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The committee on strengthening the local government bodies submits its report today to the government, recommending a three-tier local government system and stripping lawmakers of their role in local government.
   In its four-volume report, the seven-member committee led by former secretary AMM Shawkat Ali suggests reserving 40 per cent seats for women at every tier — zila, upazila, and union — for three consecutive terms, said a committee member on Monday.
   The committee also recommends setting up a local government commission to monitor and evaluate the overall activities of the local government bodies. At present, the local government, rural development and co-operatives ministry is the regulatory authority of the local government institutions.
   Lawmakers will have no role in any local government body and will not be eligible to contest any local government election, the committee recommends.
   The interim government will soon form an inter-ministerial committee to examine the recommendations of the committee and determine the course of action for implementing them.
   ‘Another committee will be formed at an inter-ministerial meeting to be held soon to examine the recommendations and deciding an implementation plan,’ the LGRD and co-operatives adviser, Anwarul Iqbal, told New Age at his office on Monday.
   He said his ministry would take all possible initiatives to translate the recommendations into reality. ‘But implementation of the recommendations for strengthening the local government system will require the involvement of a number of ministries.’
   The World Bank has already expressed its willingness to provide financial support for the government initiatives to strengthen the local governments, the adviser mentioned.
   He said the government would amend the Upazila Parishad Act, deleting the provision of making the local member of parliament an adviser to the local government body.
   The committee on strengthening the local government bodies also recommends dissolving the Gram Sarker system introduced at the village level by the BNP-led alliance government. It suggests forming zila and upazila parishads through holding polls that are long overdue for making the local government bodies effective as well for ensuring good governance at grassroots level.
   The interim government of Fakhruddin Ahmed formed the committee on June 3 and asked it to come up with recommendations within three months after reviewing the present structures and activities of the local government institutions. The deadline for report submission was extended later by two months.
   The committee in its report has outlined the qualifications and disqualifications of an individual for contesting the elections to the local government bodies, besides redefining their jurisdictions and functions.
   It also proposes enacting a single law, instead of the existing separate laws, defining the functions, jurisdictions and formations of zila, upazila and union parishads. Similarly, a uniform ordinance for all the six city corporations has been suggested by it.
   The number of wards in a union, the report suggests, should be raised from nine to 15. It also underlines the need for introducing ‘paura [municipal] police’ in the municipal areas and gram police in villages.
   The committee proposes putting a ceiling on election expenses for the office of UP chairman at Tk one lakh and for member at Tk 20,000, for upazila parishad chairman at Tk three lakh, for zila parishad chairman at Tk 50,000, and for paursava chairman from Tk one lakh to Tk two lakh depending on the category of the municipality. The ceiling on election expenses for Dhaka City Corporation mayor has been proposed at Tk five lakh and for councillor [commissioner] at Tk one lakh, for Chittagong City Corporation mayor at Tk three lakh and for councillor at Tk 75,000, for mayor of other city corporations at Tk two lakh and for councillor at Tk 50,000.
   The government should make the wealth statements of the elected representatives public through gazette notifications before they assume office at any level of the local government system, says the report.
   The LGRD adviser said the government would suggest the Election Commission for holding the upazila parishad polls and the general elections on the same day for the sake of convenience.
   The Bangladesh Nationalist Party after coming to power in 1991 dissolved the upazila system introduced in 1982 by the then president HM Ershad. The first elections to upazila parishads were held in 1984, followed by the second in 1988.

The Anti-Corruption Commi-ssion has withdrawn its representatives from the government task force entrusted with bringing back the money siphoned from the country, an ACC official said on Monday.
   ‘Considering the nature of the job, the commission thinks there is no need for its representation in the task force for the time being,’ ACC director general (administration) Hanif Iqbal told a news briefing.
   Responding to a query, he said the commission’s responsibility for bringing back the money siphoned from the country was clearly defined in the law. It is not the appropriate authority for doing that, he added.
   When reminded about the interest initially shown by the commission in this regard, Hanif said the commission is still interested but it thinks its involvement is not necessary at the moment.
   Referring to media reports that the commission is reviving about 1,500 cases filed between 1999 and 2006 by the now-defunct Bureau of Anti-Corruption, he said the ACC had selected for reopening more than 50 cases based on their merit. Those accused in the cases include ACC officials and a number of professionals suspected to be involved in corruption, he told the briefing.
   About the media reports that cases would be filed this week against two former prime ministers, Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina, for their alleged corruption in Niko deal, Hanif said, ‘None in the commission has any knowledge about it. If the commission were going to do that, I would have known.’
   He said it would not be right to speculate about the timing of filing of the cases. ‘They’ll be filed in time. The commission will take the time it needs.’
   Regarding the status of the GATCO case lodged against 13 people, including Khaleda Zia and her son Arafat Rahman, the investigation report on which has already been submitted, Hanif said it was still at scrutiny stage.
   The ACC has interrogated more than 80 people, including eight former ministers and seven retired bureaucrats, while investigating the GATCO case. Some 15 files from different ministries, departments, and offices in Dhaka and Chittagong have also been seized. The ACC needs time to cross-examine the statements made by those people and the information the files contain, before it can conclude the investigation, Hanif said.

