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Relief efforts have been geared up in the cyclone-ravaged southern districts but private assistance still remain mostly confined to certain areas due to battered communication as thousands of people, who have lost their homesteads, are still passing cold nights in the open.
   Foreign assistance also started pouring in to help the survivors of the devastating cyclone Sidr on 15 November that killed more than 4,000 people, left millions homeless and wrought havoc on the eco-system in Sundarban. Armed Forces Monitoring Cell put the death toll at 3,199 till 6am Friday.
   Two Pakistani aircraft with a 30-bed mobile hospital arrived in Barisal on Friday while two US ships carrying relief also anchored at Chittagong. Two Indian aircraft carrying 39.5 tonnes of ready-to-eat food, 0.5 tonnes of water purifying tablets, medicines, tents and blankets reached Dhaka on Friday. China has offered 1,000 tonnes of rice, 100 tonnes of edible oil and 500 tonnes of flour for the cyclone-affected people.
   With the winter setting in, thousands of people, rendered homeless by the calamity, are spending chilly nights under open sky due to lack of house-building materials, said relief workers who were receiving cases of cold and fever regularly.
   The mercury dropped to 17.6 in Khulna division and to 17.2 in Barisal division, according to Met office. Reports of death of a 65-year old fisherman, Hossain Sardar, due to cold was received from Dakhkhin Southkhali village under Sharankhola upazila in Bagerhat district on Friday.
   Concentrations of the cyclone-affected people are mostly seen on roadsides where communication is comparatively better and private organisations are coming with relief supplies.
   Allegations of favouritism against political activists in relief distribution were received in many areas of Barguna and Bagerhat districts. Relief efforts by two major political parties were, however, still insignificant.
   People of Banati Bazar in Kalapara upazila of Patuakhali staged protests against what they said discrimination in relief distribution by a religion-based political party.
   The local administration also received allegations against two ward commissioners of selling rice meant for relief distribution in the market.
   LGRD and coorpartives adviser Anwarul Iqbal, who visited a number of affected areas on Friday, during a meeting with upazila officials at Patharghata, asked them to perform their respective responsibilities with sincerity. He stressed the need for proper coordination of government and private relief efforts.
   He told them to check duplication of relief distribution as well as to ensure that the people in the remote areas were not deprived. He asked the local administration to ensure that the affected people received house-building assistance in time.
   The adviser also told them that farmers, who had failed to repay previous loans, should not be left out of the agricultural rehabilitation loans announced by the government.
   Officials said that rich people were coming to the affected areas with money and clothes without reporting to the local administration. They are just distributing them among people on the wayside.
   Local UNO Selim Khan said as more relief were expected to arrive shortly, all agencies, organisations and individuals engaged in relief efforts, should co-ordinate their activities.
   An elderly destitute woman, Sandha Rani of Mission
   Bari in Barguna, alleged that those who had not lost anything in the cyclone, were getting relief.
   Different political parties and social organisations have started collecting relief materials for the survivors. Acting secretary general of the government-backed BNP faction, M Hafiz Uddin Ahmad, distributed relief in three areas of Bhola district Friday.

Thousands of cyclone survivors are at the risk of contracting waterborne diseases such as diarrhoea in the absence of access to clean water, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said on Friday.
   The organisation also said its volunteers and staff were struggling to reach some of the remotest communities affected by Sidr which struck the south on November 15.
   ‘This is of real concern as many people have had nothing to eat or drink since the storm hit [the region],’ Selvaratnum Sinnadurai, the head of the Red Crescent delegation, said in a statement.
   ‘We are worried they may soon resort to drinking from contaminated water sources which could lead to major a diarrhoea outbreak. In one district, they have already reported deaths.’
   Many water sources, especially those close to the coast, have been contaminated with saline water, according to the assessments made by the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said a release. Besides, dead human bodies and animal carcasses have been found in a number of water bodies.
   As a result, many people need to walk long distances to find clean drinking water, a task which, according to Red Crescent, will become more challenging without relief assistance.
   In an effort to help overcome some logistical challenges, the British Red Cross has sent a logistics emergency response unit. The Bangladesh Red Crescent also distributed food, water, family kits, plastic sheets and clothes among the families in the worst-hit areas, said the release.
   Following the past week’s appeal by the Red Crescent for assistance, a revised appeal will be made in 24 hours, taking into account the longer-term needs of cyclone survivors, said Al Panico, the head of the International Federation’s delegation in South Asia.
   ‘It [effects of Sidr] can also take away, or threaten the livelihoods and future of those who have survived. Helping communities to recover — to rebuild lives and livelihoods — is complex, but essential work that continues long after emergency relief has been provided,’ said Al Panico.

