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Recurring floods, unusual rainfall, drought and cyclones in Bangladesh are results of global warming caused by the excessive emission of carbon dioxide by developed countries, experts at a workshop in Dhaka on Tuesday said.
   The experts gave a warning that world temperature
   might rise by 1.8 to 4 degrees Celsius this century and countries such as Bangladesh would be the worst victims of environmental degradation.
   The experts were addressing the concluding programme of the two-day workshop organised by the Mass-line Media Centre and the Department of Environment with support from the Department for International Development and the Comprehensive Disaster Management Programme of the United Nations Development Programme.
   Sixty-four environmental journalists, one each from the 64 districts, joined the workshop inaugurated on Monday by the Department of Environment director general, Khandakar Rashedul Haw, in the LGED Bhaban seminar room in Dhaka.
   The Bangladesh Economic Association president, Quazi Kholiquzzaman, and the IUCN-The World Conservation Union country representative, Ainun Nishat, addressed the workshop on the first day.
   Kholiquzzaman discussed the global socio-political
   and economic perspective of climate change and Ainun Nishat pointed out the variability of nature causing natural calamities.
   The CDMP’s institutional expert Md Syeedul Haque, MMC executive director Quamrul Hasan Monju and other MMC officials joined the workshop on the concluding day.
   Announcing to form a reporters’ forum on climate change, Quamrul Hasan said a similar workshop on climate issues would also be organised for 64 women journalists.

A South Korean thermal acupressure device manufacturer company on Tuesday said they would set up 100 more thermal acupressure service centres in Bangladesh by 2009.
   The Korean company, Ceragem having 12 acupressure service centres in Dhaka and Narayanganj, has decided to open the new service stations as part of their expansion plan in Bangladesh, said the company’s country director, M Islam at a press conference held at the Dhaka Club.
   The organisation is offering free demonstration of its ‘Ceragem Compact’ to customers through 12 centres located in Gulshan, Moghbazar, Wari, Lalbagh, Mirpur, Shyamoli, Dhanmondi, Bangshal, Rampura, Jatrabari and Paltan and Narayanganj on first come first serve basis, Islam said.
   Following trial of the device in the centres, the users can either purchase the equipment or become a life-time member of the centre, the executive added.
   The company’s with its
   philosophy of “Love, Service and Kindness” opened its
   first centre in Bangladesh
   in April 2006.
   The thermal acupressure, an alternative healthcare device, designed to remove the negative effects of everyday stress on the body and restore overall sense of wellbeing, is tagged at Tk 59,500 each.
   The device relaxes and rejuvenates muscles around the applied area and provides therapeutic stimulation of vital pressure point around the spine, stimulating overall circulation and relieving muscle tension.
   The Ceragem managing director BH Jun and general manager Jin Heo were also present at the conference.

Academics and health experts at a meeting on Tuesday underscored the need for effective measures to control tobacco use, including strict enforcement of the smoking and use of narcotics control law, for a sound environment.
   Bangladesh Integrated Community Development in collaboration with Directorate General of Health Services and World Health Organisation arranged the meeting on ‘Smoke-free Environment’ at Safawang Community Centre in Rajshahi.
   The speakers said around 57,000 people are dying
   and 382,000 others becoming disabled every year in the country due to tobacco use. Besides, they said, about
   12 lakh people are being infected with eight kinds of diseases every year due to tobacco use.
   Coordinator (Environmental Health) of World Health organisation (WHO) AFM Khaled Hassan addressed the meeting as the chief guest with Deputy Civil Surgeon Nuruzzaman in the chair.
   Professor Musfique Ahmed of Geology and Mining Department and Associate Professor ANM Saleh of Psychology Department of Rajshahi University, Zawadul Haque of Rajshahi Medical College Hospital and BICD President Younus Ahmed also addressed the meeting.
   They said there are some 4,000 harmful chemical
   substances in tobacco, of which 43 are responsible for cancer.
   Consuming tobacco, they said, causes 95 per cent lung cancer and 40 to 50 per cent of all types of cancer.
   They pointed out that some 350 per cent tax is collected from tobacco products in the UK and the USA, while only 59 per cent in Bangladesh.
   Control of tobacco consumption will result in reduction of tobacco related diseases and deaths as well as expenditure in the health sector and enhancement of government revenue, they said.

