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In response to the administrative officials’ vociferous demand for deferment of the deadline for separating the judiciary from the executive and reviewal of the process, and their threat to go on strike, the interim government on Sunday warned them to desist from creating any commotion over the issue.
   The judiciary is waiting for its long-fought-for freedom from the executive in line with the constitution and the 12-point directive of the Supreme Court on November 1, while administrative officials continue to express their unease, claiming that stripping the district magistrates and other executive magistrates of judicial powers would weaken the administration and give rise to law and order problems.
   ‘The officials of the administrative cadre have finally exposed those who have delayed the separation process, and what they are doing is completely in violation of the constitution and is also tantamount to contempt of court,’ an adviser told New Age.
   The reaction coincided with the issuance of a charter of demands by the administrative officials at a BIAM Foundation-initiated seminar that turned into a meeting of the Bangladesh Administrative Service Association, with the field-level officers protesting angrily and expressing their displeasure at the withdrawal of their judicial powers.
   In the seminar, held at the Bangladesh Institute of Administration and Management, the field officers in 64 districts were asked to hold discussions at the district collectorate offices and to adopt resolutions over the issue. The association will prepare recommendations for the government, based on the resolutions taken by the aggrieved officials.
   ‘The separation of the judiciary is not a sudden move. It is a constitutional obligation and the government is just implementing the directives of the highest court of the land,’ law adviser Mainul Hosein told New Age. ‘I do not think that the administrative officials should shoulder the blame for delaying the separation process.’
   When it was mentioned that the officials are afraid of losing their power, he said, ‘We can discuss how to strengthen the administration.’
   Meanwhile, the registrar of the Supreme Court, Iktedar Ahmed, on Sunday sought the cooperation of all quarters in completing the separation of the judiciary from November 1.
   ‘The separation of the judiciary is a constitutional obligation and the Supreme Court has issued the 12-point directive for implementation of the constitutional imperative,’ he said at a press briefing at the Supreme Court held to express appreciation of the interim government, the chief adviser and law adviser for their initiative to implement the Supreme Court’s directives.
   Masder Hossain, a district judge and one of the petitioners of the writ petition which subsequently resulted in the SC’s 12-point directive issued on December 2, 1999, observed that the separation of judiciary would ensure the people’s right to justice.
   Dismissing the administrative officials’ apprehension of losing their power, the judicial officers said they would have the scope to be absorbed in judicial service and they would lose no power excepting their judicial power.
   The Bangladesh Judicial Service Association’s president, AKM Istiaq Hussain, and its secretary-general, Ataur Rahman, were also present at the press briefing.
   The chief counsel of the writ petitioners, M Amirul Islam, told New Age, ‘The ongoing activities of the administrative officials and the opinions expressed by them are highly contemptuous of the court and a clear violation of the constitution.’
   ‘No one can make any adverse comments on any order of the Supreme Court, and if someone is aggrieved, s/he can seek redress before the court only,’ he said.
   The Professionals Coordination Council, a combine of professional bodies including the government cadre services excepting the administrative cadre, the Bangladesh Civil Service Coordination Committee, a forum of the government cadre services excepting the administrative cadre, the Dhaka Bar Association and Bangladesh Ain Samity, in separate press statements on Sunday, condemned the administrative officials’ resistance against separation of the judiciary.
   In their statements they urged the administrative officials not to oppose separation of the judiciary, which is the desire of the nation and necessary for democracy to flourish. They also urged the government to go ahead with the November 1 deadline for separation of the judiciary, as only a particular cadre service was protesting against the separation process.
   The Supreme Court has written letters to the district judges, asking them to complete the preparation for establishment of the judicial magistracy by November 1, said the registrar, Iktedar Ahmed.
   In the letter, the district judges were asked to extend all-out cooperation to the 179 judicial magistrates, who have already been appointed.
   The letter also asked them to continue judicial functions with the courtroom and other infrastructure and logistic support already provided to them, and not to tussle with the local administration over the issues, said sources.
   At the BIAM seminar, the administrative officials protested vociferously and expressed their opposition to the withdrawal of their judicial powers and the November 1 deadline for independence of the judiciary.
   Deputy secretary Abul Hossain presented the keynote paper which he titled ‘Independence of the judiciary for good governance’, but which was actually a diatribe against independence of the judiciary. Dhaka’s divisional commissioner Ikram Ahmed chaired the seminar. The association’s president and rector of the Bangladesh Public Administration Training Centre, Abu Md Moniruzzaman Khan, spoke as the chief guest while additional secretary Akmal Hossain Azad acted as the moderator. Columnist Farhad Mazhar, former secretary Abdul Muyeed Chowdhury, Biman’s managing director Abdul Momen and metropolitan magistrate Rokon Ud-Doula spoke, among others, at the seminar.
   Farhad Mazhar said the judiciary could not be separated from the executive functionally. He blamed the judiciary for the political crisis, and said that people do not have confidence in this branch of the government!
   Abul Hossain said there were anomalies in the rules for independence of judiciary and they should be rectified before separating the judiciary from the executive.
   Rokon Ud-Doula, theatrically venting his anger, raved against withdrawal of the administrative officials’ judicial powers, and exhorted the cadre officials at the Bangladesh Secretariat and in the field administration to refrain from work from November 1. He went on to say that even if he is arrested or prosecuted for his protest against the government, his fellow officials should put down their pens and stop working. He achieved some fame after the newspapers wrote about him several times when he raided markets and factories to look for adulterated goods or fake products.

