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About 3,000 shanties were burnt and 10 buildings were damaged in a fire that broke out in a slum at Rayer Bazar in Dhaka Friday night. About 10,000 people became homeless.
   There were no immediate reports of casualties. More than 50 people were injured and several others remained missing. The fire fighters were working to put out the flames at 11:00pm.
   Fire service officials and the police feared some children might have been trapped inside.
   Slum dwellers said the fire had originated from a cloth store to the south of the slum, near the Rayer Bazar tally office, at about 7:30pm. The flames soon spread over the entire slum as winds blew strong.
   Some local residents, however, said the fire had originated from an oven in a shanty in the south of the slum.
   Fifteen fire engines reached the spot and started putting out the flames.
   Frightened dwellers trapped inside the enclosure struggled to get out, but the small exit was not enough for the hordes of people to come out at a time.
   Many scurried in chaos to the rear of the rectangular slum area as electric supply was snapped soon after the fire had raged in flames.
   Most of the dwellers are workers of garment factories, vendors, day labourers and rickshaw pullers. All their property and belongings were burnt.
   Officials of the Fire Service and Civil Defence said they were yet to establish the cause of the fire and the extent of the damage.
   ‘Shanties made of bamboo and wood are highly flammable. We are lucky to have the water body near by. The matter could have turned worse, otherwise,’ a fire official told New Age.
   ‘We could not establish the number of shanties in the slum. We will begin rescue operation after completely putting out the flames. We have primarily estimated that about 3,000 shanties have been burnt,’ he said at 10:00pm.
   Sixty-year-old Halima Khatun told New Age, ‘I was inside my room and heard people crying out “Fire! Fire!” I rushed out and saw the flames advancing towards my shanty. I quickly grabbed my grandchildren and ran for safe places. But we have lost all of our belongings but for the clothes were are in.’
   Women went searching for their children. Thirty-two-year-old Phuli Begum, a rice cake vendor, went to her makeshift roadside shop near by, leaving her two children, aged below 7, back home. She rushed back to the slum after the fire had started. She was looking for her children.
   Next to her was Anwara Begum, distraught at the news that her two children went missing. She was requesting the fire officials to find out the children.
   Sixty-year-old Abdul Alim, the owner of a building in the slum area, told New Age, ‘We have lost all of our belongings. Everything burned down.’
   Fifty-five-year-old Hawa Begum, owner of three shanties, said her family members had bought 35 kilograms of rice from the open market sales outlet on Thursday. The rice and other valuables were all burnt.
   The duty officers of the Mohammadpur and the Hajaribagh police said several of their teams were on location. They were yet to be reported on any casualties or the extent of the damage

The prices of major essential commodities increased by 26–70 per cent in the past one year of the interim government headed by Fakhruddin Ahmed, as evident in comparisons between goods prices of January 11, 2007 and January 10, 2008.
   The records of the commodity prices in the city markets during the period as available with the Trading Corporation of Bangladesh also show a similar price increase in the year.
   Experts blamed for such a situation the lack of market monitoring and delays in government decisions to keep commodity supply stable.
   The retail prices of coarse rice increased by 68 per cent in the period. Coarse varieties such as Guti Swarna or China IRRI were retailed for Tk 31 a kilogram in Dhaka on Thursday. According to the Trading Corporation records, the rice varieties sold for Tk 18.5 a kilogram a year ago.
   Atta, a coarse variety of flour, sold for prices between Tk 40 and Tk 42 a kilogram on Thursday, registering an increase up to 61 per cent on the average retail prices of Tk 25.5 a year ago.
   Soya bean oil became dearer by 48 per cent during the period. It sold for prices between Tk 94 and Tk 98 a kilogram on Thursday. The prices a year ago ranged between Tk 64 and Tk 66.
   Baby milk registered a sharp price increase during the period, according to records of the Trading Corporation of Bangladesh. The records said a two-kilogram tin of milk of the popular brand Dano, sold between Tk 1,160 and Tk 1,170 on Thursday. The tin of milk sold for Tk 742.5 on January 11, 2007. The price increased by 56 per cent in the year.
   The statistics of the corporation, which regularly records the prices of more than 37 items sold in city retail markets, showed that the prices of at least 26 items increased sharply in the period.
   The records showed that six out of the nine ‘most sensitive essential food items’ — rice, flour, milk, cooking oil, sugar, lentil, red chillies, onions and potato as categorised by the corporation — had become dearer by 26 per cent to 70 per cent in the period.
   The Consumers’ Association of Bangladesh general secretary, Quazi Faruk, said the prices of food items had gone out of the reach of the poor and the limited income people while the middle class was hit hard by the price increase.
   ‘It is a matter of disappointment for the people as the government has failed to contain the price spiral of essential commodities,’ he said.
   Economist Quazi Kholiquzzaman Ahmed, also president of the Bangladesh Economic Association, said the government had failed to put in place proper market monitoring and to make timely decisions to increase commodity supply to contain the price spiral.
   ‘Although the twin floods which took place more than three months ago cut down on agricultural production, the government has failed to import food grains to create a buffer stock.’

