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Five advisers to the interim government were on Wednesday sworn in after the resignation of five advisers. Four of them resigned on Tuesday and another on December 26.
   The government is, meanwhile, set to appoint six ‘special assistants to the chief adviser’ to reduce the workload on the advisers within the shortest possible time, said a source in the administration.
   The president, Iajuddin Ahmed, administered oath to the advisers at the Durbar Hall at Bangababhan.
   The newly inducted advisers are former attorney general AF Hassan Ariff, planning expert Hossain Zillur Rahman, retired bureaucrat AMM Shawkat Ali, former National Security Intelligence chief retired major general Golam Kader and NGO activist Rasheda K Chowdhury.
   The four advisers who resigned on Tuesday are Mainul Hosein, Tapan Chowdhury, Geeteara Safiya Choudhury and ASM Matiur Rahman. Ayub Quadri resigned on December 26, shouldering the responsibility for the December 22 theft of museum pieces from the airport.
   None of the chiefs of the three forces were present at the swearing-in ceremony. The ceremony was not aired live on television.
   The newly appointed advisers were yet to get their portfolios. The chief adviser might reshuffle the portfolios among
   the advisers today.
   ‘They will attend their respective offices after a special meeting
   of the council of advisers,’ said an official at the Chief Adviser’s Office. The meeting is scheduled to begin at the Chief Adviser’s Office at 10:00am today.
   Coming out of the Durbar Hall ceremony, the five new advisers said they had taken the challenge of the changed situation.
   ‘We have come to shoulder the responsibility with conviction. Let us try together,’ said Hossain Zillur Rahman. ‘Let us see the results,’ he said, seeking cooperation from all quarters.
   Rasheda K Chowdhury said they would work as a team for the success of the government.
   The chief adviser has convened today’s meeting of the council of advisers to announce guidelines for the new advisers in the changed situation.
   ‘This will be an introductory meeting. The regular meeting of the council will take place on Sunday as usual,’ said Syed Fahim Munaim, the press secretary to the chief adviser.
   Sources in the government said the new advisers would be given broad-based guidelines on their activities in running the administration and providing support for the Election Commission in holding the suspended parliamentary elections before the year ends.
   The government has already amended the ‘rules of business’ to accommodate the special assistants as per allocation of business.
   The prime minister, now the chief adviser, as per allocation of business can assign any minister or minister of state. The amended rule has made room for special assistants to perform under the chief adviser.
   The status and remuneration of the ‘special assistants’ are yet to be finalised.
   Since assumption of office on January 11, 2006, the government has been looking for options to increase its size, citing that 10 advisers are not enough to manage the workload of more than 40 ministries and divisions.
   Thirty-one people in all took oath as chief advisers and advisers to the caretaker government after the BNP-led government had handed power over to Iajuddin Ahmed October 29, 2006. Twenty of them resigned in various phases.
   Four advisers to the Iajuddin-led administration resigned on December 11, 2006. His council of advisers was dissolved on January 11, 2007 with the declaration of the state of emergency, followed by the formation of the new government, headed by Fakhruddin Ahmed. One of them resigned in December 2006 and four others on Tuesday.

There was virtually no work being done in the advisers’ offices at the Bangladesh Secretariat on Wednesday after four advisers to the interim government were dropped from the cabinet on Tuesday.
   The extant advisers have opined that ‘resignation’ of their four colleagues would not affect the election roadmap of the Election Commission. Some of them termed the resignations as ‘routine’ and ‘usual’.
   Law adviser Mainul Hosein, industries adviser Geeteara Safiya Choudhury, food adviser Tapan Chowdhury and health adviser ASM Matiur Rahman on Tuesday tendered their resignations separately to the Cabinet Division just three days ahead of completion of one year in office.
   Most of the outgoing advisers told the media that they were asked to resign. On December 26 the education and cultural affairs adviser, Ayub Quadri, resigned from the cabinet after taking moral responsibility for the theft of the priceless Vishnu statuettes.
   ‘The caretaker government’s election roadmap will not be affected by their resignation,’ said LGRD and cooperatives adviser Anwarul Iqbal in response to reporters’ queries at the secretariat on Wednesday.
   He said that work does not stop for anybody. ‘Resignation is a usual affair…We have to guide the new advisers and develop teamwork again.’
   Iqbal came to office at around 10:30am though there was virtually no activity there. He held talks with the officials and left the secretary at around 2pm to attend the Police Week programme.
   The agriculture adviser, who also came to the secretariat in the morning, told the media that resignation was a routine affair which in many countries does not have any news value.
   He said there was no reason to be worried about the general elections. ‘There is an election roadmap and we are working in line with it.’
   There will be no deviation from the roadmap to the elections, said Karim, adding that all advisers were together working to that end.
   When approached, communications adviser MA Matin declined to make any comment over the resignations of his colleagues with whom he had worked for around a year.
   Most officials and employees at the administrative headquarters were found immersed in discussion of who were likely to be inducted in the interim cabinet of Fakhruddin Ahmed. ‘We think that the government is not heading for a better situation because those who come later usually cannot outdo those who have resigned, according to our experience,’ an official told New Age while discussing fresh appointments to the cabinet.
   A number of employees said that they were more concerned about the sky-rocketing prices of essential commodities than anything else. ‘The changes in the cabinet mean little to us if they do not reduce the market prices’.

