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The Election Commission hopes that the government will lift the state of emergency by the first week of next month in four city corporations and seven municipalities where elections will be held in April, and will also start relaxing restrictions on political activities across the country from the end of March.
   Chief Election Commissioner ATM Shamsul Huda on Tuesday, a day after meeting the chief adviser, expressed the hope the interim government would do so. ‘The government will have to take a decision on indoor politics and the state of emergency very soon.’
   When he was asked about a specific timeframe for lifting the emergency and ban on indoor politics outside Dhaka, the CEC replied, ‘A decision will have to be taken to lift the restriction on indoor politics by the end of March since the political parties will have to hold conventions to change their constitutions (as per the electoral reforms)… Emergency should be lifted by the first week of March (in the places concerned).’
   All the three election commissioners led by the CEC on Monday formally informed the government of the EC’s plan to hold elections to four city corporations and eight municipalities in April, and urged it to create an atmosphere conducive to electioneering before the polls.
   ‘I asked the chief adviser to bring about an election-friendly environment because we have to hold the polls to the city corporations and municipalities in April. It is up to the government to decide if it will relax the emergency or lift it completely to create a congenial environment,’ said the CEC.
   Major General Shafiqul Islam, military secretary at the army headquarters, handed over a copy of a draft of the voters’ list of the four city corporations and seven municipalities to the CEC.
   The four city corporations are Rajshahi, Khulna, Barisal and Sylhet and the municipalities are Shariatpur, Sitakunda, Cox’s Bazar, Gopalganj, Sreepur, Phulbaria and Manikganj.
   Huda said that at least the emergency should be relaxed to allow the candidates to campaign ahead of the local government polls.
   The CEC said the election schedule would have to be declared a minimum time span of 40 days or one month before holding the city corporation elections at the end of April.
   He said the political parties also needed to have discussions among themselves to change their constitutions in compliance with the party registration laws.
   ‘The government will have to decide very quickly whether the restriction on indoor politics and emergency will be withdrawn as the political parties will have to change their constitutions according to the EC’s criteria (in line with electoral reforms) and then get registered with the EC,’ said the CEC.
   Huda dismissed press reports of the EC officials having reservations about the Independent Election Commission Secretariat Ordinance 2008.
   ‘I saw the draft of the ordinance and there was nothing wrong with it. The draft was made the way we wanted it to be.’
   The CEC, however, added that they had reservations about the ordinance, especially the one vesting sole power in the chief election commissioner. But the law adviser will look into the matter, he added.

The current anti-corruption purge attained new heights as a big band of 136 employees of the state-owned Titas Gas Transmission and Distribution Company Ltd on Tuesday submitted documents of their ill-gotten wealth worth about Tk 400 crore to the army-led taskforce.
   This happens to be the maiden case of expropriation of illegally acquired asset of government employees under the ongoing countrywide drive, launched under the interim regime, against what appears to be pandemic corruption that had earned Bangladesh an unmerited bad repute in the past.
   Taskforce sources said 136 unscrupulous members of the staff of Titas, including 13 officers, ‘voluntarily’ dropped their documents of assets amassed by illegal means to the complaint box of the taskforce camped on the company-office premises.
   ‘We’re now checking these documents dropped by them. After checking, all the illegal assets will be deposited into government coffers from the day after tomorrow (from Thursday) as the corrupt staffers pledged that they want to return their illegal wealth to the government,’ one taskforce member told the news agency.
   Earlier in November last year, the taskforce members asked all the Titas officials to submit their wealth statement. They complied. On investigation, the taskforce members found illegal wealth worth about Tk 400 crore of these 136 persons.
   Based on the findings, the taskforce troops disclosed on January 8 this year the list of this group of 136, who are said to be among a lot more who have also allegedly plundered the nation’s newfound wealth in natural gas.
   Later, the unscrupulous Titas men agreed to return their unearned treasures to government treasury. ‘We want to return the people’s wealth to the government,’ they were quoted as telling the force.
   The taskforce members set up their temporary office on the 2nd floor of the Titas bhaban in the first week of November 2006 to monitor function of the suspects.
   Under the drive, the taskforce personnel have also camped in some other public utilities and organisations to dig up institutional corruption as part of the nationwide purge launched under the state of emergency following the past political crisis over election issues.
   The hunt has, in the meantime, landed many top politicians, bureaucrats and business tycoons in jail.

