongly demand her release before the upcoming Victory Day,’ Zillur told a memorial meeting at the Dhaka Reporters’ Unity auditorium.
   The Abdur Rouf Chowdhury Smriti Parishad organised the meeting to mark the first anniversary of the death of Abdur Rouf Chowdhury, a lawmaker and state minister of the last AL government.
   ‘The government claims the law and order in the country is fine. If it’s so, it can cancel the emergency now,’ Zillur said. But, if the government is unwilling to lift the emergency now, he said, at least the ban on politics at district and upazila levels should go.
   He said when he met Hasina recently and inquired after her, the AL president said she was anxious about the situation of the people, not about her own. ‘I asked the party president about her condition. And she told me to be concerned about the people, not about her.’
   Speaking at the meeting former Jatiya Sangsad speaker Abdul Hamid urged the government not to treat all the politicians as corrupt in a wholesale manner as only a few of them had been involved in corruption. ‘The wholesale allegation of corruption levelled against the politicians has put the honest politicians in jeopardy, which by no means is just.’
   Questions have arisen in the mind of people regarding the fairness of the ongoing anti-corruption drive, he claimed, adding that ‘the government should reconsider the anti-corruption drive so that no question could be raised by the people about its transparency.’

Inadequate number of cyclone centres in the country’s coastal region, coupled with general indifference to official warnings has made lakhs of islanders vulnerable to huge casualties from natural calamities, officials and locals say.
   Casualties from the cyclone Sidr could have been much lower, had there been enough shelters, they believe.
   People living in the coast and islands are also worried enough about their cattle as hardly there is any shelter for livestock. Most of the people seem unwilling to rush to cyclone shelters leaving their cattle behind to die.
   While many disaster-prone areas are yet to have cyclone centres, several hundred shelter homes turned shabby due to lack of repair and renovation for years.
   The government has been building cyclone centres, but the number still remains far low compared to the need of the island’s population that doubled since the last major cyclone hit the coast in 1991.
   Exact number of cyclone centres in the coastal belt could not be known. An official of the disaster management ministry, however, said there were about 2200 cyclone shelters all over the country.
   A recent cabinet meeting decided to build 2000 more shelters for the safety of the people living in disaster-prone areas, particularly in the coastal region.
   Most of the shelters so far built by the government and different agencies have multi-purpose usages.
   Some are used as school-cum-cyclone shelters, some as mosque-cum-cyclone-shelters, while some house union parishad and NGO offices.
   Dr Aslam Alam of the government’s comprehensive disaster management programme informed that an initiative was taken to survey the shelters built by all the organisations throughout the country.
   Several thousand centres should be built immediately both for the people and the cattle in the costal region to keep casualties minimum. Enough protection embankments are also needed to save the coast from tidal surges, local officials and people stressed.
   Despite early warning system and prior preparations, about 4000 people died while several thousand people remained still missing and huge numbers of cattle were washed away.
   Investigation reveals that islanders are very indifferent to cyclone warnings and they hardly bother to leave their houses for safer places.
   In Char Kukri Mukri, which has only 10 cyclone centres for a population of 19,000, authorities had to force many to come to shelters. Residents of the char, located in Bay of Bengal and extreme south of Bhola, said they did not respond to the calls assuming that no space was left for them in too few centres.
   ‘This char needs at least 6 more cyclone centres,’ Char Kukri union parishad chairman Alal Patwari told New Age at his office on Friday. He said population in the chars was increasing fast, but cyclone centres remained the same in number. ‘We also need dozens of kella (raised surface) for cattle.’
   Charfesson upazila nirbahi officer Mostafa Kamal admitted that more cyclone shelters were needed both for people and cattle. ‘We have already prepared a list of areas where cyclone centres should be built on priority basis and sent it to the government.’
   The upazila has 18 cyclone centres while there are 123 school-cum-shelters. Some 27 cyclone centres, built in 1972, turned unfit due to lack of maintenance and renovation.
   Of the 99-kilometre protection embankment in the mainland of Charfesson, 16 kilometres are in a bad condition. Small islands in the bay including Char Kukri Mukri, Char Patila, Dhal Char, Char Sikdar and Hoira are unprotected and exposed to indentation by seawater every year.
   A project to build protection embankment in Char Kukri Mukri was taken in 1988, which is yet to be implemented.
   There are mangrove forests in Char Patila, Char Kukri Mukri, Hal Char and Char Bangla with a cattle population of 15,000 to 20,000. But no safety measure is taken for the cattle. Locals said one-third of the cattle were washed away by the tide at night of November 15.
   About 5,000 people live in Char Manohar, half-an-hour ride by trawler from mainland Anjurhat. ‘We have only two centres, which can accommodate at best 1,500. The rest took shelter on the embankment,’ said Syed Mir, a fisherman who lost fishing net and boat in the cyclone and tidal surge.
   There are 39 centres in the worst-hit Sarankhola upazila of Bagerhat district. Of them, two cyclone centres and four school-cum-centres are in Southkhali union, which was entirely ravaged by Sidr. The two centres and four schools have the capacity of 2,000 people, while the number of population in the union is over 28,000.
   Sarankhola UNO Shahnewaz Talukder told New Age on Saturday that 10 more centres were being constructed. The upazila needs at least 25 more shelters to ensure safety of its population, he said.