The government has planned to change the curricula of Class VI to Class VIII and Class XI–XII, education officials told New Age in the past week.
   The curricula of the Class VI to Class VIII were last changed in 1996 and 1997 and the Class XI–XII curricula in 1998, said the officials of the National Curriculum and Textbook Board.
   The board renews, modifies, and develops the curricula and produces and distributes textbooks for primary, secondary and higher secondary students.
   The earlier government move to change the curricula of Class IX–X has been halted since December 2005 for lack of preparation and amid opposition from educationists and the curricula are unlikely to be changed before 2009, education ministry officials said.
   ‘Recruited by the Asian Development Bank, an adviser to the Secondary Education Sector Development Project has prepared the plan of action on the change in curricula of Class VI to Class VIII and Class XI–XII,’ said M Afzalur Rahman, director of the Tk 793-crore project working on the change in the curricula.
   ‘Madrassah curricula for Grade 6 to Grade 12 will be modernised under the project, jointly-funded by the Asian Development Bank and Bangladesh,’ a ministry official said. ‘We have not, however, prepared the plan of action on madrassah curricula at this moment.’
   ‘Changing the curricula is a component of the Tk 793-crore project and a number of trained officials attached with the textbook board will start working on the change as soon as we get the ministry approval,’ Afzalur Rahman said.
   Explaining the necessity for the change, he said, ‘The curricula of Class I to Class V were changed between 2003 and 2006. We, therefore, need to change the curricula of the upper grades to keep the continuity in the learning process.’
   ‘We will try to reach the textbooks of the changed curricula to the students in January 2010. But our target may be deferred if preparations are not made by the time,’ the project director said.
   ‘The new curricula in Class VI to Class VIII and Class XI–XII will include update on computer studies/ICT subjects. Teachers will be trained to teach the ICT subject. E-learning will be piloted in 20 schools to support the teaching of English, mathematics, and science subjects,’ the project documents said.
   Asked about the possibility of any negative impact on the students for the change in the curricula, the additional education secretary AKM Abdul Awal Majumdar said, ‘The aims of the change are to keep our students updated on the modern world.’
   A headmaster of a city school told New Age, ‘Most teachers from junior-secondary to higher secondary levels have remained untrained since beginning of their jobs.
   ‘The teachers need to be trained before changing the curricula as they will be facing the classrooms,’ he said.

Trade liberalisation that eventually has resulted in skyrocketing of food prices afflicts the rural population of Bangladesh, admits the World Bank in its World Development Report 2008: Agriculture for Development.
   The report released by the bank on Friday also says that the trend of shrinking the sizes of farms in economies, such as Bangladesh, which still heavily rely on agriculture, is another major cause of rural poverty, and such a reality can generate further social tensions, leading to civil conflicts.
   ‘Trade liberalisation that raises the price of food hurts net buyers (the largest group of rural poor in countries like Bolivia and Bangladesh) and benefits net sellers (the largest group of rural poor in Cambodia and Vietnam),’ reads the report.
   The report of the multilateral lending agency, which prescribed the process of trade liberalisation in the 1990s, also claims that a liberal trade policy, inducing massive imports of rice by hundreds of small traders during the 1998 floods, helped the government stabilise prices without building up any large stock.
   Quoting a Bangladesh study, the WB report asserts that although the ‘average landless poor household loses from an increase in rice prices in the short run’ but it ‘gains in the long run as wages rise over time’.
   The report, forecasting a further increase in food prices on the international market, expressed ‘particular concern’ for the food-importing developing countries, ‘Because many of the poorest countries spend a large part of their incomes on cereal imports’.
   More than 50 per cent of the poor in Bangladesh, according to the report, comprise the rural landless households and they spend 27 per cent of their total budget for buying rice, the nation’s staple food. And so, it says, ‘Poor Bangladeshis are the most vulnerable to increases in rice prices.’
   Only 8 per cent of the country’s poor are found to be net sellers of food. ‘So the aggregate welfare effect of a change in rice prices is dominated by its effect on net buyers.’
   Also, the number of farms in Bangladesh has doubled over the past 20 years, increasing the number of farms smaller than 0.2 hectares in size proportionately. ‘Continuing demographic pressures imply rapidly declining farm sizes, becoming so minute that they can compromise survival if off-farm income opportunities are not available,’ the report cautions.
   It also points out that ‘a large share of rural households… does not have any access to land’.
   The Washington-based lending agency, however, attributed what it termed the substantial reductions in rural poverty in Bangladesh to earnings form rising farm and non-farm activities and lower rice prices thanks to use of new technologies, besides manpower export which has also benefited the rural as well as the national economy.
   The report has triggered the question whether a densely populated Asian country like Bangladesh, with its labour-intensive small-scale farming, would be able to produce cereals and other staple foods efficiently in its farms that generally tiny in size, especially if rural wages rise.
   In South Asia, the report predicts, the decline in farm size will continue because the rural population has been growing by 1.5 per cent a year.
   As an indicator of poverty, the report mentions that Bangladesh, India, and Nepal occupy three of the top four positions in the global ranking of underweight children.
   The World Development Report also expresses concern for the developing countries due to proliferation and stringency of food safety and health measures being adopted in export markets. ‘Many fear that the emerging standards will be discriminatory and protectionist,’ it observes.
   The document underlines the need for increasing the productivity of agricultural labour through consolidation and mechanisation of farms to bypass the widening gap between rural and urban wages in many Asian countries.
   Millions of workers employed in rural areas are said to be trapped in low-earning jobs in Bangladesh, where around one million people join the rural workforce every year. The WB report mentions that non-farm rural employment increased at the rate of 0.7 per cent and farm employment at 0.1 per cent a year during the 1990s.
   Delineating a strong record of agriculture in development, the report posts an estimate that the contribution of agriculture to the growth in gross domestic product was at least twice as effective in reducing poverty as the GDP growth in non-agricultural sectors.
   The report calls upon the policymakers of countries facing severe resource constrains to attach a balanced priority to various sectors and give due attention to agriculture, especially to increasing investment in the sector.
   The report correlates agricultural development with achievement of the UN Millennium Development Goals of halving extreme poverty and hunger by 2015. It acknowledges that, despite convincing successes, agriculture has not been used to its full potential in many countries because of anti-agriculture policy biases and underinvestment, often compounded by mis-investment and donors’ neglect, at the cost of severe human sufferings.
   ‘A dynamic “agriculture for development” agenda can benefit the estimated 900 million rural people in the developing world most of whom are engaged in agriculture and who live on less than $1 a day,’ the World Bank Group president, Robert B Zoellick, told the launching ceremony of the report in Washington on Friday.
   ‘We need to give agriculture more prominence across the board. At the global level, countries must deliver on vital reforms, such as cutting distorting subsidies and opening up markets, while the civil society groups, especially the farmers’ organisations, need more say in setting the agricultural agenda,’ Zoelink maintained.