Osman Gani, who is yet to get any fertiliser, could not cultivate maize. His frustration was growing fast as he didn’t know when he would get it. Showing us his barren land at Purbashalmara village under Aditmari upazila, he said he had harvested Aman paddy from his land two weeks ago to produce maize in advance.
   ‘If I could get fertiliser today, I could complete the sowing of maize by tomorrow,’ Osman told New Age on Monday morning. He said nothing was going on properly due to scarcity of fertiliser this year.
   ‘I wanted to recoup the losses caused by the low yield of Aman by producing maize in advance. But I won’t be able to do that,’ said an unhappy Osman.
   He said the member of his area had taken his name to give him an identity card so that he could buy fertiliser a month ago, but he hasn’t been given the card yet. ‘I visited him several times but he failed to give me the card.’
   Half a dozen farmers of the village surrounded us and echoed his grievances when they saw Osman talking to us. They alleged that the authorities concerned, without considering the farmers’ interest, had scrapped the previous system of selling fertiliser and introduced a new system, which has given rise to the present crisis.
   When we visited Bogra, Lalmonirhat and Kurigram, we saw that the farmers, instead of preparing their fields, were busy collecting slips and moving from one place to another to get fertiliser. Desperation was evident in their faces since the season for a certain crop does not last long.
   The interim government, like the previous governments, has also failed to assess the actual demand for fertiliser in the peak winter season of crops and vegetables and introduced a new policy for fertilizer distribution, causing immense suffering to the farmers.
   The government suspended sub-dealership and made the collection of slips from deputy assistant agriculture officers mandatory to buy fixed amounts of fertiliser from the limited number of dealers, which has made the process more difficult than before.
   These steps have been taken to streamline distribution and check smuggling, but the farmers have to vault so many hurdles to get fertiliser that they need far more time than before. That is why many of them, in spite of sufficient stock as claimed by the government, have not been able to lay their hands on the much-needed fertiliser.
   The government, realising the faults in the new distribution policy, recently decided to appoint 14,400 representatives all over the country to sell fertiliser quickly to farmers, but the damage has already been done.
   Presently, there are only 4,800 dealers selling fertiliser throughout the country. They are simply too few to deal with the millions of farmers.
   With the period for sowing winter crops and vegetables on its way out, farmers in the northern region are losing their patience as they are failing to get their required amount of fertiliser even for higher prices. On the other hand, the Boro season is only a couple of weeks away.
   ‘Even if there is enough stock of fertiliser, it does not benefit us as it remains in the godowns,’ said Aftab Ali of Karnapur as he was standing in a queue in front of a dealer in Bogra town on Saturday. He got only one sack of fertiliser though he needs four sacks to grow potatoes on the four bighas of land owned by him.
   He said the showing of land registration papers to get the slips has increased the difficulties faced by the farmers as they have to collect the slips first and then buy fertiliser from dealers, which is too time-consuming. Many farmers do not know how and from whom to get the slips and expressed frustration over the government’s decision to suspend fertiliser selling in the open market.
   As per the new policy, agricultural officers visit villages and sanction slips after seeing the land of farmers as well as the registration papers. They are yet to visit many, many areas.
   ‘The government shouldn’t create problems for us on the plea of checking fertiliser smuggling. When will we prepare land and cultivate crops if we remain busy collecting slips and stand in long queues to get fertiliser?’ said a resentful farmer in Barua village under Lalmonirhat sadar.
   Mohammad Nader and his brother Abdul Kader came to Velabari bazaar in Aditmari upazila to buy urea, TSP and potash, but they got only urea.
   The dealer of the bazaar said there was no supply of TSP and potash. ‘It will take us a few days to get those fertilisers,’ he said.
   Since the majority of the people in this region do not have their own land and cultivate others’ land on lease, the need to show land registration papers for fertiliser has thrown them into deep trouble.
   Introduction of the slip system has given rise to many unscrupulous people who, by manipulating the system, are making money in connivance with the agriculture officers and dealers in many places in the region, alleged farmers.
   Since many farmers are not fully aware of the new system, they are buying slips from the middlemen. There are even people who somehow manage to get slips from dishonest officers and sell them to the dealers who sell them to desperate farmers at exorbitant prices.
   Farmers say that in the past they bought fertiliser according to their need. Whenever they needed fertiliser they got it, even in the village bazaars, but now getting fertiliser has become a headache for them.
   Many farmers in the northern districts have started growing crops without fertiliser or with only a small amount of it. Many have also abandoned any plan to cultivate crops due to fertiliser shortage.
   The farmers appreciated the government’s decision to appoint more representatives to sell fertiliser, but they fear it will take too much time, and in the meantime they won’t be able to grow any crops.
   They want the government to improve and streamline the new distribution system as they need fertiliser round the year for cultivation of various crops.