The government borrowed Tk 10,376 crore from the country’s banking system during the July-December period of the current fiscal year, exceeding the whole year’s target by Tk 4,123 crore, central bank figures show.
   The amount was Tk 6320.11 crore in the first half of the previous fiscal year.
   During the first six months of the 2007-08 fiscal year, the government collected Tk 7,322.54 crore through treasury bonds and most of the money was spent to meet Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation debts, according to Bangladesh Bank data compiled up to December 31, 2007.
   The BPC debt payment requirements raised the domestic public borrowing by Tk 4056 crore from the levels of July-December period of the previous fiscal year, finance ministry and central bank officials said.
   Officials forecast that the borrowing could go up further to bankroll the widening public deficit due to increased spending for disaster exigencies and rehabilitation works after twin floods and latest cyclone Sidr.
   Soaring prices of rice and fuel oils would also continue to put pressure on the state coffers.
   ‘Inflated food import bills may increase the government borrowing further from both banking and non-banking systems,’ an official of Bangladesh Bank said.
   Some of them, however, felt that borrowing was still not big.
   ‘If you deduct the BPC bond amount, the total borrowing has not yet reached a worrying level for the government,’ a finance ministry official said.
   Of the total, the government borrowed Tk 10,906.51 crore from scheduled banks and repaid Tk 530.74 crore to Bangladesh Bank during the period, the data said.
   Finance ministry officials believed that the increased public borrowing would not crowd out the private sector from the loan market as banks were wallowing in excess liquidity in recent times.

Detained former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia’s son Tarique Rahman alleged in the court on Wednesday that he was tortured after being taken on remand.
   ‘I was kept blindfolded for 18 hours of the 24 hours of remand on December 31. I was not taken to a police station from the Dhaka Central Jail but somewhere else. I was tied up and suspended from the ceiling and tortured physically there while being kept blindfolded,’ alleged Tarique in the court.
   On Wednesday he was taken from the jail to the court of additional chief metropolitan magistrate Ehsanul Haque who placed him on a one-day remand for interrogation in an extortion case.
   ‘When a politician like me is tortured inhumanly in remand, what can happen to the common people?’ Tarique, who is also senior joint secretary-general of the BNP, questioned the magistrate.
   ‘I want security for my life,’ he said, and pleaded that he not be placed in remand again.
   He also accused the jail authorities of not taking
   measures for his medical treatment despite a court order. ‘The jail authorities are not doing anything for my treatment though the court has ordered them to do so,’ Tarique claimed.
   Tarique made the statement after investigation officer Imtiaz AK Bhuiyan, also sub-inspector of Gulshan thana, appealed to the court to grant further remand for seven days for interrogation on charge of extortion.
   The magistrate granted
   only one day’s remand. He, however, asked the investigator to be ‘cautious’ during interrogation.
   The BNP’s secretary-general, Khandakar Delwar Hossain, in a statement condemned the torture of Tarique Rahman during interrogation in remand. He also demanded action against those responsible for torture.
   ‘I was stunned and shocked at the Tarique Rahman’s description of torture during the hearing of the case at the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate’s court,’ said the statement.
   The charge against Tarique involves alleged extortion of Tk 1.32 crore from a building contractor. Owner of Reza Construction, Md Aftabuddin, filed the case with the Gulshan thana on March 27.
   Tarique’s crony and business partner Giasuddin Al Mamun and six others are also accused in the case.
   Mamun and another accused, Quamruzzaman, confessed in earlier statements to the court that they had handed over a major portion of the alleged bribe to Tarique.
   Investigators, after obtaining the court’s permission, questioned Tarique at the Dhaka Central Jail on 4 January in the same extortion case.
   On January 1 Tarique was sent back to jail after the end of a one-day remand in the custody of the Anti-Corruption Commission for interrogation in a corruption case.
   Additional chief metropolitan magistrate Golam Rabbani on December 6 granted the one-day remand for Tarique. The ACC’s investigators, however, took him into their custody from the Dhaka Central Jail on December 31.
   Tarique, who was arrested on March 8, faces at least half a dozen criminal cases, including a corruption case for submitting a false wealth statement to the ACC.