People in the south, struck by cyclone Sidr on November 15, have now devised a way to get a little more relief and financial help offered by the government and other agencies.
   They are now moving to an island near the coast, aid workers and sources in the administration said.
   About 200 poor families have moved to Char Sikdar, an isolated island in Bhola, after the cyclone.
   They lived in various places at Charfesson before moving to Char Sikdar as they were not certain of getting relief now pouring in for the places.
   They have built small huts in a way to make them look old and damaged in the cyclone, the sources said.
   The local administration people on a visit to the island a day after the cyclone found only 94 families. The number increased to 150 two days later. The number hovers around 300 now.
   ‘The people are poor and are, now doubt, in need of relief,’ said a schoolteacher at Anjurhat. It takes about half an hour to reach Char Sikdar by trawler.
   He said such a situation means people of the coast are desperate for food, clothes and money.
   The local administration is in trouble dealing with the increased number of families. In their second list, the number of affected families was 150, but families more than the listed figure are now living on the island. The authorities are planning a recount.
   Official sources said the food and disaster management ministry allocated Tk 23.85 crore in cash as of Saturday for the cyclone survivors. The cash allocation from the chief adviser’s relief fund was Tk 57.3 crore. The ministry also allocated 16,290 tonnes of food grains.
   The government has announced to distribute 1.5 lakh tonnes of food grains among more than 25 lakh affected families for four months in the Sidr-affected areas. ‘We will give priority to those who had been at Char Sikder before the cyclone,’ said the Charfesson upazila nirbahi officer, Mostafa Kamal, on Friday. ‘We will consider others later, the rest later.’
   No people on the island admitted reaching the island after the cyclone. ‘We have been living here for 15 years,’ said one of elderly villager Abdul Mannan on Thursday. About three dozen men and women made similar statements.
   Only one of them, Suliz, admitted reaching the place from an embankment to get some relief. ‘I want to have a house on this island.’ Others seemed unhappy at what he said.
   Brushing aside allegation of nepotism and irregularities in listing the affected people, many union council chairmen and members said people, little or even not affected, were getting aid.
   ‘Although this part was not that much affected as
   Barguna and Bagerhat, relief, VGF cards and house building allocation are coming in large amount,’ said the Char Kukri Mukri union chairman, Alal Patwari. ‘We are struggling as people who do not deserve aid are also demanding rice and money.’
   ‘You cannot make them happy. The more you give them, the more they will be asking for,’ he said, adding the people living in the coastal belt and on islands are very poor.

The general direction of the discussions and negotiations at the UN Climate Change Conference, also the 13th Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention, in Bali is increasingly heading towards trade and commerce.
   A meeting of at least 25 trade ministers on Sunday will be followed by another meeting of finance ministers for the following two days. The trade ministers’ meet will continue at the convention venue although it will be closed for all other purposes and even the media will also not be allowed to be there on Sunday, apparently in keeping with a tradition of the conference of parties.
   Yvo de Boer, the executive secretary of the framework convention, said that preferably it would be climate change that would drive the trade agenda and not the other way round.
   But there is a general sense that the trade and finance ministers’ meet will have a strong influence on the proceedings, given the general preference and emphasis on market-based solutions and commercially profitable ventures under the guise of ‘environment friendly’ business.
   He said discussions by a number of subsidiary groups and sub-committees are gathering pace and the results, which are gradually acquiring a more concrete shape, may be presented to the ministers during the ‘high-level’ segment of the conference that will begin on December 11 at Bali as part of the UN Climate Change Conference.
   ‘But there will be some groups that will be working till the very end of the summit,’ said Yvo de Boer while briefing the media on Saturday, clearly implying that there will be a number of unresolved issues even after the high-level segment of the conference has begun in full swing.
   It is also becoming increasingly clear that the current summit will not be able to deliver much besides some form of an adaptation fund package for poor countries to enable them to deal with the adverse effects of climate change induced by greenhouse gas emissions in a very limited, inadequate manner.
   ‘We will be trying to create a win-win situation and receive some funds and refrain from the risk of irking others,’ said Rezaul Kabir, the secretary to environment ministry.
   The main debate by the contact group, a dedicated group of parties discussing the issue, on adaptation fund has revolved around the management of the fund. While there has been some support to allow involvement of the World Bank and the Global Environment Facility, parties at the negotiations and quarters outside have criticised the position.
   A press release of Action Aid noted that the environment facility’s rules are rather lengthy and complex and hinder the poor countries’ access to funds.
   A rally of numerous Indonesian and international NGO activists unequivocally called for the World Bank to be kept outside the management mechanism of adaptation funds.
   Rezaul Karim Chowdhury, convener of the Equity and Justice Working Group which participated in the mass rally, said, ‘The adaptation fund is merely a ploy to contain all the demands of the poor countries because it does not address the mitigation of the dire effects of climate change at all.’
   He said the reason for climate change would remain in full force if there are no emission reduction commitments from the larger economies.
   Shah Azam, associate professor of marketing at the University of Rajshahi, mentioned the other main agenda that has supposedly come to the fore. ‘We are demanding that ecological debt, which has led to environmental degradation and injustice, must be borne by the developed countries.’

