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The government punished about 10,000 police personnel in 10 months for their involvement in crimes and corruption and for breach of internal discipline.
   They were punished between January 11, 2007, the day the interim administration assumed office, and October 31, when the government launched the drive against serious crimes and corruption, according to a home ministry report submitted at the weekly meeting of the council of advisers on Sunday.
   The chief adviser, Fakhruddin Ahmed, presided over the meeting which was attended by most of the members of the council and the secretaries concerned.
   The report on the measures taken to keep discipline in the police at the optimum level said the police have a workforce of 1,27,842, including the personnel on deputation in the Rapid Action Battalion.
   Seven hundred and sixty-two of them were given stringent punishment while light punishment was given to 8,715 personnel. Fifty-six were forced into retirement and 98 were dismissed from the service. Nine police officials were made officers on special duty and 64 were suspended from the service, according to the report.
   Disclosing the figure, the chief adviser’s press secretary Syed Fahim Munaim told a briefing that the government had increased the privileges for the police personnel to ensure maximum discipline in the forces.
   He said a draft replacing the century-old Police Act was prepared under a project supported by the United Nations Development Programme. The police personnel are now provided with rations.
   ‘The government is also considering proposals for risk allowance and family pension,’ said Fahim.
   He said the home ministry report had also suggested formation and operation of specialised police units that included the highway police and the unit for internal oversight.
   According to statistics available, the number of cases filed with the police increased substantially in a couple of moths. But the police bosses on several occasions claimed the crime rates had decreased during the first few months of the interim administration.
   With the support of the UN Development Programme, the government also set up 11 model police stations in various districts. Officials at some such stations came to be severely criticised for not behaving properly with the people.
   The custodial death of a crime suspect at Narsingdi sadar model police station on October 28 has drawn attention of many. The officer-in-charge of the station was, however, suspended from the service.
   The government set up service delivery centres at 33 police stations to improve the quality of service at the police stations. But allegations are there that the service has hardly improved.
   Bangladesh has 592 police stations, 121 investigation centres and 348 police outposts to keep law and order.

A Dhaka court on Sunday ordered Sheikh Rehana, the expatriate sister of detained former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, to surrender by November 18.
   The court also ordered the authorities concerned for notify Rehana, who lives in London, of the order through advertisements in two national daily newspapers.
   Rehana faces an extortion charge of Tk 2.99 crore. Hasina, also the Awami League chief, is also an accused in the case, filed by businessman Azam Jahangir Chowdhury with the Gulshan police on June 13.
   The joint forces on July 16 arrested Hasina at her house in Dhaka and a court sent her to jail the same day. She is now detained in a special jail on the Jatiya Sangsad complex.
   Additional chief metropolitan magistrate Shawkat Ali Chowdhury on Sunday issued the order for the advertisement as the police failed to execute the warrant for her or confiscation of her moveable property.
   The magistrate said she would be tried in her absence if she failed to surrender in court.
   The police submitted a report to the court saying they had gone to the house of Rehana on Road 7 at Gulshan, but she was not there and there was nothing to be confiscated.
   The court on October 24 accepted the charge sheet filed on July 24 by the investigation officer, Obaidul Haque, also the Gulshan police officer-in-charge, against Hasina, former minister Sheikh Fazlul Karim Selim, also her cousin, and Rehana. Rehana was shown absconding in the charge sheet.
   Rehana was not named in the first information report of the case filed by Azam, managing director of the Eastcoast Trading Limited.
   According to case details, Selim took about Tk 3 crore in several phases between 2000 and 2001 from the plaintiff for the award of the installation of a power plant at Siddhirganj in Narayanganj.
   Twenty-seven people, including a magistrate, two policemen and a Southeast Bank manager, have been made prosecution witnesses in the first charge sheet.
   The High Court bench of Justice Shah Abu Nayeem Mominur Rahman and Justice Zubayer Rahman Chowdhury on July 30 directed the government not to proceed with the case under the Emergency Powers Rules and issued a rule on the government to explain the legality of bringing the case under the emergency rules.
   The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court on August 27 stayed the execution of the High Court order and directed the parties to the case to take necessary initiatives for expeditious disposal of the writ petition.

The government has once again approved in principle a draft law to protect consumer rights, proposing maximum three years of imprisonment and high amount of financial penalty in violation of the rights.
   The council of advisers at the weekly meeting with the chief adviser, Fakhruddin Ahmed, in the chair approved in principle the Consumer Protection Ordinance 2007 and asked the ministries concerned to plug the loopholes, if any, in two months, a spokesman said.
   The law adviser, Mainul Hosein, was given the responsibility to coordinate with the commerce ministry to look into the draft and make it compatible with similar law in practice in other countries.
   Against the backdrop of rights groups demand for the enactment of a consumer protection act, the government in 1994 first pledged to start drafting a law, but the process had remained stalled for years.
   The first draft on the proposed law was moved to the cabinet in November 2001. The cabinet, at that time, in principle approved the draft and formed a six-member secretary-committee to examine the proposed law.
   The draft was, at the recommendation of the committee, again sent to the cabinet in 2004. It was then sent to the ministry for further scrutiny.
   The government on January 20, 2006 again brought it to the government’s highest policy-making body with few amendment proposals. It was again sent back to the commerce ministry for ‘more’ scrutiny.
   The Sunday meeting had a discussion in details on the draft ordinance, having eight chapters and 83 clauses, to protect consumer rights, said Syed Fahim Munaim, the chief adviser’s press secretary, after the meeting.
   Bangladesh lacks a law to protect the consumers’ rights until now.
   The ordinance draft proposes the formation of a 21-member council with business community members, civil society actors, Consumers’ Association of Bangladesh representatives and officials of the ministries concerned to advise the government on consumer rights.
   It will oversee market prices of essential commodities and monitor application of the law through legal channels of the government. The council will also launch market research, if required, in line with the proposed law.
   The draft also proposed to set up a consumers’ rights protection directorate to enforce consumer rights and set up consumers’ rights protection tribunals in district and upazilas.
   The law will allow consumers to take legal steps individually against people involved in malpractice such as adulteration, cheating, price manipulation and violation of relevant laws, including this law.
   The council of advisers also discussed the ongoing measures to arrest the spiraling prices of essential commodities, Fahim said, adding the government has asked the field administration to keep vigil on the supply chain.
   He said the government had launched special vulnerable group feeding programmes in the 64 districts. It has also allocated Tk 10 crore for disbursement among the poor through district administration.
   The advisers who had earlier visited districts also briefed the chief adviser.
   As for fertiliser crisis, Fahim said the advisers had observed there was no shortfall of fertiliser, but there might be supply shortage in some areas.

