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The government is planning to ask the Criminal Investigation Department to find out whether business houses or individuals in Bangladesh are involved in forging EU general system of preference certificates.
   ‘The commerce ministry has instructed the Export Promotion Bureau to instruct the Criminal Investigation Department to investigate if local parties are involved in GSP certificate forgery,’ a senior official told New Age.
   Sources in the garment and knitwear manufacturers and exporters’ associations said they would have no objection to any such investigation.
   GSP certificates are produced by the Export Promotion Bureau for local exporters which are sent to the importers to inform the EU customs that imported goods are from Bangladesh and entitled to zero duty facility provided by the European Union on exports from LDCs
   Some exporters from some non-LDC, Asian countries, who are competitors of Bangladesh on the global apparel market allegedly use forged certificates to pass their consignments as shipped from Bangladesh.
   The practice has been a blow to Bangladesh’s apparel industry as the customs in Germany, the second single largest destinations for Bangladeshi garments, started charging 12 per cent duty deposits on suspicious consignments shown as shipped from Bangladesh.
   The Export Promotion Bureau told the manufacturers and exporters’ associations that it would send the GSP certificate details, after being processed at the Export Promotion Bureau, to the exporters’ organisations to help in checking such forgery.
   The Export Promotion Bureau also agreed that the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters’ Association and Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters’ Association on behalf of the bureau would distribute blank GSP certificate forms and the exporters’ organisations would keep the details of who is given the forms.
   Banks earlier distributed such forms and there was no mechanism to register the details of the companies receiving them.
   The EPB vice-chairman, Mohammad Shahabullah, said the agency had also decided to post every GSP authorisation online.
   ‘GSP certificate details will be posted on the EPB web site after processing so that customs in other countries could check whether the GSP certificates for the consignments they would receive were from Bangladesh,’ he said.
   The export promotion agency and the exporters’ associations also agreed to request the EU customs to use ‘container tracking system’ to check whether imported containers seeking GSP facilities were shipped from Bangladesh.

Left political parties on Saturday expressed their concerns over what they called intrusion of US warship Kearsarge into Bangladesh’s territorial sea in the name of aiding cyclone victims in the coastal region.
   Apprehending ulterior motive behind the American mission, the left leaders in separate statements said the US troops aboard naval ship landed in Bangladesh territory without the permission from the government, particularly the foreign affairs ministry.
   Ships with USS Kearsarge tags were used in military operations, including American Civil War, Korean War, Vietnam War and also in the Persian Gulf after US president George W Bush had taken move to invade Iraq in 2003.
   Some of the country’s left parties demanded withdrawal of the US naval ship carrying troops while others demanded that their services would be limited to relief and rescue operations.
   ‘The people of Bangladesh do not like to see even a single member of the US troops who killed hundreds of thousands of people, including women and children, in Iraq, Afghanistan and many other countries,’ Jatiya Mukti Council said in its statement.
   Council president Badruddin Omar and general secretary Faizul Hakim blamed the policy of ‘appeasement’ pursued by the ‘military-backed’ interim regime for undue arrival of the US troops and warned that Washington might try to perpetuate its military presence in the Bay of Bengal.
   Workers Party of Bangladesh said the countrymen hope Washington would not bind Dhaka with secret defence treaty unlike the one done after the Operation Sea Angel by signing Humanitarian Assistance Needs Assessment agreement, well known as HANA.
   ‘We hope the US will not compel Bangladesh to join a treaty taking advantage of the situation,’ the party said in its statement.
   Gano Sanghati Andolon condemned the entry of the US naval ship into Bangladesh territory and called upon the government to watch whether the USA uses the Bay of Bengal for waste disposal.