The Dhaka metropolitan sessions judge on Tuesday adjourned the trial of Sheikh Hasina in the Tk 2.99 crore extortion case till Monday amid her demand for holding the trial in the High Court.
   Detained former prime minister Hasina, also the Awami League chief, filed an application with the sessions court, seeking a two-week adjournment of the trial.
   In the application, Hasina said she would file a petition with the High Court for holding the trial in the High Court as she has become doubtful of getting justice in the sessions court after the rejection of the defence prayer that sought expunge of the supplementary deposition of the plaintiff, Azam Jahangir Chowdhury.
   The High Court on Tuesday started giving the verdict in the writ petition filed by Hasina challenging the legality of placing the extortion case under the Emergency Powers Rules.
   The High Court bench of Justice Shah Abu Nayeem Mominur Rahman and Justice Shahidul Islam might complete the delivery of the verdict today as it has already summarised the arguments forwarded by the petitioner’s counsels, amici curiae and state attorneys.
   The court will now detail its findings and observations making its decision whether the Tk 2.99 crore extortion case can be tried under the Emergency Powers Rules.
   All the six amici curiae (court’s friends) in court said the case against Hasina could not be tried under the emergency rules, arguing that no person could be tried under the emergency rules for an offence committed before the promulgation of the Emergency Powers Ordinance and the Emergency Powers Rules.
   The constitution does not allow prosecution of any person for an offence under a law which is not in force when the offence is committed, they argued, referring to the constitutional provisions.
   Additional attorney general Salahuddin Ahmed, arguing for the government on Tuesday, questioned the engagement of six amici curiae in the case and claimed that none of the amici curiae was impartial.
   The court asked him, ‘Are you impartial?’
   As Salahuddin replied he was the counsel for the government, the court told him, ‘You are he attorney of the state and you should work in the interest of the sate and the people.’
   Salahuddin claimed the government had put the case under the emergency rules as per the provision in Section 3(1) of the Emergency Powers Ordinance.
   The court questioned why the case was considered to be of such public importance as to be placed under the emergency rules and pointed out that as the case was brought under the emergency rules, it denied Hasina certain rights.
   Additional attorney general Monsur Habib submitted the documents to the court regarding why the case was considered to be of public importance. The court on January 31 ordered the government to submit the documents.
   He said the case was thought to be of public importance in view of the social status of Hasina and the materials in the case.
   Hasina’s counsel Rafique-ul-Huq said there was no specific guideline in the emergency rules on considering any case to be of public importance.
   If there is no guideline on the consideration of public importance in the law, a move to place a case under the emergency rules on the grounds of Hasina’s public importance breaches a constitutional principle of equality, he argued.
   The Dhaka metropolitan sessions judge, M Azizul Haque, meanwhile, adjourned the trial of Hasina, her expatriate sister Sheikh Rehana and cousin Sheikh Fazlul Karim Selim in the extortion case till February 11.
   As the court resumed the trial proceedings for the third day in the makeshift courtroom on the Jatiya Sangsad complex, the defence counsels sought expunge of additional depositions of the plaintiff, Azam.
   As the recording of Azam’s deposition was completed on January 30 and Monday was scheduled for cross-examination, there was no scope for recording further depositions of Azam on the date, they argued.
   The court has lost its impartiality by allowing the prosecution to correct the flaws made in the original deposition of the plaintiff with the recording of further deposition, they claimed.
   The chief prosecutor, Sharfuddin Ahmed Mukul, argued the prosecution could re-examine the plaintiff and any other witnesses and the law does not allow the court to expunge any evidence obtained by such re-examination.
   Hasina’s counsel Qamrul Islam also demanded expunge of certain portions from judge Azizul Haque’s record that contained reasons for his leaving the courtroom on Monday.
   In his record sheet, Azizul Haque accused some defence lawyers of impeding the trial process on Monday without mentioning the ‘behaviour’ of the top prosecutor who allegedly threatened the court to listen to whatever he wished to put on record.
   The prosecution opposed the defence pleas and requested the court to complete the remaining deposition by Azam
   The court rejected the defence pleas, saying ‘There is no rule for expunging any portion of court records.’
   At this stage, the defence counsels had brief consultations with Hasina and Selim in the dock and moved the application for adjournment of the trial saying that they would move the High Court for holding the trial there as the two feared they would be ‘denied justice’ in the sessions court.
   The court adjourned the trial on Monday and asked the defence counsels to get an order for stay in the meantime.
   Azam, the managing director of the East Coast Trading Pvt Ltd which is the local agent of Russian power company Technoprom Export, filed the case against Hasina and Sheikh Selim accusing them of extorting Tk 2.99 crore for the installation of a 210MW thermal power plant at Siddhirganj.
   Hasina’s sister, Sheikh Rehana, who now lives in the United Kingdom, was later implicated in the case. She is being tried in her absence.

