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In the face of pressure from administrative officials against separation of the judiciary, the government decided on Saturday to resolve the disputes through discussions with the representatives of the civil administration and the judiciary.
   ‘The law adviser will soon hold a meeting with the concerned officials, both from the judiciary and the administration, for smooth implementation of the separation of the judiciary from the executive,’ a senior adviser told New Age after a meeting of the council of advisers on Saturday.
   The cabinet came up with the decision as resistance against the separation process has started surfacing in the administration, said the adviser.
   Law adviser Mainul Hosein apprised the council of advisers at the Chief Adviser’s Office of the latest progress towards the independence of judiciary from executive control, which comes into effect from November 1, said sources in the meeting.
   The administration officials will hold a meeting at the Bangladesh Institute of Administration and Management today to chalk out programmes and strategies for holding back the implementation of the separation process.
   In the last week they also held a series of meetings to create pressure on the government for reviewing the separation process, said sources in the administration.
   On Thursday a number of senior officials of the administrative cadre, including the information secretary and land secretary, talked with the law adviser at his office and demanded reviewal of the separation process because the judicial powers of the administrative officers will be withdrawn, according to sources.
   Claiming that the preparation, including infrastructure and logistic support, for the judicial magistracy is yet to be completed, they suggested deferment of the November 1 deadline for the formation of the judicial magistracy.
   The administrative officials opined that stripping the district magistrates and other executive magistrates of judicial powers would weaken the administration, a government official, who attended the Thursday meeting, told New Age.
   They also claimed that the implementation of the sets of rules on judicial service, framed by the interim government, would create discrimination between the judicial and administrative services.
   They also showed their resentment over the letter issued by the registrar of the Supreme Court to the deputy commissioner for providing logistic support for the judicial magistracy.
   The Bangladesh Judicial Service Association, however, rejected the allegations. In a press release, issued on Saturday, it said that there was no discrimination between the judicial and the administrative officials who would be absorbed in judicial service.
   The registrar of the Supreme Court did not send any letter to any divisional commissioner, but the deputy registrar did write a letter to the divisional commissioner of Chittagong, asking him to provide logistic support to the judicial magistrates in the three hill districts as there is no judicial officer there, said the press release.
   An adviser told New Age that the administrative officials should not harbour any resentment over the issue as they have not opted for absorption in judicial service.
   According to the new rules, any administrative official, now exercising judicial powers as a magistrate, can opt for absorption into judicial service or for serving as judicial magistrate on deputation for an interim period.
   According to sources in he Supreme Court and in the establishment ministry, only thirty, out of about 890, magistrates have so far opted for absorption into judicial service.
   The interim government has recently appointed 189 judicial officers as judicial magistrates, in consultation with the Supreme Court, because enough magistrates have not opted for judicial service.
   The government has nothing to do with the matter as the rules have been framed in accordance with the Supreme Court’s directives and the court has fixed the deadline, said the adviser.
   Ruling out the administrative officials’ claim of creation of an anomaly in the local administrations, he said that the executive magistrates would not be stripped of any powers other than their judicial functions.
   According to the amended Code of Criminal Procedure, the executive magistrates will have a number of powers and functions, including the power to command law enforcers to disperse any unlawful assembly, to arrest or order the arrest of offenders, to endorse a warrant or order for removal of an accused person arrested under the warrant, to enable search by postal and telegraph authorities for documents and to detain them, to issue search warrants, to direct the searching of any place, to require security to keep peace, to discharge sureties, to issue injunctions as immediate measures in the case of public nuisance and to order imposition of Section 144.
   The government will have to apprise the Supreme Court by October 29 of the progress made so far in the implementation of its directives on separation of the judiciary.
   The judiciary is going to be separated from the executive in line with the 12-point directive of the Supreme Court, detailed in the judgement in a subsequent appeal in the Masder Hossain case, popularly called ‘separation of judiciary case’.
   The judgement was delivered on December 2, 1999 and all the subsequent governments took repeated extension of time for implementation of the Supreme Court’s directives.
   The immediate past government of Khaleda Zia framed four sets of rules on judicial service, but new sets of rules were framed by the interim government on January 16 after the Supreme Court directed it to do so, declaring the previous ones contradictory to its directives.

The Awami League on Saturday urged the interim government to hold a dialogue with political parties to discuss and resolve the political issues which ‘could not be resolved in either talks with the Election Commission or a court of law.’
   ‘Political issues cannot be resolved in talks with the EC. They cannot also be resolved in a court of law,’ the acting Awami League general secretary, Syed Ashraful Islam, told reporters at his house at the NAM Flat in the morning.
   He made the request a day after the party had received the Election Commission invitation to talks on electoral reforms for November 4.
   He said his party was planning to send a formal proposal to the government for discussions with the Awami League on current political issues.
   ‘The objectives of the government and the political parties in the ongoing drive against corruptions should be similar for which the government should hold talks with the political parties to resolve the political issues,’ he said.
   He said the issues could not be resolved through talks with the Election Commission or in any court of law.
   As for talks with the Election Commission, he said, ‘As 10 members will be allowed in the delegation for the talks with the commission, we will decide on the names in our working committee meeting scheduled for Monday, if the committee decides on joining the dialogue.’
   He said the party had made all the preparations for the central working committee meeting. Any untoward incidents in and outside the meeting venue would be checked, he said.
   ‘In the case of any untoward incidents, the party will take punitive measures against the people responsible,’ he said, referring to the assault of some leaders, said to be dissidents in the party, during the last working committee meeting.
   He said the party sought security from the law enforcement authorities for the meeting.
   Ashraf iterated his hopes that the Awami League would join the next general elections under the leadership of the party chief, Sheikh Hasina, after having her released in a legal way.