The government has initiated the process of formulating the second version of the lender-driven poverty reduction strategy paper to be effective from fiscal year 2008-09 on expiry of the current development document at the end of the current fiscal.
   The initiative has been taken recently without assessing the impacts of the current strategy styled ‘Unlocking the Potentials: National Strategy for Accelerated Poverty Reduction’, say officials of the government agencies concerned.
   The government is supposed to prepare and present a review report on the strategy paper at the Poverty Reduction Forum with international lenders and donors expected to be held in January.
   An independent committee on PRS implementation may also come up with a report in January 2008, officials at the General Economics Division of the Planning Commission informed New Age.
   ‘Updating the three-year rolling plan and policy matrix may be the major focus of the next PRSP,’ said economist Hossain Zillur Rahman, a member of the independent committee who was also involved in authoring the current document.
   The strategy paper was incorporated into the budgetary process in 2004-05 through a three-year rolling plan, which was later extended for one more fiscal year.
   The document was endorsed by the cabinet of Khaleda Zia, although a cabinet minister, Abdul Moyeen Khan, had thrown away a copy of the PRSP at a function in Dhaka in presence of donors and lenders in 2006. Moyeen Khan had made an attempt to prepare a 15-year perspective plan during Khaleda’s first stint in office but failed due to opposition from colleagues.
   Asked if the second document would be more home-grown than the first one, which was prepared under diktats of the multilateral lending agencies, an official concerned said there would be ‘shadow of the lenders’ in it as the government would hold dialogue with them as well.
   The General Economics Division as the focal point for formulation of such development policy documents has already formed 20 thematic groups to make suggestions on various aspects of the second PRSP.
   The finance secretary, Mohammad Tareq, has been made the team leader of a 21-member group assigned to prepare a thematic paper on Social Safety Net including Food Security, Disaster Management, Micro-Credit and Rural Development/Non-Development Activities.
   The members have also been asked to give their inputs for preparing the theme paper by November 30, according to an official notification.
   ‘Since this is a policy document, not something specifically on programmes, the second PRSP will be more or less same as the first one. The entire task is due to be completed before June 2008 so that the objectives can be inserted in the next budget,’ said a finance ministry high official.
   Apart from internal exercises, the General Economics Division is expected to hold consultation meetings with the media and the civil society, including non-governmental organisations and the business community, to give the PRSP a ‘popular face’.
   The prescriptions of multilateral lending agencies for preparing the PRSP were given when the late Shah AMS Kibria was the finance minister, and the finance and planning minister of the BNP-led alliance government, M Saifur Rahman, swallowed the lenders’ recipes by embarking on the PRSP.
   Asked about the redundancy of the second PRSP when the government is preparing a long-term participatory perspective plan, an official concerned said the PRSP would be a part of the greater plan eying 2021 as the deadline for making the country free of poverty and corruption.
   A project styled Outline Participatory Perspective Plan will design the document, which will include a vision-2030 of a prosperous Bangladesh, leaving behind a trail of unrealised development plans and goals.
   The division has meantime identified 18 areas of economic, social and other issues dealt with by various ministries and divisions for incorporating in the perspective plan.
   The country had adopted four five-year plans till 2002 interspersed with a two-year plan undertaken during the rule of the late president Ziaur Rahman.

Dhaka has proposed that Myanmar uses its natural gas for producing fertiliser in Bangladeshi factories and then buying it back to meet huge domestic demand for urea.
   The proposal was mooted at the second meeting of the Bangladesh-Myanmar joint trade commission in Dhaka Monday. The commission’s first meeting was held in Myanmar capital in 2004.
   Myanmar officials at the meeting had not made any positive response to the proposal, but wanted to know the details for considerations. They preferred setting up of such a fertiliser plant in Myanmar for their convenience.
   ‘We’ve given Myanmar a concrete proposal to utilise its gas to produce fertiliser in Chittagong. Later, the fertiliser can be exported to Myanmar,’ commerce secretary Feroz Ahmed told reporters after the meeting at a city hotel.
   He said the Bangladesh side informed their Myanmar counterparts that Bangladesh had the infrastructure and two huge factories in Chittagong.
   Myanmar has recently discovered huge gas reserves in its Rakhaine state, adjacent to the Bangladesh territory in the south-eastern coastline.
   A 21-member home delegation was led by the commerce secretary himself while Brigadier General Aung Tun, who is the deputy commerce minister of Myanmar, led his country’s 10-member delegation.
   Dhaka had also expressed its willingness to produce hydro-electricity in Myanmar. Technical teams from the two countries will sit soon for a feasibility study on it, the commerce secretary said.
   The trade talks between the two next-door neighbours touched upon the issues of reviewing bilateral trade giving special focus on trade gap, taking some necessary steps for enhancing border trade, allowing conventional vessels under the coastal arrangement and introducing banking facility in the border areas.
   Dhaka has requested Myanmar authorities to reduce the time required for registration and testing of pharmaceutical exports from Bangladesh.
   The Myanmar government has also been requested to ease visa and border pass processes to facilitate more travels between the two countries.
   Myanmar had agreed in principle to increase the amount of a letter of credit to $20,000 from the present $10,000 under the border trade arrangement.
   Bilateral trade hovers around $35 million a year, with Bangladesh exports figuring only $5 million.
   But according to Myanmar, the bilateral trade figure was about $60 million, Feroz Ahmed said.

The Criminal Investigation Department is now desperately looking for a ‘Maulana’ who supplied the grenades for the deadly attack on the Awami League rally on Bangabandhu Avenue that killed at least 24 people, including front ranking Awami League leader Ivy Rahman, and injured and maimed more than a hundred others on August 21, 2004.
   The CID, declining to reveal the man’s name, just said that the man is a relative of an influential leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh, said knowledgeable sources.
   The ‘Maulana’ was named by Harkat-ul Jihad al-Islami leader Mufti Mohammad Hannan in his confessional statement and was also mentioned by his associates, Abul Kalam Bulbul and Mohammad Jahangir, who are now being grilled by the members of interrogation taskforce.
   The CID brought the two, Bulbul and Jahangir, on a 10-day remand on November 8 and since then they have been interrogated by members of the Task Force for Interrogation. The two are likely to make their confessional statement within a couple of days.
   Several other associates of Hannan — Omar Faruk alias Laden, Amirul Islam alias Montree, Abdul Quddus, Omar Faruk, Amirul Islam and Baki Billah — will be brought on police remand soon. The Rapid Action Battalion arrested them from Jhenaidah and Narsingdi on October 28 after extracting the necessary information from Hannan.
   Hannan, his younger brother Muhibullah Obhi and associate Shahedul Alam Bipul made their confessional statements on November 1. His other associate, Maulana Abu Sayeed, also made a confessional statement on the following day.
   Hannan said that they had planned to kill the Awami League’s chief, Sheikh Hasina, since long and it was known to almost all the Harkatul leaders. A series of meetings was held at Badda, Uttara and Mohammadpur to implement the plan.
   ‘As per the plan, the Maulana supplied the 15 grenades to us just before the day of the deadly attack on Hasina,’ Hannan reportedly said in his statement, according to sources.
   All those who participated in the grisly grenade attack were students of Jamia Yusuf Bin Madrassah in Pakistan, and they took part in the anti-Soviet war in Afghanistan along with him, said Hannan.
   After returning from Afghanistan in 1992, Hannan formed the militant organisation, Harkat-ul Jihad al-Islami Bangladesh, with several Afghan war veterans.
   Before launching the attack, all the attackers went to the rally venue on August 20 in 2004 to recce the spot. An ambulance was kept ready at the western side of Bangabandhu Avenue just a few minutes before the attack for facilitating their escape. Hannan and several others left the place on the ambulance, he reportedly said.
   The sources said that the Maulana brought the grenades to Dhaka from Chittagong by an ambulance at different times. He also supplied the grenades for attacking the British High Commissioner, Anwar Chaudhury, in Sylhet. Only he can reveal the original source of the grenades, said the sources.
   The sources told New Age that a brother of the Maulana is now living in Africa.
   The investigation officer of the case, assistant police superintendent Fazlul Kabir, said that they were trying to nab some people named by Mufti Hannan.
   ‘Once we arrest them, the source of the grenades and the real cause behind the attack can be ascertained,’ he said.