The government has decided to slash the annual development programme of the current fiscal year by 13 to 17 per cent amid poor implementation of projects, rerunning the exercise seen for years.
   Increased price subsidies on diesel, fertilisers and food would widen the budget deficit to 4.7 per cent of gross domestic product, finance adviser Mirza Azizul Islam said.
   ‘The ADP might be downsized to Tk 22,000 crore or Tk 23,000 crore,’ he told reporters Tuesday after a meeting of the resource committee and budget monitoring.
   The original development outlay is set at Tk 26,500 crore and an official evaluation earlier revealed a frustrating picture of implementation of development projects in the first half of the fiscal year to December 2007.
   The finance adviser said that it was unrealistic to set a big ADP target, which would not be possible to implement.
   ‘We want to set a revised target, which will be realistic and achievable,’ he said.
   Delay in procurement resulting from reluctance of contractors and officials in an atmosphere of fear and soaring prices of construction materials slowed the development spending to four years’ low in the first half of 2007-08 fiscal, said a planning ministry report discussed last week at an ECNEC meeting with chief adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed in the chair.
   During the July-December period of the current fiscal year, the government could spend Tk 5,493 crore, which was only 21 per cent of the Tk 26,500 crore annual development programme. The development spending was 25 per cent in the year-ago period.
   ‘It still needs some more analyses to take a final decision about the extent of downward revision of the ADP,’ the finance adviser said after the Tuesday’s meeting.
   He said revenue collection had so far been encouraging and foreign aid disbursement was also very good.
   ‘But the problem is that the revenue expenditure has increased substantially due to enhanced subsidy on diesel for irrigation, fertilisers and food.’
   ‘Subsidies in food and fertiliser have become new burdens on the exchequer which also subsidies petroleum products,’ he said.
   As a result, the overall budget deficit would increase to 4.7 per cent of the gross domestic product from the budgetary projection of 4.2 per cent, he forecast.
   Bangladesh Bank governor, secretaries of finance, planning, ERD and IMED, and NBR chairman were present at the meeting.

The government has planned to launch a drive within a couple of days against illegal CNG conversion workshops and the vehicles, converted by them into CNG-run ones, in the wake of recent cylinder explosions in CNG-run vehicles.
   ‘We will identify the unauthorised CNG conversion workshops and take action against them. Any vehicle to be found converted into CNG-run vehicles in these workshops will not be allowed to ply the roads,’ special assistant to the chief adviser M Tamim told reporters after an inter-ministerial meeting on Tuesday.
   He said teams comprising energy officials and joint forces would launch the drive against the illegal workshops within a day or two. ‘We are reviewing the relevant laws on what action will be taken against these workshops.’
   It was dangerous that illegal conversion centres were converting vehicles into CNG-run ones, he added.
   As per the statistics of Rupantarita Prakritik Gas Company Ltd, there are around 111 registered CNG conversion centres, of which 57 are in Dhaka while the number of CNG-run vehicles in the country is 1.27 lakh.
   ‘If 5 per cent of the total CNG-run vehicles are using illegal cylinders, it is an ominous thing,’ the special assistant said.
   The vehicles with authorised CNG-cylinders will be provided with stickers at the CNG filling stations. ‘We will ask the filling stations not to refuel any vehicle without the sticker.’
   Tamim also said the stickers would be distributed at the refuelling stations through the CNG Filling Stations Owners’ Association with the approval from Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission and RPGCL.
   He said they were mulling to hand over the responsibility of awarding the licence for the installation of CNG conversion workshops to BERC from RPGCL. ‘We are now reviewing the legal aspects of the handover.’
   The meeting, attended by the officials of the communications ministry, Bangladesh Road Transport Authority and RPGCL, also observed that safety inspection of the CNG-run vehicles should be conducted every year.

The Roads and Highways Department on Tuesday demolished a slum built on its land at Mohakhali in the capital.
   Witnesses said as the dwellers tried to resist the demolition drive, the police dispersed them, charging at them with truncheons. Several persons were also injured in the police action, they added.
   Led by the magistrate, a team along with a contingent of police went to the slum at about 9:00am and asked the dwellers to remove their belongings. But the dwellers standing in front of the bulldozer tried to resist the drive.
   They also took to the streets and tried to stage demonstration. But the police dispersed them after charging at them with truncheons.
   Later the authorities demolished the slum while the dwellers removed themselves their belongings. No further untoward incident was reported later.
   Locals alleged that the slum was built on the land with the help of a section of RHD employees. About 200 families were living in the slum. Even though the authorities issued notice to the dwellers last year, they failed to evict them from there.