The government is going to make electronic cash registers mandatory at retail level in all large and medium business establishments across the country to earn more in value-added tax and contain tax evasion taking opportunity of the current manual accounting of sales proceeds.
   The finance adviser, AB Mirza Azizul Islam, approved the new system on October 17, which will be effective from July 1, 2008, finance ministry sources told New Age.
   ‘All large and medium retail businesses, many of which have been evading tax taking advantage of the current manual accounting system, will come under the new scheme of electronic cash register,’ Badiur Rahman, outgoing chairman of the National Board of Revenue, told New Age on Saturday.
   ‘Campaign will start soon for introducing the new system from July 1, 2008,’ he added.
   Retail outlets at shopping malls, sweetmeat shops, community centres, hotels, restaurants, furniture shops, beauty parlours, grocery shops, and departmental stores are some of the categories set to be on a list of the revenue board to be made public soon, sources said.
   A statutory regulatory order will soon be issued by the NBR in this regard, they added.
   The VAT act will also be amended to bring this new system into operation from the next fiscal year.
   Publicity will be made through both print and electronic media outlets and a series of dialogues between VAT officials and the shop owners concerned will be arranged on the new mandatory requirement of maintaining electronic cash registers, NBR officials said.
   Furthermore, trade licences of the retail businesses are likely to be renewed subject to installation of the cash registers, the sources said. The NBR
   has recently asked the Dhaka City Corporation to notify all trade licence holders concerned to buy the cash registers by July 1, 2008 if they want to renew their trade licences, they added.
   At present there is no duty and VAT at import level on electronic cash registers, costing between Tk 40,000 and Tk 50,000.
   But, a section of business leaders expressed their reservation about the government plan to introduce electronic cash registers, saying it would cost the consumers extra expenditures, not the traders.
   ‘The cash register system, which is used currently by a small number of departmental stores in the capital, does not cost any extra money for the traders, but it does for the consumers,’ Helal Uddin, president of Shop Owners’ Association of Dhaka and a director of the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry, told New Age.
   He recommended that small retail outlets should not be subjected to the mandatory requirement.
   NBR sources said the new system, if came into operation, would fetch at least Tk 200 crore extra in VAT a year, which now ranges between Tk 50 crore and Tk 60 crore.

The advisory committee formed to finalise the draft coal policy inserted in the draft at a meeting on Saturday some major issues, including ban on coal export and bar on assigning any foreign company with operation of any coal field without participation of any state-run organisation.
   The committee, headed by former BUET vice-chancellor Abdul Matin Patwari, also decided in principle to keep a provision in the policy for taking a pilot project on open-pit mining at Petrobangla’s Barapukuria coal field.
   The committee, which started to review on Saturday every line of the draft submitted by the Energy Division, inserted a provision in the ‘perspective chapter’ that it would not be possible to export coal from Bangladesh keeping in view the country’s energy security for the next 50 years.
   It also noted that the people and the nation were the owners of the country’s coal and other mineral resources.
   The committee also included in the draft a clause that the government sector would get preference in developing coal fields. ‘But, in case of emergency, the government will be able to take a decision on developing coal field through joint initiatives with private and public entities of local and foreign countries,’ its observed.
   The meeting was told that no foreign company could be given any coal field alone and any foreign company could only develop coal field jointly with any state-run entities like Petrobangla or the proposed Coal Bangla. The modalities of such joint initiatives will be discussed by the committee in future.
   The committee decided in principle to insert a provision in the policy for launching a pilot project on open-pit mining at Barapukuria coal mine covering eight square kilometre area to examine the viability of the mining method that drew much controversy in the country.
   Two committee members, Professor Nurul Islam and Professor Badrul Imam, who submitted a paper on their recent experience on India’s coal sector, concluded that it would be unrealistic from environment considerations to go for open-pit mining in Phulbari coal field.
   The professors from BUET and Dhaka University attended SAARC Technical Seminar on Strategies on Promotion of Coal Development and Clean Coal Technologies in SAARC Region on October 16 in Kolkata and visited an open-pit mine at Sonepur.
   According to the paper of professors Nurul Islam and Badrul Imam, most of the open-pit mines in India are implemented at coal fields that have coal seams at a depth ranging between 100 and 200 metres, whereas in Phulbari, where Asia Energy has proposed to extract coal through open-pit mining, the coal seams are at a depth of 300 metres.
   The meeting was told that the north part of Barapukuria coal field, where the country’s lone underground coal field is situated, has a coal reserve at a depth of 110 metres.
   The meeting observed that by implementing a pilot open-pit mining at Barapukuria coal field, its impact on the environment could be assessed and experience on resettlement issue gathered.
   It was suggested that a state-run entity would launch the pilot project for 10–12 years. But many of the committee members felt that funding would be the major obstacle to implementing such pilot projects.
   University Grants Commission chairman Nazrul Islam, Bangladesh Army engineer-in-chief Major General Ismail Faruque Chowdhury, Professor Mustafizur Rahman of Dhaka University, Infrastructure Investment Facilitation Centre executive director Nazrul Islam, Petrobangla director Maqbul-E-Elahi, and former managing director of Barapukuria coal mining company Golam Mostafa attended the meeting, among others.

A devastating fire that broke out on the second floor of a five-storey commercial building in Motijheel gutted huge quantities of office equipment, documents and stationeries on Saturday morning.
   Fire-fighters managed to contain the fire on the second floor, from where it originated at about 9:25am and destroyed almost everything in the 10 enterprises of the building at 144 Motijheel Commercial Area.
   Large quantities of computer accessories, photo copiers, laminating machines, fax machines, a number of canisters of air-fresheners and papers of Kamal Stationeries, Sin K International, Semax Papers and Stationeries, Prime Stationaries, Siddique Enterprise, JSK Enterprise, Joti Enterprise, Mamun Associates International and S Rahman Enterprise were gutted in the fire.
   A total of 11 fire-fighting vehicles from headquarters, Sadarghat, Palashi and Lalbagh fire stations rushed to the scene and managed to put out the flames at around 12:35pm after more than three hours of frantic effort.
   Two fire-fighters, Afzal Hossain and Nurul Islam, sustained minor burns and suffocation injuries while desperately trying to douse the flames.
   Witnesses said the fire could have been more devastating if it had spread to the other floors which house the corporate offices of the state-owned Janata Bank and warehouses on the ground- and first-floors. They also said that the fire spread so quickly due to the absence of effective fire extinguishers.
   Assistant director of the Fire Service and Civil Defence Nurul Haque told New Age, ‘The fire spread rapidly throughout the entire floor due to release of volatile chemicals as a number of air-freshener canisters exploded during the fire.’
   ‘But we managed to control the fire from spreading to the other floors and adjacent commercial buildings, and we also saved property worth more than Tk. 10 crore,’ he claimed.
   Hundreds of people, who were either working or who happened to be there at that time, helped the fire-fighters to rescue the people trapped inside the building and put out the raging fire.
   ‘I was panicked, thinking that gangsters might have attacked the Janata Bank after hearing what I thought to be gunshots, but I later heard that the bangs were the sound of exploding air-freshener canisters,’ Anisul, a staff of FedEx, told New Age.
   Kamal Uddin, Anwar Hossain and Masud Hasan, owners of some warehouses, claimed that valuables worth over Tk 5 crore were gutted by the fire. They suspected that that the fire might have been caused by electrical short circuit.