Demonstrators took to the streets on Saturday to press world leaders to act over climate change, in an internationally coordinated protest marking the UN environment conference in Bali.
   Organisers said more than 10,000 people rallied in London, while demos were also reported in Austria, Belgium, Germany, Greece, Spain, Turkey, and the Indonesian island of Bali itself among other places.
   ‘We feel that dealing with this threat should be the number one priority of the British government, a priority for all areas of policy,’ said a letter handed to the British prime minister, Gordon Brown.
   The police put the number of demonstrators at 2,000 in London, where they marched through the capital amid a steady drizzle before gathering outside the US embassy.
   In Germany some 10,000 gathered, again according to organisers, before a symbolic blackout, with people urged to switch off lights for five minutes from 1900GMT in Austria, Germany and Switzerland.
   The blackout was planned to plunge historic monuments including the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin and Cologne Cathedral into darkness. Some 5,000 people joined the rally in the German capital, while protests were also held in Munich, Nuremberg, Freiburg and Saarbruecken.
   ‘It is a strong signal of a new movement to protect the climate,’ said Dirk Jansen of the German green group BUND.
   In Bali itself about 500 activists carrying effigies and banners marched, with protestors coming from as far as Europe, South Korea and Bangladesh to lobby the UN climate talks.
   ‘Stop Climate Chaos,’ ‘Rich countries must pay’ and ‘Bush: Killer of the planet,’ read banners carried by demonstrators in Bali’s main town of Denpasar.
   Nearby on Bali’s resort enclave of Nusa Dua, delegates from some 188 nations were trying to lay out a framework for a new deal on tackling global warming when the current agreement expires in 2012.
   Elsewhere about 1,000 protestors were reported in Istanbul urging the Turkish government to sign the Kyoto protocol on climate change and renounce plans to build nuclear power plans, recently approved by parliament.
   In Athens more than 1,000 protestors gathered in the main Syntagma Square, while demonstrations were also organised in the northern city of Salonika and other towns.
   In Madrid only about 50 protesters gathered in the city centre, carrying banners including ‘Change of lifestyle, not climate.’
   In Moscow the event was less successful: police in the Russian capital prevented about 10 protesters on bicycles from gathering, saying their demonstration was not authorised, the Ria Novosti news agency reported.
   According to a police estimate, about 3,000 people participated in a march in Brussels against climate change organised by Coalition Climat, a movement made up of about 70 associations.

The teacher-student ratio at private universities is 1:34 against the University Grants Commission standards of 1:15 for general universities and 1:12 for technical universities.
   There were 1,24,267 students in 51 private universities as of December 31, 2006, while the number of teachers was 6,690, including 3,022 part-timers, said a report the commission, the oversight body of universities.
   The commission has recently prepared the report, which is ye to be published, sources in the commission said.
   In the North South University, the teacher-student ratio is 1:28, in the East-West University, it is 1:31 and in the Southeast University 1:36.
   The ratio in the Daffodil International University is 1:32 and in the Prime University 1:30, the report said. ‘None of the private universities have the required ratio.’
   The report puts the teacher-student ratio in public universities at 1:20.
   ‘The commission has been requesting the private universities time and again to recruit efficient full-time teachers and enrol students only when infrastructure and other facilities are sufficient,’ said Professor M Asaduzzaman, who retired as the commission chairman in April.
   ‘The private universities are more focused on student enrolment than the recruitment of teachers as the admission fee and tuition fee remain the main income sources of the universities,’ he said. The commission report observed the private universities are concentrating mainly on business studies.
   Of the total 1,24,267 students in 51 universities, 56,676 are BBA and MBA students. Only 921 students in 20 universities study economics, the lowest in a single discipline.

The government has formed a committee to check exorbitant fees charged by some non-government school authorities during the admission of the academic year 2008, education ministry officials said.
   The admission to classes at reputed city schools which began in the first week of November will continue until January 31.
   ‘Allegations are widespread against some renowned non-government schools and colleges in cities of charging exorbitant admission fees and even donation at the time of admission and this has prompted us to form the committee,’ an education ministry official said.
   ‘The terms of references of the committee formed by the education ministry are to recommend how to stop such practice and collect the exact amount taken by the schools during admission,’ said the Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education director (secondary), ANM Shareef, also member-secretary of the four-member committee.
   The committee, formed on November 5, has been given one month to make recommendations. The committee has also been asked to look into whether the government can fix the rate of admission fees in schools and colleges.
   Others on the committee are additional secretary (finance and administration) of the ministry, DSHE director (college) and Bangladesh Bureau of Educational Information and Statistics director.
   There are more than 18,000 secondary and junior secondary schools across the country. But heavy admission rush is faced by only a few schools.

Latin American leaders today inaugurate the Bank of the South, the brainchild of Venezuela’s president Hugo Chavez, who hopes it will help wean the region off institutions like the IMF.
   Six South American presidents are scheduled to gather in Buenos Aires on Sunday to formally launch the bank, which will be headquartered in Caracas.
   The creation of the regional bank comes amid a widespread perception in South America that adjustment policies imposed by multinational credit agencies have failed.
   The bank, which will start operations in 2008 with an initial capital of seven billion dollars, is designed to support regional development and integration projects.
   Venezuela’s finance minister Rodrigo Cabezas acknowledged last week there are still differences as to how much each member should contribute to the bank.
   ‘The discussion is whether the entity will take into account the differences in economic weight of the nations,’ an Argentine official said.
   Cabezas said a number of other issues still had to be fine-tuned, including the composition of the directors and how top executives will be picked.
   The initiative to create the bank was born in 2006, and the project dreamed up by Chavez gradually gained popularity in the region.
   Several of the governments that joined the project do not share the ideology of the leftist Venezuelan president. What they do have in common is the rejection of what they consider the negative influence by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
   ‘The bank will finance public and private projects. It will not participate in projects in countries outside the region. It is directed to South America,’ said Brazil’s economy minister Guido Mantega.
   The ceremony for the founding of the bank will coincide with the inauguration of Cristina Kirchner as president of Argentina.
   Outgoing Argentine president Nestor Kirchner, who will hand over the sash of office to his wife, will attend the ceremony alongside his counterparts from Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Paraguay and Venezuela. The president of Uruguay will not attend the signing ceremony, according to media reports.