Teachers at Dhaka University on Wednesday staged a sit-in demonstration for an hour at Aparajeya Bangla holding placards and demanded the release of their colleagues and students detained in connection with the August campus protests.
   The placards read ‘Release all detained teachers and students without delay!’ ‘Uphold the right to justice and conscience!’ and ‘Keep educational institutions functioning!’ demanding that free thinking should be allowed in educational institutions.
   Professor MM Akash of economics, who announced the plan for the demonstrations two days ago, along with the teachers loyal to the Awami League-backed Blue Panel and the left-leaning Pink Panel gathered at the place at 11:00am, joined in by more teachers.
   The teachers loyal to the BNP and Jamaat-backed White Panel did not join the protests.
   A number of students of the Institute of Social Welfare and Research earlier formed a human chain at the institute to push for the demands.
   After the demonstrations, Professor Kabir Chowdhury told reporters, ‘We are here with some resentments and demands. There are no reasons to keep the teachers and students in jail.’
   ‘Taking classes is not the only duty of the teachers. They should also become vocal against injustice. If the teachers were vocal during the August campus protests, they performed their duty and they should be rewarded, not punished,’ Kabir said.
   He hoped that the university authorities would be active in their efforts for the release of the detained teachers and students.
   He said the reports of the judicial inquiry commission and inquiries by the military should be made public so that people can know what happened during August 20–22 on and around the campus and demanded that the teachers and students should be released.
   Former DUTA president AAMS Arefin Siddique brushed aside the allegations levelled by the teachers loyal to the White Panel who claimed the Blue Panel teachers were conspiring to make the campus unstable by going out on demonstrations. He said, ‘Rather they were hatching plots against the teachers’ association by making it dysfunctional with the help of the administration. This has prolonged the detention of the teachers and students.’
   ‘All organisations have the right to go out on demonstrations for their just demand; so has the teachers’ association. If the leaders are not capable enough of running the organisation and getting the teachers freed, they should step down,’ he said.
   The Students against Repression also skipped classes from 11:00am to noon and gathered in front of the Arts Building at a distance from the teachers. The students have planned to form a human chain on the campus at 10:00am today.
   The vice-chancellor, SMA Faiz, meanwhile, met the president, Iajuddin Ahmed, also the chancellor, at noon and discussed matters related to the release of the teachers.
   The Dhaka University Journalists’ Association members also met the vice-chancellor on the indictment of the university correspondent of Banglabazar Patrika, Khomenee Ihsan, in the case of setting fire to a military staff car. They sought his intervention in this regard.

Hillary Clinton on Wednesday basked in the glow of her primary win in New Hampshire, where she defied polls and narrowly beat rival Barack Obama in the state’s key Democratic presidential nominating contest.
   Senator John McCain meanwhile staged his own comeback on the Republican side, triumphing in the crucial early vote despite having been widely written off months ago as his campaign flagged.
   ‘I campaigned really, really hard across New Hampshire,’ said Hillary, who grew tearful in a rare show of emotion on the eve of the primary, leading to ample political opining that the display either helped or hurt her.
   ‘I don’t pay a lot of attention when people say I’m up or when people say I’m down,’ Hillary told CNN. ‘I really believed that I had a good chance to win. Nobody else believed it, but all day, I did.’
   Hillary triumphantly told cheering supporters: ‘Over the last week, I listened to you, and in the process, I found my own voice.’
   Despite public opinion polls that anointed Obama a double-digit favourite and suffering a stinging third-place defeat in the Iowa caucus last week, Hillary won the state primary that saved her husband’s own presidential campaign in 1992.
   Tabloids in New York, where Hillary serves as senator, plastered shots of her laughing face on the front page with headlines ‘Who’s Crying Now?’ in the New York Daily News and ‘Back From the Dead’ in the New York Post.
   With nearly all precincts reporting, Hillary came out ahead with 39 per cent to 36 per cent for Obama, even as exit polls showed more Democrats cared most about change (54 per cent) than experience (19 per cent).
   In one striking development, women seemed to be flocking back to the Hillary camp, after opting for Obama in Iowa. Fox and CNN exit polls showed Hillary on top among women voters by 47 to 34 per cent. Fifty-seven per cent of voters in the Democratic primary were women.
   Asked about what role the key voting blocks of young people, women and independents may have played in his loss, the 46-year-old Illinois senator told Fox: ‘It’s hard to say.’
   ‘I haven’t sorted through all the numbers. (But) I think voters are not going to let anyone take anything for granted,’ he said.
   ‘This is going to be a really hard-fought battle,’ Obama added, voicing optimism that ‘we’re going to be in a good position to win the nomination.’
   His supporters gave him a rock-star welcome as he conceded Clinton’s victory and vowed he would ultimately find his way to the White House.
   ‘I’m still fired up,’ he cried to cheers and applause.
   Former senator John Edwards, second in Iowa, finished third among Democrats, but vowed to stay in the race to the end.
   McCain meanwhile beat former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney as well as Iowa caucus winner and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, an ordained Baptist minister.
   McCain, who spent nearly six years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, led with 37 per cent of the vote with most of the results in.
   ‘My friends, you know, I’m past the age when I can claim the noun ‘kid,’ no matter what adjective precedes it. But tonight, we sure showed them what a comeback looks like,’ said McCain, 71, as supporters roared their approval, chanting ‘The Mac is Back.’
   The upset wins left both parties’ races uncertain, with no clear front-runner to succeed the US president, George W Bush, who arrived in the Middle East Wednesday for a week-long trip and has not publicly chosen a favourite candidate.