Top policymakers of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party have begun behind-the-scenes initiatives for resolving differences between the conformists and the followers of the expelled party secretary general Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan.
   M Shamsul Islam, a BNP standing committee member, on Sunday met the party secretary general, Khandaker Delwar Hossain, at the latter’s Sher-e-Bangla Nagar apartment and discussed about possible reconciliation, a source close to Delwar told New Age.
   Delwar, however, told reporters that he was yet to be approached for any ‘formal’ move for reconciliation. ‘…If approached formally, we will think about it [compromise],’ he said.
   ‘Some people tried to give an impression that there has been a split in the party but they seem to have begun realising that there is no alternative to the leadership of Khaleda Zia. BNP remains united under her leadership,’ he said adding, ‘We have to remain alert against any confusion. The unity of BNP has to be kept intact.’
   M Shamsul Islam, a senior minister in Khaleda Zia’s 1991-96 and 2001-2006 cabinets, declined to disclose what he had discussed with Delwar.
   Shamsul Islam, believed to be a moderate, said, ‘Reconciliation is a necessity….Division in the party is not desirable. But everything must be done maintaining the party discipline.
   Jatiyatabadi Juba Dal general secretary Syed Moazzem Hossain Alal, Jatiyatabadi Krishak Dal general secretary Shamsuzzaman Dudu and a group of leaders from different constituencies in Narsinghdi district, a stronghold of Mannan Bhuiyan, met Delwar on Sunday and extended their support.
   Mahbubur Rahman, another standing committee member, told New Age that the standing committee members and senior leaders of the party were holding informal discussions to expedite the process of reconciliation within the party. The BNP chairperson’s adviser, ASM Hannan Shah, however, said if anybody wanted to return to the party he must follow the due process.
   Meanwhile, Ashraf Hossain, the expelled joint-secretary general and a key ally of Mannan Bhuiyan, said after meeting the latter at Gulshan, ‘We always want a united BNP and for this our efforts are on.’ He, however, claimed, ‘We are the mainstream BNP and Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan is our secretary general.’

Pro-Taliban militants blew up a girls’ school in Pakistan’s restive tribal area bordering Afghanistan, security officials said Sunday.
   The school building was destroyed in the attack in Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan region, after militants planted explosives there late Saturday, a security official said.
   ‘There were no casualties as the building was empty,’ he added.
   The attack came amid an upsurge in violence in Pakistan’s deeply conservative tribal zone where militants consider female education un-Islamic. The region has seen previous attacks on video and music shops blamed on militants emulating the ultra-orthodox Taliban, who ruled Afghanistan from 1996 until their ouster in a US-led invasion in 2001.
   The attack on the school was the second in two days after a similar incident in another tribal town of Khar in Bajaur district.
   Violence in the tribal region straddling Afghanistan has spiked since an army raid at a pro-Taliban mosque in the capital Islamabad in July.
   Almost 400 people have been killed in the violence, mainly in suicide attacks, an AFP tally of the incidents shows.

Benazir Bhutto on Sunday urged Pakistan to enlist international experts to help find those behind last week’s suicide attack which turned the former premier’s homecoming parade into bloody carnage.
   Benazir made the plea after visiting hospitals to meet some of those injured in Thursday’s blasts, which killed 139 people and ruined her planned triumphant return to Pakistan after eight years in self-imposed exile.
   ‘We want the government of Pakistan to seek the assistance of the international community,’ the two-time premier told a group of foreign reporters at her Karachi home.
   ‘They have anti-terrorism experts who have the technical expertise to investigate attacks of this nature,’ she said, adding that she had discussed the issue with countries including the United States and Britain.
   Benazir also called for the current Pakistani investigators to be replaced, saying that she suspects that Pakistan’s security agencies have been infiltrated by ‘militants and al-Qaeda’.
   Meanwhile, police questioned three people Sunday over the attack, which sparked a third straight day of low-level protests by her supporters in several cities in southern Pakistan, officials said.
   The three suspects were linked to a car from which an attacker threw a grenade, a police official said, shortly before the suicide blast.
   The police have also questioned seven militants in jails in Karachi for possible information on the blasts, added the official, who has investigated several other attacks in the volatile port city.
   Benazir, the first female leader of an Islamic nation, reiterated her pledge to stay in Pakistan to campaign ahead of general elections in January, seen as a key step to restoring civilian rule in the country of 160 million.
   ‘We will have to modify our campaign to some extent because of the suicide bombings but we are not going to stop our campaign to reach the public,’ she said.
   ‘The militants are trying to disrupt the political process because they do not want... the moderate majority of the people of Pakistan to stand up.’
   The attack on her homecoming parade had cast doubt over her previous plans to tour the country to whip up support ahead of the crucial polls.
   Earlier Sunday, Bhutto visited those wounded in the bombings at two hospitals, making her first public outing in Karachi since the attacks.
   Flanked by heavy security carrying automatic weapons, she waved to dozens of supporters upon leaving Jinnah Hospital after she handed out envelopes containing 5,000 rupees (84 dollars) to the injured.
   Benazir insisted that her homecoming was not a mistake despite the carnage, adding that the size of the crowds ‘shows that the people of Pakistan are not intimidated by bombs and threats.’
   Around 10 groups of protesters, each of about 50 people, burned tyres and hurled stones in a stronghold of Benazir’s party in Karachi, while streets elsewhere were deserted, an AFP correspondent said.
   Similar protests were held in other cities in Sindh province.