The committee to monitor prices of essentials on Sunday recommended formation of a price commission to suggest ways and means from time to time to address the issue of spiralling prices.
   At a meeting chaired by the additional secretary to the ministry of commerce, Golam Mustakim, the committee also recommended resumption of mobile court drives to ensure proper weight and quality of goods in trade transactions.
   As an immediate step, the monitoring committee suggested that all the government agencies concerned should employ necessary efforts to increase production of vegetables, oil seed and onion besides rice in the next Rabi season to avoid a probable crisis, meeting sources informed New Age.
   The sources said the meeting observed that prices of all sensitive items, except only ginger, marked rise by 10 to 20 per cent on an average in the span of two months despite various measures taken by the government to contain prices.
   Meantime, price of soya bean oil increased 13 per cent, onion 21 per cent, egg 17 per cent, flour 14 per cent, powdered milk 13 per cent and sugar over 7 per cent, according to the official monitoring report.
   The meeting is learnt to have blamed profiteering by a section of traders for the price hike. It called upon the business community to keep prices of essential commodities at rational levels to reduce public sufferings.
   ‘It is a free market economy, not a naked economy. The government should not allow businessmen to hold the consumers hostage to their rapacity,’ a sources quoted one official as saying at the meeting.
   The representative of Bangladesh Rifles was quoted to have told the meeting that the para-military force was ready to continue their market interventions to arrest price spiral, should the government want it.
   The meeting called upon both electronic and print media to report on market prices on a regular basis instead of publishing commodity price reports based on prices witnessed on Friday morning, when prices of all essential items usually reach their peak because of the pressure of increased number of buyers on holidays.

Repatriation of stolen money is set to enter into a lengthy process as the government has decided to go for deals with governments instead of banking regulators of foreign countries, officials hinted.
   The finance ministry has requested the foreign ministry to approach Malaysian and Philippines governments for agreements to repatriate the money siphoned off by corruption suspects.
   The request was made in a letter last week after the law ministry opposed the idea of signing deals with banking regulators, finance ministry officials said.
   The finance ministry would soon make similar requests for talks with governments of Singapore, England and Indonesia for the same purpose, sources hinted.
   The change of mind of the government would make the process lengthy and complicated, and the plan might end up in a fiasco, finance and banking officials feared.
   The present government, after assuming office in January, has been willing to sign agreements with the authorities of Malaysia, Philippines, England, Singapore and Indonesia to bring back home an unspecified amount of money siphoned off from the country by politicians and businesspeople.
   Accordingly, Bangladesh Bank almost completed the process of signing a deal with Bank Negara, the central bank of Malaysia. The draft was sent to the law ministry for its vetting on July 1.
   Negotiations were also going on between Bangladesh Bank and Bank of England as well as the central bank of the Philippines for signing repatriation agreements, central bank sources said.
   But the law ministry pointed out that such agreements could be signed only among the governments concerned, not among central banks, officials said.
   The Anti-Money Laundering Act 2002 clearly mentions the governments of the countries concerned are the proper authorities for signing any agreement with Bangladesh relating to money laundering, repatriation of laundered money or sharing information on money laundering, the law ministry explained.
   As per the draft MoU, the Bank Negara will inform Bangladesh Bank of the names of persons who siphoned off money from Bangladesh and the amounts they deposited with different Malaysian banks and financial institutions or invested in business ventures there.
   Under the agreement, the central banks of the countries concerned can engage their intelligence agencies to conduct further investigations based on the findings and information provided by each other.
   But, no clause of repatriation of money has been included in the draft MoU as the Malaysian government was unwilling to allow that at the moment, a finance ministry high official said.
   ‘The deal, if signed, could give Bangladesh authorities a powerful tool for identifying the culprits and impounding their ill-gotten assets sent or invested abroad,’ a high official of the central bank told New Age.
   Malaysia, Singapore, the UK and the USA are among the major suspected destinations of money siphoned off from the country over a period of last 10 years, intelligence sources said.
   The present government unearthed a number of money laundering cases during the regime of the immediate past BNP-led government, but could not gather adequate information and evidences, they admitted.

The Anti-Corruption Commi-ssion on Sunday approved the proposal to notify four including Dhaka mayor Sadeque Hossain Khoka and Awami League presidium member Tofail Ahmed, to submit wealth statement to the commission.
   Two others who are likely to be notified to submit wealth statement are former finance minister Saifur Rahman’s son Shafiur Rahman Babu and former BTRC chairman Taimur Alam Khandakar. The four are among the 35 high-profile corruption suspects named by the government on October 4.
   ‘The commission’s chairman Hasan Mashhud Chowdhury approved the proposals for the notification of the four,’ sources close to the commission told newage, adding the notices will be served in a day or two.
   The inquiry report on 11 of the suspects was submitted to the chairman for approval, but the notification of seven others remained pending for the chairman’s nod.
   The commission in six phases notified 143 corruption suspects, including detained former prime ministers Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia, to submit their wealth statements. All but Kazi Moharraf Hossain, a CBA leader and BNP activist in Kushtia, complied with the notification.
   The commission on October 4 named the 35 people as corruption suspects as part of a drive against high-profile corruption. The commission on October 23 started primary inquiries in connection with eleven of them.
   The seven files pending for the commission chairman’s nod are related to former adviser to caretaker government Justice Fazlul Haque, Awami League presidium members Syeda Sajeda Chowdhury, former BNP state minister Quamrul Islam, former Awami League lawmaker AKM Rahmatullah, former communications secretary Rezaul Hayat, deputy secretary Shamsul Alam, and Rajuk’s CBA president Kazi Amir Khasru.
   The sources said the commission’s inquiry teams and the anti-corruption task forces were also carrying out inquiries regarding others of the 35 suspects.
   They are Awami League presidium member Kazi Zafarullah, Khulna mayor Sheikh Tayebur Rahman, former BNP lawmaker and Bangladesh Red Crescent Society chairman Shahidul Haq Jamal, Liberal Democratic Party leader and former prime minister Khaleda Zia’s primary and mass education adviser Jahanara Begum, former BNP state minister AKM Mosharraf Hossain, former BNP deputy minister Asadul Habib Dulu, former BNP lawmakers Sardar Sakhawat Hossain Bakul, Ilyas Ali, Fazlul Haque Milon, Abul Khair Bhuiyan, Joinal Abedin (VP Joinal) and Dewan Salahuddin, former Jatiya Party lawmaker Moshiur Rahman Ranga, former law secretary Alauddin Sardar, former AL state minister KM Jahangir, former prime minister Khaleda Zia’s APS 2 Abdul Matin (deputy secretary), Proshika chairman Kazi Faruque Ahmed, former Essential Drugs Company Ltd managing director Harun Al Rashid, former prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s APS Alauddin Nasim (deputy secretary), former Chhatra League presidents Ishaq Ali Khan Panna and Enamul Haque Shamim, former Srimangal municipal chairman Mohsin Miah (Madhu), Rajshahi city BNP general secretary Shish Mohammad and former Teletalk managing director M Obaidullah.