The chief election commissioner, ATM Shamsul Huda, has reiterated that if any faction of Bangladesh Nationalist Party feels aggrieved at the decision of the commission to invite the Saifur Rahman-led faction to the reform talks, they can go to courts of law.
   Defending the Election Commission’s decision on inviting the Saifur-led faction as right, he said that now the commission had nothing else to do.
   Shamsul Huda made the statement while exchanging views with the media on the preparation of voters’ roll with photographs and national identity cards at Manikganj town on Monday.
   Asked on what basis the commission had decided to invite the Saifur-led faction to the dialogue, the CEC said, ‘The commission had scrutinised the BNP constitution and followed the convention to make the decision.’
   The EC on November 5 sent the invitation to the acting secretary general of the BNP, Hafiz Uddin Ahmad, for dialogue putting its seal on the decision of the October 29 meeting of the party’s standing committee.
   A day after sending the invitation letter, the CEC had said that the ‘doctrine of necessity’ prompted the commission to invite the Saifur-led faction to the dialogue on electoral reforms.
   The CEC at the meeting at Manikganj urged the people to register as voters and elect honest and competent candidates in the next polls.
   Shamsul Huda visited Khan Bahadur Awlad Hossain Khan High School centre and inquired about the progress of electoral roll preparation.

The taskforce investigating the Dhaka City Corporation’s officers and employees has verbally extended the deadline for submission of their passports by another day.
   Nearly 350 passports have been submitted so far, including 40 that were handed over on Monday, in response to an office order issued by M Golam Mostafa, the DCC’s secretary.
   According to the office order, the last date for submitting the passports and details of the officers’ and employees’ families was Sunday, but many officials submitted them on Monday as the taskforce had given them one day’s grace, said DCC sources.
   The order was issued after the taskforce members started their work at Nagar Bhaban on October 22 to ensure better service for the city’s residents and to probe the officers’ alleged corruption and anomalies.
   Golam Mostafa on Monday declined to say anything about the matter. ‘The passports have been submitted to the office from where it will be sent to the taskforce,’ was all that he told reporters.
   Sources said some officials have already fled the country and many were trying to go abroad to avoid punishment.
   They said some officials and employees who possess passports did not submit their passports till Monday, and some of them have additional passports.
   The officials and employees who have no passports were found to be in a relaxed mood on Monday, while passport holders were looking tense and worried.
   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, who were not ordered to submit their passports, have been working in the DCC on deputation. They are the chief executive officer, secretary to the corporation, chief engineer, chief revenue officer, chief health officer, chief estate officer, chief conservancy officer, one magistrate, the mayor’s private secretary and all of the 10 zonal executive officers.
   The DCC’s secretary, 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 to his office within the next three working days, that is till Sunday.
   The secretary had 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 dates of the passports.
   The officials and employees will be able to get back their passports from the secretary’s office as per their need, but they will have to submit applications to the secretary asking permission to do so and mentioning the reasons why they need the passports, the order mentioned.
   They will also have to take the permission of the taskforce to get back their passports.

Former Pakistani premier Benazir Bhutto will not be allowed to hold a planned protest march and may be placed under a restraint order, a government spokesman said on Monday.
   ‘She will not be allowed to break the law so there will be no ‘long march’,’ the deputy information minister, Tariq Azeem, told the news agency, referring to an existing ban on political gatherings imposed under a state of emergency.
   ‘Long marches, rallies and political meetings are banned in Punjab province, this is for her security. There could also be a restraint order,’ Azeem said.
   About 150 police have deployed around the residence in Lahore where she is staying, according to AFP reporters.
   Benazir vowed earlier Monday to go ahead with her 275-kilometre protest rally from Lahore to the capital Islamabad in spite of any government ban.
   She said Tuesday’s caravan through Pakistan’s political heartland would go ahead: ‘I know it is dangerous but what alternatives are there?’
   Senator Safdar Abbasi, a senior official from her Pakistan People’s Party, also said it would go ahead. ‘We will come out for the march Tuesday.’
   Lahore police chief Malik Mohammad Iqbal said of a ‘person-specific’ warning of a suicide attack targeting Benazir, adding the threat of attacks was ‘imminent and it is of the highest degree.’
   Authorities had cited fears of violence when they placed Benazir under house arrest on Friday, preventing her leading a rally in Rawalpindi. On October 18, suicide bombs hit her homecoming parade in Karachi, killing 139 people.
   Raja Basharat, Punjab’s law minister, said rallies were forbidden under the state of emergency, which Musharraf declared on November 3 citing a surge of militant violence and a meddling judiciary.
   Benazir ruled out any more power-sharing talks with Pervez Musharraf, setting herself on a direct collision course with the military ruler.
   The two-time former premier, who had been in Western-backed negotiations with Musharraf before he declared a state of emergency, said she was considering a boycott of upcoming elections.
   ‘We are saying no to any more talks. It is a change from my past policy,’ Benazir told reporters in the eastern city of Lahore.
   ‘We cannot work with anyone who has suspended the constitution, imposed emergency rule, and oppressed the judiciary. That’s why we are holding the ‘long march’.’
   The United States and Britain had quietly supported talks on a deal between Benazir and Musharraf in a bid to unite two pro-Western figures in the fight against al-Qaeda and Taliban militants.
   Speaking against a backdrop of Lahore’s 16th century Badshahi mosque, Benazir welcomed Musharraf’s promise of elections by January 9 but said they could not be free and fair if held under emergency rule.
   ‘Boycotting the election is an option with us,’ she said.
   The president announced Sunday that parliament would be dissolved Thursday to pave the way for elections on a date to be set by an election commission.
   His announcement met a key demand of the embattled military ruler’s critics at home and abroad, and was guardedly welcomed by the United States and Britain.
   A spokesman for British prime minister Gordon Brown however urged Pakistan to ‘immediately’ lift emergency rule and end other restrictions to enable free elections.
   Musharraf has indicated the state of emergency would continue ‘to ensure absolutely fair and transparent elections.’
   A vital US ally in the ‘war on terror,’ he has been under intense pressure to end the emergency since suspending the constitution and sacking Pakistan’s chief justice.
   Further pressure came from the Commonwealth, whose action group was due to meet in London later Monday to mull whether to suspend Pakistan, as it did for five years when Musharraf seized power in a coup in 1999.
   Meanwhile Pakistan’s attorney general, Malik Muhammad Qayyum, said the new Supreme Court would likely resume its hearings next week on challenges against Musharraf’s re-election as president.
   They argue he was ineligible to stand for another five-year term while still the army chief, and that the vote should not have been held by the outgoing parliament but by the incoming federal and provincial assemblies.
   Musharraf has said he will only quit as head of the powerful army – a key demand of the international community – once the top court has validated his victory.