Pakistan probed Saturday a list of possible suspects given by former premier Benazir Bhutto after a suicide assassination bid that killed 139 people and bloodied her return from exile.
   Benazir said she had sent president Pervez Musharraf the names of three people she accused of involvement in Thursday’s blast, which ripped through a crowd of hundreds of thousands who welcomed her back to Karachi.
   ‘I have shared the names with general Musharraf and one of the people is someone that they are (already) watching,’ Benazir told the BBC in an interview, but refused to give their names.
   The 54-year-old has blamed militants for the attack and said she did not believe that the ‘state or government’ were involved, but sources in her party said the list included senior army officials, without elaborating.
   Benazir has said that she received a warning prior to her return from Dubai about members of al-Qaeda, Pakistani and Afghan Taliban and a Karachi-based militant group who may plan to attack her.
   She has also accused Islamist supporters of late military ruler Zia-ul-Haq of being behind the blasts, the worst suicide bombing in Pakistan’s history.
   He overthrew Benazir’s father, prime minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, in 1977 and had him hanged two years later.
   Several hundred protesters burned tyres in the streets on Saturday and pelted passing vehicles with stones for a second day in pro-Bhutto neighbourhoods, AFP photographers said.
   The United States – which has backed a proposed power-sharing deal between key ‘war on terror’ ally Musharraf and the Oxford and Harvard-educated Benazir – has offered its help in the investigation.
   Police released a photograph of the bomber’s head and said they were pushing forward with the probe but had made no arrests. Musharraf pledged to bring the culprits to justice in a phone call to Benazir on Friday.
   ‘Investigations are progressing in the right direction but once again we will avoid pinpointing anyone or blaming it on a certain set of militants,’ Karachi police chief Azhar Farooqi said.
   The police said one more person died overnight, taking the number killed to 139.
   Benazir has pledged to stay in Pakistan to combat militancy and fight general elections in January, seen as a key step to returning the Islamic republic of some 160 million people to civilian rule.
   But the attack on her motorcade has cast doubt over her previous plans to tour the country to whip up support ahead of the polls.
   Her party said she would soon visit the tomb of her father in her family’s ancestral village of Larkana, deep in southern Sindh province.
   The explosions – a grenade followed by a suicide blast – came hours after Benazir had flown home, sobbing as she set foot on Pakistani soil for the first time since 1999 after shrugging off warnings of militant attacks.
   Benazir’s husband Asif Ali Zardari has blamed one of the country’s three powerful intelligence agencies.

Seven people were killed and 15 others were injured Saturday when a bomb exploded in a market in troubled Baluchistan province in the latest violence to hit Pakistan, the police said.
   The blast happened as passengers were waiting at a mini-van stand in the main market in Dera Bugti town in the southwestern province, which is in the grip of a low-level insurgency.
   ‘There was a bomb explosion in the main bazaar and seven people were killed and six are wounded,’ local police officer Hazoor Baksh said.
   Another police officer said 15 people were wounded and a van was completely destroyed in the blast in Dera Bugti about 250 kilometres southeast of provincial capital Quetta.
   ‘We are investigating if the bomb was planted in the van which was parked near a passenger van,’ local officer Mohammed Baluch said.
   The attack comes after 139 people were killed in a suicide bombing targeting former premier Benazir Bhutto during her homecoming parade in the southern port city of Karachi late on Thursday.
   Baluchistan has been wracked by a nearly three-year insurgency by tribal rebels seeking greater autonomy and an increased share of the sparsely populated province’s rich natural resources.
   In July, at least 27 Pakistanis were killed in the province when a suicide car bomber hit a police-guarded convoy of Chinese workers.
   Seven police were among the dead, but no Chinese nationals were hurt, after the attacker slammed an explosives-packed vehicle into the convoy.

Moderates, the faction of conformists and the leaders close to the expelled secretary general Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan in the BNP have expedited in-party, backstage negotiations as they have been under pressure from the grassroots to keep the party consolidated.
   Another reason that has prompted them to increase the frequency of contacts among them for unification is that they believe November would be a crucial month as the two major parties — the Awami League and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party — will need to decide on joining the dialogue with the Election Commission.
   ‘We have increased the frequency of contacts with senior and active leaders in both the groups [the conformists and Mannan Bhuiyan’s followers] to keep the party consolidated as the grassroots leaders, activists and active supporters are pressuring us to do so,’ a BNP standing committee member, who visited his constituency in Greater Dhaka during Eid, told New Age on Saturday.
   ‘It is, moreover, important to dispel the confusion created within and outside the party over its leadership because the next month [November]
   would be crucial as we
   [AL and BNP] need to decide on joining the dialogue sponsored by the Election Commission, which will have far-reaching impact on the future course of politics,’ the leader, known as a conformist, said.
   A secretary on the BNP’s central executive committee subscribed to the views of the member on the standing committee. ‘Almost all grassroots activists and supporters
   want the party to be consolidated,’ he said. ‘Only the central and ambitious leaders are
   divided… the field remains united.’
   The secretary, known as being close to Mannan Bhuiyan, said the BNP was watching developments in the rival Awami League regarding in-party tension and its decision on joining the dialogue with the Election Commission. ‘Many of us think that the Awami League is on the right track on joining talks with the commission.’
   The acting Awami League general secretary, Syed
   Ashraful Islam, on Saturday morning disclosed his plan for talks with the caretaker government to discuss and resolve political issues which the Awami League thinks
   cannot be dealt with in the dialogue with the Election Commission.
   In the BNP, the moderates, the faction of the conformists and the followers of Bhuiyan are keeping close watch
   on one another whether any group joins the dialogue bypassing others as the conformists and Bhuiyan’s men have claimed to steer the party mainstream in view of the EC talks.
   ‘The Election Commission will certainly send me a letter in keeping with the law as I am the secretary general of the party,’ the BNP secretary general, Khandaker Delwar Hossain, said on Saturday.
   Asked whether there was any chance for reconciliation with the followers of Bhuiyan, Delwar said he believed there is no division within the
   party. ‘Just a few people or leaders are speaking on different notes. It does not affect
   the BNP as a whole,’ he said at his house at Sher-e-Bangla Nagar.
   RA Gani, another BNP standing committee member, who was sitting beside Delwar, said, ‘There is no division in the BNP…. There is a split at the top.’
   ‘But it has not affected the organisation at grassroots,’ he said. ‘We in the BNP want to go ahead, with all together.’
   The chief election commissioner, ATM Shamsul Huda, on Saturday said the commission would go through the BNP constitution to decide on which faction of the party to be invited to the dialogue.
   The Awami League has been invited to sit with the Election Commission on November 4. The BNP, according to the commission schedule, is to be invited to the dialogue for November 22.