The Election Commission has selected 34 Bangladeshi enclaves in India to register the eligible voters there under three northern districts.
   The EC plans to start voters’ registration in those enclaves from December by enlisting the eligible people of Dohogram-Angorpotha enclave under the Lalmonirhat.
   The EC has already sent the list of the selected enclaves to he Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Home Affairs and plans to sit with the Bangladesh Rifles later to discuss ways of successfully including enclave dwellers in the voters’ roll.
   The EC has also appointed 155 officials, including 107 enumerators and supervisors, for voters’ registration in those areas.
   Besides, 15 assistant registration officers, seven upazila election officers, seven upazila nirbahi officers, three district election officers, three police superintendents and three deputy commissioners will supervise the process of voters’ registration.
   The enclaves selected by the EC are Nalgram, Phalnapur and Dahagram-Angarpota under Patgram upazila of Lalmonirhat district; Bagrigach and Kibagrigach under Aditmari upazila; Uttar Bashjani, Uttar Mashaldanga, Purba Mashaldanga, Madhya Mashalda-nga, Pashchim Mashaldanga, Chhitkakua, Dakshin Mashaldanga, Pashchim Chhitmashaldanga, Purba Chhitmashaldanga, Purba Chhitmashaldanga, Purba Mashal-danga, Poaturkuthi, Pashchim Bakalirchara, Madhya Bakalirchara, Purba Bakalirchara, Chattilat and Uttar Dhaldanga under Bhurunga-mari upazila of Kurigram district; Chhitkarla and Chhit Prashad Mustafi under Fulbari upazila of Kurigram district; Garati, Kajaldighi, Shalbari, Dykhatha, Najigaganj and Putimari under Boda upazila of Panchagar Sadar; Nataktoka, Behuldanga, Kotbhajoni, Dahla Khagrabari and Balapara Khagrabari under Debiganj upazila of Panchagarh district.
   The EC had earlier requested the foreign ministry to inform the Indian authorities of the move and seek their cooperation.
   The estimated population in 51 Bangladeshi enclaves inside India is between 3 lakh and 3.5 lakh. These people, though officially branded as Bangladeshi citizens, are virtually isolated from the mainland and have no access to public amenities and no basic rights.
   Enclave dwellers were made voters in 1992 also, but the EC could not enable them to cast their votes, said an election official.
   There are 111 Indian enclaves measuring 17,158 acres within Bangladesh territory, while India has 51 Bangladeshi enclaves with an area of about 7,110 acres.
   Bangladesh ratified the 1974 Mujib-Indira boundary agreement and handed over a number of Indian enclaves in Bangladesh to India, but the Indian authorities are yet to do the same, said officials.

The law adviser, Mainul Hosein, on Sunday dismissed demands for dialogue with political parties, saying such an exercise would affect the interim government’s neutral credentials.
   Mainul’s comment came after a senior Awami League leader’s suggestion that the government discuss with political parties to resolve some ‘political issues’.
   Syed Asharful Islam, acting general secretary of the Awami League, on Saturday told a media briefing that it would be pointless to talk to the Election Commission about those political issues.
   The 58-year-old party is clearly facing a tough time since its chief Sheikh Hasina was put behind bars in July.
   Ashraful had maintained that some issues would not be resolved without direct dialogue with the government.
   He raised the demand ahead of Monday’s crucial meeting of the party’s influential central working committee to decide its strategy for electoral reforms talks slated for November 4 with the commission.
   The political issues that Ashraful said his party would want to discuss with the government included the neutrality of the administration, law and order, election-time environment, measures to make the elections free and fair, and election observers.
   But Mainul, far from convinced, insisted the political parties talk to the commission for any election related issue.
   ‘There’s no reason for sitting with the political parties for dialogue. I can’t understand why they want to sit with the government. They better talk to the commission, it will work,’ Mainul told the news agency by phone.
   ‘In light of their dialogue outcome, the commission may seek cooperation from the government. We’ll provide the commission with all necessary assistance. Holding a free and fair election is the commission’s job. The government can just facilitate them,’ he said.

The Rapid Action Battalion arrested in the city on Saturday night one of the main suspects in the killing of four people in a shootout involving rival political processions at Malibagh in 2001.
   The suspect, Mohammad Dulal Miah, 30, was caught when he was preparing for committing crime in Moghbazar area around midnight, the RAB said.
   The battalion said that Dulal was shown in newspaper photographs brandishing firearms in the procession led by former Awami League lawmaker, Dr HBM Iqbal. The photos were published in different dailies on February 14, 2001, the day after the incident.
   The arrested person admitted that he had fired shots from the procession led by Iqbal after hearing gun shots from the direction another procession that was passing by.
   On the day, Iqbal was leading an anti-hartal procession which confronted a pro-hartal procession led by the then Jatiyatabadi Juba Dal president Mirza Abbas at Malibagh intersection. The anti-hartal procession was coming from Moghbazar area while the other from the BNP central office at Naya Paltan. The BNP called a daylong hartal for the day as part of its protests against the then ruling Awami League.
   Some of participants in the rival processions locked in a gunfight leaving at least five people, including a policeman, dead and many others injured. Two separate cases were filed regarding the incident and both the cases are pending with the court.
   Besides, Dulal was also involved in the killing of Rajib at Rampura, Dr Nehar and Dhaka University student Partha Saha at Badda in the city, RAB said.
   He was handed over to Ramna police on Sunday evening.