Bangladesh could be headed for a grave health and environmental catastrophe, not unlike the one triggered by arsenic contamination in the last decade, due to the alarming rise of salinity in drinking water and cultivable land, according to research made public this week.
   In a correspondence published in the February 2 issue of the prestigious British medical journal The Lancet, researchers have pointed out that 2.8 million hectares of land in Bangladesh – a third of the 9 million hectares of total cultivable area and a fifth of the country’s total land area – is affected by salinity, posing a ‘threat to the wellbeing of communities who live in coastal areas of this low-lying nation’.
   The research – done jointly by Aneire Khan and Paulo Vineis of the department of epidemiology and public health, Imperial College London, Santosh Kumar Mojumder of the department of gynaecology and obstetrics, Upazilla Health Complex Dacope, Khulna, and Sari Kovats of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine – claims that increased salinity is likely to have a range of health effects, including increased hypertension rates.
   They wrote, ‘Large numbers of pregnant women in the coastal areas are being diagnosed with pre-eclampsia, eclampsia, and hypertension. We reviewed hospital records of antenatal check-ups between January and September 2007, from the department of gynaecology in Chalna Upazilla Health Complex – a clinic based in one of the ports in the south-western region of Bangladesh.
   ‘Of 561 women undergoing antenatal check-ups, 118 (21 per cent) between the ages of 16 and 40 years were diagnosed with some kind of hypertensive disorder. This rate is strikingly higher than the 2.65 per cent seen in Matuail, a non-coastal area, and the prevalence of pregnancy-induced systolic and diastolic hypertension of 6.8 per cent and 5.4 per cent, respectively, in another non-coastal rural community of Bangladesh.’
   The researchers expressed concern that the salinity situation could take a turn for the worse if not addressed immediately.
   ‘Saline intrusion from sea water owing to reduction of freshwater flow from upstream (partly owing to the establishment of the Farrakka Barrage on the Ganges near the border of Bangladesh) is expected to be aggravated by climate change and sea-level rises. It has already had adverse effects on crop productivity and grain production,’ they wrote.
   ‘Water-related crises are not a new problem in Bangladesh. The discovery of arsenic in drinking water was deemed “the largest mass poisoning of a population in history”, threatening the lives of millions. Now Bangladesh is facing another environmental and health threat due to man-made and natural factors.
   ‘With both perinatal and maternal mortality remaining persistently high in Bangladesh, an urgent assessment of this situation is warranted.’

Four people were killed when the police in India opened fire Tuesday on a rally protesting against high unemployment in poverty-hit West Bengal state, an official said.
   The police said the rally turned violent when demonstrators threw stones, adding officers first responded with a baton charge but then opened fire to control the crowd.
   ‘Police fired to quell the violent mob,’ West Bengal state police official Raj Kanojia said by telephone from northern Cooch Behar district, 600 kilometres from the state capital Kolkata.
   The death toll rose to four after two more people succumbed to injuries, Kanojia said.
   The police said the unrest had been brought under control thanks to security reinforcements, but that the area was still tense.
   Kanojia estimated that up to 20 people were injured.
   Hundreds of leftwing Forward Bloc party members joined the protest. The party is allied with the government of the Communist-run state in eastern India, but is opposed to many of its policies.
   West Bengal has been shaken by a string of violent protests that claimed at least 34 lives last year against moves to take over agricultural land for industrial purposes.
   There was no immediate reaction from the West Bengal government to the latest shooting incident.

The interim administration has decided to allow allotments of 300 Rajuk residential plots out of 897 that were allotted under the Uttara third phase by the BNP-Jamaat government.
   After taking over power, the government of Fakhruddin Ahmed cancelled allotments of 897 residential plots of the model town project developed by Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha on February 2007 following widespread allegations of irregularities in the allotment process.
   ‘Documents of residential plot allotments to 300 persons have been found to be proper after scrutiny. We will retain these allotments,’ housing and public works adviser Ghulam Quader told reporters after a meeting with Rajuk officials at his office.
   The decision whether or not to allow the allotment of the remaining plots will be taken after further scrutiny of the documents, he added.
   He said the taskforce, which investigated Rajuk’s activities, had identified some irregularities in the allotment process. ‘Action will be taken against those responsible for the irregularities as per the law,’ the adviser added.
   He said, referring to the allotment of luxury apartments in the NAM buildings to former members of parliament, that they were yet to resolve the issue. ‘But whoever wants stay in the NAM flats will have to pay the increased rent. Those who cannot afford the revised rates must leave the flats,’ said Quader.
   The government raised the rents from Tk 400/500 to Tk 20,000/25,000 each month from January this year for the former MPs who were asked to take fresh allotments of the NAM flats from the Directorate of Government Accommodation.
   However, the Parliament Secretariat has requested the government to review its decision to raise the rents of NAM flats.
   A total of 304 out of 324 flats, constructed in 2001 for the Non-Aligned Movement summit in the city, were allotted to the members of the eighth Jatiya Sangsad in June 2005, and the charge of the flats was given to the Parliament Secretariat. Presently, 160 well-furnished flats are occupied by former MPs and 90 apartments have already handed over to the ministry.