Military-run Myanmar on Saturday lifted a curfew in the main city of Yangon that was imposed on the eve of the junta’s bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protests, a local official said.
   ‘The curfew is over, effective today,’ said the official, who declined to be named. ‘We will announce the end of the curfew via speakers’ on trucks, he told the news agency.
   The military junta imposed the curfew in Yangon on the eve of its deadly crackdown on peaceful protests, led by Buddhist monks, in late September during which at least 13 people were killed and about 3,000 detained.
   The curfew initially lasted from 9:00pm to 5:00am in Yangon, but the government gradually reduced its hours to 11:00pm to 3:00am.
   ‘I’m happy that the curfew was lifted. It was really affecting businesses and people’s moods,’ said a Yangon resident in his 30s.
   The end of the curfew came as the United States, a vocal critic of the regime, on Friday announced new sanctions against Myanmar’s military leaders in a bid to step up pressure on the government, freezing the US assets of 11 more junta leaders.
   ‘Burma’s rulers continue to defy the world’s just demand to stop their vicious persecution,’ the US president, George W Bush, said in a brief statement at the White House, using Myanmar’s former name. ‘Business as usual is unacceptable.’
   It was the second time in just four weeks that Washington has increased sanctions on Myanmar following its bloody suppression of dissent, which sparked off global outrage against the junta.
   Anti-junta rallies began in August following a massive hike in fuel prices and it snowballed into the biggest challenge to the iron-fisted regime in nearly two decades.
   Apart from the curfew, the junta also cut off Myanmar’s Internet link in a bid to curb the flow of information on the deadly clampdown.
   Internet access was restored only recently, but the government continued to ban foreign media, including the BBC and the Voice of America, as well as news outlets run by exiled dissidents.
   In the wake of the violence last month, the United States and the European Union tightened sanctions, and even Japan, one of Myanmar’s major donors, cancelled aid as a Japanese video journalist was among the 13 dead.
   The United Nations also dispatched special envoy Ibrahim Gambari to Myanmar following the crackdown, and the Nigerian diplomat conveyed international outrage over the junta’s suppression.
   Gambari also urged the regime to open talks with detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who has spent most of the past 18 years under house arrest in Yangon.
   During talks with Gambari earlier in the month, junta leader General Than Shwe said he was willing to meet with Nobel peace prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi if she dropped her support for sanctions on the country.
   Aung San Suu Kyi has publicly discouraged foreign
   investment in Myanmar in a bid to pile pressure on the
   military, which has ruled the Southeast Asian country since 1962.
   But the impact of the sanctions has been weakened by the eagerness of China, India and Thailand to tap Myanmar’s rich natural wealth to fuel their own growing economies.
   Following Gambari’s visit, the junta appointed an official to maintain ‘relations’ with Aung San Suu Kyi, who
   is also the leader of Myanmar’s opposition party, the National League for Democracy.
   The NLD won 1990 elections but was never allowed to govern. Its regional offices remain shuttered and many of its officers have been detained over the years.
   Myanmar, one of the world’s poorest nations, has been ruled by the military since 1962.

Iran warned on Saturday it would fire off 11,000 rockets at enemy bases within the space of a minute if the United States launched military action against the Islamic republic.
   ‘In the first minute of an invasion by the enemy, 11,000 rockets and cannons would be fired at enemy bases,’ said a brigadier general in the elite Revolutionary Guards, Mahmoud Chaharbaghi.
   ‘This volume and speed of firing would continue,’ added Chaharbaghi, who is commander of artillery and missiles of the Guards’ ground forces, according to the semi-official Fars news agency.
   The United States has never ruled out attacking Iran to end its defiance over the controversial Iranian nuclear programme, which the US alleges is aimed at making nuclear weapons but Iran insists is entirely peaceful.
   Iran has for its part vowed never to initiate an attack but has also warned of a crushing response to any act of aggression against its soil.
   ‘If a war breaks out in the future, it will not last long because we will rub their noses in the dirt,’ said Chaharbaghi.
   ‘Now the enemy should ask themselves how many of their people they are ready to have sacrificed for their stupidity in attacking Iran,’ he said.
   Iranian officials have repeatedly warned the military would target the bases of US forces operating in neighbouring Iraq and Afghanistan in the event of any attack and already has these sites under close surveillance.
   Chaharbaghi said that the Guards would soon receive ‘rockets with a range of 250 kilometres’ whereas the current range of its rockets is 150 kilometres.
   ‘We have identified our targets and with a close surveillance of targets, we can respond to the enemy’s stupidity immediately,’ Chaharbaghi added.
   He said that the Guards’ weapons were spread out throughout the country and so would not be affected by any isolated US strikes against military facilities.
   The Guards are Iran’s elite ideological army and responsible for its most significant weapons such as the longer range Shahab-3 missile which has Israel and US bases in the Middle East within its range.