Participants of the BBC Bangladesh Sanglap on Saturday urged the government, banks and NGOs to provide interest-free loans to the victims of Sidr, the deadliest cyclone of the decade.
   They demanded that the government build an adequate number of cyclone shelters for human beings, as well as for cattle and other farm animals, throughout the vulnerable coastal areas.
   The participants, a section of whom were Sidr-victims and lost many of their near and dear ones, alleged that a number of people died due to lack of enough cyclone shelters in many vulnerable areas.
   ‘I have lost everything, my two daughters, one son and husband. My home, my cattle, everything…everything… They were washed away.
   There is nothing in front of me, no food, no hope, no work…How can we survive?’ said Rehana Akhtar of Randa village at Sharonkhola while participating in the sanglap (discussion).
   ‘The cyclone shelter is situated more than two kilometres from our home.
   So I could not go there with my family although I knew that a devastating storm was approaching our village,’ she said, bursting into tears.
   Many men and women also wept while describing their dreadful, heartrending experiences.
   Talukdar Abdul Khaleque, an Awami League leader and former state minister for disaster and relief management, said that the government should restructure the schools and madrassahs of the coastal areas into educational institutions-cum-cyclone centres.
   He said that the government should completely ban the intrusion of anyone into the Sundarbans for up to 20 years to save its fauna and flora.
   Sudhir Chandra Nath of BRAC urged the government to set up a sufficient number of shelters for both humans and cattle.
   Khushi Kabir of Nijera Kori pointed out that the human shelters can be built on the top of the cattle shelters.
   They said that there should not be a gap of more than half a kilometre between every cyclone shelter in the coastal areas so that the people can take shelter without much loss of time after any warning signal is announced.
   Some of the ccyclone-victims alleged that the shelters in
   their areas were old and decrepit due to lack of proper maintenance.
   Apart from Rehana, other Sidr-victims of Sharankhola, Morolganj and Mongla in Bagerhat also took part in the sanglap, which was held at the Bangladesh Parjatan Corporation’s Hotel Pashur in Mongla. Shakeel Anwar of the BBC Bangla Service moderated the programme.

Various political parties, their student fronts and business and professional bodies continued their relief operations for aiding Sidr victims on Saturday.
   Over 44,000 regular staffers of the BRAC from around the country have contributed a total of Tk 70 lakh from their salaries to BRAC’s cyclone relief fund.
   To date, the people involved in BRAC’s cyclone relief operations have reportedly been able to reach the remotest regions of the worst-affected areas and have distributed emergency relief items to more than 3,00,000 victims of over 60,000 households.
   The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters’ Association on Saturday handed over 10,300 readymade garments to the Arms Forces Division for distribution to the cyclone-affected people.
   The BGMEA, Bangladesh Textile Mills’ Association and BKMEA have been continuing their relief operations with the target of distributing at least 3,00,000 readymade garments to Sidr victims.
   Youngone, a multinational company in the ready-made garment sector, started its relief work by setting up a temporary medical camp for Chorkhali and Gorkhali viallages under Mirzaganj thana of Patuakhali district.
   The Diabetic Association of Bangladesh and BIRDEM continued their relief operations in the badly affected areas of Patuakhali and Bagerhat districts. The Bangladesh Open University handed over 1,000 bags of foodstuff, worth about Tk 3 lakh, to the chief adviser’s relief fund on Saturday.
   The Dhaka University alumni forum intends to undertake relief operations for the cyclone-stricken people. All ex-students are requested to contact people in room no 4 in the western gallery of the Bangladesh National Tennis Federation’s tennis complex near Ramna Green.
   Ganasanghati Andolon, in a press release, said that it has been continuing relief operations in the worst-affected areas and has urged people to donate relief materials or money to its relief centre at 102, Aziz Super Market (2nd floor), Shahbagh.
   The Bangladesh Development Partnership Centre, which has been given a grant from German donor agency MISEREOR, will distribute food, clothing and cash for house repairing worth about Tk 28,00,000.
   Among the organisations which continued relief operations on Saturday are the Bangladesh Teachers Samity and Bangladesh Scouts.
   The Bangladesh Chhatra Union on Saturday began a project of preparing oral saline for the cyclone victims on the first floor of the Teachers-Students Centre of Dhaka University.

Enumerators collected the particulars of 3,87,507 voters in three days of the field-level task of voter registration which began in Dhaka city on November 20.
   The chief election commissioner, ATM Shamsul Huda, on Saturday said the Election Commission was not facing nay difficulty in voter enrolment in the metropolis. He hoped the task would be completed by the stipulated time.
   ‘There will be some temporary problems in voter enrolment in Sidr-hit areas. But it is possible to complete the task in the metropolitan area of Dhaka by the stipulated time [January 31],’ Shamsul said at an exchange of views programme in the Banani Community Centre in Dhaka.
   He said the commission was not facing any problem in conducting rallies as part of the campaign for voter registration.
   ‘Our campaigns are non-political. There is no political speech. We ask people to become voters. So we are not facing any problems,’ he said.