A court on Monday sent BNP chairperson’s adviser ASM Hannan Shah and three co-accused in a case related to the Solidarity Day brawl at Bijoy Sarani, to Dhaka Central Jail after completion of their three-day remand.
   Sub-inspector Asaduzzaman of Tejgaon police station, also investigation officer of the case, produced Hannan Shah, Ali Arshad Mamun, Zakir Hossain and Abul Bashar in the court of Chief Metropolitan Magistrate with an appeal to send them to jail.
   The investigation officer told the court that the four arrested persons should be kept in jail for further investigation of the case as all the people involved in the November 7 incident could not be identified as yet.
   Lawyers Sanaullah Mia and Masud Ahmed Talukder defended the BNP leader and three other co-accused in the court.
   After the hearing, magistrate Habibur Rahman Siddiqui issued the order and asked the jail authorities to give Hannan Shah division.
   Hannan Shah was arrested from his DOHS residence on the night of November 7, in a case filed with Tejgaon police station under Emergency Power Rules-2007, following a brawl at Bijoy Sarani.
   Sub-inspector Ali Mabud filed a case accusing Hannan Shah, Jatiyatabadi Jubo Dal secretary Moazzem Hossain Alal, Jatiyatabadi Samajik Sangskritik Sangstha secretary Babul Ahmed and former Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal president Asaduzzaman Ripon, Zakir Hossain Kajol, Ali Arshad, Abul Bashar and several hundred unknown persons.
   Ali Arshad Mamun, Zakir Hossain and Abul Bashar were arrested by the Tejgaon police from the scene.
   The other accused – Moazzem Hossain Alal, Babul Ahmed and Asaduzzaman Ripon – are still at large.

The government will promulgate an ordinance soon making it mandatory for citizens to have national identity card for doing business, taking bank loans, having trade and driving licences, getting utility services and qualifying for government allowances and jobs.
   The home ministry has already prepared the draft National Identity Card Ordinance, 2007 and sent it to different ministries asking for their opinions by November 15, said sources in the ministry.
   The national identity card, once introduced, will reduce the number of illegal foreign workers in the country, currently estimated at more than 10,000 in different manufacturing and service sectors, sources in the home and industries ministries said.
   Besides, things will be easier for other purposes if a citizen holds a national ID card … there will be little or no hassles of police verification when a citizen will apply for passport, they added.
   According to the draft ordinance, the identity cards will be provided to citizens, who are 18 years of age and above. The minimum age limit for having national ID cards can be reviewed from time to time through official gazette notifications, the ordinance said.
   The national ID card has been made mandatory for getting the taxpayers’ identification number, business identification number, opening of bank account, getting bank loans and trade licence, opening beneficiary owners’ account and applying for any share.
   Besides, the proposed ID has been made a must for getting passport, driving licence, applying for jobs, registering vehicles, participating in any insurance scheme and at the time of selling or buying immovable property.
   Services like getting connection of phones, gas, water and electricity, marriage registration and government allowances and subsidies have also been tagged to ID card.
   The Election Commission started activities for issuing national ID cards along with preparing the voters’ roll from August 2007. The EC is expecting to complete about 20 per cent of the task by January 2008, sources said.
   The government will establish a National Identities Registration Authority to look after the priority project and encourage the citizens to obtain the ID cards.
   The authority will preserve the information relating to national ID cards and issue the cards to the citizens.
   The ID cards, to be issued by the Election Commission under its ongoing project, will be considered as given by the authority, the draft ordinance said.
   The authority will have five members including a chairman, and will open offices outside the capital, if necessary.
   According to the ordinance, anybody getting more than one national ID cards will have to serve a three-month sentence or pay a fine of Tk 10,000.
   Anybody found involved in producing forged ID cards will face a three-year imprisonment or a fine of Tk 10,000, the ordinance added.