Voter registration with photographs and national identity cards got momentum in Dhaka city on Friday, the first holiday after the door-to-door visits by enumerators for information collection had started on November 20.
   Enumerators, mostly schoolteachers, said that they had found most of the eligible male voters at home on Friday.
   ‘In the first two days I completed distribution and collection of about 100 registration forms, but on Friday I was able to complete enumeration of about 100 people,’ Rekha Saha, an enumerator of Aziampur area, told New Age on Friday afternoon. Rekha, a senior teacher of Shaheed Manik Girls High School, expressed her satisfaction over Friday’s progress of enumeration work.
   Particulars of 2,73,378 eligible voters were collected on the first two days of the field-level task of voter listing till Thursday evening.
   ‘I think the number will increase significantly over the weekend [Friday and Saturday] when most of the eligible male voters are expected to be available at home,’ deputy election commissioner of Dhaka, Biswas Lutfar Rahman told New Age.
   Enumerators in different areas earlier had told reporters that on working days they did not find eligible male voters at most of the households.
   The enumerators, while collecting the filled-in registration forms, are distributing tokens among the eligible voters, asking them to visit the registration centres with the slips on a particular day to have their fingerprints and photographs taken.
   In these areas, election officials will start taking voters’ fingerprints and photographs on December 1 at registration centres to be set up at places previously used as polling stations.
   The enumerators are visiting door to door to collect the voters’ particulars. If necessary, they will visit a household a second time to have the particulars of eligible voters who were not available during the first visit.
   ‘In such cases the family members will be informed about the time of the second visit by the enumerators,’ secretary of the EC secretariat, Humayun Kabir said on Wednesday.
   The Election Commission has engaged 13,040 enumerators, 2,627 supervisors, 15 thana election officers and four district election and registration officers for voter listing in the Dhaka city corporation area.
   The task of collecting voters’ particulars is going on at Uttara, Cantonment, Khilkhet, Sabujbagh, Motijheel, Paltan, Jatrabari, Shyampur, Sutrapur, Kotwali, Pallabi, Mohammadpur, Adabar, Dhanmondi, New Market, Lalbagh, Khilgaon, Ramna, Shahbagh, Tejgaon industrial area, Hazaribagh and Mirpur.
   As per the work plan of the Election Commission, the field-level task of voter listing in the DCC areas will be completed by January 31, 2008 and the month of February will be needed for correcting the list.

Lalmoni Express, one of the three express trains running between the northern region and the capital Dhaka, was pressed into service in 2003 as a cheap but comfortable means of transport for passengers.
   But it has never been able to live up to the expectations of a cross-section of people. It has become just like other ordinary trains with lackluster service and unusually slow journey.
   ‘The train will help farmers of this area greatly to transport their produces easily to the capital,’ the then prime minister Khaleda Zia told people at Lalmonirhat while inaugurating the train service on June 23, 2003.
   Let alone helping the farmers, the train service has become almost useless as people do not like to travel by the Lalmoni Express because of its poor service. Besides, no one can say for sure when it arrives at Dhaka.
   Investigation reveals interesting stories about the introduction of the train. It was pressed into service mainly due to lobbying by the then deputy minister for disaster management, Asadul Habib Dulu, who hails from the northern district.
   The train starts for Dhaka at 10:20am after all intercity buses leave Lalmonirhat packed with passengers.
   Some 36 buses ply the route between the district and the capital and Dulu and elder brother, Asadul Haq Lavlu own 18 buses.
   ‘The train is of no use…It seems it was introduced not to serve the people but to deceive the locals to win their support in elections,’ said a resident of Lalmonirhat town who does not travel by the train for its poor service and unusual departure schedule.
   If the train starts early in the morning or in the afternoon it would be of great help to the people.
   ‘The rain’s departure time has been fixed considering the interests of the bus owners,’ said a railway official at the Lalmonirhat station. He said the train has only 375 seats, including 29 first class seats and 120 chairs which are unusual for an express train. The first class compartments and chairs remain mostly vacant.
   The carriages of the train are old and the compartments are dirty and its takes about 10-11 hours to reach Dhaka which is another reason people shy away from it.
   Lalmoni Express is supposed to reach Dhaka at 8:20pm but it has never been able to maintain schedule. Sometimes it arrives at Kamalapur station as late as around midnight.
   ‘What the passengers would do after reaching Dhaka at dead of night?’ said a passenger disgustedly before getting on the train on Monday morning.
   There was a plan to install a railway track between Bogra and Jamtoli when the train service was launched. If installed, it would reduce the present distance between Lalmonirhat and Dhaka by 60 kilometers and travel time by six hours. There is no sign yet when the track would be laid.
   Railway officers believe the train can be made a useful simply by changing its timing and adding more carriages to it.
   Kazi Rafiqul Islam, divisional railway manager in Lalmonirhat, said he would take up the matter with the authorities soon.