The Anti-Corruption Commi-ssion is likely to question detained former prime minister and Awami League president Sheikh Hasina this week in connection with the Tk 3-crore graft case filed against her and six others on September 2.
   ACC deputy director Shabbir Hasan filed the case with the Tejgaon police station, accusing Hasina of taking bribes of Tk 3 crore from two power sector companies — Summit Group and United Group.
   According to FIR, Hasina took the bribes between October 24, 1996 and November 24, 1997. The two power companies bribed Hasina to buy land for Bangabandhu Memorial Trust in exchange for permission to set up a barge-mounted power plant in Khulna.
   ‘Investigation officer and ACC deputy director Morshed Alam has already sought permission from the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate’s Court for questioning the former prime minister. If the permission is granted, Hasina is likely to be questioned at the makeshift jail sometime this week,’ a source told the news agency.
   ‘The exact timing of questioning will be fixed in consultation with the prison authorities after we get permission from the court,’ the source added.
   Another former prime minister and BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia was questioned by the ACC on October 11 in connection with the GATCO graft case.

Durga Puja, the greatest religious festival of the Hindu community, ended on Sunday with ceremonial immersion of the images of deities after five days of festivities.
   Durga is considered as a symbol of truth prevailing over the forces of evil and injustice. According to the Hindu mythology, Bijoya Dashami is the special ceremony to reaffirm peace and good relations among people of the world.
   The last day rituals of the festival were marked especially by exchange of ‘Bijoya Greetings’ among all devotees also those of other religious faiths.
   Hundreds of devotees brought out big processions in the city Sunday afternoon carrying the images.
   The processions paraded the main thoroughfares and ended at the Sadarghat where immersion of the Goddess Durga took place. The five-day celebrations got off to a festive start on Wednesday across the country amid due religious fervour and much enthusiasm.
   As many as 20,659 puja mandaps were erected in the country this year to perform rituals of the puja. In the capital, 162 puja mandaps were erected this year while the figure was 156 last year.
   Of the six new puja mandaps, one was erected on the premises of Kalabagan Krira Chakra under Dhanmandi Thana for the first time.
   The images of the Goddess Durga were immersed in the districts, including Chittagong, Sylhet, Rajshahi, Khulna, Barisal, Narayan-ganj, Narsingdi, Manik-ganj, Gazipur, Mymensingh, Jamalpur, Tangail, Madaripur, Faridpur, Chuadanga, Pabna, Comilla, Feni, Bogra, Dinajpur and Rangpur.

The army chief, General Moeen U Ahmed, now on a visit to the USA, has said some quarters tried to make Bangladesh a failed state and some prepared to make the country like Somalia.
   He said the army and other security forces came forward to save the country not only from foreign enemies, but also from internal enemies too.
   Moeen made the remarks Saturday evening at a civic reception in Florida, organised by Bangladesh Business Community of Florida, according to media reports received in Dhaka.
   Recognising Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman as father of the nation and late president Ziaur Rahman as national leader, the army chief said instead of giving due honour to the great leaders in the past, they were used in political interest and the nation was kept divided.
   ‘Let’s recognise the two leaders and other leaders as national leaders and steer the nation forward,’ he told the function.
   About anti-corruption drive, Moeen said those who committed corruption and were benefited would not easily spare the caretaker government.
   ‘It’s definitely a big challenge’ to move Bangladesh forward by countering the corrupt people, he said and vowed to continue this big task against corruption.
   The army chief said a big amount of siphoned money was sent to the USA. Of the smuggled-out money, $129 million were repatriated, he said, adding it would be possible to bring back $240 million smuggled-out money from abroad.
   He urged the Bangladeshi expatriates to make investment in the country taking advantage of the present situation, which is free of corruption and harassment.
   Bangladesh Business Committee Florida president Showkat Hossain presided over the function.

Cities around the world are facing the danger of rising seas and other disasters related to climate change.
   Of the 33 cities predicted to have at least 8 million people by 2015, at least 21 are highly vulnerable, says the Worldwatch Institute.
   They include Dhaka, Bangladesh; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Shanghai and Tianjin in China; Alexandria and Cairo in Egypt; Mumbai and Kolkata in India; Jakarta, Indonesia;
   Tokyo and Osaka-Kobe in Japan; Lagos, Nigeria; Karachi, Pakistan; Bangkok, Thailand, and New York and Los Angeles in the United States, according to studies by the United Nations and others.
   More than one-tenth of the world’s population, or 643 million people, live in low-lying areas at risk from climate change, say US and European experts. Most imperilled, in descending order, are China, India, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Indonesia, Japan, Egypt, the US, Thailand and the Philippines.

The Election Commission will start door-to-door visits today for voter information collection in the Chittagong city corporation area for preparation of the electoral roll with photographs and national identity cards.
   EC sources said enumerators would collect information of eligible voters in 41 wards under the CCC till November 4 and initiate the work of taking photographs the following day. The field-level work will be completed by December 10.
   According to sources 4,897 enumerators, 1,000 supervisors and 50 assistant registration officers have been engaged under three registration officers in the task of voter listing with photographs and national identity cards.
   Dulal Talukder, an assistant election commissioner, said they had already trained the people to be engaged in
   voter registration adding that 900 expert computer operators would also be appointed within a day or two.
   ‘We have started massive campaign in association with different non- government organisations to motivate \ eligible voters to register,’ he said adding that they hoped to complete the process within the stipulated time.