The chief adviser, Fakhruddin Ahmed, on Wednesday said his interim government and the Election Commission were going ahead with the poll roadmap to hold national elections before end of this year (2008) and that there was no reason for any doubt about it.
   He made the assertion when the visiting Amnesty International secretary general, Irene Khan, paid a courtesy call on him at the Chief Adviser’s Office.
   The chief adviser said the main objective of the government was to hold a free, fair and credible election within the targeted timeframe and the Election Commission was working to this end as per the poll roadmap.
   Various issues including lifting of restrictions under state of emergency, election, human rights, Right to Information Act, reform of the Police Act and trial of war criminals came up for discussion.
   On trial of war criminals, Fakhruddin said the present government mainly focused on reforms and election. He, however said political parties could include the issue in their next election manifesto.
   On trial of suspected corrupt persons, he said they were being tried in normal process under the existing law of the land. ‘None is above the law and everybody is given due process.’
   Irene said they would submit some recommendations to the government for expediting reforms. Similarly, they will give recommendations to the political parties.
   On restrictions under state of emergency, Fakhruddin said under the state of emergency some restrictions had to be imposed.
   The chief adviser, however, said if the government felt necessary, it would lift restrictions gradually, CA’s press secretary Syed Fahim Munaim said.
   The AI secretary general appreciated government’s various reform measures and steps, including separation of the judiciary and formation of National Human Rights Commission. ‘You have started remarkable things and the next government will have to follow them,’ she said.
   Irene said selections at Human Rights Commission are important.
   The CA said they would look into proper selection of people for the NHRC, adding that the government is observing what best practices can be of Human Rights Commission in the light of other countries’ Human Rights commissions.
   Responding to a suggestion for making public the reports of various commissions, the chief adviser said they would try to develop a system to this end.
   The director of the Amnesty International, Denmark, Lars Normann Jorgensen and head of AI secretary general’s office, Judit Arenas Licsa, accompanied the AI secretary general during the meeting.

The Bangladesh Bank has decided to devise safety and security guidelines for lockers, vaults and automated teller machines for the commercial banks of the country, said sources in the central bank.
   ‘We have already instructed the department concerned to look into the issues,’ said a high official of the BB.
   ‘The heist from the BRAC Bank is an eye-opener for us; some banks were robbed in the past but this is for the first time that the contents of lockers were robbed,’ he said.
   The private sector bank has been asked to provide the details of the heist and its security measures for the lockers, he added.
   The robbers, who hired rooms of Hotel Nid Mahal just one floor above the BRAC Bank’s Sukrabad branch, entered the locker room by cutting the ceiling on early Saturday and made off with a huge amount of ornaments and other valuables by breaking open 75 lockers.
   The total amount of the gold or the value of the looted ornaments is yet to be ascertained.
   In the security features many things like construction of vaults, thickness of the walls, floor and ceiling, CCTV facility, round-the-clock guard system, quality of the locks and other factors are expected to be included, he said.
   Regarding the safety of ATMs, he said the location, parking facility, 24-hour guard system and construction of booths would be stipulated in the guidelines.
   ‘The Bangladesh Bank will finalise the guidelines after scrutinising the security system in the neighbouring and other countries,’ said the BB official.
   However, there will be no scope for compensation for stolen contents of lockers in the guidelines, he said.
   Unlike cash deposits, of which the banks keep records, the nature and price of the valuables stored in the lockers are unknown to banks, he said.
   ‘If a bank does not know the value of the things in the lockers, how can it give compensation?’ he explained.

No progress has been made in the investigation of the heist from the BRAC Bank’s Dhanmonmdi branch even four days after the robbers, breaking into the vault and forcing open 75 lockers, made off with gold ornaments and other valuables.
   Law enforcers could neither apprehend any of the suspects responsible for the country’s largest heist of ornaments nor recover any of the stolen valuables till Wednesday evening, although they claimed on Tuesday that they had made significant progress in the investigation.
   The police did not get any information from the four hotel-boys and cleaners arrested in connection with the incident, said sources.
   Sub-inspector Abu Bakar Siddique of Mohammadpur thana, who is the investigation officer of the case, produced the arrestees — Shah Alam, Shapan Barua, Sujan, Monir — in the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday and
   sought a seven-day police remand.
   Metropolitan magistrate Habibur Rahman, however, granted a four-day police remand for interrogation.
   ‘We suspect that someone in the bank or any locker- renter might have been involved in the heist, and we are trying to trace them,’ the investigation officer told New Age.
   ‘One of our team has already visited Chittagong to find the address which was recorded in the hotel’s register book when the gangsters rented the rooms,’ he added.
   Several teams of the Rapid Action Battalion, Criminal Investigation Department, Detective Branch and police conducted drives in and outside the capital to nab the female members of the gang, said RAB sources.
   The officer-in-charge of the Mohammadpur thana, SM Shibly Noman, told New Age, ‘We have taken them [the
   four hotel employees] into remand as we need to crosscheck some information provided by them regarding the gangsters.’
   The law enforcers on early Wednesday picked up Abdul Mannan, the manager of the Hotel Nid Mahal, and one of the assistants for interrogation, but released them on Wednesday morning.