The Pakistan president, Pervez Musharraf, said on Sunday the general elections would be held by January 9 and indicated the state of emergency he imposed a week ago would stay in place until then.
   He said the elections commission would fix an exact date for the vote and that parliament would be dissolved Thursday, with the country to be run by a caretaker government.
   The military ruler, who seized power in a coup in 1999, defended emergency rule as necessary for safeguarding the country’s interests, but said taking the step had been the hardest decision of his life.
   ‘We should have elections before the 9th of January,’ Musharraf told reporters in Islamabad at his first news conference since imposing emergency rule.
   ‘I leave it to the election commission to decide on the exact date.’
   The new timetable effectively brings the elections process back to what it was before emergency rule, and meets a key demand of the embattled leader’s critics at home and abroad.
   Musharraf, a vital US ally in the fight against al-Qaeda and the Taliban, has been under intense international pressure to backtrack since last weekend, when he suspended the constitution and sacked Pakistan’s chief justice.
   But he insisted: ‘I did not violate the constitution and the law of this land.’
   ‘It was the most difficult decision of my life,’ he added. ‘I found myself between a rock and a hard surface. I stand by it because I think it was in the national interest.’
   Musharraf indicated emergency rule would last until the legislative polls, saying it was needed ‘to ensure absolutely fair and transparent elections.’
   He insisted emergency rule was needed to cope with growing Islamic militancy and a meddlesome judiciary, but it came days before the Supreme Court was to have ruled on the validity of his re-election.
   At the same time he reiterated his promise to quit as army chief and take the oath of office for a second term as a civilian as soon as the top court – now stripped of the chief justice and other judges who refused to legitimise emergency rule – validates that October 6 victory.
   Former premier Benazir Bhutto welcomed Musharraf’s announcement of general elections as a ‘positive step.’
   However Human Rights Watch in a statement dismissed it as a ‘cynical sop’ designed to deflect attention from his ‘power grab.’
   The New York-based group said genuine elections were impossible as long as the constitution remained suspended and the state of emergency remained in effect.
   Benazir meanwhile arrived in the eastern city of Lahore, where she plans the biggest protest yet against emergency rule.
   Her planned ‘long march,’ a distance of around 275 kilometres from Lahore to the capital Islamabad, is due to start Tuesday and, if allowed to go ahead, would draw huge crowds.
   She was placed under house arrest Friday to prevent her leading a rally in Rawalpindi, near Islamabad, with authorities citing fears of a repeat of the suicide bombing that hit her Karachi parade last month, killing 139 people.
   At least 250 of her party supporters were rounded up Sunday in a series of swoops in southern Sindh province, mostly in her stronghold Karachi.
   At his press conference, Musharraf said the sacked chief justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, and other judges who refused to endorse emergency rule had forfeited their jobs.
   ‘Absolutely, those who have not taken the oath are gone, they are no more the judges,’ he said, accusing Chaudhry among other things of interference in judicial appointments, corruption and harassment of civil servants.
   Musharraf had overnight won his strongest support from the US president, George W Bush, who praised him as a strong ally and said he had no reason to doubt his pledges to return to democratic rule.
   ‘I think that’s what you have to do,’ Bush said. ‘When somebody says this is what they’re going to do, then you give them a chance to do it.’

Most of the officials and employees of the Dhaka City Corporation who possess passports submitted their passports on Sunday, the deadline for submission, to the office of the secretary, said DCC sources.
   The DCC’s secretary, M Golam Mostafa, on November 5 ordered all the employees and officials, except the muster-roll employees who are paid on a daily basis, to submit their passports, if they have any, to his office within the next three working days.
   The secretary has also ordered the officials and employees to submit the dates of issue of the passports of their family members (if they have any) and also to mention the expiry date of the passports.
   The officials or employees will be able to get back their passports from the secretary’s office as per their need but they will have to submit an application to the secretary asking permission to do so and mentioning the reason why they need the passport.
   They will also have to take permission of the taskforce of the DCC to get back their passports.
   There are 12,212 officials and employees in the DCC. Among them 345 are class-I officials, 183 are class-II officials, 2,324 are class-III employees, 2,088 are class-IV employees and 7,272 employees belong to the muster-roll. Besides, 18 officials have been working on deputation in the DCC: the chief executive officer, secretary to the DCC, chief engineer, chief revenue officer, chief estate officer, chief conservancy officer, one magistrate, the mayor’s private secretary and all of the 10 zonal executive officers.
   Sources said that as the taskforce has already started working in Nagar Bhan and as scrutiny of the wealth statements of the officials and employees submitted on October 31 is going on, some officials and employees, who were involved in corruption and earned a huge amount of illegal money, are trying to flee abroad to avoid punishment.
   Sources also alleged that some officials and employees illegally hold more than one passport and many of them have deposited their money abroad in foreign banks.
   The taskforce members started their work at Nagar Bhaban on October 22 to ensure better service for the city’s residents and to probe corruption and anomalies.
   The taskforce also put up one complaint box with a telephone number (9563508) for people to lodge complaints.
   The taskforce has introduced a system of registering the names of visitors and employees. The DCC workers are also required to sign the register, mentioning the entry and exit time.