The capital’s mayor, Sadeque Hossain Khoka, on Saturday hoped that the Anti-Corruption Commission would remain free from prejudice while assessing his statement of assets.
   ‘I hope the Anti-Corruption Commission will be fair and reasonable while assessing the statement that I have submitted to them,’ he told New Age after holding a press briefing, apparently to remove any misconception about his assets.
   When Khoka was asked about the objections in his letter to the ACC’s secretary, which he sent to the latter while submitting his wealth statement on December 6, he answered, ‘It seems to me that the spirit of the ACC notice was that I had accumulated huge wealth that are beyond my legal sources of income after becoming mayor.’
   ‘In fact, I inherited some ancestral assets in Dhaka and Munshiganj, and rest of the assets were either generated from income received from the inherited assets or earned by me and my family over the years,’ he claimed.
   Khoka on December 6 submitted his wealth statement to the ACC, saying that he and his family own assets worth Tk 8.59 crore.
   In a forwarding letter to the ACC, he said, ‘It is unfortunate that you have already found that I have become owner of a huge number of properties disproportionate to my known sources of income…So you have already decided that I have committed an offence…This is neither fair nor proper.’
   Khoka said there was scope for creation of misconception in the public’s mind by the way his assets had been described by the ACC.
   ‘It is my responsibility to clear the misconception created among the city dwellers…Some may even think that they voted a wrong person as mayor,’ he said.
   Khoka claimed that the sources of the money for procuring most of the properties he and the family own were Tk 5.5 crore that he earned through share transactions, Tk 1.5 crore that he earned as house rent, loans from scheduled banks, revenue from his own business, and the salary and allowances he got as minister and mayor since 1991.
   He claimed he did not own any assets abroad and he had not concealed anything in his statement of assets.
   He also claimed that most of his 40 bank accounts were opened at the request of the managers of the banks concerned. ‘We only operate about 12 bank accounts,’ he said.
   Khoka, also the president of the Dhaka city unit of the BNP, is one of the corruption suspects named in the fourth list of 35 such people.
   Along with 11 others, he was also served with a notice to submit his wealth statement to the ACC.

BRAC official Nurul Islam of Bangladesh has been released around three months after he was abducted by unknown armed men from his office in Afghanistan.
   Nurul Islam was set free by his abductors late Firday and taken into the custody of Afghan authorities, BRAC officials in Kabul and Dhaka said.
   He was later handed to the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee in Kabul, head of mission Gunendu Roy said. ‘He is keeping more or less ok,’ Roy said. ‘They did not misbehave with him and they have kept him well.’
   Islam, 39, was abducted on September 15 from a BRAC office in an Afghan town about 60 kilometres south of Kabul.
   After his abduction, an Afghan television station aired videotape showing a blindfolded man said to be the kidnapped Bangladeshi national and said his abductors threatened to cut off some of his limbs unless a ransom was paid.
   It said the men who delivered the tape did not say whether they were with the insurgent Taliban movement, which has been behind a string of abductions of Afghan and foreign nationals in Afghanistan.
   Roy said it was still not clear who had abducted Islam.
   ‘We are not sure, but somebody kept him and ultimately he was released through the pressure of the government,’ he said, adding his group had paid no ransom. The Taliban have tried to use hostages to barter with the government and have killed a number of them—mostly Afghans.
   In Dhaka, BRAC spokesman M Anwarul Haq said preliminary reports indicated Islam was in good health. ‘We enjoy a tremendous amount of goodwill in Afghanistan. We’re the biggest charity there. Persistent pressure by the Afghan government coupled with our request led to Islam’s release,’ Haq said.
   Brac is the biggest private charity working in the war-torn Afghanistan since 2002. It also operates a bank in the country.
   The charity employs 4,700 people, the majority of whom are Afghans, in the health, education and micro-credit sectors.

At least 12 persons including three doctors of the 250-bed government hospital were injured as Jessore Central Jail police attacked the employees of the hospital at around 8:45 pm on Saturday.
   The clash erupted as hospital employees tried to prevent the jail police from taking away an under-treatment female prisoner from the hospital without permission.
   Hospital superintendent Hasan-al-Mamun told New Age at 10:00 pm that the jail authority shifted Aleya, one of the prisoners who were under treatment at the 200-bed hospital, to another place Saturday morning without informing the hospital administration. As the duty doctor protested, some 10 to 12 jail policemen attacked the doctors and nurses and staffs of the hospital.
   Three physicians — Iqbal Hossain, Shoukat Haider and Swapan Kumar— and some nurses were among the injured in the attack. The jail authority claimed that the doctors, nurses and staffs attacked the jail police while they wanted to know about the bar on shifting some prisoners . Abu-al-Hossain, deputy commissioner of Jessore and Iqbal Bahar, superintendent  of police visited the hospital. Tension was prevailing there till filing of this report at 11:00 pm.