Election commissioner Muhammed Sohul Hussain on Wednesday said the delimitation of parliamentary constituencies would need to be completed along with the completion of the electoral roll before any steps to hold the national polls.
   ‘Both the preparation of the electoral roll and the delimitation of the constituencies will need to be completed for any steps to hold the national polls. As soon as the tasks are complete, we will be ready to hold the polls,’ Sohul told reporters in his office on Wednesday.
   Sohul made the statement on the completion of constituency delimitation in addition to the completion of the electoral roll a day after the chief election commissioner, ATM Shamsul Huda, had announced guidelines for the delimitation of the parliamentary constituencies by June.
   All the election commissioners, however, on several occasions earlier said the holding of the national polls would depend only on the preparation of the electoral roll with photographs.
   When asked to comment on the demand of a political party for holding the polls by the middle of this year, Sohul said, ‘We have made our position clear and announced the roadmap towards holding the polls by December 2008. The electoral roll may be completed earlier and the national elections may be held before the deadline [December]. But we cannot say for certain, at least at the moment.’
   Asked whether there will be any problem in implementing the roadmap because of the resignation of four advisers, Sohul replied in negative. ‘The government has not pressured us to anything We are carrying out our job independently. So there will be no problem because of the change in the advisers.’
   The election commissioner hoped the complexities regarding the dialogue with a faction of the BNP might be resolved immediately by the verdict of the High Court.
   ‘The High Court might complete the hearing in the case regarding the invitation of a faction of the BNP tomorrow. If the complexities are over, we will then sit with political parties again in February to complete the reforms,’ he said on Wednesday.

Open market sale of rice began on Wednesday in cities and towns all over the country with officials expecting significant impacts on the overheated rice market.
   The first day of the scheme was marked by lower-than-planned supplies to dealers in many places including capital Dhaka. A food official was assaulted by a dealer on Tuesday in Gopalganj.
   Only a third of the listed dealers in the Dhaka city managed to get half of their allotment of rice on the first day due to the authorities’ eleventh-hour changes in dealership criteria.
   Under the changed rules, the dealers who run grocery shops and have trade licences from the city corporation will be given OMS rice.
   Dealers’ shops in many wards in Dhaka City Corporation areas were found closed as they did not get rice allocations from official warehouses.
    ‘I had applied to the Department of Food with necessary papers on Sunday and am still waiting for a response,’ said Farhad Hossain, a listed dealer of the food department for Mirpur Section-6.
   Another dealer of Mirpur section-7, Jahir Hossain alleged that he had also contacted the food department officials to start OMS outlet from the first day on Wednesday, but failed to get rice supply.
   The chief controller of Dhaka Rationing, Hironmoy Baroi said the department so far selected some 153 dealers out of listed 450 in 90 wards of the Dhaka metropolitan city.
   The official said that they would need another week to bring the whole city under OMS coverage as most of the listed dealers needed time to collect grocery shop licences, which are now a must for OMS dealership.
   Rice allotment for an individual dealer has also been reduced, but many dealers failed to get that amount even.
   Hosne Jamal Dalim, a dealer of Mirpur section-11 aeged that according to the revised rule, a dealer is entitled to get 3,400 kilograms of rice at one time, but concerned authorities supplied only 1700 kgs for selling in two days.
   Halving of allotment would double transportation cost and reduce their profit margin, which is just Tk 1 per kg, the dealer said.
   Under the programme, the government has decided that a dealer will be allowed to sell a maximum of 850 kg of rice in open market a day and take deliveries of four days’ rice at one time, said officials concerned.
   Selling price has been set at Tk 25 a kg and a buyer will be entitled to a maximum of three kg rice a day.
   Food Department’s director general Molla Waheduzzaman, while inaugurating the OMS programme in the city on Wednesday, said the intervention would cool down the overheated retail market.
   In Gopalganj, Mokbul Hossain, food controller of Kashiani upazila, was assaulted by a dealer Tuesday afternoon.
   According to witnesses, Mokbul selected two OMS dealers through lottery in presence of all applicants, but a dealer, Zahidar Rahman, got angry as he was dropped and assaulted the food official.
   In Barisal, 118 dealers have been appointed for OMS operation.
   Our Rajshahi correspondent said 40 dealers were selected for the city area and 30 more for nine upazilas.
   New Age correspondents reported that OMS operation was inaugurated in Gazipur, Lalmonirhat, Mymensingh
   and Moulvibazar along with other districts and municipalities.
   The government has decided to sell about 25,372 tonnes of rice through the OMS programme across the country in January. About 1,305 dealers have been appointed across the country including some 138 in the Dhaka city.