Law adviser Mainul Hosein said on Sunday that there would be ‘changes in the political parties’, as expected by the government, by next January-February paving the way for free and fair polls.
   He was responding to queries at a press conference at the Press Information Department on the publication of the Bangladesh Code by the law, justice and parliamentary affairs ministry.
   The adviser, however, expressed his dismay at the pace of reform in the political parties. ‘We cannot be optimistic about the changes the political parties have so far undergone through the reform initiatives.’
   Allaying fears that holding of the national polls could be delayed until political reforms are completed, he said,
   ‘We are just removing the obstacles to the reform process…The elections will be held on time.’
   Asked if martial law could be imposed on the country, he said, ‘We do not have such apprehension.’
   About the demand for trial of the war criminals, Mainul said that question should be raised whether those who had been in power but did not take any initiative for the trial of war criminals during the last 36 years, should be punished on that ground.
   ‘Those who are now demanding trial of war criminals should wait for another one year to let the elected government take up the matter as 36 years have already elapsed,’ he said.
   ‘We are not that foolish to be enticed by those who are raising the issue as a ploy to hinder the election process … our main task is to ensure free and fair elections,’ he said.
    He, however, said that they were working hard not just to hold the elections. ‘It is not that every problem will be solved if the election is held by the end of 2008.’
   The adviser said that the government was not going to initiate dialogues with the political parties as it had no intention to influence the parties.
   ‘Mafia-type politics’ is going on in the country and the government has been trying to put it on the right track after assuming power in January,’ he said.
   Responding to a query on the ‘minus two formula’ the government is allegedly trying to impose on the two major parties, the adviser called for changes in the mindset of the politicians for good governance and rule of law.
   He agreed to the view that the interim government should not cling to power for long.

The two factions of Bangladesh Nationalist Party have approached the authorities separately for permission to meet the detained party chairperson, Khaleda Zia, at the special jail on the parliament complex.
   The Khandaker Delwar Hossain-led faction on Sunday sent a letter to the jail authorities seeking permission to meet Khaleda Zia.
   The Saifur Rahman-led faction also asked permission to meet her.
   The Saifur-led faction formed a seven-member committee with Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan, former party secretary general, as its chief to prepare a set of draft proposals on electoral reforms, to be submitted to the Election Commission on November 22.
   Rizvi Ahmed, acting office secretary of the Delwar-led faction, on Sunday evening sent a letter to the jail authorities seeking permission to meet Khaleda. It was their second letter to the authorities, after an interval of one month, asking permission to meet her.
   Sources in the Saifur Rahman-led faction said they had also applied to the jail authorities for permission to meet the party chief.
   Asked about the move, the acting secretary general of this faction, Hafiz Uddin Ahmad said on Sunday, ‘I shall not comment on the issue…. We will, however, try to meet the chairperson in jail.’
   The Delwar-led group, meanwhile, opposed the ‘move’ to allow Saifur Rahman and Hafiz Uddin to meet the chairperson. ‘We apprehend that if they are allowed to meet the chairperson, they would try to get her consent to their self-proclaimed committee and confuse the people,’ said Rizvi Ahmed.
   ‘The BNP secretary general, Khandaker Delwar Hossain, had applied to the authorities concerned more than one month ago for permission to meet the party chairperson but the authorities did not respond to the appeal,’ he said.
   ‘We fear that there is a move to allow the persons, who were illegally made acting chairperson and secretary general, to meet the party chairperson. It will be discriminatory and conspiratorial [if they are permitted to meet Khaleda],’ he said.
   He called on the authorities concerned to let Khandaker Delwar meet the party chairperson and not to allow Saifur and Hafiz to see her.
   Sources in the Saifur Rahman-led faction said the committee headed by Mannan Bhuiyan would consult senior and central party leaders before outlining the draft proposals for electoral reforms.
   Hafiz Uddin Ahmad, party standing committee member Mahbubur Rahman, chairperson’s advisers Mofazzal Karim, ZA Khan and Enam Ahmed Chowdhury, and former minister Osman Faruk are also members of the committee.
   Meanwhile, the Election Commission is scheduled to hold a dialogue with BNP on November 22 on electoral reforms.

Foreign ministers will debate whether Pakistan should be suspended from the Commonwealth over president Pervez Musharraf’s declaration of emergency rule at an extraordinary meeting today (Monday).
   Nations including Britain and Canada have called for tough action ahead of the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group gathering and secretary general Don McKinnon described the state of emergency as a ‘step in the wrong direction’.
   Foreign ministers from Britain, Canada, Lesotho, Malaysia, Malta, Papua New Guinea, Saint Lucia, Sri Lanka and Tanzania will meet in London to discuss whether the state of emergency breaches Commonwealth principles.
   Musharraf imposed emergency rule on November 3, suspending the constitution, sacking the chief justice and imposing restrictions on the media days before the Supreme Court was to rule on the validity of his October election victory.
   Pakistan’s Attorney General Malik Mohammad Qayyum said Saturday that the state of emergency would be lifted in a month, while former premier Benazir Bhutto joined a protest after being freed from house arrest, imposed Friday.
   Before these moves, powerful Commonwealth nations were talking tough about potential action against Pakistan.
   The British foreign secretary, David Miliband, told the House of Commons Wednesday that suspension was ‘one of the tools that is available’ to the Commonwealth and urged Musharraf to honour a pledge to step down as army chief.
   ‘The government of Pakistan says they (the emergency powers) are temporary. It is vital that they are so,’ he added.
   The Canadian foreign minister, Maxime Bernier, said Friday that the country is ‘pressing for a strong Commonwealth response that sets clear deadlines for the end of the state of emergency and for the restoration of democratic processes’. And McKinnon told BBC radio last week that suspension ‘has to be there’ as a possible sanction against Pakistan.
   Pakistan was suspended from the Commonwealth – a 53-nation group dominated by former British colonies – in 1999 after Musharraf seized power in a coup backed by the army.
   But it was restored as a full member five years later in 2004 after Musharraf promised to give up his dual role as president and military chief by the end of the year.
   Monday’s meeting in London is likely to act as a curtain raiser for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Kampala, Uganda, on November 23 to 25.
   McKinnon has refused to preempt the outcome of Monday’s meeting, saying ministers were ‘clearly very concerned’ about Musharraf’s actions.
   The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, the grouping’s main rights group, underlined the importance of sending a strong message to Pakistan.
   ‘This is a moment of singular importance for the Commonwealth to recognise that democracy, democratic processes and institutions, the rule of law and just and honest government are the fundamental political values of the Commonwealth.
   ‘Swift action will reinforce that membership of the Commonwealth is predicated on an absolute promise to protect and promote these values,’ it added in a statement. The group added Pakistan’s attendance at the Commonwealth summit in Uganda would be ‘inappropriate.’