President Iajuddin Ahmed on Tuesday said the universities should adopt modern
   curricula for imparting need-based education to make the students worthy enough to face the challenges of the globalisation.
   ‘Bangladesh, a country of immense potential, needs huge capable human resources to cope with the challenges of the 21st century and the educational institutions, particularly the universities, have vital role to play in building a competent and healthy nation by providing quality education to the students,’ he said.
   The president, also chancellor of the universities, was addressing the maiden convocation of Dhaka International University held at Bangladesh-China Friendship Conference Centre in Dhaka.
   University Grants Commission chairman Professor Nazrul Islam, DIU vice-chancellor Professor Nurul Momen and chairman of DIU Board of Governors SK Patwari also spoke on the occasion.
   Iajuddin called upon the students to demonstrate their highest degree of personal honesty and integrity in professional arena to serve the nation with utmost dedication and sense of patriotism.
   ‘You are the architects of our beloved country. The nation expects a lot from you. I am confident that you are now fully prepared to shoulder the responsibility of the nation.’
   About the devastation caused by the cyclone in the south-western districts, the president said the catastrophic cyclone of the recent time had devastated thousands of lives and huge property in the coastal belt and biodiversity at Sundarban.
   He said the whole nation mourned at the sorrows and sufferings of the victims and the government had been engaged its highest efforts to provide basic needs for the cyclone-hit people on an urgent basis.
   ‘I would like to mention that it is not possible to check the natural catastrophe but by adopting more precautions and appropriate management strategy, we can reduce the loss of lives and property,’ he added.
   Iajuddin said the issue of global warming was an alarming phenomenon for the developing countries like Bangladesh.
   ‘Bangladesh as one of the most ‘susceptible countries’ of the world to the negative impacts of climate change as the impacts range from an overall increase in sea level, atmospheric temperature and rainfall to more intense natural disasters’, he said.
   The president also underscored the need for developing regional and national comprehensive plan to address the issues of global warming.
   He conferred degrees to the graduates of the university and distributed gold medals among the students who had brilliant results.

Verdict in a case filed against 14 Rajshahi University teachers, students and staff for setting fire to a vehicle during the August 21-22 unrest will be delivered on December 6.
   Additional chief metropolitan magistrate Ruhul Amin fixed the date after hearing arguments from both sides on Tuesday.
   Three of the accused — Chowdhury Sarwar Jahan Sajal and Golam Sabbir Sattar
   Tapu, teachers of geology
   and mining department, and Ataur Rahman, private driver
   of former vice-chancellor
   Faisal Islam Faruqui — surrendered to the court on September 11.
   Besides, the law enforcers picked up Sadiqul Islam, deputy chief information officer of Public Relations Office, from his residence. The two detained teachers and the two staff were in the dock.
   The other accused — Ayen Uddin, general secretary of Bangladesh Chhatra League RU unit, BCL leader Dipayan Sarkar and Mizanur Rahman Mithu, Sardar Ayaz, SM
   Fakrul Islam Raihan, Abu Sayem, Shamim Ahmed, Kazi A Latif, Sakhawat Hossain and Aziz Bin Kamal — were absconding.
   The case was filed with the Motihar police station on August 23. Sub-inspector Mukhtar Hossain, also investigation officer of the case, submitted charge sheet against 14 people on September 1. A total of 24 witnesses had been examined in this case.
   Verdict in another case filed against six RU teachers for violating Emergency Powers Rules and instigating the students to violence will be delivered on December 4.

Pottery and terracotta showpieces are again on display on the footpath in front of the Bangladesh Shishu Academy in Dhaka.
   Business of pottery and terracotta showpieces has resumed on the footpath as the authorities concerned has recently withdrawn the restriction on using the place for commercial purpose.
   Currently, there are around 30 shops of pottery and terracotta showpieces on the footpath and the products are mainly supplied by traditional potters, a shop owner told New Age.
   The items available in the shops are mostly made of ceramic, bamboo, cane, wood, and jute, he added. A good number of nursery plant shops have been set up on the footpath alongside the shops of pottery and terracotta showpieces, he said.
   Law enforcers evicted the shop owners from the footpath after the present interim government took office on January 11.
   Before eviction, there were more than 50 shops on the footpath, Russel Miah, a shopkeeper, said. Affluent people of the city, university students and tourists mainly visit the shops and buy terracotta items of their choice, he added.
   ‘Now, sale is very dull as most of city people do no know about the resumption of the pottery business here.’
   Another shopkeeper said they had been selling pottery and earthen showpieces on the footpath for the last two decades.
   ‘Pottery items and terracotta showpieces are very popular among the city people. Buyers generally opt for this place as this is the biggest market of pottery and terracotta items.’
   New terracotta showpieces including wall hanger, sculpture, flower vase and ashtray are also available in different shops.
   ‘I sell items worth around Tk 300 to Tk 6,000 every day. Sale position, however, depends on weather, political situation and new arrivals of products,’ Azizul Islam, a shopkeeper, said.
   ‘Increased sale of nursery plants in the nearby nursery shops give a boost to our business,’ he mentioned.
   Another seller said they give order to the potters as per the demands of the customers. Porters of Comilla, Savar, Barisal, Patukhali, Bhola and the Bangladesh Small and Cottage Industries Corporation of different districts supply products to the shops, he added.
   ‘Most of the products supplied by the potters are found in primitive form. We make the items attractive by painting them, he said.
   The price of pottery varies according to their design and size. A small item is sold at Tk 150 based on its quality. A local ceramic item in the form of wall pots is sold for Tk 40 and ceramic candle is sold for Tk 90.
   There are also some eye-catching items, such as clay mugs and bells, which are sold at Tk 90 each. There are animal figures selling at prices between Tk 200 to Tk 400. One can collect replicas of brides and grooms available at Tk 50 per piece.
   Earthen ornament sets can be bought at Tk 50 each, while those having a bit of woodwork and clay are sold at more than Tk 100.
   The animal figures available in the shops include duck, deer, tiger, lions, monkey and the largest one of which is sold at Tk 400 while a small sized animal figure at Tk 100.