Sheikh Rehana is now waiting for the advice of her lawyers on what to do in regard to the order issued by a Dhaka court on Sunday asking her to surrender to the court by November 18 in an extortion case.
   ‘My lawyers are reviewing the legal aspects of the case and the court order, and I will take decision as per their suggestion,’ Rehana, the younger sister of the detained Awami League president Sheikh Hasina, told New Age over telephone from London on Monday.
   She, however, has doubts about getting justice, if she surrenders to the court and said she was under serious mental pressure following the court order.
   The court on Sunday also ordered the authorities concerned to notify Rehana through advertisements in two national dailies.
   Rehana, along with her sister Hasina, faces an accusation of extorting Tk 2.99 crore. A businessman, Azam Jahangir Chowdhury, filed the case with the Gulshan police on June 13.
   ‘I will obviously return to my country, Bangladesh. But it is unfortunate that the court issued notice to surrender me by a deadline, although I know nothing about the incident of the so-called extortion,’ she said, adding that she had been staying in London since 1998.
   The younger daughter of the country’s founding president Sheikh Mujibur Rahman said she was doing a job in London and so she must get leave of absence to come to Bangladesh.
   ‘Who will assure me of justice? I also have heard the leaders detained in different cases have to face torture,’ she said, claiming that the issuance of warrant for her arrest was nothing but a ploy to create psychological pressure on her detained sister Sheikh Hasina.
   She alleged that although she had no link with any political, administrative or other activities in Bangladesh, filing of such a case against her was intentional and politically motivated.
   ‘Even my name was not in the first information report. But I know my only fault is that I am a member of Bangabandhu’s family,’ Rehana said, adding that she had never taken advantage of the office of her sister when she was the prime minister.
   She also said that although the court order mentioned her as an accused on the run, the people would not believe it as they were very much aware of the country’s present situation.
   ‘Besides, I have experienced enough sufferings in my life. My father had to suffer imprisonment in different times and my mother was killed, although she had never led a life like a first lady which she was,’ Rehana said, asserting that she was prepared to face the ‘false’ charge.

The Saifur Rahman-led faction of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party is contemplating discussion of the war crime issue in the party forums.
   ‘We will discuss the issue of the war crimes in the draft committee and then decide on it,’ Hafiz Uddin Ahmad, acting secretary general of the faction, told journalists at his Banani home on Monday.
   The seven-member committee, headed by former secretary general Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan, has been formed to prepare the party’s draft recommendations for electoral reforms to be placed at the dialogue with the Election Commission. The committee has begun contacting senior party leaders over preparing the draft.
   Some BNP standing committee members, vice-chairmen and other senior leaders told New Age on Monday that both Bhuiyan and Hafiz had begun consulting them on electoral reforms.
   Hafiz Uddin Ahmad, after a meeting with Saifur Rahman on Monday morning, said reforms within the party would be carried out after taking the views of the grassroots level councillors.
   ‘It needs time to bring about reforms and the 4,000 councillors are the authority to decide it. Before placing the proposals to them, we are trying to reach a consensus on the proposals through formal and informal talks with other leaders of the party,’ he said.
   ‘Our leader Khaleda Zia wants reforms too and we hope that we will be able to bring the changes in her presence,’ he said, adding, ‘There were two streams in the party and it was claimed that we wanted to bring about reforms keeping Khaleda Zia out…but it is not true.’
   ‘Khaleda Zia is the asset of the party… the question of removing her does not arise…we are working for unity,’ he said adding, ‘Those who speak against us, are doing so in their own interest or fearing that they may not be able to remain in better positions in the party,’ he said.
   Hafiz said the BNP supported the Election Commission’s initiatives to ensure that honest and competent candidates were chosen for contesting the polls. ‘There are instances of selling nominations to corrupt people who have no relations with the electorate.’

A group of Commonwealth foreign ministers gathered in London Monday to discuss possible sanctions against Pakistan, as a senior figure called for an immediate end to emergency rule.
   Despite president Pervez Musharraf’s announcement Sunday that elections would be held by January 9, the chairman of the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group said constitutional rule should be reimposed before any vote.
   ‘The return to constitutionality must be accompanied by free and fair elections,’ Malta’s foreign minister Michael Frendo told BBC radio, describing the current situation in Pakistan as ‘flawed.’
   Senior diplomats from nine Commonwealth countries – Britain, Canada, Lesotho, Malaysia, Malta, Papua New Guinea, St Lucia, Sri Lanka and Tanzania – that currently make up CMAG were to discuss what action to take later Monday.
   Frendo said suspension was part of a ‘whole spectrum of action’ that can be taken by CMAG, which deals with serious breaches of the 53-nation Commonwealth’s guiding principles.
   Pakistan was previously suspended from the Commonwealth in 1999, after army general Musharraf seized power. It was reinstated in 2004.
   Last year, CMAG suspended Fiji after a military coup in the south Pacific Ocean nation, while Zimbabwe was suspended in 2002 in the wake of President Robert Mugabe’s controversial re-election.
   Neither Frendo, nor Commonwealth secretary general Don McKinnon, would pre-empt the decision of the extraordinary meeting, but members of the body are pushing for a strong message to be sent to Musharraf.
   Frendo said Musharraf would be ‘wrong’ to ignore the Commonwealth. ‘We want Pakistan to remain a member of the family of nations within the Commonwealth,’ he said.
   ‘But we must also ensure that the principles of the Commonwealth are not only respected by CMAG itself and the Commonwealth itself retain their integrity of credibility.’
   Britain’s foreign office on Sunday welcomed Musharraf’s announcement, although opposition leader Benazir Bhutto has said any vote would be meaningless without a lifting of emergency rule.
   Rights groups and analysts in Pakistan have also said that without the restoration of constitutional rule, elections were unlikely to be either free or fair.
   London said it still wanted to see ‘urgent’ action to restore the constitution, release political prisoners, pursue political reconciliation with opposition groups and lift restrictions on the media.
   Musharraf should also honour his pledge to step down as head of the armed forces, it added.
   Canada’s foreign minister Maxime Bernier expressed similar views in a statement Friday, saying they were pushing for a ‘strong’ Commonwealth response to the situation.
   And the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, the organisation’s main rights group, also called for ‘swift action’, describing it as a ‘moment of singular importance’ for the grouping.
   The meeting, at the Commonwealth’s Marlborough House headquarters in central London, is likely to be a curtain raiser for a meeting of its heads of government in Uganda later this month.