The Indian prime minister, Manmohan Singh, has appreciated the cooperation Bangladesh extends to India in various international forums which ‘contributed to excellent bilateral relations.’
   He said this when he talked with the Bangladesh foreign adviser, Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury, on Saturday at a joint meeting of Manmohan with ministers of other member countries attending the SAARC Council of Ministers’ Meeting in New Delhi, said a release of the Bangladesh high commission in India.
   Iftekhar conveyed to Manmohan greetings from the Bangladesh head of government, Fakhruddin Ahmed, and thanks for the offer of 5,00,000 tonnes of rice and rebuilding of 10 coastal villages.
   He said the offer ‘fitted into the Bangladesh plans of massive coastal development as announced by the chief adviser [Fakhruddin].’ India’s external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee was present on the occasion.
   Iftekhar also paid a courtesy call on India’s vice-president Hamid Ansari at the latter’s residence in New Delhi.
   The adviser thanked Ansari for India’s offer of relief after the cyclone. He told Ansari that bilateral relations were ‘excellent’ and he had several meetings with Pranab Mukherjee. He said the Bangladesh-India cooperation had reached ‘new heights.’
   Hamid Ansari said he ‘appreciated’ the foreign adviser’s call and was pleased at the level of ‘friendship and cooperation.’ ‘Indians will always stand by their Bangladeshi brothers and sisters.’
   The Bangladesh high commissioner to India, Liaquat Ali Choudhury, and the Indian high commissioner to Bangladesh, Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty, were present on that occasion.

Gunmen shot dead three workers of ex-prime minister Benazir Bhutto’s opposition party in a pre-dawn attack Saturday in southwest Pakistan amid campaigning for January polls, the police said.
   The shooting occurred in the Pakistan People’s Party’s office in Naseerabad district, 240 kilometres east of Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province, local police officer Maula Dad said.
   ‘Unidentified men entered the PPP office and sprayed bullets on men sleeping there, killing three of them and injuring another,’ the officer said.
   The police said it could be linked to old rivalry between two groups locked in a land dispute, one supporting the PPP and the other backing rival candidate for the January 8 general elections.
   Meanwhile, Musharraf will lift the state of emergency on December 15, a day earlier than previously planned, the attorney general said on Friday.
   ‘The emergency will be lifted on December 15,’ attorney general Malik Muhammad Qayyum said.
   Musharraf had earlier pledged to lift the state of emergency on December 16.
   Musharraf declared the state of emergency on November 3 to tackle what he said was growing Islamic militancy and an interfering judiciary. However, he announced the lifting of the emergency a day after he bowed to fierce international pressure and stepped down from the army, which propelled him to power in a bloodless coup in 1999.
   He said the decision had taken because Pakistan’s overall situation had improved, with successes against Islamic militants and a democratic transition to January 8 elections underway.
   ‘Constitution will also stand restored and the provisional constitutional order withdrawn with lifting of emergency,’ Qayyum said.

The number of extra-judicial killings in the country has risen to 169 in the 330 days from January 11 (when the ongoing state of emergency was declared) to November 7, said Odhikar, a human rights organisation, on Saturday.
   In the last 30 days till Friday, seven persons were killed extra-judicially by the law enforcers, according to the report released by Odhikar on the state of human rights in Bangladesh.
   Of the 169 slain people, the Rapid Action Battalion killed 84, the police 59, RAB and the police jointly three, the army-led joint forces seven, the army seven, the navy three, the jail police one, the Department of Narcotics Control two, the Coast Guard one, forest guards one and the Bangladesh Rifles one, said the report.
   Of the deceased, 116 were killed in so-called ‘crossfire’, 27 were tortured to death, 15 were shot dead, and the remaining 11 were killed in other circumstances, added the report.
   Odhikar expressed concern at the Rapid Action Battalion’s punishment of starving cyclone victims who had jumped the queue while waiting for relief or committed other petty offences, and at the arrest of 12 cyclone-affected people in Barguna for staging a demonstration and demanding relief. They were ‘defying the state of emergency’, said that the law enforcers, including the RAB, who are supposed to support the people and not oppress them.
   ‘Disregard for the due process of law and the selective application of the laws are violations of the people’s human rights. There is serious and widespread cause for concern that the actions of this government in many aspects of policy — prosecution and judicial process, judicial inquiries and the impunity of law enforcement agencies — are dictated less and less by the law,’ said Odhikar in the report.
   Odhikar also expressed concern at the conviction of four Rajshahi University teachers — Moloy Kumar Bhowmik, Dulal Chandra Biswas, Syed Selim Reza Newton and Abdullah Al Mamun — who were each sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for two years for violating the Emergency Powers Rules by bringing out a silent procession on the campus on August 21.
   It also expressed concern at the departure from due process of law in the continuation of the trial against Dhaka University teachers Anwar Hossain, Saidur Rahman Khan, Abdus Sobhan and Neem Chandra Bhowmik and Rajshahi University teachers Chowdhury Sarwar Jahan Sajal and Golam Sabbir Tipu, and students and staffers of those universities who were held after the spontaneous student protests in August.
   The print and electronic media, which have a reputation for freedom and impartiality, have been under significant pressure from the government to refrain from reporting news or publishing comments that are critical of it, said the report.
   In the 330 days of the emergency, the authorities have conducted several eviction drives against slums, unauthorised constructions, buildings and habitations without making provisions for the resettlement of the displaced poor people, said the report.