Australia has offered scholarship to 15 Bangladeshi students under the Australian Leadership Awards, targeting future leaders in corporate, academic, government and non-governmental services.
   ‘Australia is very pleased to be assisting Bangladesh to develop its human capital by offering talented men and women scholarships to Australia’s world-class universities,’ the Australian high commissioner, Douglas Foskett, said at a ceremony before the departure of the students to Australia on Monday, according to a press release issued by the high commission.

Weather is likely to remain mainly dry with partly cloudy sky over the country till 6:00pm today.
   Night temperature may remain nearly unchanged over the country, Met Office said.
   Country’s highest temperature 30.2 degrees Celsius was recorded on Tuesday at Jessore, Barguna and Sitakunda and lowest 14.6 degrees at Dinajpur.
   The sun sets in the capital at 5:10pm today and rises at 6:23am tomorrow.

The West Zone Power Distribution Company Limited is yet to complete the repair of the power supply system, 12 days inside Sidr landfall on November 15, leaving Barguna and Pirojpur district headquarters into darkness.
   The company is responsible for the supply of power to the towns in 21 districts and three upazila headquarters of the Khulna and Barisal divisions.
   Sources in the company said they would need Tk 5 crore to repair the supply system.
   Power supply broke down fully in 15 coastal districts as hundreds of poles and electric wire were damaged.
   The sources said Sidr damaged 416km 33KV line, 287km 11KV line, 663km 11/.4KV line, 1,094km 0.4KV line, a 33/11KV substation, 15 transformers, 33 towers and 52 poles in Barisal, Jhalakati, Patuakhali, Bhola, Barguna, Pirojpur, Bagerhat, Khulna, Satkhira, Gopalganj, Madaripur, Shariatpur, Faridpur, Chuadanga and Meherpur. Seven towers and 650 poles turned in by the cyclone in the areas.
   They said power supply could be restored to all the places but Barguna and Pirojpur by November 21. Power could be supplied to Pirojpur by November 25.
   The residents of Rajarhat, Palpara and Ukilpara in Pirojpur said they had not received electricity since November 15.
   The residents of Barguna district headquarters were receiving electricity from the Bhandaria-Borguna line, but repair jobs became difficult for the power agency people as many areas were still under water.
   They said the repair of 12km Bhandaria-Kathalia and 34km Barguna-Badnitala had been completed and power supply could be restored after the distribution system in other areas would be completed.

Several thousand workers of state-owned jute mills on Tuesday observed a token hunger strike on the premises of their respective mills, demanding scrapping of the government move to lease jute mills to the private sector.
   Workers of the Hafiz Jute Mills, Amin Jute Mills, Gul Ahmed Jute Mills, RR Jute Mills, and Dhaka-Baghdad Jute Mills in Chittagong, the Peoples Jute Mills, Crescent Jute Mills, Star Jute Mills, Platinum Jubilee Jute Mills, Jessore Jute Industries, and Carpeting Jute Industries in Khulna, and Qaomi Jute Mills in Sirajganj observed the strike.
   Local politicians and people of the jute mill areas also expressed solidarity with the workers’ demand.
   The government has already invited tender to lease seven mills to the private sector. The mills are Qaomi Jute Mills, Karnaphuli Jute Mills, Forat-Karnaphuli Carpet Factory, People’s Jute Mills, MM Jute Mills, RR Jute Mills, and Dhaka-Baghdad Jute Mills.
   Our Chittagong correspondent reports: Besides the token hunger strike, around 6,000 workers of four state-owned jute mills in the Sitakunda industrial belt also observed a two-hour work abstention from 9:00am to press home a set of demands.
   The demands include cancellation of the government initiative to lease jute mills to the private sector and payment of outstanding remunerations, provident fund money, gratuity and other benefits for the workers who have gone on retirement since 2001.
   The People’s Commission on Jute and Jute Industry, which organised and supported the token hunger strike, in a statement said workers of the jute mills would observe similar programmes on Wednesday to realise their demands.
   ‘We hope the government will understand the importance of the jute industry and cancel the process of leasing the mills,’ the commission chairman retired Justice Golam Rabbani and its general secretary Shah Alam said in a news statement on Tuesday.