Iran Saturday announced top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani had resigned, a move expected to strengthen president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s influence over policy in the atomic standoff with the West.
   Government spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham said Larijani, a conservative but by no means a political ally of Ahmadinejad, would be replaced by deputy foreign minister Saeed Jalili, who is seen as closer to the president.
   Larijani’s resignation, whose official title as negotiator was secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, takes effect immediately.
   However, he is to join his successor to participate in talks on Iran’s nuclear programme with EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana in Rome on Tuesday, Elham said.
   He added that Larijani had already offered his resignation several times but only now had Ahmadinejad chosen to accept it.
   ‘Larijani had resigned several times and finally the president accepted his resignation,’ state news agency IRNA quoted Elham as saying.
   Rumours have been circulating in Iran for months that Larijani was at odds with Ahmadinejad and had offered to resign. But nothing had ever been confirmed by officials until now.
   Elham offered no explanation for the resignation except to say that Larijani had ‘personal reasons’ for stepping down.
   His replacement Jalili, a youthful deputy foreign minister born in 1965, is seen by analysts as a close ally of Ahmadinejad.
   ‘The resignation of Larijani has been accepted and Saeed Jalili will be replacing him,’ Elham was quoted as saying, adding that the process to finalise the appointment was underway.
   Political analyst Mohammad Sadegh al-Hosseini said that the appointment was made to increase Ahmadinejad’s control over nuclear policy ahead of parliamentary elections on March 14 and a presidential poll in summer 2009.
   ‘It is a step towards consolidating the camp of Ahmadinejad and shutting the door to any kind of differences,’ he said.
   A top Iranian official added that Larijani had political ambitions of his own.
   ‘Larijani wants to play a more significant political role and perhaps become a member of parliament.’
   Larijani, who took on his post after Ahmadinejad’s election in 2005, has led two years of sensitive talks with EU officials over Iran’s nuclear programme.
   He replaced the moderate negotiating team which had served under reformist president Mohammad Khatami and reversed the suspension of uranium enrichment that had been agreed with EU powers.
   Larijani maintained the government’s line it would never back down in the nuclear standoff and Elham insisted that there would be no change in strategy following his resignation.
   But Larijani’s wordy and relatively moderate rhetoric always contrasted starkly with the populist president’s confrontational and sometimes provocative statements on the nuclear standoff.
   The resignation came a day after Ahmadinejad flatly contradicted a statement by Larijani that the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, had handed over a message on Iran’s nuclear programme during his landmark visit to Iran last week.

The army chief, General Moeen U Ahmed, now in the USA, has cleared his position about drawing loans from bank saying that he took the loan according to bank rules and has been repaying it every month.
   ‘I have taken that amount of loan as permitted under bank rules and I have been repaying it every month,’ he told private TV channel ATN Bangla at JFK airport in New York on Friday.
   The army chief said question of taking a loan of Tk 1 crore does not arise. ‘I have not even taken a loan of Tk 60 lakh.’
   Replying to another question, General Moeen said he repays the loan from the money he gets from house rent every month. All these are documented, he added.
   He said since the prime task of the present government is to free the country from corruption, anyone from army, caretaker government and government officials should not get tangled in it. ‘Everyone should remain accountable.’
   About appointment of consultants, he said the council of advisers of the caretaker government was usually appointed for 90 days. But since this government is to remain in power for two years, it is difficult for 11 advisers to run the administration as each adviser is in charge of four ministries.
   General Moeen said the government was examining the possibility of appointing ‘assistants’ to the adviser by maintaining the constitution.
   Earlier, General Moeen had a meeting with Congressman and co-chair of Bangladesh caucus in US Congress Joseph Crowley.

The Election Commission has invited the Jatiya Party, led by Hussain Muhammed Ershad, to its dialogue on electoral reforms, rejecting the claim of the group led by Rawshan Ershad that it represents the party mainstream.
   The Jatiya Party (Ershad) secretary general, ABM Ruhul Amin Hawlader, told New Age on Saturday that he had received the commission’s invitation letter on Friday.
   ‘We received the invitation and called a presidium meeting for October 25 to decide on our proposal. Acting party chairman Anisul Islam Mahmud will preside over the meeting,’ Hawlader said.
   According to the fresh schedule, the dialogue with the commission will take place on November 1.
   The Ershad-led faction earlier urged the commission to defer the talks, earlier scheduled for September 27.
   The Jatiya Party (Rawshan) in a letter to the Election Commission in the first week of September claimed it was the party mainstream and urged the commission to invite its leaders to the dialogue electoral reforms.
   Two factions of the party — one led by Rawshan and another led by Anisul Islam Mahmud — have been claiming to be the party mainstream.
   Rawshan on June 26 declared herself acting chief of the Jatiya Party at a news briefing at her house at Gulshan although HM Ershad, who has now stepped down, earlier appointed Anisul Islam Mahmud as the acting chairman.

Ayesha Akhter, wife of detained Dhaka University teacher Dr Anwar Hossain, has claimed that her husband did not get proper treatment during his detention in the Dhaka Central Jail.
   In an open letter released to the media on Saturday, Ayesha said her husband’s ear had developed a fungal infection due to unhygienic conditions of the jail building where he was originally kept.
   She also said Anwar had been feeling severe pain since October 3 and had become partially deaf in his left ear, but he was yet to receive proper treatment.
   ‘My husband along with some other teachers was given division in jail one month after their arrest, although they were kept in a cell for convicts until that time,’ Ayesha said.
   ‘Dr Anwar contracted ear infection from the dirty walls of the old jail building. Although he has been feeling severe pain since October 3, he was not sent to the specialist physician at the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University hospital until October 11,’ the letter said.
   Ayesha said she came to know of her husband’s condition during an Eid-day visit. She added that her husband and other detained teachers had now been transferred to the newly built Rupsha Bhaban at the central jail.
   She said her husband resented that his statement to the media following his court appearance had only been partially aired. He is reported to feel that it portrayed him inaccurately.
   The letter continued: Anwar as a guardian of the students spontaneously offered an apology for any assault on members of the army by students.’
   ‘He did not do so out of weakness or to get pity. He wanted to ensure that the unrest did not in any way hamper the process of handing over power to a civilian government elected through fair, neutral and acceptable elections.’
   ‘It is sad that arrests continued despite Anwar’s apology and the chief adviser’s assurance to withdraw 82,000 cases against the students and limit the number to 36.’
   ‘Anwar told me to tell the government, the army and the public that steps must be taken to ensure the army returns to their barrack with dignity. They can do this by handing power to an elected civilian government through a general election.’
   Ssteps need to be taken for the release of all detained teachers and students throughout the country and ensure their proper treatment, she said in the letter.