The Awami League will announce today its decision on whether to participate in the dialogue with the Election Commission on electoral reforms scheduled for November 4.
   The AL central working committee will meet at the party chief’s Dhanmondi office this morning to discuss the issue and decide whether the party would join the dialogue or not, AL sources said.
   Although the EC dialogue is the lone issue on the agenda of the AL working committee meeting, some other issues like the present political situation, voter registration process, post-flood agricultural situation, fertiliser crisis and possible ways to secure freedom of party president Sheikh Hasina will also come up for discussion, sources said.
   Senior party leaders said that they had already talked to the members of the committee and found them in favour of joining the EC dialogue.
   ‘I have communicated with all the members of the working committee and my impression is that they will decide to sit with the commission,’ the acting AL general secretary, Syed Ashraful Islam, told New Age.
   He also said that if the committee decided to join the dialogue, it would form a delegation and finalise the party’s suggestions based on the 31-point reform proposals announced by the AL-led alliance earlier.
   Sources said that the working committee members had also agreed to authorise the acting party president, Zillur Rahman, to select the delegation members for the EC dialogue and might request the commission to increase the number of delegation numbers to 15 from 10 fixed up by the EC.
   A senior leader said that some presidium members, joint general secretaries, organising secretaries and one or two members of the party advisory council could be included in the delegation.
   ‘We think the Election Commission is not rigid on its draft proposals and Awami League will propose necessary changes in the draft in line with the demands of the political parties,’ party presidium member Matia Chowdhury, who believed that the party would decide to join the dialogue, told New Age on Sunday.
   The AL has completed all preparations for the central working committee meeting.
   ‘If anyone tries to create troubles, the party will not hesitate to take punitive action,’ Ashraf said referring to the attack on some leaders, said to be dissidents in the party, during the last working committee meeting on September 12.
   The party has also sent a letter to the Dhaka Metropolitan Police authorities seeking security during the meeting.

The telephone board is struggling hard to keep overseas call and internet services uninterrupted as its Dhaka–Cox’s Bazar fibre optic network linked to the SEA-ME-WE4 undersea cable often gets severed.
   Around 80 telecoms firms, including mobile and private landline operators and internet service providers which bought bandwidth from the Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board, have suffered heavily as the fibre-optic cable was severed several times in a few months.
   ‘We are worried about frequent cable cuts as our clients suffer because of this,’ said an official of the telephone board on Sunday.
   The officials said the board could keep its overseas calls and internet services operational for corporate clients with the satellite backup in case of any disruption in its fibre-optic cable network.
   They said the board failed to provide telecoms outlets, which bought bandwidth from the telephone board, with backup connectivity in case of disruption in the fibre-optic network because of capacity constraints of the board’s satellite system.
   This forces telecoms firms to maintain their own VSAT system to provide communications facilities for their clients, they said.
   The board’s Dhaka–Chitta-gong–Cox’s Bazar fibre-optic cable, which carries a huge bandwidth data to the international network, has been severed at least for five times since August. The cable has been cut for about 30 times since 2005.
   In the latest incident, the internet connectivity and overseas 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 telephone board officials said it took several hours for the technical team of the state-owned organisation to reach the places and fix the cable to resume the services. They said most of such incidents took place in remote areas.
   The officials said the board’s underground fibre-optic network between Dhaka and Cox’s Bazar is often severed by the Roads and Highways Department and other agencies during maintenance work and by cable thieves, resulting in frequent service disruptions.
   But the officials believed the motive behind recent such incidents was simple stealing.
   ‘Petty thieves cut the cable into pieces and sell them despite the fact that such fibre optic cable does not have any resale value as copper wires have,’ said an official. ‘We have not so far established any link of such incidents to any act of sabotage.’
   When asked what measures the board has taken to address the situation, the board chairman, Anwarul Azim, declined comments. He said he was not authorised to talk about the matter.
   Sources said the board was going to strike a deal with the Power Grid Company of Bangladesh soon to take on lease the company’s Dhaka–Chitta-gong–Cox’s Bazar fibre-optic cable for backup support.
   The board will need to pay Tk 20 crore to the Power Grid Company to use the cable for five years, the board officials said.

Bangladesh’s trade deficit is set to widen from an estimated $3.7 billion in 2007 to $4b in 2008 and $4.4b in 2009.
   ‘This is largely attributable to a growing import bill for oil, as volumes remain large and international prices high,’ said London-based Economist Intelligence Unit in an outlook for the country’s external sector released recently.
   It said imports were forecast to continue to grow both in terms of volume and value in 2008 as demand for capital goods and some industrial raw materials remains strong.
   The absolute value of imports would continue to exceed that of exports by a wide margin throughout the forecast period.
   Nevertheless, the report said, merchandise export growth would be helped by a gradual decline in the value of the taka against the US dollar.
   Owing to record inflows of workers’ remittances, the current account would post surpluses in 2008 and in 2009.
   The overall balance of payments continued to maintain a healthy trend in fiscal 2006-07 (July-June).
   The current-account balance recorded a surplus of $952m on the back of record inflows of workers’ remittances, which rose by 24.5 per cent year on year to $6b.
   Higher imports, the value of which has been inflated by rising international prices for oil and non-oil commodities, pushed the trade deficit to $3.5b in 2006-07, compared with $2.9b in the previous fiscal year.
   The report observed that the garment exports, the backbone of the export sector, slowed down dramatically in the second half of 2006-07 amid continued political uncertainty and erosion in business confidence as a result of the anti-corruption campaign.
   Garment exports grew by 28 per cent year on year in the fist half of the fiscal year.
   However, it said, the latest data show that the pace of growth had decelerated dramatically to 17 per cent for the first 11 months of the year.
   This compared with average annual growth rates of 27.3
   per cent in the past two fiscal years.
   ‘The industry missed out on $1.5b of export sales in the first six months of 2007 as orders were shifted to other countries,’ the BGMEA president, Anwar-Ul-Alam Chowdhury, was quoted to have told the EIU.
   He also noted that orders fell by 22-25 per cent year on year in 2006-07 as buyers moved orders to China, Vietnam and Cambodia, Bangladesh’s main competitors.
   The Asian Development Bank, in its latest assessment of the Bangladeshi economy, noted that better infrastructure and improved governance would lead to an increase in investment in the future.
   ‘But these factors are unlikely to help much unless political stability returns to the country,’ EIU said.