The one-man judicial inquiry commission of Justice Habibur Rahman Khan, formed to probe the August 20-21 student protest in Dhaka University and the subsequent flare-up elsewhere, will submit its report tomorrow (Tuesday), recommending ban on party politics in the educational institutions.
   ‘I hope the report, containing the 15-point recommendation including ban on party politics in the educational institutions, activation of students’ unions, reforms to the Dhaka University Ordinance 1973 and Political Party Regulations 1976, and formation of the proposed campus police, will be submitted on Tuesday to the chief adviser,’ Justice Khan told reporters at the commission’s makeshift office at Dhaka Circuit House.
   Khan, hoping the government will publish the report for the sake of the people’s interest, said all the persons whom the commission interviewed opined that the students should not be involved in direct party politics.
   ‘According to the 1973 ordinance there is no barrier for the teachers to be involved in direct party politics. And the 1976 Political Party Act said the political parties can form students’ organisations in the universities. An elaborate discussion was included in the report,’ said Khan.
   He opined that the students should only be involved with campus politics.
   He said the government should take the whole string of incidents into serious consideration. The release of the detained teachers depends absolutely on the government’s decision.
   When he was asked what the real reason was behind the flare-up, Khan replied that many serious incidents take place in the world without any specific reasons.
   A source, however, said the report also recommended that if the detained teachers had not committed any serious crime, the government should be merciful to them. The 15 recommendations dealt with two main issues —suggesting measures to prevent such incidents in the future, and the details of this incident gathered by the commission. The recommendations include formation of campus police and avoidance of inter-action between students and army personnel.

The acting Awami League president, Zillur Rahman, on Sunday reiterated that the war criminals and religion-based political parties should not be allowed to contest the elections.
   He also urged the government to take steps to put the war criminals on trial in deference to the demand of the people.
   ‘Razakar, al-Badr and al-Shams activists are now trading in religion in the name of politics. We call on the government to stop it,’ Zillur said while addressing the leaders and activists of the Awami Juba League on the occasion of the 35th founding anniversary of the party’s youth front at his Gulshan residence in the afternoon.
   He said the whole nation was united now in demand for the trial of the war criminals. The people do not want to see them in politics.
   ‘The people have realised the importance of the issue and are waging a united movement for trial of the war criminals,’ Zillur said lamenting that those who had opposed the liberation war, were enjoying all facilities in independent Bangladesh.
   AL presidium member Tofail Ahmed referred to the Election Commission proposal that no political party should get the EC’s registration if there was any potential threat to communal harmony centring on its name, flag, symbol or activities.
   ‘In the light of the commission’s proposal, the Jamaat should not get registration,’ Tofail observed adding that even the chief adviser had expressed his opinion that it was undesirable that war criminals should contest the polls.
   Earlier, the leaders and activists of the Juba League presented the acting AL president with a bouquet to mark the occasion. Acting party general secretary Syed Ashraful Islam and senior Juba League leaders were present.
   In the morning, the Juba League hoisted national and party flags at the central office, held a prayer session and placed flowers at the portrait of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, at the graves of JL’s founding chairman Sheikh Fazlul Haque Moni and the victims of the August 15 carnage.

Dhaka is set to sign a memorandum of understanding with Seoul on November 16 on co-operation in the energy sector.
   A 15-member delegation of South Korea headed by the vice minister for commerce, industry and energy, Lee Jae Hoon, is scheduled to arrive in Dhaka on November 15 to sign the MoU with the power, energy and mineral resources ministry.
   The power and energy ministry has reportedly agreed to sign the MoU following hectic lobbying by a little-known South Korean company, Luxon Global, which wants to be a partner of Petrobangla in developing the Dighipara coal field.
   Luxon Global claims itself to be the designated representative of the Korean Consortium comprising five companies — Korean Electric Power Corporation, Korean Resources Corporation, Daewoo International, POSCO, and Luxon Global.
   But, the energy adviser, Tapan Chowdhury, told New Age on Sunday that it would be an inter-government MoU without any reference to any company or consortium or any particular coal or gas field. ‘The MoU will focus on overall co-operation in the energy sector between the two countries,’ he said.
   The South Korean delegation, however, includes officials of Luxon and the other consortium members.
   Sources in the Energy Division and Petrobangla said Luxon, which signed an MoU with the Board of Investment in 2005 expressing an interest to invest $1 billion in Bangladesh’s energy sector, initially wanted to sign a deal with Petrobangla on Dighipara coal field and installation of a power plant.
   But Petrobangla did not show any interest to sign any MoU with a company that many Petrobangla officials term ‘dubious’.
   Seoul later informed Dhaka that it wanted to sign an MoU with the Bangladesh government so that the Korean companies could engage in Bangladesh’s energy sector, said the sources.
   They said although the Energy Division initially was not interested in signing any MoU on energy co-operation as it always wants to engage foreign companies in the energy sector through competitive bidding, it later agreed to sign the memorandum following heavy pressure from certain influential quarters in the government.
   The Bangladesh embassy in Seoul in a number of letters in the past six months also recommended that the government should ink an MoU with Luxon or the South Korean government.
   The local agent of the Korean Consortium, Moazzem Hossain, who, accompanied by Luxon’s executive vice president Sang Yeob Lee, went to the Energy Division on Sunday to distribute invitation letters to the MoU signing ceremony, claimed to New Age that Luxon was no more alone. He said, ‘Luxon as the authorised representative of the Korean Consortium is now its “mother entity”.’
   When asked whether they were signing the MoU under pressure, Tapan said it was not true that any body had put any pressure on them.
   ‘It is a government-to-government MoU. We will abide by our policy of not awarding any contract on any coal or gas field to any company without competitive bidding. If we get any suitable offer for a government-to-government deal, we may consider it,’ he said.