The government has drafted a law to promote fair corporate competition and restrict monopoly of profiteering market forces to protect consumers’ interests.
   The draft of the ‘Competition Law in Bangladesh’ was discussed at a meeting presided over by additional secretary of the commerce ministry, Golam Mustakim on Monday. He headed a 12-member team that made gave initial responses to the draft.
   Officials involved in the drafting process said such a law was aimed to ensure free and fair competition in businesses by stopping unscrupulous companies from forming cartels to control prices. The idea of a permanent competition commission has also been incorporated in the draft.
   The private sector representatives in the meeting proposed that the law should focus on essential commodities only, instead of dealing with everything as proposed in the draft, meeting sources informed New Age.
   ‘Companies in many other countries resort to monopoly to make huge profits. It is better not to cover all commodities by the planned law rather than covering essential goods only at the initial stage,’ a private sector representative was quoted to have said.
   The additional secretary said they would examine further to improve the draft law, subject to availability of funds to compare the law with those in some other countries.
   ‘A team comprising commerce ministry officials, private sector people and other stakeholders may visit Europe and also neighbouring countries to see the best practices and make a good law in the country,’ said Mustakim.
   Referring to the draft, he mentioned that the law was aimed at making sure that two big companies could not join hands to monopolise and manipulate the market for making windfall profit.
   The law seeks to thwart unfair competition, and give the manufacturers and marketers the legal scope to take action against rivals using unethical means to outsmart the competition.
   Pakistan, among other neighbouring countries, has formulated such a law, featuring policies based on non-discrimination, protection of competition but not competitors, facilitating but not regulating business, making a coordinated effort and ensuring integrity in application of the law.
   If formulated and given effect through ordinance, the planned new law will replace ‘The Monopolies and Restrictive Trade and Practices (Control and Prevention) Ordinance 1970’.
   On completion of examination of the draft law, it will then be sent to the Cabinet Division and the Chief Adviser’s Office for approval, commerce ministry officials said.

The chief adviser, Fakhruddin Ahmed, on Monday hoped that the independent judiciary would play a tough and courageous role in establishing the true rule of law in the country, remaining free from corruption.
   He further hoped that the judicial department would move forward for establishing justice everywhere in society, now that it is fully free from all spheres of influence following its separation.
   ‘The pace of justice has to be swifter and the dispensation of justice visible and transparent,’ the head of caretaker government expected, and underlined the need for updating those laws of the land which have lost relevance to the present context.
   He said all institutions of the executive branch, including law, justice and parliamentary affairs ministry, would remain fully prepared to extend all assistance in accordance with the constitution in discharge of their (judges) duties.
   The chief adviser expressed the optimism while unveiling Bangladesh Code that contains all existing laws of the land in updated form at a function organised at Sonargaon Hotel by the ministry of law, justice and parliamentary affairs.
   The law ministry and the newly created legislative drafting wing of the ministry with financial support of the government of Canada compiled and published the Bangladesh Code as a repository of laws.
   It carries a total of 956 primary laws in 38 volumes after necessary updating of the laws formulated since after 1908 till January 2007, the function was informed.
   Those who use laws professionally and apply everyday would benefit from the Bangladesh Code.
   The law adviser, Mainul Hosein, presided over the launching programme. The Canadian high commissioner, Barbara Richardson, and the secretary-in-charge of the law ministry, Kazi Habibul Awal, also spoke on the occasion. Advisers to the caretaker government and dignitaries and distinguished personalities were present.
   The law ministry has a plan to publish Bangladesh Code in CD form and releases on web site.
   The chief adviser said updating the irrelevant and inconsistent laws into time-befitting ones had now become demand of the time and asked the ministry concerned to take the initiative.
   He said with the passage of time, many of the existing laws of Bangladesh had lost their relevance.
   Stressing the importance of mass literacy and awareness in development and modernisation, which is applicable to developing countries like Bangladesh, he noted that justice and fair play had been molested routinely in various tiers of the socio-economic arena due to poverty and backwardness in education of the majority people.
   The situation would not have deteriorated so much if the general masses were more aware of laws and the judiciary, he told the function.
   So the publication of Bangladesh Code bears importance and significance in building a just society through raising awareness of law among the masses and professionals.
   He emphasised translating laws drafted in English into Bengali and Bengali ones into English for the convenience of law practitioners.
   The chief adviser, however, thanked in advance the law ministry for taking the initiative.
   Fakhruddin said judges, lawyers and general citizens used to face various problems as the existing laws of Bangladesh were not easy available in the form of a code. They were often confused about the latest status of various laws as well as keeping track of newly framed laws also became difficult.
   ‘This kind of problem arises because of the absence of a dependable compilation of existing laws.’
   He said the paramount objective of any state’s legal system was to ensure good governance and fair justice through upholding human rights and justice. ‘Attaining this noble goal becomes difficult if the laws in vogue cannot be made available to the citizens.’
   The law adviser said only when the law was certain and easily known to the people then it be rightly obeyed.
   The people must have clear idea about the laws of the country to make them law-abiding citizens, he observed.
   He said the laws speak not only of offences to be avoided but also of rights to be asserted, and people must also be aware of the oppressive laws that must not continue once the need is over.
   ‘When you are definite about your laws, you can also be definite about changes you need for the betterment of your country,’ he told the function. Mainul said well-documented laws speak for a well-organised country to meet the modern-day challenges within and outside the country.
   The Canadian high commissioner said her country feels proud extending assistance to the important project in publishing Bangladesh Code.
   She appreciated the caretaker government for separation of the judiciary from the executive.

The cyclonic storm which brewed off a deep depression in the southeast Bay of Bengal earlier Monday intensified into a severe cyclonic storm in the evening, Met Office said in a special bulletin.
   The formation of the cyclone incidentally coincides with the 37th anniversary of a severe cyclone on November 12, 1970 which had ravaged the country, especially its southern coast, killing nearly a million people.
   Codenamed ‘SIDR’, the cyclone had moved slightly north-westward and was lying about 1240 km south of Chittagong port, 1150 km south of Cox’s Bazar port and 1240 km south-southeast of Mongla port. It may intensify further and move on a north/north-westerly course, the met said.
   The maximum sustained wind speed within 64 km of the storm centre is about 90 kmph rising to 115 kmph in gusts/squalls. The sea will remain high, it added.
   Maritime ports of Chittagong, Cox’s Bazar and Mongla have been advised to keep hoisted distant warning signal number two.
   All fishing boats and trawlers in the north Bay have been advised to close to the coast so that they could take shelter at a short notice. They have been also warned not to venture into the deep sea, the met bulletin added.