The inspector generals of police of SAARC countries in their meeting in Delhi on Tuesday are scheduled to discuss the formation of SAARCPOL, a regional police force modelled on Europol, to combat terrorism in South Asia.
   They will also touch upon the issues related to curbing organised crime and terror financing and enhancing the capacity of police officials, the IGP, Nur Mohammad, told New Age.
   An official said the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation countries earlier discussed the formation of SAARCPOL following the model of Interpol.
   In their day-long meet, the IGPs of the SAARC countries will deliberate on training of police, establishing regional police network to rout organised crimes, forming emergency response teams to counter cyber crimes, and putting an end to money laundering, drug and human trafficking in the bloc, sources in the Foreign Office said.
   Responding to a query on the prospect of forming the regional police force, Nur Mohammad said, ‘Nepal proposed it back in 2004, following the model of Europol. We will discuss the issue elaborately this time. But, I think it will take some more time for SAARCPOL to come into being.’
   A high official of the home ministry, however, said he was not much optimistic about formation of the regional police force due to the divergent of views among the member states.
   ‘We [SAARC members] do not have that much affinity in views the members of the European Union have. So, we must need more time for forming the force,’ he argued.
   On organising training for police officials, he said, ‘I hope we can make a final decision on this issue without a hitch.’
   According to foreign ministry officials, India and Pakistan sometimes back offered to provide training to the police of the SAARC states, but the other six members of the regional bloc, including Bangladesh, are yet to accept the proposals.

US forces killed 49 people in fierce fighting with guerrillas in Baghdad’s Shia stronghold of Sadr City Sunday during a raid targeting an Iranian-linked insurgent, the military said.
   Medics at four hospitals confirmed 17 dead, including a boy and a girl, but US military spokesman major Winfield Danielson said there were no civilian casualties and no reports of American losses.
   The US military said troops were drawn into fighting after they launched a raid to seize their high-value target in Sadr City, a poor part of the capital dominated by militia loyal to anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
   ‘The operation’s objective was an individual reported to be a long-time Special Groups member specialising in kidnapping operations,’ a statement from the military said.
   Danielson said the targeted individual had not been killed or captured during the clashes, which the military said erupted when troops were attacked by gunfire and rocket propelled grenades.
   ‘Responding in self-defence, coalition forces engaged, killing an estimated 33 criminals,’ the statement said, adding that air support was then called in and killed another six. Ten more were killed as US forces withdrew, it said.

Thousands of civilians fled their homes in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo on Sunday after rebels loyal to renegade general Laurent Nkunda briefly took a key road.
   Nkunda’s forces infiltrated the town of Rugari and occupied the road from Nord-Kivu provincial capital Goma to Rutshura, said Sylvie van den Wildenberg, spokeswoman for the UN peacekeeping mission in DR Congo.
   ‘We immediately sent a rapid reaction force with armoured vehicles and the insurgents retreated to hills further east at our arrival,’ said MONUC military spokesman major Prem Kumar Piwari said.
   In Rugari, 35 kilometres north of Goma, a Congolese army truck could be seen abandoned, riddled with bullet holes, on the side of the road following what Piwari said were clashes between the army and the rebels.
   He was unable to give casualty figures.
   Congolese army commander general Vainqueur Mayala said the rebels had infiltrated Rugari before being repelled by troops and MONUC forces, which on Saturday had deployed three helicopter gunships to the area.
   Thousands of civilians fled Rugari and the town of Kibumba to the south on Sunday morning, headed for Goma.
   On Saturday thousands of others had streamed out of the villages of Bunagana and Jomba, northeast of Goma and near the Ugandan border, following battles between Nkunda’s forces and local Mai Mai militia.
   The clashes were still raging on Sunday in the hills around Bunagana, FARDC Major Josue Katembo said.
   MONUC’s van den Wildenberg on Saturday described the suffering of the local population as ‘unbearable’ and said the clashes showed that ‘ethnic tensions are taking on serious dimensions in the region.’
   Civilians interviewed said they had fled fighting not only between supporters of Nkunda and Mai Mai militia but also Rwandan Hutu rebels frmo the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, van den Wildenberg said.
   The FDLR, whose members are accused of having taken part in the 1994 genocide of Tutsis and moderate Hutus in neighbouring Rwanda, denied being involved in any fighting with Nkunda’s forces.
   The eastern province of Nord-Kivu has been the site of rebellions that have plun- ged DR Congo into wars on two separate occasions, from 1996 to 1997 and from 1998 to 2003.
   Since August, it has been the site of clashes between the Congolese army and an estimated 6,000 troops loyal to Nkunda, a Tutsi former general who says he is defending local minorities against the army.
   He has claimed that the Congolese army is backed both by the Mai Mai and the FDLR, which has some 6,000 fighters, according to UN estimates. The Congolese army has consistently denied fighting alongside the FDLR.
   Kinshasa has sent 20,000 troops to Nord-Kivu and has repeatedly called on Nkunda to demobilise his troops.
   Since the end of last year, violence in Nord-Kivu has prompted more than 370,000 people to flee, and the UN estimates that about 750,000 are displaced in total.
   The latest violence comes ahead of a visit to Washington by DR Congo President Joseph Kabila on Friday when he will meet the US president, George W Bush.