Dhaka and Seoul are scheduled to sign a deal Sunday on the commencement of recruiting Bangladeshi manpower in South Korea under the country’s employment permit system for foreigners at the earliest.
   The deal, styled ‘Service Commitment Agreement’, would be signed by Mahbubur Rahman, managing director of the Bangladesh Overseas Employment and Services Ltd and Kim Yong Dal, president of the Human Resources Department of Korea, said Abdul Matin Chowdhury, expatriates’ welfare and overseas employment secretary.
   ‘We hope that the recruitment will start by the
   second half of December and we will complete our quota by the deadline of February 28, 2008,’ he told New Age Thursday.
   South Korea stopped recruiting Bangladeshis in 2000.
   After hectic lobbying by the government, Korea gave work permits to some 1,200 Bangladeshis in the first half of 2006.
   But the Korean authorities suspended recruitment of Bangladeshis again after allegations that some unscrupulous recruiters in Dhaka took Tk 10 to Tk 12 lakh from each of the jobseekers.
   The Korean delegation had already arrived in the capital for signing the ‘Service Commitment Agreement.’
   Bangladesh and South Korea signed two other deals in June and October on the resumption of recruitment.
   In March, Seoul announced that it would recruit 10,000 workers from five countries — including Bangladesh, Nepal, Myanmar, and Kyrgyzstan — in the 2007-2008 period under its Employment Permit System for foreign jobseekers.
   Explaining the issues incorporated in the Service Commitment Agreement, Matin said it included rules and regulations to be followed by the two governments for recruiting Bangladeshi nationals in South Korea.
   Total processing fee for a selected jobseeker would not exceed $900, he added.
   However, the Korean labour ministry earlier decided that the charges would be between $700 and $800 per person under the newly introduced EPS which made Korean language skill a must for getting a job there.
   The overseas employment secretary hinted that Korean language test for Bangladeshi jobseekers would begin by December.
   The BOESL will process the documents of Bangladeshi workers after Korean employers complete the selection procedure.

Duty applicable to import of edible oils is set to remain unchanged and no specific duty rate is going to be fixed as suggested by National Board of Revenue following demands from refiners and importers.
   Finance adviser AB Mirza Azizul Islam turned down
   an NBR proposal in this connection last week, ministry sources said.
   Imports of crude soybean and palm oils are now subject to 15 per cent value added tax after withdrawal of five per cent tariff in the current fiscal year budget.
   Importers of edible oils demanded elimination of VAT or introduction of specific duty at a rate of Tk 7,350 per tonne or fixing tariff value at Tk 7,000 per tonne of edible oils to reduce import costs. They placed the options in November to NBR, which forwarded those to the finance ministry.
   In its note to the finance adviser, the revenue board, however, pointed out that withdrawal of VAT on edible oils would cost the exchequer Tk 942.07 crore in a single financial year. Revenue loss would be Tk 166.03 crore in case of introduction of tariff value and Tk 146.66 crore for specific duty rate.
   The NBR proposed that the ministry could consider any of the three options to rein in the surging domestic prices of soybean and palm oils since global market remained volatile.
   ‘The finance adviser declined to endorse any of the three options,’ a high official in the NBR told New Age.
   Prices of soybean oil range between Tk 90 and Tk 92 per kg and palm oil between Tk 84 and Tk 86 in the local market, gaining Tk 18-Tk 20 per kg due to increases in global market prices.
   Crude edible oil price shot up to $800-$850 a tonne in September 2007 from $450-$500 of a year-ago period, trade sources said.

Government and non-government agencies will mark Begum Roquiah Day today with various programmes focusing on women’s empowerment and participation of women in mainstream development.
   Begum Roquiah Sakhawat Hossain, a writer and social worker in undivided Bengal in the early 20th century, is most famous for her efforts in gender equality and other social issues. She set up the first school primarily for Muslim girls. She also founded the Anjuman e Khawateen e Islam (Islamic Women’s Association) which held debates and conferences regarding the status of women and education.
   Roquiah was born on December 9, 1880 at Pairaband in Rangpur and died on December 9, 1932.
   The nation will observe the day marking the 127th anniversary of the birth and 75th anniversary of the death of Roquiah, a pioneer in women’s enlightenment and emancipation in this part of the subcontinent.
   The government in a briefing in Dhaka on December 5 announced its programmes whch include Roquiah Padak award ceremony, discussion on Roquiah’s life and philosophy on BTV, inauguration of the Begum Roquiah Documentation Centre in Dhaka, publication ceremony of the Gender Shabdakosh, and the inauguration of a one-stop crisis centre and DNA testing laboratory in Barisal and Mahila Hastashilpa Kendra at Rajshahi.
   The women and children affairs adviser, Geeteara Safiya Choudhury, announced the programmes in the briefing at the Press Information Department.
   The government will also launch programmes at Paba in Rajshahi, Rupsa in Khulna and the Sylhet district headquarters to assess the situation regarding girls’ access to education, child marriage, dowry, reproductive health and birth registration.
   The Bangla Academy will hold a discussion on the occasion at the academy at 3:30pm.
   The women and gender studies department of Dhaka University will hold a discussion on ‘women’s movement in Bangladesh: present aspects and future guidelines’ on the campus at 3:00pm.
   The Centre for Women Journalists, Bangladesh will mark the occasion with a discussion at the National Press Club at 10:00am. Karmajibi Nari will hold a discussion on ‘women’s representation in all sectors for women’s emancipation and empowerment’ at the National Press Club 3:30pm.
   Biplabi Nari Shakti activists at a discussion at the Centre for Cultural Development on Saturday, meanwhile, said they believed women need to know about Roquiah, but her thoughts have always remained shadowed as organisations observing Roquiah Day have never tried to focus on them.
   The organisation’s joint coordinator Taslima Akhter said Roquiah in her writing talked about the women’s imprisonment in society. ‘We study Roquiah not only as she was a pioneer of Muslim women’s education, but a leader of women’s renaissance.’
   Independent University professor Samina Lutfa, at the programme, said although women had entered labour market, but the situation was yet to change for them.
   Dhaka University professor Kaberi gain said women’s liberation movement halted in Bangladesh for lack of coordination among women’s activists. She said the activists should follow Rokeya’s thoughts in the movement.
   The speakers at the Women Convention 2007, organised by Rangpur Dinajpur Rural Service in the Rangpur Zila Parishad auditorium on Saturday recommended that National Woman Development Policies 1997 should be changed.
   They urged the government to take steps to ensure participation of woman candidates in the national elections in reserved seats.