The World Bank has projected Bangladesh’s economic growth at 5.5 per cent for 2008, lower than domestic estimates, due to political tensions, severe flooding and cyclone Sidr.
   Rising inflation, potential threat to exports, increase in the food and energy prices and pressure on external balance would have an adverse impact on the economy, according to WB’s Global Economic Prospects 2008 released on Wednesday.
   The Bangladesh Bank as well as independent domestic researchers estimated that the GDP growth would be over 6 per cent in 2008.
   According to the GEP, South Asia’s regional GDP was vibrant at 8.4 per cent in 2007, easing only moderately from the 8.8 per cent outturn of 2006.
   The regional growth is expected to pick up to 8.1 per cent by 2009 as recovering growth in the OECD firms up external demand and as receding oil prices ease pressures on the import bill.
   In 2008, global growth is expected to be 3.3 per cent.
   ‘Heightened political tensions and severe flooding were curbing demand in the second half of 2007 and will contribute to a full percentage point reduction in growth to 5.5 per cent for 2008,’ said the WB outlook.
   It said tighter domestic credit conditions in Bangladesh induced a softening in investment growth, while net exports turned negative, explaining the slight moderation in growth from 6.6 per cent in 2006 to 6.5 per cent in 2007.
   European and US restrictions on some categories of Chinese textile and clothing exports will be lifted at the end of 2008, and increased competition in 2009 could hurt regional exporters.
   The GEP said potential effects might be discerned by examining developments in Canada, which has not imposed safeguard restrictions on China: Bangladesh’s share of Canada’s textile and clothing market declined from 7.4 per cent in 2005-06 to 6.9 per cent over 2007 to date.
   It said high, and in some cases increasing, commodity prices also present a risk for the region’s economies.
   Sharp gains in international food prices are a growing threat in a region where food imports represent 11-20 per cent of total merchandise imports. In case of Bangladesh, food imports represent 19 per cent of its total imports.
   The GEP noted that world growth slowed modestly in 2007 to 3.6 per cent compared with 3.9 per cent in 2006, a downturn due largely to weaker growth in high-income countries.
   It said a weaker US dollar, the specter of an American recession and rising financial-market volatility could cast a shadow over this soft landing scenario for the global economy.
   These risks, it added, would cut export revenues and capital inflows for developing countries, and reduce the value of their dollar-investments abroad.
   In this context, the GEP projected that the reserves and other buffers that developing countries have built up in past years may be needed to absorb unexpected shocks.
   Apart from putting increased pressure on external positions, the World Bank report said higher international food prices carry potentially serious implications for the poorest members of these societies, including Bangladesh.
   The higher food prices could strain government coffers and generate increased inflationary pressures given widespread food subsidies, it added.
   ‘Similarly, further increases in energy prices remain a risk for the region, which is highly dependent on oil imports.’

The Awami League and its front organisations will observe the homecoming day of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding president of Bangladesh, today.
   On this day in 1972, Sheikh Mujib returned home from Pakistan where he had been detained during nine-month war of independence. The Pakistan army arrested him on the night of March 25, 1971.
   To mark the day, the party has drawn up limited programmes this year as the country is going through a state of emergency.
   As part of the programmes, the AL will hoist party flag atop all its offices at 6:00am, place wreaths at the portrait of Sheikh Mujib at Bangabandhu Bhaban in Dhaka and his grave in Tungipara at 8:00am and hold discussion meeting at Institution of Engineers, Bangladesh at 3:00pm.
   A team of the party led by its presidium member Abdur Razzak will place wreaths at the grave of Sheikh Mujib in Tungipara.

Ashura, the 10th of Muharram of Arabic Hizri year will be observed on January 20 across the country.
   The decision was taken at a meeting of the national moon sighting committee at the Islamic Foundation conference room in the city Wednesday evening.
   The religious affairs secretary, Muhammad Ataur Rahman presided over the meeting, said a press release.
   The meeting reviewed information received from divisional and district levels and from the Met Office, and decided that the moon of lunar month of Muharram was not seen anywhere in the country on Wednesday.
   Therefore, the month of Muharram will begin on January 11 and Ashura will be observed on January 20.
   Others who attended the meeting are Islamic Foundation Director General M Fazlur Rahman and Pesh Imam of Baitul Mukarran Mosque Mufti Muhammad Nuruddin.

Statements and other banking documents of a leading businessman Latifur Rahman and his family have been sent to an intelligence agency, banking sources said.
   Individual banks sent the information till January 8. The intelligence agency on December 18 asked the banks to provide it with detailed information about bank transactions, FDR position and credit facilities of Latifur Rahman, his wife Shahnaz Rahman, son Arshed Waliur Rahman, daughters Simeen Hossain and Shahzreh Huq during the period between July 2000 and June 2007.
   It also sought information about Transcom Ltd, Bangladesh Lams Ltd, Eskayef Bangladesh Ltd, Transcom Distribution Co Ltd, Transcom Beverage Ltd, Transcraft Ltd, Transcom Electronics Ltd, Bangladesh Electrical Industries Ltd, Transcom Foods Ltd, Mediastar Ltd (Prothom Alo), Tea Holdings Ltd and other companies where any of above persons or their family members are directors.

AF Hassan Ariff on Wednesday had resigned his presidency and primary membership of the human rights coalition Odhikar before he was sworn in as an adviser to the interim government.
   He was founding vice-president of the organisation and became president in 1997 and worked till 2001 before his appointment as the attorney general.
   After his retirement, he became president of the organisation again in 2005, said a release.