A regional leader of the ultra-left Purba Banglar Communist Party (ML-Janajuddha) was killed in a gunfight with law enforcers at Peerpur Bazar of Ataikula in Pabna early Saturday, taking to 871 the number of such death after June 2004.
   The deceased was Abdus Salam alias Salam the Killer, 28, of Durgapur at Sujanagar.
   Tipped off, a team of the Rapid Action Battalion team and the police raided the area at about 4:00am at the news of a meeting by the ultra-left party operatives.
   As the law men approached the area, the party operatives started firing, forcing the law enforces to fire back.
   The battalion said Salam was killed in the gunfight. His associates managed to get away.
   The police said he was wanted in a number of cases, including 16 filed over murder.
   The battalion seized a pipe gun, a single-barrel gun and three bullets from the place.

The Department of Shipping has framed a comprehensive rule for inland vessels, especially for the passenger launches, specifying the limit for carrying passengers to reduce risk of accidents and ensure comfortable journeys.
   Sources in the department said various loopholes in the existing rules allowed the dishonest vessel owners to carry passengers beyond the capacity of their launches and it prompted the authorities to frame the ‘unified rule’.
   The department has already started imparting training to the surveyors regarding the new rule, which will come into effect very soon, sources added.
   ‘The unified rule will compel the vessel owners to carry passengers as per the capacity of the vessels and it will reduce risk of accidents and ensure smooth journey for the passengers,’ the director general of the Department of Shipping, AKM Shafiqullah, told New Age.
   Although there was a rule to specify the number of passengers for inland vessels, it was not being followed properly due to some loopholes in it, he added.
   The chief engineer of the department, AKM Alauddin, has been assigned to work with the new rule and the process for its implementation is on, Shafiullah informed.
   According to the department sources, the vessel owners did not follow the existing rules, which was framed in 2000 and implemented in 2004, cashing in on the inconsistencies in its different sections.
   Even the surveyors would go for underhand dealings with the owners in fixing up the permissible number of passengers capitalising on the inconsistencies in the rules, they added.
   As per the previous rules, the owners could dodge the authorities using particular sections for both the motor vessels (MV) and motor launches (ML), but the new rule will leave no such scope for the owners.
   The owners of the 300 seated and 500 seated launches used the previous rules as per their benefit disregarding the possible risk factors for passengers, but the new rules will not allow them to do so, the sources said.
   According to the new rules, it is mandatory to keep one toilet for every 50 passengers, 15 percent open space and 15 percent space for passengers luggage.
   Although there was a provision in the scrapped rules for keeping open space surrounding the staircase, it did not mention the area, but the new rules kept 1.5 meters walking space surrounding the ladder.
   Sources in the Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority said 3,597 people were killed in 385 waterway accidents in the country since 1964 and most of accidents took place due to overloading and operation of the vessels amidst adverse weather and for flouting the rules and regulations.

Three members of a family — a physician of Dhaka Mitford Hospital, his engineer brother and mother — were killed in a road accident on the Dhaka-Khulna Highway in Gopalganj Friday night.
   Four people, including the car driver, were also injured as a car carrying the deceased collided head-on with a locally-improvised human hauler, Nasimon, at Mazra in Kashiani upazila at about 9:30pm.
   The deceased were identified as Mostafa Kamal Mishu, 32, a physician of Mitford Hospital, his younger brother engineer Jitu Rahman, 28, and mother Latifa Begum, 45, also wife of Dr Abdur Rahim of the surgery department at Khulna Medical College Hospital.
   The police said the accident occurred when Mishu and her family members were returning to the capital from their village home at Kamlapur in Paikgachha upazila of Khulna. They went to Kamlapur to celebrate Eid. The three died on the spot.
   The injured — car driver Masud, 30, Nasimon driver Raju, 28, his helper Tariqul, 25, and a passenger of the human hauler, Dilu Sheikh, 30 — were admitted to Kashiani Upazila Health Complex in critical condition.

The Power Division has formed a 10-member technical committee to suggest a new formula to measure the system losses of power agencies, if the committee finds the existing formula inappropriate.
   The committee, headed by United International University vice-chancellor Rezwan Khan, was formed in the first week of October and will start working soon, sources in the division said.
   The division decided to form the committee as it felt that the existing formula of calculating system loss was not appropriate and allowed power pilferage.
   As per the existing formula, the system losses of power distribution agencies are calculated based on the electricity they purchase from the Power Development Board and what they charge their consumers.
   As per the calculations of power agencies, the distribution system loss of the PDB stands at 17.62 per cent, Rural Electrification Board at 16.79 per cent, Dhaka Electric Supply Authority at 19.25 per cent, Dhaka Electric Supply Company at 13.23 per cent, and West Zone Power Distribution Company at 14.73 per cent.
   But many Power Division officials believe that the actual system losses of these agencies are higher than the estimates.
   ‘In many cases, certain cliques in the power agencies make fake and exaggerated bills for consumers to show more electricity sales. Although these bills are not realised, they are also not shown as system loss,’ said a Power Division official.
   He said that the committee would suggest a new formula to calculate the system loss taking into account the current practices.
   Besides, the committee also will recommend ways to reduce technical system loss during transmission and distribution of electricity, he said.
   Reza Shah Alam, general manager of DESA, Abu Abdullah, chief engineer of REB, Shubhash Chandra Basu, chief engineer of WZPDC, Manjur Rahman, director of DESCO, Rafiqul Alam, general manager of Power Grid Company of Bangladesh, and representatives of the Military Institute of Science and Technology, Dhaka University economics department, Infrastructure Development Company Limited, and Power Cell are also on the committee.
   ‘Once the MIST, DU and IDCOL provide the names of their representatives, the committee will begin its work. It will be given 30 working days to complete the tasks,’ said another Power Division official.
   The Power Division in July set targets for five power agencies to reduce their system loss by 0.5 to 3 per cent in the next one year. The PDB is to reduce its system loss to 14.5 per cent, REB to 12 per cent, DESA to 18 per cent, DESCO to 12.5 per cent, and WZPDC to 13 per cent in that period.