The interim government will launch Bangladesh Code, a set of 38 volumes containing 956 laws in Bangladesh, in a ceremony today. The volumes will not, however, be available on the market soon.
   The chief adviser, Fakhruddin Ahmed, will launch the publication by taking wrap off the publication at the Sonargaon Hotel this morning, the law adviser, Mainul Hosein, said at a briefing on Sunday.
   Sources in the law ministry said
   Only 500 copies of each of the volumes have so far been printed with the help of the Canadian International Development Agency, which funded the total project
   for printing the Bangladesh Code containing all the existing laws.
   No copy of the volumes will, however, be available to any individual but for official use, the sources said.
   They said the law ministry asked the BG Press to print more copies of the book.
   The ministry has also provided the press with the soft copies.
   The BG Press is now busy printing the book and it will be made available on the market as soon as the printing is finished, they said.
   None of the laws of Bangladesh, except for the constitution, is available on the internet.
   The Chief Adviser’s Office on October 22 asked all the ministries to inform it of the progress in making the laws available on the web site of the ministry concerned. No progress in this regard, however, has so far been made, the sources said.
   Law ministry officials said the ministry was running a project to make the laws available online.
   The 38 volumes of the Bangladesh Code contain 956 primary acts of the parliament, ordinances and president’s orders, made up to January 2007.
   None of the ordinances, promulgated by the present interim government, however, has been placed in the publication as they need approval of Jatiya Sangsad, Mainul said, hoping that the next elected government would approve the ordinances.
   The Bangladesh Laws (Revision and Declaration) Act 1973 stipulated, ‘All acts of parliament, ordinances and president’s orders in force in Bangladesh shall be printed in chronological order under the name and style of the Bangladesh Code.’
   The publication of the book was initiated in 1973, but only 11 volumes were published between 1978 and 1988, compiling 208 laws enacted between 1836 and 1938. Of the 208 laws, 29 have already been repealed.
   In the new 38 volumes,
   956 primary legislations, made till January 2007, have been printed in a chronological order.
   The government has also printed another volume, with index of the laws in their chronological and alphabetical orders.
   Stressing the need of publishing the secondary legislations, including the rules and regulations made for the
   furtherance of the primary laws, Mainul said the next elected government should do that.
   There is a project pending for long with the law ministry for the translation of the laws in English into Bangla and the laws in Bangla into English which have international implications, said sources in the ministry.

The government is yet to enter into any effective agreement with any country for protecting the rights and privileges of Bangladeshi expatriate workers, who are often subject to harassment and abuse in the absence of such instruments, officials concerned have admitted.
   In the 10 months since assumption of office, the foreign adviser, Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury, who is also in charge of the expatriates’ welfare and overseas employment ministry, has visited none of the largest destinations of Bangladeshi manpower — Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates.
   However, the adviser on Sunday spelt out a seven-point strategy to ensure the wellbeing of Bangladeshis working abroad and explore new export markets for Bangladeshi manpower. But, while briefing the press at his office, Iftekhar did not mention what specific initiatives the government would take to stop subjugation of Bangladeshi workers abroad.
   He, too, acknowledged that the rights of Bangladeshi workers would have been better safeguarded had Dhaka had bilateral arrangements with the countries of destination.
   Subjugation of Bangladeshi workers in countries like Malaysia, Kuwait, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia has increased in the recent months as the government and Bangladeshi diplomats in those countries could not handle the issues properly, officials at the expatriates’ welfare and overseas employment ministry told New Age.
   Many Bangladeshi expatriate workers even staged demonstrations, demanding higher wages and protesting repressive measures by their employers.
   Two foreign ministry officials conceded the alleged maltreatment of Bangladeshi workers abroad and said the government should use all diplomatic channels at home and abroad to help improve the condition of the Bangladeshi Diaspora.
   ‘Deprivation in terms of lower wage and poor working conditions has become a common case for Bangladeshi workers in many countries,’ an official of the overseas employment ministry said.
   Referring to the recent visit of a government delegation to Kuwait, the official said the fate of some 30,000 undocumented workers there remained uncertain as most of them had not responded to the general amnesty declared by the Kuwaiti government. The workers presumably fear that, if they surrender and come home, they may not be able to return to Kuwait.
   The official criticised the approach of the Bangladesh mission to Kuwait which wanted the Kuwait government to withdraw the ‘restriction on residency transfer’ of Bangladeshi workers — a system that limits the scope for movement of labourers in that country seeking better jobs.
   The embassy also has failed to take up properly the issues of expanding the job market for Bangladeshi workers in Kuwait and ensuring their welfare, other than residency transfer, including documentation of unauthorised workers, the official pointed out.
   ‘The mission may have felt that the request for opening up the labour market will make withdrawal of the transfer of residency uncertain,’ said a member of the delegation that visited Kuwait.
   The three-member delegation led by the expatriates’ welfare secretary, Abdul Matin Chowdhury, during its visit to Kuwait from October 22 to October 24 held meetings with Kuwaiti officials concerned to solve the problems of Bangladeshi workers there.
   A foreign ministry official said, ‘In most cases, we send workers abroad, assuming and being assured that the laws of the respective countries will protect their rights and privileges. But the reality is they seldom receive proper treatment.’
   In some cases, the laws of the respective countries also fall short of international standards, the official added.

The government has devised a seven-point strategy to ensure the wellbeing of Bangladeshi citizens working abroad and explore new export markets
   for Bangladeshi manpower as expatriate workers’ huge remittance contributes a lot to the economy.
   The plan also includes the best use of expatriates’ remittance, said the foreign adviser, Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury, who is also in charge of the expatriates’ welfare and overseas employment ministry, on Sunday.
   ‘The government will encourage establishing a special economic zone and industries with the money remitted by the expatriates, which will contribute to poverty alleviation and economic development,’ he told newsmen at the Foreign Office.
   Around 4.75 lakh Bangladeshis working abroad have sent home $5.31 billion in the last 10 months, posting a 20 per cent increase from the amount remitted in the same period of last year.
   Under the strategy, the government has taken initiatives to explore new labour markets in Norway, Sweden, Russia, Romania, Poland, and Canada, said the adviser.
   Iftekhar, fresh from a visit to Norway and Sweden, said Norway, rich in oil industry, requires engineers with good command of English while Sweden is enacting a law to recruit manpower from outside Europe.
   He said, ‘Besides, the European Union is introducing a Blue Card system to recruit skilled manpower in view of the ageing population and falling birth rate in the EU countries.’
   The employment prospect for Bangladeshi workers in East European countries like Romania and Poland is also good as workers from East Europe are rushing to West Europe for better employment, he added.
   Dhaka also has started correspondence with Moscow for sending Bangladeshi manpower to Russia, the adviser said.
   On expansion of the existing markets, he said ministers from Oman and Qatar would be visiting Dhaka soon, when the issue of recruiting more Bangladeshi workers by those countries would be discussed.
   According to Iftekhar, around 15,000 to 20,000 workers are going every month to the United Arab Emirates, where more than six lakh Bangladeshi workers are employed.
   Libya has also expressed interest to hire about 2,000 workers from Bangladesh, the adviser said.
   He said, besides sending workers abroad, the government was focussing on streamlining the migration process to protect the workers from plight and deprivation.
   The government will discuss the issue of migration management with the World Trade Organisation and the International Organisation for Migration.
   A strict monitoring system will also be introduced so that workers do not suffer any fraud or deception, the adviser said, adding the assistance of an inter-ministerial task force and the law enforcement agencies would also be taken in this regard.