The 53-nation Commonwealth suspended Pakistan’s membership on Thursday, after the president, Pervez Musharraf, failed to meet a deadline to lift emergency rule and resign as army chief.
   The Commonwealth had given Musharraf until Thursday to lift the state of emergency he imposed on November 3.
   Musharraf has begun rolling back some elements of emergency rule and Pakistani officials say he will be sworn in as a civilian leader within days. This week he freed thousands of detainees held since November 3. He has also promised a parliamentary election on January 8.
   But the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group, charged with reviewing Pakistan’s membership, said, ‘The situation in Pakistan continues to represent a serious violation of the Commonwealth’s fundamental political values.’
   CMAG had therefore ‘suspended Pakistan forthwith from the Commonwealth pending the restoration of democracy and the rule of law in that country,’ the organisation’s secretary general, Don McKinnon, told a news conference, reading from a statement.
   The statement expressed disappointment that while there had been some progress, many of the Commonwealth’s demands, laid down on at a meeting on November 12, had ‘remained substantially unfulfilled’.
   While suspension has few immediate practical consequences, analysts say it could further isolate Pakistan and discourage foreign investment. The nine-member CMAG was established in 1995 to deal with violations of Commonwealth rules on democracy.
   The meeting ran five hours over schedule, apparently indicating difficulty in reaching a decision.
   Commonwealth sources said Asian CMAG members Sri Lanka and Malaysia were reluctant to act now against Pakistan while Tanzania and Canada had pushed hard for it to be suspended.
   But the British foreign secretary, David Miliband, said, ‘Every country was fully in favour of the decision, but it was a decision taken in sorrow not in anger ... the chance is for Pakistan now to make the changes that are in their interest.’
   The British prime minister, Gordon Brown, who arrived in Kampala shortly before the CMAG decision, told reporters: ‘Commonwealth ministers have made a clear and necessary decision with the suspension of Pakistan from the Commonwealth.’
   The other members of CMAG are Papua New Guinea, Malta, Lesotho, Malaysia and St Lucia but the latter was absent.
   A British source held out the possibility that Pakistan could be readmitted to the Commonwealth if satisfactory elections were held in January.
   It was the second time Pakistan had been suspended after being barred in 1999 when Musharraf seized power in a bloodless coup. Islamabad was re-admitted in 2004 in recognition that democratic progress had been made.
   The Commonwealth, grouping 1.8 billion people, or more than a quarter of the world’s population, begins a three-day summit in Kampala on Friday.
   While critical of Musharraf’s actions, the United States favours giving him some leeway, as an ally in the fight against al-Qaeda and the Taliban, to put things right before the poll. But the Pakistani opposition says it may boycott the election.
   Reed Brody, spokesman for Human Rights Watch, applauded the Commonwealth decision, saying: ‘The ministers ... have told General Musharraf that martial law and subversion of constitutional rule have no place in the Commonwealth.
   Pakistan said on Friday it would review its future association with the Commonwealth after being suspended from the 53-nation group because Musharraf failed to meet a deadline to end emergency rule.
   Foreign ministry spokesman Mohammad Sadiq told the news agency that Pakistan deeply regretted the decision of the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group to suspend Pakistan.
   ‘The CMAG decision is unreasonable and unjustified. Pakistan will review its association and further cooperation with the organisation.’
   Meanwhile, exiled former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, the man Musharraf deposed, is set to return to Pakistan from Saudi Arabia within days, aides said on Friday.
   It was not immediately clear whether Sharif, whom Musharraf deposed in a bloodless 1999 coup, would get back before November 26, the last date for filing election nominations and so be able to run for parliament.
   Musharraf had accepted the return of Sharif during discussions with Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah, according to a leader of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League.
   Sharif flew to Riyadh overnight from the Red Sea port of Jeddah, where he has stayed since the Pakistani authorities deported him after he tried ending his exile last September.
   ‘Nawaz Sharif is meeting Saudi King Abdullah today (Friday) and will announce his schedule after that. God willing, he will return in a few days,’ Raja Zafar-ul-Haq, chairman of the Nawaz League as Sharif’s faction of the Pakistan Muslim League is known, said.
   Diplomats say Saudi Arabia was embarrassed by its complicity in Sharif’s exile and had wanted the situation resolved.

Various political parties and their student fronts and business and professional bodies continued their relief efforts for Sidr victims on Friday.
   The Bangladesh Samajtantrik Dal’s central relief committee distributed relief goods and money among the affected at Haimchar in Chandpur.
   The Samajtantrik Chhatra Front continued collecting relief materials and distributing them among the affected. Leaders and activists collected money from people at Sutrapur, Demra, Tejgaon, Ramna, New Market, Mirpur and Mohammadpur in Dhaka.
   The Bangladesh Chhatra Union central relief team distributed cocked food among 880 cyclone victims at the Tafalganj College at Southkhali in Bagerhat.
   Another relief team of the organisation left Dhaka for Mathbaria in Pirojpur. The organisation urged people to donate relief materials or money to its relief centre at the Teachers-Students Cenre and Madhu’s Canteen at Dhaka University.
   A Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry team distributed relief materials at Dublarchar of Kachua in Bagerhat. Another team distributed relief in the Jhalakati municipal area.
   The Bangladesh Chhatra Moitri also carried out its relief activities by forming a central relief and rehabilitation committee. The students of Badrunnesa Women’s College distributed relief materials and money collected from the students to Chhatra Moitri’s central relief committee.
   A 10-member relief team of Dania Sangskritik Jote with relief materials left for Sarankhola in Bagerhat.