Department of Narcotics Control arrested five people including a fashion designer and a model with yaba and its local substitute, ice-pill, from a house at Paltan area in the city Sunday night.
   The arrested were identified as Jahanara Kabir Rubi, 35, Rafiza Akhter Ruja alias Jahanara, 27, Payel, 27, a model of Standard Lungi, Masud Parvez, 28 and his sister Irin Rahman Poli, 30, a fashion designer.
   Narcotics control officials said, a team of the department raided a second floor flat of the multi-storied Mahbub Tower at Paltan and arrested the five people along with some 40 yaba tablets and 12 ice-pills.
   One of the detainees, Jahanara Kabir Rubi told the investigators that over 1,000 women were involved in peddling the banned stimulant drug in the city. The illegal suffered a setback after the arrest of Amin Huda, branded as the ringleader.
   She disclosed the names of three godfathers of the yaba business, who are now staying in England, sources said quoting Rubi. She also disclosed the names of some actresses of Bangla films, who were involved in this business.
   Meanwhile, a Dhaka Court sent Jannatul Ferdous Nikita, her parents Abdun Nur, Saleha Khatun and her brother Mainudding to Dhaka Central Jail Monday afternoon.
   Addition Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Sultan Mahmud sent them to jail when they were produced before the court.
   RAB members on November 4 arrested Mahbubur Rahman Joynal, managing director of Hotel Purbani, and his girlfriend Nikita on charges of involvement in yaba trade.

A Bogra court on Monday jailed former BNP lawmaker Helaluzzaman Talukdar Lalu for five years for illegally installing a wireless communication tower at his residence.
   He was also fined Tk 5 lakh, in default to suffer six more months in prison.
   Bogra district and sessions judge Golam Ahmed Khalilur Rahman handed down the verdict when Lalu, currently serving a one-year jail sentence for misappropriating CI sheets meant for relief, was in the dock.
   Lalu’s counsel Mir Iqbal said he would appeal against the verdict.
   The joint forces arrested Lalu at his Champa Mahal residence in the Bogra town on February 13 and retrieved the corrugated iron sheets. During the raid, the wireless tower was found to have been illegally installed at the house.
   The police filed two cases after the arrest of Lalu who also faces a number of extortion cases.

The energy and mineral resources division plans to engage private-sector firms to market the hard rock of Madhyapara mine in Dinajpur as no public or private entity procures any significant quantity of the rock, resulting in a stockpile of more than 1.6 lakh tonne.
   An inter-ministerial meeting chaired by the power and energy adviser, Tapan Chowdhury, on Monday was told that the mine, developed at a cost of Tk 1,025 crore, was facing uncertainty as the relevant public-sector entities continued to ignore a government directive to procure its rock.
   The Madhyapara mine can produce around 16 lakh tonnes of hard rock against the country’s annual demand for about 50 lakh tonne.
   The meeting was told that the mine would survive if the relevant public-sector organisations, like the roads and highways department, Bangladesh Water Development Board, and Bangladesh Railway, who needed hard rock for their operations, would have procured rocks from the mine. But these organisations as well as the relevant private-sector bodies still continue to depend on imported rocks.
   Tapan asked these organisations to include the Madhyapara rock in their tender specifications and the Madhyapara Granite Mining Company to supply rocks as per the specifications.
   The adviser told newsmen after the meeting that they were planning to engage private-sector firms to market the rock. The government will also take steps to promote use of the Madhyapara rock in the public and private sectors, he added.
   Among others, energy secretary M Mohsin, Petrobangla chairman Jalal Ahmed, and high officials of the roads and highways department, WDB, and Bangladesh Railway were present at the meeting.
   Earlier, the Bangladesh Rock Traders’ Association had requested the government to reduce the price of Madhyapara rock.
   The meeting also discussed the price situation of petroleum products. Tapan told the media that the government was yet to reach a decision on whether it would increase the domestic oil prices to reduce the loss of the Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation due to skyrocketing oil prices on the international market.
   At present, the BPC imports diesel at a cost of more than $105 a barrel, said the adviser.
   He said, with the current oil prices on the international market, if the government did not increase the domestic prices of petroleum products, the loss of the BPC in the current fiscal year would near Tk 5,000 crore.
   ‘The neighbouring countries have already increased their domestic retail prices of oil. But we have to consider a number of things, like the soaring prices of essential commodities, before taking a decision to increase the oil prices,’ Tapan pointed out.

Archaeologists have discovered the ancient jawbone of what appears to be a new species of ape that was very close to the last common ancestor of gorillas, chimpanzees and humans, a study released Monday said.
   The 10-million year-old fossil, complete with 11 teeth, was recovered from volcanic mud deposits in Kenya's Nakali region on the eastern edge of the Rift Valley in 2005 by a team of Japanese and Kenyan researchers.
   The researchers say the fossil fills what was until recently something of a void in the fossil record, and challenges one of the working assumptions of primate evolution.
   Genetic studies suggest that humans and great apes split from a common ancestor about eight million years ago, but paleontologists have struggled to find fossils for the ancestors of modern African great apes for the past 13 million years.
   However scientists found plenty of fossil evidence for great apes in Europe and Asia during that period and they also noted some similarities between some of those apes and contemporary African apes.
   That led some paleontologists to speculate that the common ancestor of apes and humans had left Africa, and evolved into several different species, and that one of those species later returned to the continent to become the missing link between man and his closest primate relatives.
   But the new evidence appears to undercut that theory, and it doesn't stand alone.
   In addition to the new Kenyan species of ancient ape, (dubbed Nakalipithecus nakayamai,), evidence recently emerged of another ancient African ape.
   In August, a team of Japanese and Ethiopian paleontologists announced that they had uncovered 10-million year-old teeth fossils in Ethiopia's Afar region in 2006 and 2007. The scientists said the teeth probably belonged to a 'proto-gorilla' species which they named Chororapithecus abyssinicus.
   Prior to this, the last time a hominoid fossil of this period was found in Africa was in Kenya in 1982.