The government has requested the Islamic Development Bank to increase the annual loan for the Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation to $1.5 billion from the existing $1 billion as its fuel import bill this year is likely to exceed $3.3 billion.
   It also urged the IDB to decrease the interest rate as the bank’s interest rate has increased in the last two years.
   Energy secretary Mohammad Mohsin conveyed this request to a visiting delegation of the IDB, headed by its deputy director Nik Najib Husain, in the last week of December last year.
   Mohsin told New Age last week that the IDB delegation had assured the government that they would convey Bangladesh’s request to the IDB’s board.
   ‘The delegation at first assured us that the loan amount in 2008 would not be below what we got in 2007. Then they said that our request to increase the loan amount and decrease interest rate would be conveyed to the IDB’s board,’ he said.
   As per BPC’s estimates, the IDB provided around $1 billion for oil import in 2007 when the BPC imported fuel oils worth around $2.5 billion. BPC imports around 36-38 lakh tonnes of diesel, kerosene, octane, jet fuel and crude oil.
   The BPC has estimated that the fuel import bill this year would be $3.36 billion because of soaring prices of fuel oils in the international market. ‘If we get only around $1 billion from the IDB, it will hard for the Bangladesh Bank alone to provide the rest of the foreign currency,’ observed an official.
   BPC estimated that the bill for fuel oils would each month be $322 million in January, February and March, $294 million each month in April and May, $260 million in June, $210 million in July, $238 million each month in August and September, $260 million in October, and $294 million each month in November and December.
   Sources in the BPC said that the IDB’s interest rate for the loans to BPC has increased to LIBOR (London Interbank Offered Rate) plus 1.75 per cent from the LIBOR plus 1.5 per cent in the last two years.
   ‘IDB earlier used to lend us from its own resources and its own desks like Asset Management Department and Industrial Trade Financing Operation with interest rates ranging from LIBOR plus to 1.05 to LIBOR plus 1.5. But in recent months the IDB gave us funds from syndicated loans and co-financing with interest rate LIBOR plus 1.75,’ said a source.
   He said that IDB was requested to increase the amount of loan from its own resources so that the interest rate decreases.

The government’s rules of business have been amended to accommodate ‘special assistants to the chief adviser’ in the administration, according to official sources.
   A circular to this effect was issued on Wednesday following the chief adviser’s office sent a summary to the Bangabhaban for the presidential approval, said an official.
   The circular was not made available immediately.
   The amendment was done
   in haste after the govern-
   ment decided to appoint six ‘special assistants’ to reduce workloads on advisers, sources said.
   The prime minister, now the chief adviser, as per
   allocation of business can assign any minister or minister of state.
   ‘The prime minister may assign a division or a ministry or more than one division or ministry to the charge of the prime minister or a minister
   of state, provided that a division or ministry not so assigned shall be in direct charge of the prime minister,’ according to the rules of business 1996.
   The amended rule (rule 4
   of the rules of business) has made room for special assis-
   tants to perform under the chief adviser.
   Another notification specifying the status and remuneration of the ‘special assistants’ is expected in a day or two, officials said.

After years of discord in Pakistan’s top political dynasty, Benazir Bhutto’s sister-in-law has stoked up the family feud by saying she wants the opposition leader’s son to join her rival party.
   Ghinwa Bhutto has been estranged from the former premier since her husband, Benazir’s younger brother Murtaza, was gunned down amid shady circumstances in Karachi 12 years ago while Benazir was still in power.
   In the latest twist to the feuding that has torn the country’s ‘royal family’ apart, Lebanese-born Ghinwa said that after Benazir’s assassination she now hopes to woo Benazir’s 19-year-old son Bilawal to her side.
   ‘We’ll try to bring him to our party,’ Ghinwa said at her sprawling home in the southern town of Larkana – a portrait of her husband on one side of her and a photograph of a young Benazir on the other.
   Asked how she intended to get the Oxford undergraduate to defect, she said: ‘I don’t know, with love and affection and education. Maybe when he comes back he might like our set-up better than the set-up of the other party.’
   Any such move would be fiercely resisted by the Pakistan People’s Party, which kept the leadership in the family for a third generation by naming Bilawal and his father Asif Ali Zardari as co-chairmen after Benazir’s death.
   While his role will be minimal until his studies are over, the teenager told reporters in London on Tuesday that he agreed to lead the PPP because ‘the party needed a close association with my mother through the bloodline’.
   Ghinwa heads a breakaway faction called the Pakistan People’s Party-Shaheed Bhutto – named in honour of her ‘martyr (shaheed)’ husband – for which she is standing as an MP in Pakistan’s February 18 elections.
   And the rift goes deep.
   Ghinwa said that she held Benazir responsible for Murtaza Bhutto’s death, while Benazir reportedly once scathingly referred to her rival as a ‘Lebanese bellydancer.’
   The infighting was set to reach fever pitch during the elections when the pair stood in the same constituency, vying for the votes of the Benazir clan’s peasant followers in Larkana’s sugarcane fields.
   But Benazir’s killing in a gun and suicide attack at a political rally on December 27 saw Ghinwa soften her stance and attend her funeral in the family mausoleum nearby.
   Nevertheless she said that without Benazir at its helm the PPP could split, adding that her party would welcome Bilawal when he returns to Pakistan because it is the rightful heir to the legacy of his grandfather, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.
   ‘I don’t know what would be left of the other party. And if he sees I’m making a party here for everybody to work with... to deliver this legacy to the people, he might like it,’ said Ghinwa.
   ‘He seems to be a nice boy.’
   She described Bilawal as a ‘sweet child, always willing to get in touch, always willing to speak, always willing to hug and kiss his cousins and even me’ despite the strains in the family.
   Those cousins include a young woman widely seen in Pakistan as another potential heir to the Bhutto heritage – and one who had continued the feud with Benazir’s side of the family: Murtaza’s 25-year-old daughter Fatima.
   A writer who has so far refused to enter politics, Fatima bitterly criticised her aunt in October for exposing supporters to an attack on her homecoming parade for the sake of ‘personal theatre.’
   A weeping Fatima however joined Ghinwa at Benazir’s graveside, and in a Pakistani newspaper column she said that although her relationship with Benazir was ‘complicated,’ she was now ‘compounded in a state of shock.’