A taskforce headed by the central bank chief is scrutinising some specific allegations of assets and money smuggled out of the country to ascertain whether those were earned illegally and find ways to bring those back home.
   ‘We are getting information from different sources about stolen assets and have discussed the options for recovering those,’ Bangladesh Bank governor Salehuddin Ahmed said Tuesday after the second meeting of the taskforce.
   He declined to disclose the names and amounts involved, but said before initiating recovery drive, they have to be sure that assets in question were earned illegally.
   ‘The taskforce recommended that Attorney General Office should also be included in the central authority under the home ministry.’ Getting information is not enough, recovery involves a legal process where the AG office would have a vital role to play, the governor said.
   Bangladesh Bank will sign bilateral memorandums of understanding with other countries after the revision of the Money Laundering Prevention Act, he said.
   The revision would allow both the government and the central bank to sign MoUs to facilitate exchange of information with central banks of other countries.
   Apart from revising the anti-money laundering act, Bangladesh needs to enact anti-terrorist financing law to pave the way for the central bank to join the global financial intelligence agency, Egmont Group, Salehuddin said.
   The Egmont Group is an informal international forum of 106 financial intelligence units, which collect and exchange data related to money laundering and terror financing.
   Representatives from different countries including Bangladesh discussed the stolen asset issues at the conference of UN Convention Against Corruption in Bali [Indonesia] last week, the governor said.
   ‘A working group was set up in the conference and Bangladesh is trying to get information from different countries through the group,’ he said.
   The government formed the taskforce which includes representatives from law, finance, foreign and home ministries, police, National Board of Revenue and Attorney General Office. The Anti-Corruption Commission withdrew itself from the committee in November.

The US intelligence community warned on Tuesday of the threat of terrorist attack against the United States as al-Qaeda improves its ability to identify, train and position operatives for such operations.
   In an annual threat assessment, US intelligence reported that it had detected an influx of new western recruits to al-Qaeda safe havens in Pakistan’s federally administrative tribal areas since 2006.
   ‘Al-Qaeda is improving the last key aspect of its ability to attack the US — the identification, training, and positioning of operatives for an attack in the Homeland, the report said.
   ‘We assess that al-Qaeda’s Homeland plotting is likely to continue to focus on prominent political, economic, and infrastructure targets designed to produce mass casualties, visually dramatic destruction, significant economic aftershocks, and/or fear among the population,’ it said.
   US intelligence chief Mike McConnell, who delivered the report to Congress, said US intelligence also saw threats to the United States emanating from al-Qaeda in Iraq and from homegrown terrorists inspired by military Islamic ideology. But al-Qaeda’s central leadership, based in the border areas of Pakistan, ‘is its most dangerous component,’ his report said.
   It noted that in July the intelligence community warned that al-Qaeda’s leadership has over the past two years been able ‘to regenerate the core operational capabilities needed to conduct attacks in the Homeland.’
   It is using safe havens in the tribal areas ‘as a staging area for training new terrorist operatives, for attacks in Pakistan, the Middle East, Africa, Europe and the United States,’ the report said.
   A cadre of skilled lieutenants operating from the tribal areas are capable of directing operations around the world, it said.
   ‘Al-Qaeda’s top leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri continue to be able to maintain al-Qaeda’s unity and its focus on their strategic vision of confronting our allies and us with mass casualty attacks around the globe,’ it said.
   Although not involved in day to day operations, bin Laden and Zawahiri regularly pass inspirational messages and specific operational guidance to their followers through public statements, the assessment said.
   McConnell said al-Qaeda in Iraq has suffered major setbacks at the hands of US forces, but remains al-Qaeda’s most capable affiliate.
   ‘I am increasingly concerned that as we inflict significant damage on al-Qaeda in Iraq, it may shift resources to mounting more attacks outside of Iraq,’ he said.
   Captured documents suggest that fewer than 100 AQI terrorist have moved from Iraq to establish cells in other countries, he said.