Cambodia’s ‘Killing Fields’ court charged former Khmer Rouge foreign minister Ieng Sary and his wife on Monday with crimes against humanity, the latest members of Pol Pot’s inner circle to face justice.
   The octogenarian Ieng Sary, who became the international face of the Beijing-backed ultra-Maoist revolution after it was overthrown by a 1979 Vietnamese invasion, also stands accused of war crimes, a court spokesman said.
   Ieng Sary and Khieu Thirith - sister of Pol Pot's first wife, Khieu Ponnary - were arrested soon after dawn by rifle-toting police who sealed off the Phnom Penh villa where they have lived since cutting a deal and surrendering in 1996.
   They were then whisked away in a police convoy to the court compound on the western outskirts of the capital to face the Cambodian and international judges probing their alleged role in one of the 20th century's darkest chapters.
   An estimated 1.7 million people were executed or died of torture, disease or starvation under the Khmer Rouge's four-year reign of terror between 1975 and 1979.
   Ieng Sary has denied having anything to do with the mass killings but spent much of the 1980s defending Pol Pot at the United Nations while remnants of his black-shirted guerrilla army continued to fight from the jungle.
   He and Khieu Thirith are the third and fourth senior cadres to be arrested since the $56 million UN-backed tribunal got off the ground in earnest this year after almost a decade of delays.
   Duch, who ran the 'S-21' interrogation and torture centre at Phnom Penh's former Tuol Sleng high school, has been charged with crimes against humanity, as has 'Brother Number Two' Nuon Chea, who is also accused of war crimes.
   While Nuon Chea has proclaimed his innocence, Duch, in interviews with Western reporters, has confessed to his role in the mass killings and is expected to be a key witness against other senior regime figures.
   'Brother Number One' Pol Pot died in 1998.

A Dhaka court on Monday set November 14 for hearing a prayer for remanding former state minister for home affairs Lutfozzaman Babar in police custody in a case lodged against him for taking bribe from Basundhara Group chairman Ahmed Akbar Sobhan aka Shah Alam in July 2006.
   Dhaka metropolitan magistrate Golam Rabbani issued the order as the investigation officer of the case, Anti-Corruption Commission assistant director Rupak Saha, filed the petition seeking a 7-day remand for Babar.
   He told the court that Babar received Tk 21 crore as bribe from Ahmed Akbar on July 6 and 7 as part of a Tk 50 crore deal for dropping the murder charges against the latter's son Sanbin for killing Basundhara director Shabbir Ahmed on July 4, 2006.
   An ACC deputy director lodged the case with the Ramna police on October 3 against Babar, Ahmed Akbar and his sons Shafiyat, Sanbin, and Shahadat, another Basundhara director Abu Sufian, and Tarique Rahman's personal assistant Miah Nuruddin Apu.

Two Hajj flights of Biman Bangladesh Airlines Ltd carrying 543 pilgrims left Dhaka for Jeddah on Monday.
   Khan Mosharraf Hossain, deputy general manager (public relations) of Biman, said the first Hajj flight with 285 pilgrims on board left at 6:55am.
   The second Hajj flight carrying 258 pilgrims left at 6:27pm.
   The chief adviser, Fakhruddin Ahmed, inaugurated the 2007 Hajj flight at Zia International Airport.
   According to Biman's information centre, Biman is operating the Hajj flights deploying two of its own DC-10 aircraft and a Boeing 747 taken on lease.
   Biman will run 170 Hajj flights this year in and out of Jeddah and back home until January 24, Biman officials said.
   The Hajj Agencies Association of Bangladesh said accommodation for the pilgrims had been mostly arranged by now and the rest would be finalised soon.

Production in country’s two largest fertiliser factories - Karnaphuli Fertiliser Company Ltd and Chittagong Urea Fertiliser Ltd - was suspended on Monday due to gas-pipeline pigging operation in the region.
   Pigging operation on about 200 kilometres of gas pipeline of Bakhrabad Gas System Limited in the region began Monday for 96 hours, after the last one done in 1994.
   Competent sources said power generation from two power plants - Rauzan Thermal Power Plant and Shikolbaha Thermal Power Plant - would also remain suspended from today until the pipeline-pigging operation completes.

The vice-chancellor of Dhaka University will urge the jail authorities to take necessary steps so that detained student Deen Islam Angel can prepare for examination in prison.
   Deen, a student of mass communications and journalism who is now in jail and accused in August 20-22 campus unrest cases, is a second year honours examinee.
   Vice-chancellor professor SMA Faiz on Monday assured the department's chairman, Shaikh Abdus Salam and the Social Sciences faculty dean, AAMS Arefin Siddique, that he would talk to the jail authorities immediately.
   The dean and chairman met the VC to express their concerns about the student's preparation for the exam.
   'We requested the VC to talk to the jail authorities to ensure special arrangement for the examinee,' Arefin told New Age.
   Idris Ali Sheikh, Deen's father and a small trader of Munsiganj district, on October 22 obtained a court order asking the jail authorities to allow Deen to sit for examinations in the jail.
   Deen is one of the nine students languishing in the Dhaka Central Jail.
   They were arrested in connection with the August 20-22 demonstrations stemmed from the assaults on some students by soldiers in the university playground.

US forces will not hand over ‘Chemical Ali’ and two other cohorts of Saddam Hussein for execution until a legal row is settled, the US embassy said Monday, responding to a bitter attack by the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki.
   ‘There continue to be differences in viewpoint within the government of Iraq regarding the necessary Iraqi legal and procedural requirements for carrying out death sentences issued by the Iraqi High Tribunal,’ US spokeswoman Mirembe Nantongo said.
   ‘Coalition forces will continue to retain physical custody of the defendants until this issue is resolved,’ she said.
   On Sunday, Maliki accused the US embassy of playing an 'unfortunate role’ in preventing the handover of the three condemned men, who, like other members of Saddam's ousted regime, are in US military custody.
   He told a press conference in Baghdad that his government was ‘determined’ that the executions be carried out.
   But Nantongo was adamant the condemned men would not be handed over for hanging before the legal hitches are resolved.