At least 10 people died and nearly 550 became sick in the past two weeks after falling victims to muggers, who had forced ointments into the
   eyes or used high intoxicants to make them unconscious, in Dhaka.
   ‘Although incidents of drugging take place all round
   the year, it increases several folds during the month of Ramadan and the high-rate of occurrence continues till one week after the Eid,’ said M Jainal, a record keeper at the emergency department of Dhaka Medical College Hospital.
   Ten people have died at and over 400 admitted to DMCH since October 6 after falling prey to intoxication, he added.
   Other victims were admitted to Sir Salimullah Medical College and Mitford Hospital and other hospitals and privately-run clinics in the city, sources at the Dhaka Metropolitan Police said.
   Many of the victims do not come to the police stations to lodge their complaints in this regard, the DMP sources said adding that 22 mugging, 38 snatching, 41 lifting cases were filed with the 33 police stations under the DMP till October 18 from September 1.
   The victims included a private university teacher, Dewan Rahat Karim Mukul, jewellery businessman Monoranjan Gosh and CNG auto-rickshaw driver Hasmat Mollah.
   According to the law enforcing agencies and hospital sources, the muggers use various techniques to take away cash and valuables from the travellers, particularly of the inter-district buses and long-route river vessels.
   Though such incidents occur all round the year, the number of cases increased during the Eid holidays with organised gangs rampantly stupefying people putting drugs in the foods that produce deep narcosis before looting cash and valuables, they said.
   The victims brought unconscious by police, passengers, relatives and paediatricians
   regain their senses usually
   after two days but those with high dosage fail to recover, said FM Siddiqui, head of medicine at Dhaka Medical College Hospital.
   Nazrul Islam, 38, a private-sector bank employee, who was returning to the capital from Tangail on Thursday and was lying at DMCH on Friday, cannot recall what happened after he had got down from the bus at Mohakhali terminal.
   Nazrul, who resides at Chamelibagh, can only recall that he had shook hands with a co-passenger while getting down from the bus.
   Most of the travel-related poisoning patients come to the hospital in deep sedation, their pinpoint pupil indicate that they might have been intoxicated by narcotics (morphine) or any other form of sedatives.
   ‘In most cases, we do not have to do anything as they recover gradually within two to three days,’ said Dr Shamol Chandra Sarkar, a consultant of medicine at DMCH.
   Doctors at DMCH found benzodiazepines in urine samples of some of these patients, but could not specify it because of lack of analysing facilities.
   These poisons in liquid or solid form might be a cocktail of drugs for which no particular physical symptoms can be identified, they added.
   Anaesthesiologist claimed that these drugs could be an anaesthetic agent used by veterinarians as many patients come to hospital, who said that they took green coconut.

Pakistani newspapers urged Saturday political parties to unite to fight religious extremism in the wake of the nation’s worst suicide bombing that killed 139 people.
   Papers warned that the rise of extremism was the biggest
   challenge facing the Islamic nation of 160 million people as it attempts to return to democracy with general elections due in January.
   ‘It is even more evident now that moderate forces should join hands and work harder to fight the forces of extremism,’ the widely published Urdu-language Jang newspaper said.
   ‘The entire nation should rise above political, religious
   and regional conflicts and
   work as one to fight the threat because extremism and terrorism is the biggest challenge
   facing Pakistan,’ it said in an editorial.
   The suicide blasts overnight Thursday in Karachi targeted
   former premier Benzir Bhutto who returned to Pakistan
   after eight years in self-imposed exile to lead her party in the elections.
   The blasts ripped through a crowd of tens of thousands of her supporters gathered on the streets for her homecoming parade.
   Benazir, who was unharmed, said she received warnings ahead of her return about members of al-Qaeda, Pakistani and Afghan Taliban and a Karachi-based militant group who may plan to attack her.
   The English-language Daily Times warned extremism was destroying the move to democracy and jeopardising the January election.
   ‘Democracy can function only after conditions for it have been created, the upmost of which is law and order and writ of the government.
   ‘Inside Pakistan, the biggest obstacle in the way of democracy is terrorism, and those who don’t want to fight it cannot be friends of democracy,’ it said in an editorial.
   The entire front page of the paper’s Metro section named those killed on Thursday under the headline ‘The names of those who will be missed.’
   Dawn urged the government of president Pervez Musharraf, who seized power in a 1999 coup, against using the tragedy to curtail campaigning for the election, saying free campaigning was an essential part of any democracy.
   Embattled Musharraf signed an amnesty clearing Benazir of corruption charges to allow her to return, in a move towards a power-sharing pact between the pair to shore up his support ahead of the expected hard-fought poll.
   In an editorial titled ‘Standing up to terror’ the newspaper said: ‘All political parties must unite to fight religious extremism, led as it is in most cases by semi-literate fanatics.’
   The English-language paper pointed out that the sheer number of people who turned out for Bhutto’s homecoming showed support for democracy not fanaticism.
   ‘The terrorists may kill and destroy, but the Pakistani people have made their choice clear: They stand their ground and reject fanaticism that thrives on human blood.’

Convalescing Cuban leader Fidel Castro slammed US elections Saturday as fraud-plagued contests for millionaires, as he urged countrymen to vote in the Americas’ only one-party communist system Sunday.
   ‘Our elections are the antithesis of those held in United States ... There, first you have to be very rich, or have an enormous amount of money behind you,’ said Castro, 81, who 15 months ago handed over the reins of power to his brother Raul Castro after major intestinal surgery.
   In the United States ‘to be elected president, you need hundreds of millions (of dollars), which come straight out of the coffers of the big monopolies.
   A candidate can win who actually got a minority of the popular vote,’ Castro marvelled in a jab at the US president, George W Bush, who, thanks to the unusual US electoral college system, won the presidency in 2000 though Al Gore won the popular vote.
   ‘There is fraud, trickery, ethnic discrimination and even violence,’ Castro said of the US electoral system, in his latest missive in Granma, the Cuban Communist Party newspaper.
   Sunday, more than 8.3 million Cubans over the age of 16 (in a country of 11.2 million) are summoned to vote for 15,236 council persons in a tiered system in place since 1976, which in early 2008 is supposed to yield the 31 members of the Council of State which for more than five decades has been led by Fidel Castro.
   Though last year Cuban officials insisted that Fidel Castro would return to work as prior to his illness, they long since have stopped making such predictions.
   The elections are expected to clarify whether the status quo of an interim government led by Raul Castro will be left in place with Fidel formally at the helm.