The party of slain Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto released her will to the public on Tuesday to prove that it names her husband as her political heir.
   The move follows a whispering campaign that Benazir had not handed the leadership of the Pakistan People’s Party to her spouse Asif Ali Zardari, and that she instead picked their 19-year-old son Bilawal.
   The handwritten will – dated October 16, two days before the former premier returned to Pakistan from exile – also says that she feared for Pakistan’s future in the face of extremism and dictatorship.
   ‘I would like my husband Asif Ali Zardari to lead you in this interim period until you and he decide what is best. I say this because he is a man of courage and honour,’ said the will, unveiled at the Benazir home in southern Pakistan.
   Benazir was assassinated at a political rally on December 27. The party named Zardari and Bilawal as co-chairmen three days later, after the will was read out to senior party members, but not to the public.
   The will says that Zardari ‘spent 11.5 years in prison without bending despite torture. He has the political stature to keep our party united.’
   Zardari spent the time in jail on allegations of corruption and of involvement in the killing of Benazir’s brother, Murtaza, in 1996. He was never convicted and was freed in 2004.
   But he remains a divisive figure within the party, and with Bilawal still studying at Oxford University the party is keen to present a unified face ahead of a general election on February 18.
   ‘Some enemies wanted to create chaos in the party by spreading false speculation about the contents of the will,’ party spokeswoman Sherry Rehman told a news conference as she made the document public.
   ‘That is why the party high command has decided to share the will with the public and the media to foil all such controversies and keep the party united.’
   Addressed to the ‘officials and members’ of the party, the one-page will also says Benazir was ‘honoured’ to lead them and urges them to continue her work.
   ‘I fear for the future of Pakistan. Please continue the fight against extremism, dictatorship, poverty and ignorance,’ it says.
   The Pakistani government and the United States Central Intelligence Agency have blamed Baitullah Mehsud, an al-Qaeda-linked tribal warlord, for Benazir’s murder in a gun and suicide bomb attack.
   In a posthumously published autobiography, Benazir says she was informed that groups including Mehsud’s and another led by a son of Osama bin Laden were targeting her.
   But she also said that senior Pakistani government and intelligence officials were plotting against her. The government has denied these claims.
   Rehman said the will would be included in her autobiography.
   Zardari and the party are set to kickstart campaigning for February 18 general elections when the official mourning period for Benazir ends later this week.
   But in a sign of the unrest that has been brewing since Benazir’s killing, a PPP activist died in hospital in the southern city of Karachi on Tuesday, a day after he was injured in a shooting at an election meeting.
   The 22-year-old was hit in the chest when unknown gunmen sprayed bullets at the party rally in Lyari, a staunchly pro-Benazir slum area.
   In Islamabad, riot police used tear-gas to disperse hundreds of stone-throwing protesters who tried to reach the residence of the country’s deposed chief justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, witnesses said.
   The demonstrators chanted slogans against the president, Pervez Musharraf, who sacked Chaudhry on November 3 under a state of emergency. Chaudhry remains under detention despite the lifting of the emergency in mid-December.