Pakistan’s military ruler has amended a law to give sweeping powers to army courts to try civilians on charges such as treason and inciting public unrest, officials said Sunday as a key opposition leader prepared to stage a massive, 185-mile protest march in defiance of a ban.
   The moves came one week after the president, general Pervez Musharraf, said he was imposing a state of emergency to help fight Islamic militancy. But the main targets of his crackdown so far have been his most outspoken critics, including the increasingly independent judiciary and media.
   Pakistan eased the crackdown Saturday, releasing opposition leader Benazir Bhutto from house arrest. Musharraf – under pressure by the United States and other Western allies to return to the path of democracy – won praise for agreeing to lift the emergency within weeks.
   President Bush called the promises ‘positive steps,’ throwing US support firmly behind the Pakistani leader in the fight against Islamic militants.
   But a decision to amend the Pakistan Army Act – confirmed by Attorney General Malik Mohammed Qayyum on Sunday – is likely to raise fresh concerns. It would allow military courts to try people accused of treason, sedition, or ‘giving statements conducive to public mischief.’
   In theory, that could include Benazir, who said she would defy Musharraf’s ban on public gatherings and lead supporters on a march from the eastern city of Lahore to the capital Islamabad on Tuesday.
   ‘When the masses combine, the sound of their steps will suppress the sound of military boots,’ Benazir, a former prime minister, told around 100 journalists protesting a new media clampdown.
   Thousands of people have been arrested, TV news stations taken off air, and judges removed. On Sunday, three reporters from Britain’s Daily Telegraph newspaper left Pakistan after being expelled for an editorial in the paper that used an expletive in an allusion to Musharraf.
   Many critics say the main goal of Musharraf’s emergency was to pre-empt a Supreme Court ruling on the legality of his victory in a presidential election last month. Under the constitution, public servants cannot run for office.
   Qayyum said the court – now purged of its more independent justices – would swear in more judges in the next two or three days, bringing it up to the strength required to restart hearings in the case.
   Musharraf says he will quit his post as army chief and rule as a civilian once the court has confirmed his re-election, but set no date for that step.

The Iraqi prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, said on Sunday he is ‘determined’ that ‘Chemical Ali’ and two other cohorts of Saddam Hussein be hanged for genocide against ethnic Kurds.
   ‘We are determined that the law be fulfilled and that these (three) be handed over to the judicial system,’ Maliki told a press conference.
   ‘We will not be swayed from our determination to ensure that the sentences are carried out.’
   Ali Hassan al-Majid, widely known as ‘Chemical Ali’ for his use of poisonous gas against Kurds; Sultan Hashim al-Tai, Saddam’s defence minister; and Hussein Rashid al-Tikriti, his armed forces deputy chief of operations, were sentenced to death on June 24.
   They were found responsible for the slaughter of thousands of Kurds in the so-called Anfal (Spoils) campaign of 1988.
   Under Iraqi law they were supposed to have been executed by October 4, 30 days after their sentences were upheld by the Iraq Supreme Court.
   But Maliki made it clear he didn’t want the executions to take place during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which ended on October 15, because of the outcry that followed Saddam Hussein’s execution during another Muslim holiday.
   More than a month after the deadline Majid is still in US custody – where he is expected to remain until a few hours before his execution – and Maliki, unsure of his legal footing, has set up a committee to investigate the position.
   Further complicating matters, two members of the presidential council, president Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, and vice president Tareq al-Hashemi, a Sunni, have refused to sign the execution order.
   In the case of Saddam, Talabani, who is opposed on principle to the death penalty, refused to give the order but signed a letter to the Shia prime minister saying he would raise no objections if the government went ahead.
   Hashemi fears that the execution of Tai could undermine already stuttering reconciliation efforts in post-Saddam Iraq.
   The vice president argues that Tai, a career military man, had little choice but to follow orders from Saddam.
   ‘It’s really very difficult to believe that just because they obey orders issued by a leader like Saddam Hussein they had, in fact, an option to just take it or leave it,’ Hashemi said last month.
   He pointed out that after the US-led invasion of 2003, Tai voluntarily surrendered in the northern city of Mosul to US general David Petraeus, now America’s top commander in Iraq.
   A lawyer who represented ousted Saddam Hussain before he was hanged on December 30, 2006, said last month that the passing of the timeframe set by the supreme court meant it would now be illegal to execute Majid.
   An estimated 182,000 Kurds were killed and 4,000 villages wiped out in the brutal campaign of bombings, mass deportations and gas attacks.
   ‘Thousands of people were killed, displaced and disappeared,’ Iraqi High Tribunal chief judge Mohammed al-Oreibi al-Khalifah said after he had passed sentence in June.
   Majid and the other two condemned men are on trial in a separate case for their alleged roles in brutally crushing a Shia uprising in southern Iraq in 1991, but the charges against them will be dropped once they are executed.

Talks between public health officials and the drug industry on a deal to ensure that people in poor countries can receive medicines at affordable prices ended inconclusively on Saturday.
   The Geneva meeting, sponsored by the United Nations’ World Health Organisation, was suspended after delegates exhausted the six days allotted for negotiations and agreed to meet again in late April and conclude a deal in May.
   ‘This is a difficult negotiation,’ said James Love, director of advocacy group Knowledge Ecology International, in a statement. ‘Negotiators are creating new global norms and mechanisms to promote both innovation and access to medical technologies.’
   The goal of the talks is to produce guidelines that would encourage research and development of affordable drugs to treat diseases prevalent in poor countries while respecting intellectual property rights of big pharmaceutical firms.
   The industry argues it needs strong revenues from drug sales to finance research and development into new treatments, including for diseases prevalent in developing countries.
   The pharmaceutical industry has condemned the WHO draft plan and richer countries home too much of the global drug industry remain cool to the plan.
   But health advocates, including aid agency Doctors Without Borders, or Medecins Sans Frontieres, say development of drugs for poor countries is lacking.
   MSF said the talks, staged by the Intergovernmental Working Group for Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property, saw some encouraging progress.
   ‘Countries are pushing WHO to be more active in resolving the access to medicines crisis, and take a pro-health approach to intellectual property,’ said MSF’s Michel Lotrowska in a statement at the close of the talks.
   ‘Governments are taking steps to address the fundamental reasons why investment into innovation for diseases of the poor is lacking,’ he said.
   The pharmaceutical industry, represented by the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations, said it was disappointed by the lack of a deal and called for more public funds to encourage drug development.