A series of near-simultaneous blasts on Friday outside courts in three Indian cities left at least 13 people dead and more than 40 wounded in what police called a terror attack on lawyers.
   Nine people were killed, including three lawyers, in the holiest Hindu city of Varanasi and four more people died in Faizabad, the Uttar Pradesh state home secretary, JN Chamber, told the news agency.
   ‘This a terrorist attack on the advocates of our state,’ the additional director-general of police, Brij Lal, said by telephone from the state capital Lucknow.
   The Uttar Pradesh police chief, Vikram Singh, said the bombs were transported to the courthouses of Varanasi — where a string of powerful explosions killed 23 people in March 2006 — Faizabad and Lucknow by bicycles which were then abandoned.
   ‘We have issued an alert all over the state after the blasts, which might have been planned to create an atmosphere of terror,’ Singh said. He added that reinforcements were being deployed to prevent a possible public backlash.
   Secretary Chamber said three blasts were reported from Varanasi and two each in Lucknow and Faizabad.
   Twenty-two people were hurt in Varanasi, 14 more in a ‘shed’ used by lawyers at Faizabad courthouse and another five in Lucknow, Chamber said.
   The attacks came a week after the Uttar Pradesh bar council unanimously decided not to defend Islamist militants facing charges in the state.
   NDTV television station showed footage of at least two lifeless bodies being dragged away in Varanasi.
   Several bleeding people were also shown amid wreckage strewn over the ground.
   Faizabad is seven kilometres from Ayodhya, a hotbed of Hindu-Muslim rivalry where Hindus tore down a 16th-century mosque in 1992 sparking nationwide riots that left 2,000 died.
   The Ayodhya police chief, GN Khanna, meanwhile told reporters that the city’s chief Hindu priest Mahant Nitya Gopal Das on Thursday received a letter purportedly written by the al-Qaeda terror network telling him convert to Islam or die.
   India’s junior home minister said Friday’s blasts looked to be acts of terror.
   ‘The fact that three blasts took place at the same time ...it is clear that it is a conspiracy,’ Sriprakash Jaiswal told reporters in New Delhi.
   ‘The motive could be to spread terror.’
   India has been plagued by bombings across the country in recent years and routinely points the finger at foreign-based Islamic militant groups fighting its rule in the Himalayan state of Kashmir.

Bangladesh and New Zealand will play a Twenty20 match next month to raise funds for the victims of Cyclone Sidr, Bangladesh Cricket Board officials said on Friday.
   The match will take place in Hamilton on December 23 during Bangladesh’s tour of New Zealand where they will play three one-day internationals and two Tests.
   The one-day series will start on December 26.
   Bangladesh were scheduled to play two warm-up matches, but thanks to the initiative of the BCB, the second warm-up match has now been turned into a Twenty20 match, though officials could not confirm whether the game will have international status.
   ‘We are expecting a full-strength New Zealand side in the Twenty20 match, but since it will be dedicated to charity, so we are not sure if the ICC will grant it international status or not,’ said Gazi Ashraf Hossain, the chairman of the BCB’s cricket operations committee.
   Bangladesh are expected to fly to New Zealand in the second week of December.

The army chief, General Moeen U Ahmed, has snubbed suggestions that the government lifts emergency rule for relief operations in the cyclone-ravaged coastal areas.
   ‘Has politics got anything to do with [relief operations]? Tell me,’ Moeen asked reporters after a meeting with US Navy’s Admiral Timothy J Keating in the Army Headquarters on Friday.
   The army chief made the remark in the wake of the demands recently made by some political leaders.
   A statement of the US embassy in Dhaka said during the meeting with the army chief Timothy renewed the US commitment to support Bangladesh as it continues its relief operations.
   Moeen welcomed US Navy’s move to help the disaster-stricken people in the south.
   ‘It will help us a lot. There will be no crisis of food in the affected areas. We are reaching every house in the affected areas with foodstuffs.’
   He said no new emergency shelter was built in coastal areas since 1991 although the population kept growing.
   ‘At this moment, food, pure drinking water, clothes and powered milk are most needed in the disaster-hit area. The USA will install 10 water purifying projects. Besides, the water purifying projects of the army will be on,’ Moeen said.
   He hoped that the country would recover from the disaster soon. He said the US Navy’s ‘Operation Sea Angel’ greatly contributed to the rehabilitation programme in the aftermath of 1991 cyclone.
   Admiral Keating earlier told reporters at Zia International Airport that they had come to express sympathy to the victims and survivors of the cyclone.
   He said they were here to help with permission from the Bangladesh government. They would provide the survivors with food, pure water and treatment, he added.
   Keating refused to give in to suggestions that their stay here was a sensitive matter.
   He said they had come to help people and that they did not go anywhere if not invited.
   Reply to a question, Keating said US navy ships would stay in Bangladesh as long as it was necessary.
   The US chargé d’ affaires, Geeta Pasi, told reporters that they immediately responded to Bangladesh’s appeal for help after the calamity, which reflected strong relationship between the countries.

The impact of cyclone Sidr on Bangladesh can be compared to a ‘mini-tsunami’ and there is a continued urgent need for international aid, the United Nations humanitarian affairs office said on Friday.
   ‘It’s essentially a mini-tsunami,’ said Elisabeth Byrs, spokeswoman for the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
   ‘When you see the damage caused on the coast, they are just the same sort of images we saw after the tsunami’ that struck the Indian Ocean in December 2004, she told journalists.
   Nearly five million people have been affected by the cyclone, half of whom need immediate livelihood and life-saving relief, OCHA said.
   OCHA has already granted $15 million in aid and called on international donors to continue their generosity.
   The World Bank has pledged up to $250 million for food imports, medical supplies and cash grants, while Britain has pledged more than $5 million and the United States around $3.5 million.
   ‘We hope that this trend continues,’ Byrs said.
   Numerous UN agencies from the World Health Organisation to the UN children’s fund (UNICEF) are involved in the aid effort.
   UNICEF spokeswoman Veronique Taveau said the humanitarian situation in Bangladesh was ‘absolutely, totally catastrophic.’
   Half of all those affected by the cyclone are children, who are particularly vulnerable to disease in the wake of the disaster.
   ‘Without access to clean water and sanitation, children are especially at risk of diarrhoeal and other waterborne diseases which can be life-threatening,’ UNICEF warned in a statement.
   Many children have also lost or become separated from their parents in the disaster, and UNICEF has set up special ten ‘child friendly spaces’ in the three worst affected districts to trace and register these children.
   ‘Separated and unaccompanied children are living without care, security and support facilities. These children are vulnerable to abuse and exploitation,’ UNICEF child protection officer Aissa Sow said in a statement.
   The WHO said 523,000 people in nine of the 12 worst affected districts were in need of medical supplies, and around 1.3 million people require urgent sanitation assistance.