The council of advisers on Tuesday approved the draft model production sharing contract and tender documents for the third round bidding, paving the way for Petrobangla to invite tenders for 28 offshore blocks for hydrocarbon exploration.
   ‘After the approval, Petrobangla can now invite international tenders for the offshore blocks as per its schedule with an aim that gas exploration will begin in the deep sea in next winter,’ special assistant to the chief adviser M Tamim told New Age after the regular weekly meeting of the council.
   The council, headed by the chief adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed, approved the draft, placed by the energy division.
   The model PSC has proposed higher price of gas that Petrobangla will purchase from the selected international oil companies for eight shallow and 20 deep sea blocks. The PSC, however, has a provision that the companies will have to pay corporate tax.
   Energy secretary Mohammad Mohsin told New Age that Petrobangla might invite the bids by late next week. ‘We will announce soon about the timeframe for the bidding,’ he said.
   When Petrobangla goes for the bidding, it will be a significant development for the energy sector as the existing gas reserve is shrinking fast and the country is likely to face shortage by 2011, energy officials said.
   The offshore areas have enormous potential as Myanmar and India have already discovered large gas reserves in the Bay near the maritime areas that belong to Bangladesh, they said.
   The council meeting discussed on the India and Myanmar’s overlap of some proposed Bangladesh blocks for hydrocarbon exploration.
   Energy officials told the meeting that Bangladesh would go ahead with the bidding process for 28 blocks to establish the claim for its water territory intruded by the two neighbouring countries.
   ‘If India and Myanmar raise any objection to the territory which is under our exclusive economic zone, a dispute will arise and it can be solved through negotiation,’ said a source present at the meeting.
   Energy officials said the model PSC for the offshore bidding round was formulated following a series of consultations with the officials of all ministries and departments concerned.
   As per the PSC, the offshore blocks were divided into two parts based on water depth and availability of data on the blocks. There are eight shallow and 20 deep sea blocks. The size of each block will be around 2600-7000 square kilometres.
   The exploration work plan for the deep sea blocks has been fixed for nine years while it will be eight years for shallow sea blocks.
   The model PSC proposed higher gas price than the existing price for offshore gas for the international oil companies.
   The price of gas for 20 deep sea blocks will be 100 per cent of the High Sulphur Fuel Oil in Singapore market. But the upper ceiling of the price will be $180 per tonne.
   The price for eight shallow sea blocks will be 93 per cent of the HSFO price with the same upper ceiling.
   As per a Petrobangla estimate, the highest price of gas for deep sea blocks will be around $4.7 per 1000 cubic feet or one unit while the highest price for shallow sea blocks will be around $4.4 per unit.
   According to the existing PSC, used in second round bidding, the highest price for onshore gas is $2.9 per unit while the price of offshore gas is 25 per cent higher than that of the onshore gas. But if the corporate tax, which Petrobangla pays on behalf of the international companies, is included, the price of gas will be much higher than that of their documented value.
   Although the model PSC for third round bidding proposed higher gas tariff, it keeps a provision that the IOCs will have to pay corporate tax.
   The model PSC says the oil companies will have tax-free consumable and equipment imports with some exceptions. In case of oil discovery, the contractor will have to sell 80 per cent of oil to the local market at a price of 15 per cent less than international price.
   There will be three biddable parts in the PSC – bank guarantee, profit (gas) sharing and work plan. The PSC emphasised that if any company wanted to transfer its operator ship of any blocks, it will have to take approval from Petrobangla.

Two people, including a garment shop owner, were killed at Khilgaon in the city and South Keraniganj on the outskirts of Dhaka on Tuesday.
   The victims were identified as Ohid, 22, son of Omar Ali Matubbar and a mechanic at Dakkhin Goran in the city, and Helal Sheikh, 42, owner of Al-Helal Garments at Kaliganj in Keraniganj.
   At Khilgaon, the police recovered the body of Ohid from near his Dakkhin Goran residence in the morning. He was found dead with his throat slit and the tendons were severed, the police said.
   The body was sent to the Dhaka Medical College Hospital morgue for autopsy.
   Family members said Ohid was living in a mess and opened a shop at Dakkhin Goran for repairing air-cooling machines. He came out of his uncle’s residence at Basabo after having meals at about 10:00pm on Monday but he didn’t return.
   The motives behind the murder couldn’t be known.
   In Keraniganj, locals said Helal came under an attack near Zila Parishad market at about 5:00am while he was returning home from Chuadanga after collecting Tk 12 lakh from there.
   Assailants stabbed him indiscriminately and fled the scene after snatching away the money from his possession.
   The assailants also stabbed his friend Jalal when he came to his rescue hearing screams.
   Both Helal and Jalal were taken to Mitford Hospital where the doctors declared Helal dead. Jalal was undergoing treatment at the hospital. In an instant protest against the incident, local traders shut down their shops in the locality.
   The body was handed over to his relatives after the autopsy was done at the hospital morgue in the afternoon.

The Bangladesh Telecommuni-cations Regulatory Commission has qualified 37 firms for participating in the auction for three international gateway exchange licences in the private sector to route international calls to and from Bangladesh.
   The BTRC on Tuesday sent letters to the selected firms, asking each of them to deposit Tk 3 crore as security money in its favour through pay orders by seven working days to be eligible to take part in the auction on February 18 at the Radisson Water Garden hotel.
   The BTRC, after a month-long evaluation of the proposals, at a meeting on Monday presided over by its chairman Manzurul Alam, decided to short-list 37 firms out of 42 which had submitted bids for licences for setting up three international gateway exchanges to break the monopoly of the Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board in the international call business. At present the state-owned BTTB is the sole authority that can transfer international calls to and from Bangladesh through its international network.
   The BTRC invited the bids in October from the Bangladeshi enterprises, under the International Long Distance Telecommunication Services Policy 2007, for setting up the gateway exchanges to route international calls.
   The policy stipulates that only a Bangladeshi citizen living in the country is eligible to get the licence. The policy also bars the existing mobile and private land-phone companies and internet service providers from acquiring the international gateway licence.
   According to the regulatory and licensing guidelines of international gateway licence, the auction will be based on open bids and the companies will bid for the percentage of the revenue to be shared with the BTRC.
   The bidding will start at sharing 25 per cent of the revenue with the BTRC, and each successive bid will have to be incrementally higher by 0.25 per cent.
   The BTRC has also fixed Tk 15 crore as acquisition fee for each international gateway licence.
   The duration of the licence will initially be a term of 15 years with an option for renewal after every five-year period, subject to the BTRC’s approval. All the three international gateways will be located in Dhaka and must be open to lawful interception by the intelligence agencies.
   The guidelines say that the licensee will set up and begin the international gateway service within four months of the issuance of the licence.
   The licensee will have the primary ‘backbone’ connection with international networks through the SEA-ME-WE submarine cable and also other submarine cables whenever available. The licensee will have back-up connectivity through the satellite earth station until an alternative submarine cable is available.