The Rajshahi branch of the Basic Bank has published an auction notice in local newspapers to auction off the mortgaged assets worth about Tk 16.5 crore of the convicted former BNP lawmaker for the Rajshahi 4 constituency Nadim Mostafa and his wife, Nurun Nehar Parul, to realise its dues.
   According to the Financial Loans Court of Rajshahi, the Bishoy Construction Limited at Pathanpara, Petronus Filing Station at Binodpur, Petronus Tower, and five kathas of land at Gulshan in Dhaka owned by Nadim and three kathas of land at Boalia in Rajshahi and 3.59 kathas of land at Chhotabangram in Rajshahi owned by Nurun Naher have been mortgaged to the bank branch.
   The bank has outstanding of Tk 14.42 crore from Bishoy Construction, Tk 13.66 lakh from Petronus Filing Station, Tk 69.46 lakh from Petronus Tower and Tk 1.30 crore from Nadim Mostafa in all till July 31, 2007.
   The bank on October 19 published the latest notice for the auction as its earlier notice, published on October 11, failed to elicit the required response.
   Nadim Mostafa and 14 other BNP activists were on August 14 sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment with a fine Tk 13,000 each on charge of creating troubles at the vote centres and extortion.
   A warrant for arrest of Nadim’s wife was issued on August 19 in a corruption case. Both Nadim and his wife are in hiding.

The deputy mayor of the Indian capital died on Sunday from a fatal fall he suffered after being attacked by a horde of wild monkeys, doctors said.
   SS Bajwa, 52, suffered serious head injuries when he tried to fight off the monkeys which attacked him while he was alone on the terrace of his home on Saturday.
   The councillor, who was elected deputy mayor earlier this year, belonged to India’s main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party which faces flak from city courts for not doing enough to rid the capital of wild monkeys.
   In May, federal lawmakers demanded protection from the marauding simians which often invade the parliament building, ministries and even break into the fortified complex that houses prime minister Manmohan Singh’s office.
   The defence ministry has, however, recruited bands of ferocious langurs trained to attack the smaller simians inside military facilities in New Delhi.
   Several city residential districts petitioned local courts in 2001 to initiate steps to make New Delhi ‘monkey-free.’
   Culling is unacceptable to Hindus who revere the monkeys as a living link to the deity Hanuman, a monkey god who symbolises strength.

The government has decided to appoint on contractual basis three eminent persons, including a former adviser to the caretaker government, to fill in the vacant posts of Bangladesh envoys in Pakistan, Canada and Australia.
   Two new envoys from the Foreign Office will also be posted in Thailand and South Africa, said foreign ministry sources.
   The decision is an apparent shift of the government’s stance as it had earlier decided not to appoint anyone on contractual basis in overseas missions.
   As part of its decision, the government on March 1 terminated the contracts of three envoys posted in France, Turkey and Libya.
   Yasmin Murshed, who was inducted in the caretaker government led by President Iajuddin Ahmed, will be posted at the Bangladesh mission in Islamabad, which has remained vacant for long.
   Syed Fahim Munem, now serving as the press secretary to Chief Adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed, will be posted to the Bangladesh mission in Ottawa.
   Lt General ATM Zahirul Alam, the commandant of the National Defence College, will be posted to the Bangladesh High Commission in Canberra.
   Mizanur Rahman, now serving as director-general of the administration wing, and Shahidul Islam, director-general of the consular and Far East Asia wing of the foreign ministry, will be appointed in Bangkok and Pretoria respectively.
   Nasim Haider, now serving as the Bangladesh high commissioner in Pretoria, will be transferred to the mission in Cairo.
   Meanwhile Debapriya Bhattacharya, the country’s next ambassador and permanent representative of Bangladesh to the UN offices in Geneva, is yet to join the ministry prior to taking up his assignment there.
   The government on September 20 appointed Debapriya, who was the executive director of the Centre for Policy Dialogue, to the prestigious posts mentioned above.

Myanmar’s junta on Sunday demanded detained democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi drop her support for sanctions on the country, one of conditions set by the regime for talks with the opposition leader.
   ‘As the government has made the official offer, it’s your turn now,’ the official New Light of Myanmar daily said in a commentary.
   ‘No dialogue can achieve success without sacrifices and concessions. Aunty Suu, you should understand the nature of giving up something for achieving another that is ten times (more) valuable and beneficial,’ it said.
   Junta chief general Than Shwe has offered talks with Aung San Suu Kyi, but only if she gives up what he calls her support for ‘confrontation, utter devastation, economic sanctions on Myanmar and other sanctions.’
   Than Shwe’s offer was seen as the regime’s effort to defuse international pressure on Myanmar following its bloody suppression of peaceful protests, led by Buddhist monks, in late September.
   At least 13 people were killed and about 3,000 jailed in the crackdown.
   Than Shwe is known to despise the 62-year-old Nobel peace prize winner, but her opposition party, the National League for Democracy, has said Aung San Suu Kyi will consider the dialogue offer.
   In the wake of the crackdown 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.
   On Friday, the United States slapped a new round of sanctions against Myanmar’s military leaders. It is the second time in four weeks that Washington has increased sanctions on Myanmar.

A policeman of Shyampur police station was arrested Saturday night on charge of taking bribe.
   Abu Nayeem Mohammad Sabur Khan, sub-inspector of the police station, demanded Tk 5,000 in bribe from AK Azad of Gendaria with a promise to help him reclaim his captured land.
   But, Azad informed the Detective Branch of police about the matter.
   As Azad went to give the money to SI near the police station at the dead of night, DB men, who were lying in wait, caught him red-handed.
   The arrested policeman was produced before a court on Sunday and then sent to jail hajat.

A housewife and her minor daughter were injured in a bomb blast at north Digholdi in Bhola Sadar upazila on Sunday.
   Nurunnahar, 30, and Popy, 8, wounded in the blast in their home were admitted to Sadar Hospital.
   She said her enemies hurled the bomb at about 2:00pm that exploded leaving them injured.
   The police visited the house but none was arrested.