Five people were killed in Sadar and Patharghata upazilas Thursday night in stampedes and two others died of heart attack caused by a panic following a rumour that a heavy tidal surge was going to hit the coastal district.
   The deceased were identified as Habib, 45, of Kaksira village in Patharghata upazila, Khokon, 27, of Sonatala village,
   Roushan Ara, 40, of Kalirtak village, Abdur Razzak, 35, of Sonakhali village, Nazrul, 27, of Patakata village, Sattar, 17, of Charpara village, and Bashir, 26, of Chaltitali village in Sadar upazila.
   Of them, Roushan Ara and Razzak died of heart attack while five others in stampedes in their localities.
   Sources said some young men in three motorbikes warned people in the Barguna district town at about 8:00pm Thursday that a heavy tidal surge from the Bay of Bengal was going to hit Thursday night.
   Hearing the rumour, shopkeepers downed their shutters and people of all ages came out of their houses and started running around for safety.
   The rumour then travelled across the district and neighbouring Patuakhali through mobile phones.

A 65-year-old poor man died of cold and starvation Friday morning at Dakshin Southkhali under Sarankhola upazila in Bagerhat district as he was too feeble to go and collect food, water and winter clothes from relief distributors.
   The deceased Hossain Sardar also had no relative in the village who would collect relief for him.
   Hossain, who used to fish in the local water bodies, lost his dwelling to cyclone Sidr and since had been living alone in the open beside the wreckage of his home without warm clothes, said Ismail Hossain Khalifa, a former chairman of Southkhali union parishad.
   As he was too weak to collect relief and no one went to him with food, clothes or water, Hossain had been going without food and even water and passing chilly nights without any winter clothe, Ismail said. As a result, Hossain caught a severe cold and became emaciated from days of hunger and thirst. Finally, death put an end to his miseries at around 9:00am Friday.
   The Sarankhola upazila nirbahi officer, Shahnewaz Talukdar, told New Age on Friday evening that he was unaware of any such death at Southkhali.

The two US amphibious assault ships headed for Bangladesh to join rescue and relief activities in the Sidr-hit coasts are likely to anchor in the outer anchorage of Chittagong port soon, port and navy sources said.
   ‘We are expecting the ships to arrive in the outer anchorage soon. We are yet to get the details. But we will be ready to receive them after we get the berthing schedule,’ said the port’s harbour master Jafar Ullah.
   ‘We think the ships may also stay near Hiron Point in the bay to remain close to the Khulna coast. But it is still unclear which location may be convenient for the operation of the ships,’ he said.
   A navy official said the ships would be escorted to the outer anchorage after their entry into the Bangladesh waters.
   ‘It will be a big support for us. With the joining of US Marines and ships, our relief operation and rehabilitation in the cyclone-hit districts will be boosted,’ said Brigadier General Kazi Abidus Samad, head of operation and planning at the Armed Forces Division.
   ‘We are getting a lot of foreign help to cope with the post-cyclone situation. So we are doing our best to help the victims,’ he said.
   The two amphibious assault ships are bringing about 3,500 marines and more than 30 helicopters to help in relief efforts, official reports said.
   The ships — the USS Kearsarge and the USS Essex — were ordered to move to Bangladesh after Sidr had hit the south on November 15, the reports said.
   A 23-member US military team is now in Bangladesh to survey the situation and assess the needs, according to the reports.
   The Kearsarge was in the Gulf region and the Essex was wrapping up an exercise in South Korea when they were ordered to head for Bangladesh, the reports said.