Scotland Yard has sent an explosives expert to Pakistan to beef up its team investigating the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, an official said Wednesday.
   The detective is an expert in the type of explosives used in the gun and suicide bomb attack which killed Benazir and nearly two dozen of her supporters after an election campaign rally in Rawalpindi on December 27, he said.
   The British anti-terrorism detectives arrived last week following an invitation from the president, Pervez Musharraf, who had admitted Pakistani investigators had made mistakes in the initial probe of the murder.
   They have collected forensic evidence, reconstructed the crime scene, and recorded statements from witnesses and the medical team that tried to revive Benazir after the attack.
   ‘There is no breakthrough yet. We are examining the evidence closely with all technical help and expertise from Scotland Yard,’ a senior Pakistani investigator said.
   The British detectives met Musharraf for the first time on Tuesday and received his assurances of the government’s full support amid allegations from Benazir’s supporters that it knows more than it is saying about the murder.
   Benazir’s Pakistan People’s Party, the country’s largest, has demanded an independent UN investigation and accused the government of a ‘conspiracy’ over the slaying of its most outspoken critic ahead of key general elections.
   It says Musharraf, an ex-general who seized power in a military coup in 1999, failed to provide sufficient security for the two-time former prime minister after an October suicide bombing failed to kill her.
   The party also cites a letter Benazir wrote to Musharraf just before she returned to Pakistan from self-imposed exile in October, in which she accused certain politicians and officials of wanting her dead.
   The government has blamed a local al-Qaeda-linked militant for organising the assassination, but he has denied any involvement.

A Bangladesh delegation left Dhaka on Wednesday for New Delhi to discuss with Indian officials the import of five lakh tonnes of rice to meet the food requirement in coming days.
   The delegation, led by the food and disaster management secretary, Ayub Mian, is visiting New Delhi to talk rice import from India as pledged by India’s external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee during his recent visit.
   He visited Bangladesh on December 1 to observe the situation in the wake of cyclone Sidr that struck Bangladesh on November 15.
   Pranab during the tour of Bangladesh said India would sell five lakh tonnes of rice to Bangladesh.
   Officials of the food and foreign ministries said during the two-day tour of New Delhi, the Bangladesh delegation would meet the officials of three trading companies and discuss with them in details the modes of rice import.
   The three Indian trading companies expressed their willingness to provide Bangladesh with the amount of rice.
   India’s three public procurement companies MMTC, STC and NAFED would supply Bangladesh with rice after buying it from the local market.
   The food secretary, Ayub Mian, said, ‘We have asked three Indian trading companies to send the price quotation at the earliest. The Indian high commissioner assured us of sending them in a couple of days.’
   ‘After the return of the delegation home, we can precisely say when the first consignment of rice will arrive,’ said an official involved in the process.
   Quoting an earlier version of the Indian officials, he said the Indian rice would reach Bangla-desh in the first half of February.

Former BNP lawmaker Mosaddak Ali Falu was granted bail by a court here on Wednesday in a land grabbing and intimidation case.
   The Dhaka metropolitan sessions Judge Mohammad Azizul Haque delivered the bail order.
   Dr Zafarullah filed the case against Falu.

The Anti-Corruption Commission on Wednesday sued former National Board of Revenue director Mohammad Jahrul Haque and his wife on charge of owning wealth beyond their known sources of income.
   The couple were also accused of concealing information on their wealth in the statement submitted to the commission, as mentioned in the first information report filed by the commission’s deputy director M Moniruzzaman Khan with the Ramna police.
   The commission alleged that Jahrul and his wife, Afiya Haque, had owned assets of Tk 1.52 crore illegally and also had concealed information on assets of Tk 1.24 crore in the statement.
   Jahrul went into hiding after he had been listed by the commission as a high-profile corruption suspect.

Nepal’s Maoist leader slammed prime minister Girija Prasad Koirala’s refusal Wednesday to accept former guerrillas in the army, calling it a threat to the nation’s fragile peace process.
   Koirala opposed integrating Maoist fighters into Nepal’s army on the grounds that it would ‘politicise’ the institution, state-owned media Rising Nepal reported on Wednesday.
   ‘The army is the nation’s wing and it should not be politicised,’ Koirala said.
   ‘The Maoist army will not be integrated with the Nepal Army,’ he added.
   As part of a peace deal in November 2006 that ended a decades-long civil war by the Maoists to overthrow the monarchy, former rebel fighters have been housed in UN-monitored camps across the impoverished Himalayan country.
   But just half of the Maoists’ claimed 32,250-strong rebel army are actually former guerrillas, according to the UN, which was asked to count them under the peace deal.
   ‘We’re alarmed by the prime minister’s remarks. It’s a threat to the peace process,’ said Maoist chairman Prachanda in Kathmandu.