The army chief, General Moeen U Ahmed, now in the USA, made a courtesy call on the Congressman and co-chair of Bangladesh Caucus, Joseph Crowly, on Friday.
   During the meeting, Crowly expressed his satisfaction over various measures taken by the present caretaker government to hold a free and fair election and check corruption.
   He also praised different initiatives of the government, including establishment of an independent election commission, anti-corruption commission and making flawless voters’ list to hold a free and neutral election through implementing the poll roadmap.
   The army chief thanked Crowly for his continuous support to Bangladesh.
   General Moeen visited the Jackson Heights in Queens, a commercial hub dominated by the expatriate Bangladeshis.
   He exchanged greetings with the expatriate Bangladeshis and was happy to see the expansion of their business in the area.

An anti-globalisation march in the streets of Washington turned violent, with shop windows smashed as crowds protested on the eve of Saturday’s International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings, reports said.
   Banner-waving crowds, protesting what they see as harmful policies of the financial bodies, marched peacefully at first late Friday before a disturbance broke out in the up-market neighbourhood of Georgetown.
   Police came out in force with riot masks and batons and ordered the crowds to disperse.
   City police spokesman Quentin Peterson told AFP one young woman was taken to hospital for an injury after she was hit in the face by a brick. Local television reported that two clothing stores’ windows were smashed.
   Marchers headed west to Georgetown’s shopping strip since they could not get close to the IMF and World Bank headquarters in the heart of the city. Security was tight there as ministers from around the world were to attend the meetings.
   The campaign group that organized the protest, October Rebellion, detailed its complaints against the IMF and World Bank on its website, accusing them of harming the poor through their ‘neoliberal’ loan policies.

Assailants slit the throat of a man during a robbery at a Rupsha house in the Khulna city and strangled another at Dumuria Friday night.
   The victims were identified as Kumaresh Biswas, 50, of Rupsha Strand Road in the city, and Asmaul Moral of Bagdari village in Dumuria upazila.
   The police said unidentified assailants had slit the throat of Kumaresh and dumped the body in the washroom of his Strand Road residence. They also took Tk 5,000 and 20 bhoris of gold ornaments from the house in the evening.
   Other members of the family, who were not present in the house during the incident, found the body after returning home at around 9.45pm and informed the police.
   The police sent the body to hospital morgue for a post-mortem examination. The victim’s son Anupam lodged a case in this connection.
   In Dumuria, two persons called out Asmaul from his father-in-law’s residence Friday evening and he did not return at night, the Dumuria police said quoting the family.
   The local people found the body in Kharia Beel Saturday morning and informed police.
   The police recovered the body with the neck tied with a rope. The police sent the body to hospital for an autopsy.

The voter registration and national identity card preparation work started in Barisal City Corporation on Saturday morning after completion of data about the residents of six city wards.
   M Harun Chowdhury, divisional commissioner of Barisal, inaugurated the work at the Syeda Majedunnesa School centre at BCC Ward 1.
   The district election officer, Manirul Islam, said the work of data entry of group ‘Ka’ in wards 1 to 5 and 7 had been done in October 4–10, during which 39,0074 voters, including 18,180 men and 20,894 women, filled up the data entry forms.
   Now, their photographs will be taken by 240 operators using 150 laptops in 20 centres of those six wards until October 25.
   Simultaneously, the data collection work about group ‘Kha’, the residents of wards 6, 8, 9, 10, 16, and 17 also started on Wednesday.

A Chittagong Port mobile court realised Tk 1.95 crore from inland vessels in outstanding taxes and penalty in nine months after January.
   The court, led by CPA magistrate Mohammed Munir Chowdhury, realised the amount from 55 inland vessels in drives in the port channel.
   The court realised Tk 1.35 crore in outstanding mooring charges, Tk 50 lakh in port and river dues and Tk 10 lakh in penalty. The magistrate said they had issued notices to 250 other owners and agents of vessels, including lighters, oil tankers and fishing vessels, to pay the outstanding port taxes.

India won the Twenty20 match against Australia by 7 wickets in Mumbai on Saturday.
   The last bash was hit by the Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni, himself, hitting a six.
   Earlier, after a well played inning of 63 runs off 52 balls, Gautam Gambhir misjudged a simple delivery by Hilfenhaus and was caught by Australian captain Ricky Ponting, guarding at the mid-on.
   India was looking in total control, after Yuvraj Singh hit some huge sixes annoying the Australian bowlers like Andrew Symonds and Michael Clarke showing some signs of destroying the Australians effort to challenge the Indian supremacy in the shorter version of the game.
   Earlier, Australia set India a challenging 167-run target at the Twenty20 match in Mumbai on Saturday.
   Skipper Ricky Ponting top scored with a quick-fire 76 run of just 53 balls.
   Irfan Pathan struck at regular intervals taking two crucial wickets of Ricky Ponting and Brad Hodge.
   RP Singh took the Adam Gilchrist’s wicket for 12 runs as he look set for a big score.
   Yuvraj Singh ran out Andrew Symonds for 20 runs.

The internet connectivity and overseas telephone call services were partially suspended from Friday night to Saturday noon as the fibre-optic cable was severed at two places on the Feni–Chittagong and Cox’s Bazar–Chittagong routes.
   The Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board in a release said the cable was cut at Madamdebi Hat, some 15 kilometres off Chittagong on route to Feni at 10:50pm Friday because of a landslide. The cable was also reported severed at Dulahazra, some 117 kilometres off Chittagong towards Cox’s Bazar when a maintenance team was fixing the cable at Madamdebi Hat at about 2:50am Saturday.
   The telephone board managed to keep the international call service operational on a limited scale through its satellite backup. The internet and international telephone call services resumed at 12:30pm on Saturday.
   The telephone board lodged a general diary with the Chakaria police in connection with the cable cut at Dulahazra.