A rally by Uganda’s main opposition party urging Commonwealth sanctions against the host government turned into violent clashes with police, witnesses said.
   Scores of police descended onto a group of supporters of the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) after they left a zone where demonstrations are permitted, the witnesses said.
   One civilian and one police officer sustained serious injuries.
   The trouble erupted after a speech by FDC leader Kizza Besigye. A crowd of dozens of supporters started cheering and dancing as they gathered on a street outside the zone where demonstrations are allowed during the summit which started Friday.
   ‘The policemen started beating me as I was walking home,’ said Abdul Karim, as he lay on the sidewalk covered in blood. Protestors threw rocks at a riot police squad that clubbed several men and women.
   ‘This is nothing new, we have been living with a police force that does not respect the rights of the people,’ Besigye said. ‘With or without the Queen, this country will be free.’
   Uganda is hosting the biennial 53-nation Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), which opened a day after Pakistan was suspended for civil rights violations under emergency rule.
   ‘We believe that Uganda requires sanctions based on its violations,’ Besigye told supporters at a Kampala airstrip.
   ‘What is happening in Pakistan also happened here. Musharraf has been asked to leave the Commonwealth, why not here?’
   Commonwealth Secretary General Don McKinnon has repeatedly denied that his organisation was applying double standards and stressed that he had often raised rights and democracy concerns with President Yoweri Museveni. Besigye said a petition was sent to the London-based Commonwealth Secretariat to secure a platform at the summit for the opposition to air its grievances.
   ‘The Commonwealth is an increasingly irrelevant organisation to us, and I’m sure, to the many poor citizens of Commonwealth states,’ Besigye said.
   Over 100 protestors gathered under the sweltering sun to hear the opposition leader denounce Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II for meeting Museveni, whom he accused of rights abuses and election rigging.
   ‘Queen you are the head of our problems!’ read one banner waved by the protestors, some also carrying pictures of tortured opposition activists and tear-gassed marches. The FDC said the cost of hosting the summit in Uganda was twice the amount pledged by the government for relief in areas affected by devastating flooding.
   An opposition demonstration charging the Commonwealth was not giving enough attention to impoverished communities was also staged in Kampala on Thursday, resulting in scuffles that left a handful of protestors hurt.

Two of the most important Greenhouse gases in the earth’s atmosphere reached a record high in 2006, and measurements show that one — carbon dioxide — is playing an increasingly important role in global warming, the UN weather agency said Friday.
   The global average concentrations of carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide in the atmosphere were higher than ever in measurements coordinated by the World Meteorological Organisation, said Geir Braathen, a climate specialist at the Geneva-based agency.
   Methane, the third of the three important greenhouse gases, remained stable between 2005 and 2006, he said.
   Braathen said measurements show that carbon dioxide is contributing more to global warming than previously.
   Carbon dioxide contributed 87 per cent to the warming effect over the last decade, but in the last five years alone, its contribution was 91 per cent, Braathen said. ‘This shows that carbon dioxide is gaining importance as a greenhouse gas,’ Braathen said.
   The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere rose by about half a per cent in
   2006 to reach 381.2 parts per million, according to the agency. Nitrous oxide totalled 320.1 parts per billion, which is a quarter per cent higher than in 2005.
   Braathen said it appears the upward trend will continue at least for a few years.
   The World Meteorological Organisation’s annual Greenhouse Gas Bulletin provides widely accepted worldwide data on the amount of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

The education ministry on Thursday sent a letter to the chairmen of all the 10 education boards and the regional and district education officers asking them to ensure registration of all the private English-medium schools and kindergartens.
   The letter signed by a deputy secretary, issued by the ministry on November 19, has also enclosed the copy of the Registration of Private (English Medium) Schools Rules 2007.
   There are a large number of kindergartens, English-medium schools and some other schools offering O- and A-Level courses of the University of Cambridge and the University of London, but most of them are not registered with the government and charge exorbitant tuition fees.
   The new rule has made it mandatory for schools to be registered with the authorities concerned and the registration needs to be renewed every five years.
   The new rule stipulates that each school in the category should have an 11-member managing committee for regulation and deciding on salaries and tuition fees. The rule makes it mandatory for the schools to have land, owned or rented.
   None of the government agencies have the actual figure of the English-medium schools or kindergartens now in operation.
   An unofficial estimate says the number of schools that offer pre-schooling to A-level courses is around 17,000.

Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen has been on the run from extremist Muslims threatening to kill her ever since she started writing books that incensed religious hardliners.
   On Friday, Taslima was being bundled from place to place in an all-enveloping black burqa as Indian authorities sought her a safe haven following violent Islamist protests calling for her expulsion.
   Taslima fled her Muslim-majority homeland of Bangladesh in 1994 after huge street protests by demonstrators who decried her writings as blasphemous and demanded her ‘execution.’
   Now the 45-year-old gynaecologist-turned author who describes herself as a humanist says all she wants to do is stay in India but has ‘no place to go.
   The latest events had pushed her to the brink of collapse.
   ‘I am mentally distressed. I am not well at all,’ Taslima told the Press Trust of India on Friday by telephone from an undisclosed location.
   The overtly atheist Taslima, whose website proclaims ‘I don’t believe in God,’ stayed for some years in Europe and the United States after leaving Bangladesh.
   But she had made her home in Kolkata in communist-ruled West Bengal state since 2004 in an apartment, kept company by a cat she found at a fish market and guarded by Indian security forces.
   The Bengali-speaking eastern Indian state borders Bangladesh and is — she says— ‘closest to what I know as home.’
   It was unclear on Friday where Taslima would go amid unconfirmed media reports she was travelling to the national capital New Delhi.
   She has been seeking permanent residence in officially secular India.
   In New Delhi, Muslim group, All India Milli Council, said on Friday all Muslim organisations would ‘vehemently protest’ her stay as she has ‘hurt the sentiments of millions of Muslims in the country.’
   The Indian government has assured Taslima that her visa will be valid February 17 next year and that she will be provided security wherever she is, according to bdnews24.com.
   The Union cabinet discussed security concerns surrounding her stay in the capital and according to the Indian home ministry she is now at an undisclosed location in New Delhi.
   Meanwhile, in the Indian parliament, the Communist Party of India made a strong plea for granting her Indian citizenship if she so desired.
   The main opposition party, Bhartiya Janata Party, also demanded that Taslima be granted permanent visa and asylum in the country similar to that of Buddhist spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.