The government has had an Interpol red notice issued seeking the arrest of retired lieutenant colonel Shariful Huq Dalim, one of the convicts in the Sheikh Mujib murder case, sources in the police said.
   The Awami League government in 1997 issued a red notice against Dalim, but the BNP-led alliance government later withdrew it, the sources said.
   The first president of Bangladesh, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and all but two of his family members — Sheikh Hasina and Sheikh Rehana, who were abroad at the time — were killed by a group of army officers on August 15, 1975.
   Mohitul Islam, then personal assistant to Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, on the day went to the Lalbagh police to file a case regarding the killing. The police did not record the case.
   After the Awami League assumed office on June 24, 1996, Mohitul Islam filed the murder case against 21 people, including former president Khondker Moshtaque Ahmed, on charge of killing Mujib and his family members with the Dhanmondi police on October 2, 1996.
   The police arrested retired lieutenant colonel Syed Farooq-ur Rahman, retired lieutenant colonel Sultan Shahriar Rashid Khan and retired lieutenant colonel Muhiuddin Ahmed in Dhaka in August 1996.
   Retired major Bazlul Huda was brought back home from abroad. They filed appeals with the Supreme Court against their conviction in 2001.
   Another convict, retired lieutenant colonel AKM Mohiuddin Ahmed, who was brought back to Dhaka from the United States on June 18, also filed an appeal through the jail authorities on June 24.
   The five convicts are on death row in the Dhaka central jail.
   The other convicts who were sentenced to death penalty and are now living in other countries are retired lieutenant colonel Abdur Rashid, retired lieutenant colonel Shariful Huq Dalim, retired lieutenant colonel AM Rashed Chowdhury, retired lieutenant colonel MHSB Noor Chowdhury, retired captain Abdul Majed and retired risaldar Moslem Uddin. Retired lieutenant colonel Abdul Aziz Pasha died. They were tried in their absence.
   The trial began in the
   district and sessions judge’s court of Dhaka on March 12, 1997.
   District and sessions judge Kazi Golam Rosul sentenced 15 accused to death penalty on November 8, 1999.
   The court acquitted four of the accused, including Taheruddin Thakur. Another accused, Khondker Moshtaque, had died by the time.
   The death reference of the case was then sent to the High Court for disposal.
   A High Court division passed a split judgement in the case. A judge of the division bench upheld the death penalty for nine of the accused and acquitted six others.
   Another judge upheld the judgement of the trial court, sentencing all the 15 accused to death penalty.
   On April 30, 2001, a third bench of the High Court of Justice Md Fazlul Karim upheld the death penalty against 12 and acquitted three. Eight of the High Court judges earlier felt embarrassed to hear the case.
   Five of the convicts filed regular appeals with the Supreme Court. The appeals are now pending.

The Kolkata police on Friday night arrested Emon, one of the most wanted criminals by Bangladesh law enforcers, at a shop in Garihati area of Kolkata.
   Earlier in 2000, Emon, an accused in at least 15 murder cases, was arrested along with his wife by the Kolkata police and was later released on bail, police sources said.
   He fled to Kolkata after allegedly killing film actor Sohel Chowdhury in December 1998, and since had been staying there under the shelter of Prakash.
   He is one the 23 most wanted criminals named by the BNP-led alliance government on December 27, 2001.
   The Criminal Investigation Department of Kolkata police arrested two other most wanted criminals — Tanvirul Islam Joy at his luxurious flat in North Kolkata on May 4 and Haris Ahmed in Nadia district in June.
   On October 7, the Indian authorities for the first time handed over three listed Bangladeshi terrorists to the CID of Bangladesh Police at Benapole border, although there is no extradition treaty between Bangladesh and India.
   A 12-member team of CID led by additional special superintendent of police Md Abdullah Aref received the terrorists — Naimur Rahman alias Habibur Rahman alias Taj, Sohel alias Ibrahim, and Biplob alias Lombu Selim — from the Indian Border Security Force.
   More recently, two accomplices of Joy were also deported from Kolkata. Joy, Haris, Emon, and another wanted criminal, Khorshed, will be deported to Bangladesh soon, police sources said.
   At least 373 terrorists from Dhaka and its adjoining areas took refuge in different areas of West Bengal, mainly in Muslim majority localities and more particularly in Free Street, Khijirpur, Damdam, and Sealdah in Kolkata and Banga, Nadia, Murshidabad, and Jalpaiguri, police sources said.

A discussion on climate change in Dhaka on Saturday demanded that rich countries emitting greenhouse gas should compensate the affected low-lying countries such as Bangladesh.
   The Bangladesh Paribesh Andolan and the Bangladesh Anti-Climate Change Alliance organised the discussion demanding reduction in greenhouse gas emission in an auditorium at Plassey in Dhaka.
   The Paribesh Andolan put forth a set of demands. It said the United States should abide by the Kyoto protocol, India and China should control their emission of carbon dioxide, felling of trees should be stopped and environmentally-friendly trees should be planted, and the use of organic fertilisers should be increased to reduce dependence on chemical fertilisers.
   The Paribesh Andolan president, Muzaffer Ahmad, chaired the discussion; the secretary general was the keynote speaker, said a release.
   BAPA vice-president ASM Shahjahan, environmentalist Khondaker Mokaddem Hossain, Sharif Jamil, Jesmin Ara Sultana Sathi and others spoke.
   Representatives of Green Voice, Khilgaon Welfare Society, Hunger Project- Bangladesh, PEACE, SEBA, Gorky Welfare Foundation, BRAC, Chhatra Union, Jagannath University, Pallima Mahila Samity, Old Dhaka Paribesh Unnayan Forum also joined in.