The Biman Bangladesh Airlines Limited was forced to reschedule its inaugural Hajj flights as the chartered Boeing from an Australian company did not reach Dhaka on time, according to official sources.
   A Boeing 747-300, chartered from the Ausban Aeronautical Services, was supposed to
   take off at 6:55 am today with 543 ballot Hajj passengers [under the government management], according to the Hajj flight schedule announced by Biman.
   The aircraft, which was scheduled to reach Dhaka at 12: 30 am, is now expected to land
   in the morning, said a Biman
   official.
   Biman will now operate the inaugural flight with a 301-seat DC-10 which is expected to take off from the Zia International Airport at 6:55 am today and the second flight at 5:55 pm to carry the rest of the passengers to Jeddah, the official said, adding that the chartered aircraft would land this morning.
   Meanwhile, most non-ballot passengers intending to perform Hajj under private management are facing uncertainty as the Hajj agencies are yet to manage visas and accommodations in Saudi Arabia, according to sources.
   Secretary to the religious affairs ministry Md Ataur Rahman told New Age on Sunday that 80 per cent of accommodation in Medina and 60 per cent in Mecca were completed so far for nearly 37,000 non-ballot Hajj pilgrims.
   ‘A total of 2,044 visas have been processed so far for the non-ballot passengers,’ he mentioned adding that 232 agencies were allowed to offer Hajj packages for the non-ballot pilgrims.
   Biman has offered reduction in the airfare by $ 70 on Hajj flights from November 12 to 15 and $ 40 up to November 20 to attract passengers.
   But the offer has received poor response, according to Biman.
   The number of ballot pilgrims stands at 5,583 this year while the number of non-ballot pilgrims is expected to be about 37,000.
   President of Hajj Agencies Association of Bangladesh Mohammed Faruque admitted that till Saturday they could not rent houses and hotel rooms required for accommodation of the pilgrims.

Two coaches of a Noakhali-bound passenger train were derailed Sunday night at a rail crossing on Tongi-Ghorasal route. The railway police told the news agency that the two bogies of the ‘Noakhali Express’ from Dhaka were derailed at about 10:00pm but could not immediately confirm about any casualty.

Bangladesh Sunday hoped that Pakistan would be able to find an early resolution to the current problems, saying stability there is important for peace in the region as well as the world.
   ‘We’re closely monitoring the developments. It is still a fluid situation. We truly hope that it does not get unstable,’ foreign adviser Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury told reporters at his office.
   He said, ‘Our natural aspiration is that the problems would be resolved soon. It would be good bilaterally, regionally and globally.’
   Iterating Dhaka’s earlier stance, Iftekhar termed the current situation as ‘internal matters of Pakistan’ and said the people of Pakistan are in charge of deciding their own destiny.
   In reply to a question, he said there is a difference between the state of emergency in Bangladesh and Pakistan.
   The state of emergency has been imposed in Bangladesh under the constitutional provision, he pointed out.

The Bangladesh Telecommuni-cations Regulatory Commission has fined mobile operator Telekom Malaysia International Bangladesh (AkTel) Tk 145 crore for its involvement in illegal Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) business of terminating international calls and thus causing the government to lose a huge amount of revenue.
   ‘The commission has recently accepted AkTel’s compensation of Tk 145 crore, which the government lost in revenue due to its involvement in illegal VoIP,’ said a statement of the BTRC on Sunday.
   AkTel, a joint venture of Telekom Malaysia and the AK Khan Group in Bangladesh, is the second largest mobile phone operator in the country with around 7 million customers.
   International call termination to Bangladesh is a licensed service and is currently provided only by the Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board, the state-owned landline telephone operator.
   The BTRC said the law enforcing agencies and BTRC started a joint crackdown on illegal VoIP operators after the interim government took office in January 2007.
   The AkTel also said that it had paid Tk 72.50 crore to the BTRC out of its total commitment of Tk 145 crore to compensate for the revenue that the government lost because of the misuse of its services by some of its customers.
   AkTel said that before the caretaker government took control, unauthorised use of VoIP and international call termination was widely prevalent in the country. For this reason the BTRC investigated almost all telecom operators. After a through investigation, it was found that some of AkTel’s subscribers had misused its services and indulged in illegal VoIP business.
   ‘AkTel, as a responsible corporate entity, is compliant to the laws of the land and is very much appreciative of the initiative of the BTRC to put into place an effective regulatory regime,’ said the statement
   ‘We respect [the country] where we do business, so we will be 100 per cent compliant to the laws of Bangladesh,’ said Kamshul Kasim, acting managing director of AkTel.

Two siblings allegedly involved in outlawed JMB activities were arrested from a remote village in Saghata upazila in Gaibandha on Sunday.
   The Rapid Action Battalion arrested Wazed Ali,31, and Abdur Rab, 27, from Basantapara village. They were undergoing interrogation.
   Saghata, the home of wife of hanged JMB leader Bangla Bhai, infested by his followers. Residents alleged that JMB activists were engaged in recruiting people under threat and coercion.

The well-marked low over southeast Bay of Bengal and adjoining areas moved slightly north-westwards and intensified into a depression over the same area.
   The depression was centred about 1,415 km south of Chittagong port, 1,325 km south of Cox’s Bazar port and 1,450 km southeast of Mongla port at 12 noon on Sunday, a special weather bulletin of Met Office said.
   Maritime ports of Chittagong, Cox’s Bazar and Mongla have been advised to keep hoisted distant cautionary signal number one.
   All fishing boats and trawlers in the north Bay and deep-sea have been advised to come close to the coast and proceed with caution till further notice. They are also advised not to venture into the deep sea.
   The bulletin also said the depression is likely to intensify further and move in the north-westerly direction.
   Maximum sustained wind speed within 50 km of the storm centre is about 50 km per hour and rising to 60 km per hour. Sea will remain moderate, it said.

Labourers of the state-owned jute mills in Khulna region who went on early retirement will observe a two-day token hunger strike from today, demanding payment of their dues.
   The retired labourers at a Saturday meeting took the decision to observe the hunger strike from 9:00am to 5:00pm at the mill gates.
   Sources in the mills said the labourers over the age of 57 took early retirement under golden handshake programme.
   About 3,000 labourers of six state-owned jute mills who went on early retirement under the programme had not yet received their all dues, the sources added.
   Ijaj Uddin Sardar, a leader of labourers, told New Age said that they felt bound to call the hunger strike as they had not received dues even after holding a number of programmes.