Law enforcers and intelligence personnel began a hunt for the agitators who staged a whirlwind human chain on Monday in the port city and chanted slogans demanding release of the two former prime ministers Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina.
   About 100 agitators, with their faces covered, assembled in front of Chittagong press club under the banners of ‘Amra Chattagram Mohanagar Basi’ and ‘Amra Chattagram Uttar Jila Basi,’ and melted away within few minutes. Their demands included release of BNP leaders Tarique Rahman and Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury, withdrawal of emergency, announcement of election schedules and containing price spiral.
   Surprised by the suddenness of the event that defied the emergency, law enforcing agencies launched a search in the city for the agitators.
   ‘We already have started drives at different locations to know the identity of the agitators and nab them’, a senior official of a law enforcing agency told New Age Tuesday. ‘We are stunned to see that agitators dared to organise human chain without prior permission,’ he said.
   Street agitations are banned under the emergency rules enforced since the present caretaker government took office in January 2007.
   During their brief stay, the agitators also threatened to launch greater movement if the detained leaders not freed immediately.

A delegation of the European Parliament’s temporary committee on climate change arrives in Dhaka on a three-day official visit today.
   The committee sends the delegation as a follow-up on the launch of international negotiations for a post-2012 framework on climate change at the UN Conference in Bali.
   The delegation, headed by Romana Jordan Cizelj, will meet key officials, politicians, and experts during the visit, said a release of the EU on Tuesday.
   The delegation will also travel to Sirajganj and Khokshabari to visit the EU-funded programmes.
   They will also meet the foreign adviser, Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury, environment and forests secretary AHM Rezaul Kabir and Sirajganj district administration officials.
   Other members of the delegation are Jerzy Buzek, Cristina Gutiérrez Cortines, Anneli Jäätteenmäki, Péter Olajos, Maria Sornosa Martínez, and Andres Tarand.

The president, Hamid Karzai, is concerned about a death sentence handed down to a journalist in Afghanistan accused of insulting Islam, but he will not intervene until the courts have their final say, his spokesman said Tuesday.
   The journalist, 23-year-old Sayed Parwez Kaambakhsh, was sentenced to death on January 22 by a three-judge panel in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif for distributing a report he printed off the internet to journalism students at Balkh University.
   The article asked why under Islam men can have four wives but women cannot have multiple husbands.
   The court in Mazar-i-Sharif found that the article humiliated Islam, the faith of the vast majority of people in this deeply conservative country. Members of a clerical council also pushed for Kaambakhsh to be punished.
   But there has been an international outcry over Kaambakhsh case, with a number of organisations demanding the case be annulled and the reporter set free.

The Indian high commissioner to Bangladesh, Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty, on Tuesday met leaders of two major political parties — the BNP and the Awami League — and discussed with them issues including the present political situation.
   Chakravarty met the acting Awami League president, Zillur Rahman, in his house at Gulshan in the morning and discussed ‘matters of mutual interests of the two countries,’ a release of the party said.
   Zillur said various issues were discussed at the meeting, but he did not give any details.
   The Indian High Commission first secretary, Sunjib Singlah, accompanied the high commissioner during the call, the release said.
   In the evening, Chakravarty met the BNP secretary general, Khandaker Delwar Hossain, at his house at Sher-e-Bangla Nagar.
   Sources close to Delwar said local politics and matters of mutual interests came up in the discussion.

Political turmoil in Pakistan has not seriously threatened the military’s control of its nuclear weapons ‘but vulnerabilities exist,’ US intelligence said in a report on Tuesday.
   ‘We judge the ongoing political uncertainty in Pakistan has not seriously threatened the military’s control of the nuclear arsenal, but vulnerabilities exist,’ the US intelligence community said in its annual threat assessment.
   Noting that the Pakistani army was responsible for the country’s nuclear programmes, the report said, ‘we judge that the army’s management of nuclear policy issues — to include physical security — has not been degraded by Pakistan’s political crisis.’