NGO staff demolished a woman’s house in Pabna after she defaulted on loan repayments, the affected house owner told the news agency.
   Nazma Khatun from Udaypur village in Sujanagar now lives in the open. Staffers of Uddipon, a non-governmental organisation, took away the remnants of her home after pulling it down on Sunday.
   According to allegations, Nazma took Tk 13,000 in loans from the NGO to buy her husband Mohammad Alam a rickshaw but defaulted on a Tk 350 instalment.
   She had already paid back Tk 7,000 in 20 instalments, but failed to make the latest repayment after her husband sold the rickshaw and went to Dhaka.
   Uddipon’s Sujanagar branch manager Mujibur Rahman admitted to the demolition of the house but defended the act saying it had been done with Nazma’s consent.

The first anniversary of death of Awami League leader and former Dhaka mayor Mohammad Hanif will be observed today.
   Hanif died at the city’s Apollo Hospitals after a prolonged illness on November 28 last year.
   Dhaka city Awami League will hold a milad mahfil and prayers session after asr prayers at the party’s central office on Bangabandhu Avenue. Acting Dhaka City AL general secretary Qamrul Islam has requested the party leaders and activists to join the programmes.

The 16th anniversary of death of journalist and social worker M Ahmad Ali will be observed today.
   To mark the day, M Ahmad Ali Sahitya Parisad will arrange a milad Mehfil and discussion at his village home at Koyrapara under Chowgachha upazila in Jessore Wednesday afternoon.
   Ali, who worked with different newspapers and magazines, also authored a number of books.

Two Pakistani naval ships, including a destroyer, reached Chittagong port on Tuesday on a four-day visit, port officials said.
   The destroyer, PNS Shahjahan with 372 sailors on board, is commanded by Captain Rehan Aziz; its auxiliary tanker, PNS Nasir with 313 crewmembers on board, is commanded by Captain Mohammad Abid, they said.

The detained former prime minister Sheikh Hasina is likely to be produced in the court of Dhaka metropolitan sessions judge today for the first-time hearing in the Tk 2.99 crore extortion case.
   The judge, Azizul Haque, will today hear the case in his courtroom in Old Town, court officials said.
   Hasina, also the Awami League president, was arrested on July 16 at Sudha Sadan in Dhaka in the extortion case.
   She was sent to jail after she had been produced in a magistrate’s court the same day and was kept in a special jail set up on the Jatiya Sangsad complex.
   Azam J Chowdhury, managing director of the East Coast Trading Limited, lodged the case against Hasina and her cabinet colleague, Sheikh Fazlul Karim Selim, also her cousin, with the Gulshan police on June 13.
   Azam alleged Selim had extorted the amount from him in several instalments between 2000 and 2001 for the award of the contract for a power plant installation at Siddhirganj in Narayanganj.
   The investigation officer, Gulshan police officer-in-charge Obaidul Haque, on July 24 filed the charge sheet with the chief metropolitan magistrate’s court, also implicating Hasina’s expatriate sister, Sheikh Rehana. Rehana, who is now in London, has been shown absconding in the charge sheet.
   Selim has been in jail since his arrest on May 28.

Additional secretary Jamil Osman joined the information ministry as acting secretary on Tuesday.
   Before his current posting, he was the additional secretary to the health and family welfare ministry.
   Osman joined the Bangladesh Civil Service (taxation cadre) in 1981.

Freedom fighter and columnist Prem Ranjan Dev died of a heart attack at his Jatrabari residence on Monday at the age of 60. He is survived by wife and two daughters. He was cremated in Postagola crematory.

DU theatre fest ends
The ten-day Dhaka University theatre festival ended at the Teachers-Students Centre on Tuesday with staging the play Kabi, based on the novel by Tarashankar Bandopadhyay. Shamim Hasan directed the play, adapted by Saimon Zakaria. Thirteen plays were staged during the festival, organised by Department of Theatre and Music of the university. The department produced the plays and the students of the department acted in the plays.

Three jailed for 12 years in Sylhet
A Sylhet court on Tuesday sentenced three persons to 12 years imprisonment for selling illegal firearms. Ferdous Ahmed, judge of the special court, also fined them Tk 10,000 each, in default, to suffer two more years in jail, court sources said. The convicts are Mohammad Zia, son of Abdur Rahim, of Bisnakandi, and Liaqat Ali, son of Cherag Ali, of village Bhitargul under Goainghat upazila in Sylhet and Suman, of village Nayabazar under Panikhala police station in Meghalaya State of India. According to the prosecution, Rapid Action Battalion went to the house of Zia in the guise of arms buyers and caught him in possession of two smuggled revolvers on October 16, 2004. A case was filed on October 17.
— New Age