Fisheries officials will hold a meeting with stakeholders of fisheries industry, especially shrimp, in Khulna today to assess the losses in the sector caused by cyclone Sidr.
   The officials concerned said the loss assessment initiative was undertaken to provide contingency supports for the sector, eying assistance from overseas sources, including the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation and the European Commission.
   The Chief Adviser’s Office has asked the fisheries and livestock ministry to submit a ‘clear picture’ of losses in the fisheries sector after necessary consultation with the stakeholders.
   Financial assistance for the Sidr-hit farmers could be sought on the basis of reports on actual damage caused to the sector by the cyclone on November 15, the officials said.
   The ponds and shrimp enclosures on some 26,000 acres of land in the Khulna division were damaged and 9,768 enclosures were affected, according to initial assessment by the regional fisheries and livestock office. Shrimps produced in the enclosures were mainly meant for exports to Europe, the United States and Japan.
   Fisheries officials said the reports on loss assessment would be sent to the Chief Adviser’s Office later this week.
   The Bangladesh Frozen Foods Exporters’ Association is also expected to submit a similar report to the fisheries ministry.

Several hundred leaders and activists of the Hizbut Tahrir Bangladesh on Friday staged protests in Dhaka against the forthcoming visit to Chittagong port by two US naval ships in the name of distributing relief supplies among the cyclone- affected people.
   Soon after the protest, a team of RAB-3 in plain clothes picked up Kazi Morshedul Haque, joint co-ordinator of the organisation, and an activist Mustafiz from Baitul Mukarram area as they were returning home.
   The two warships, USS Essex and USS Kearsarge, each carrying 20 helicopters, with emergency relief supplies, medical and emergency evacuation teams are scheduled to enter Bangladesh waters on Saturday and Tuesday.
   The ships could be used in medical evacuation and survey of the cyclone-ravaged areas and will co-ordinate their relief efforts with the Bangladesh military, the US embassy in Dhaka said in a statement.
   Witnesses said, large contingents of armed police, plainclothes and detective branch police remained on guard on roads surrounding Baitul Mukarram, including the meeting venue at the north gate of the mosque, since 12:30pm.
   The leaders and activists
   of Hizbut Tahrir assembled inside Baitul Mukarram compound after the Juma prayers in preparation for the protest rally.
   As soon as the protesters took out a procession and tried to march down the road the law enforcers intercepted them at the north gate of the mosque.
   The police action forced the protesters to remain within the confines of the mosque compound where they held a rally. The protesters demanded immediate return of the US warships.
   The protesters carried a banner reading ‘Prevent American ships from entering the Bay of Bengal in the name of distributing relief’ and chanted slogans ‘Go back to America’ and ‘US has no place in Bangladesh.’
   Kazi Morshedul Haque told the rally that every Bangladeshi had come forward, including
   the army, navy and air force, in aid of the cyclone victims, ‘so
   it is a shame on us, Muslims, that we are allowing the US on our land.’ A press release signed by the publicity and media secretary of the organisation, Mustafa Minhaz, condemned the arrest of Morshed and Mustafiz and demanded their immediate release.

India’s Border Security Force on Friday shot dead 3 Bangladeshi cattle traders on the Benapole frontier.
   The deceased were Ripon, 25, of Putkhali, Alauddin, 30, of the same area and Ainal, 35, of Naranpur.
   The Bangladesh Rifles said BSF fired on some Bangladeshi cattle traders when they were heading for home Friday morning. The three died on the spot.
   The Indian guards dragged the bodies into the Indian territory.

The interim government has convened a special meeting of the council of advisers today to review the overall situation of the Sidr-hit south and find ways to strengthen relief and rehabilitation efforts in a more coordinated way.
   All the scheduled visits of the advisers for Friday and Saturday outside Dhaka, even to the cyclone-hit areas, have been suspended so that they can attend the meeting.
   The agriculture, fisheries and livestock adviser, CS Karim, was scheduled to leave Dhaka on a two-day visit to Patuakhali and Barisal Friday noon. He cancelled the visit. The chief adviser, Fakhruddin Ahmed, will preside over the meeting at the Chief Adviser’s Office this morning.

Pakistan’s top court issued a formal order on Friday allowing authorities to declare Pervez Musharraf president for a second time but giving authorities until December 1 to do so.
   A day after dismissing the last challenges to Musharraf’s re-election last month, the Supreme Court sent a written version of its ruling to the election commission and federal government.
   The military ruler, who seized power in a bloodless coup in 1999, had vowed to resign as army chief and take a new oath of office as a civilian after the formal notification came through.
   But the notice said only that the result should be announced by December 1, giving him a further week to comply.
   It directed the commission and government ‘to take all the necessary steps by December 1, 2007 for final announcement’ of the election result. It also specified that Musharraf ‘shall relinquish the office of the chief of army staff’ before taking the oath of office.