Professor Latifa Akand and Professor Hosne Ara Begum have been awarded Begum Roquiah Padak 2007 for their contributions to socio-economic development of women in the country.
   The chief adviser, Fakhruddin Ahmed, will distribute the award in a ceremony in the Osmani Memorial Hall auditorium today, an official release said.

THE students of Rajshahi University on Saturday appealed to the caretaker government’s chief adviser, Fakhruddin Ahmed, to release the four detained teachers. The appeal, signed by 771 students, was faxed to the chief adviser’s office.
   ‘These four detained teachers have done much for the welfare of our country. They have also have contributed to various researches. Due to their absence the educational environment of Rajshahi University is deteriorating,’ read part of the appeal.
   Rajshahi’s additional chief metropolitan magistrate, Ruhul Amin, on Tuesday sentenced four teachers — chairman of the management department Moloy Kumar Bhowmik, and assistant professors of the mass communications department Dulal Chandra Biswas, Selim Raza Newton and Abdullah Al Mamun — to two years’ imprisonment and fined them Tk 1,000 each.
   They were charged with instigating the students’ demonstrations on the RU campus on August 21-22 in violation of the Emergency Powers Rules after the angry students began protesting at Dhaka University.
   The court, however, acquitted former vice-chancellor of Rajshahi University, Professor Saidur Rahman Khan and a teacher of the applied physics and electronics department, Professor Abdus Sobhan, also the convener of the Progressive Teachers’ Forum, of the charge of involvement in bringing out the processions and instigating students.

World Bank vice president for South Asia, Praful C Patel is expected to visit Bangladesh on December 13-15 to discuss the lending agency’s possible assistance for the government’s post-cyclone rehabilitation programmes.
   Sources in the bank’s Dhaka office said Praful would visit the country’s southern region, which was devastated by the November 15 cyclone Sidr, before holding talks with Bangladesh officials on fund needs and possible supports.
   ‘The World Bank will consider short-term, medium-term and long-term assistance for Bangladesh to help the cyclone victims to overcome the trauma and resume livelihoods,’ an official concerned has told New Age.
   Already as a short-term measure, the global lender had offered up to $250 million to help the affected people recover losses and to strengthen the government’s disaster mitigation systems.
   The assistance would be used to support short-term needs such as food imports, rapid procurement of medical supplies, cash grants for the poorest victims to resume work and build life afresh.
   ‘On completion of the rescue and relief phase, the World Bank will focus more on economic recovery phase, as the government needs to rebuild regional economy and eventually overcome the macroeconomic shocks,’ the WB official added.
   The Bank’s support would be available for infrastructure rehabilitation, especially repairs of embankments and other flood mitigation and shelter infrastructures damaged by the cyclone and tide, according to the bank’s publication.
   Such assistance will also support coastal zone management to help Bangladesh face the challenge of climate change by both mitigating the inevitable impact of future storms and designing the necessary adaptation methods to protect people and livestock.

Rapid Action Battalion arrested a key associate of listed criminal Tanvirul Islam Joy from a hideout at Sheorapara in Mirpur area early Saturday.
   A RAB-3 team led by assistant superintendent of police Abdur Rashid Sikdar nicked Mohammad Masud from 561, West Sheorapara.
   Masud, 30, nicknamed Killer Masud or Erfan or Minto or Paltan Masud, is said to be the right-hand man of Joy, who was arrested on May 6 in Kolkata of West Bengal, India.
   RAB said Masud was accused in dozens of criminal cases with Paltan, Motijheel and Ramna police stations, including murder, extortion, kidnap and tender manipulations.
   The arrested confessed that he had hacked to death China and Sinha at Motijheel area over previous enmity, RAB sources said.
   RAB will produce him before the court today seeking remand.

The Kuwait government on Saturday failed to take the 10 deer, contributed by the Dhaka Zoo, to the Kuwaiti capital as the Indian government refused to let the Kuwaiti air force’s plane land in Mumbai airport, said sources at zoo.
   According to the officials, the Kuwait government had to take permission from the Indian government as the flight was supposed to fly through India, but there were probably some procedural snags for which the Indian government did not allow the Kuwaiti plane, which was carrying the deer, to land.
   ‘Earlier, we heard that the Kuwait government had taken permission from India, but today [Saturday] the flight came back to the Dhaka International Airport within an hour as the Mumbai airport authorities had refused to let the plane land,’ said the Dhaka Zoo’s, curator Kazi Fazlul Haque.
   ‘After getting the order from the ministries of foreign affairs and fisheries and livestock, we completed all the necessary preparations to send the 10 deer and put them aboard the plane, and after the plane’s unexpected return we unloaded the deer. They are now recovering from the rigours of the flight in the zoological gardens,’ said the curator.
   The Kuwait government are again planning to take the deer on Tuesday after completing the necessary procedures with the Indian government, said sources.

A Bangladeshi national was killed and another injured in firing by the Border Security Force of India on Bujrukh frontier in Haripur upazila of Thakurgaon early Saturday.
   The deceased was identified as Rezabul, 40, and the injured is Sydur Rahman, 30.