FOOD security, constrained by crop losses in back-to-back floods and cyclone Sidr, and jolted by market volatility, is threatened by a shortage in food-grain stock which is much below the officially declared minimum level.
   The military-controlled interim government faces simultaneous challenges of procuring food from the international market, securing food assistance from donors, ensuring proper distribution and managing the market characterised by soaring price.
   As of the past week or so, the official food stock came down to 4.38 lakh tonnes of rice and 1.65 tonnes of wheat whereas the government, according to the food policy, is supposed to have a stock of 10 lakh tonnes of food grain.
   The crisis of food has arisen in the country at a time when the world food supply is dwindling rapidly and food prices are soaring to record levels. The Food and Agriculture Organisation’s food price index rose more than 40 per cent in 2007, compared with 9 per cent the year before.
   The changes represent an ‘unforeseen and unprecedented’ shift in the global food system, threatening billions with hunger and decreased access to food, the UN agency warned in the past month.
   Three major objectives of the national food policy are to ensure uninterrupted supply of adequate, safe and nutritious food for all citizens, to improve access to food by raising the purchasing capacity of people and focus on adequate nutrition, especially for women and children.
   The current market prices of rice and wheat do not guarantee that the people of all strata will be able to access nutritious foods as per the policy. The prices of rice and wheat marked some 60 per cent increase in one year.
   The government has decided to initiate open market sales of rice at subsidised rates and the quantity of daily sales of such rice will be a maximum of 500 tonnes.
   The Department of Food failed to purchase any food grain during the aman rice procurement drives that concluded on December 31 against a target of two lakh tonnes.
   The food planning and procurement committee fixed an unrealistic price of Tk 20 per kilogram when the market price of rice averaged Tk 26.
   A probable supply of rice amounting to 5 lakh tonnes from India in time became uncertain following a price spiral on the Indian market by $75 per tonne.
   The government has decided to explore other sources for importing rice, such as Pakistan, Thailand, and Myanmar following the high price ceiling imposed by New Delhi on rice export.
   The donors have, meanwhile, expressed scepticism about whether they would be able to meet the government’s request for 5 lakh tonnes of rice in food aid, dealing a blow to the efforts to meet the estimated food shortfall.
   The food shortage this year is estimated at about 30 lakh tonnes although official assessments on shortage and national requirement of food grain have not been made before the crisis arose.
   Some importers, preferring anonymity, also pointed out that they would have been able to import food much earlier had the assessments were made in time.
   Apprehending shortage of food after cyclone Sidr and two floods earlier, some experts predicted that the national food security might be threatened to the extent so as to induce a silent famine.
   Some economists then forecast a negative impact of the deficiency of food grain on the market prices and also said it would create a livelihood crisis in the cyclone-affected areas unless massive relief work and post-cyclone rehabilitation programmes were undertaken immediately.
   Noted economist Wahiduddin Mahmud said not only would there be a shortfall in food supply but the people would also lack purchasing power.
   The president of the Bangladesh Economic Association, Quazi Kholiquzzaman Ahmad, expressed apprehensions about the crisis of food security saying even if the government imported an adequate quantity of food it would be difficult to reach them to the households in remote areas because of inadequacy in the distribution system and the people’s purchasing capacity vis-à-vis the high prices.
   Nearly 80 per cent of the ultra-poor in rural Bangladesh are trapped in the vicious circle of poverty as they do not own farming land, according to a recent global report.
   According to the food policy, the issue of food insecurity in the doldrums of rural economy is directly linked to food grain production, population growth and depletion of farmland. ‘The aforesaid symptoms in the existing poverty scenario have further complicated the whole perspective of national food security,’ the policy said.

The government’s failure to provide teachers with manuals on new textbooks for Class I to Class V in time is hampering academic activities at all of the 80,401 primary schools, teachers and officials have told New Age.
   The government was scheduled to provide the teachers with manuals on books for Class I and II in 2003, for Class III in 2004, for Class IV in 2005 and for Class V in 2006. New textbooks were introduced in the academic years the teachers were scheduled to get the manuals.
   The situation has left the teachers with no guidelines on how to teach the students using the next textbooks.
   ‘We face problems when we begin teaching new chapters or exercises as we do not have the teaching manuals,’ said a teacher at a government primary school in Dhaka.
   ‘We were supposed to get the manuals before we began the classes of the academic years,’ he said. ‘Students are now taught new chapters or formulas of mathematics at teachers’ will.’
   ‘As we are in urban areas, we have the scope to discuss the matters with experts. But the teachers in rural areas are in more difficulties as most of them are not trained in classroom teaching,’ he said.
   ‘There are some teachers who do not know how to teach English or mathematics in Class III, IV and V,’ said a headmaster at a government primary school in Barisal.
   ‘We received some teachers’ manuals early 2003; but the textbooks on which the manuals were written had been changed by then. The manuals were on the books introduced in 1995–1996,’ said a teacher at a Lalbagh government primary school in Dhaka. ‘We fear similar things will happen this time too.’
   There are more than 1.62 crore students in 80,401 schools offering education from Class I to V, according to government statistics. The institutions employ about 3.45 lakh teachers.
   ‘There are various reasons behind the delay in publishing and supplying the teachers with the manuals. We had to face problems related to tender and some administrative complexities,’ said an official in the Directorate of Primary Education under the primary and mass education ministry.
   ‘The manuscripts of the teachers’ manuals on books for Class I and II went missing when they were given to the printers’ in late 2002. Now we need to have the manuscripts re-written,’ said an official at the National Curriculum and Textbook Board.
   The board, which is an autonomous body under the education ministry, is responsible for the renewal, modification and development of the curriculum, and the production and distribution of primary, secondary and higher secondary textbooks.
   The board’s chairman, Professor Masir Uddin, on Thursday told New Age, ‘We received an order from the primary education directorate for printing more than 48 lakh copies of the teachers’ manuals on books for Class III–V late December. One or two copies of the manuals for each subject will be sent to the schools.’
   ‘The preparation of the manuscripts for teachers’ manuals for Class III–V has already begun. We hope to get the manuals published by April,’ he said. When his attention was called to the manuals on books for Class I and Class II, he said ‘I do not know.’
   Professor Gazi Mohammad Ahsanul Kabir, who was the board’s chairman between February 2005 and March 2007, on several occasions in 2006 said 38 lakh copies of manuals on books for Class III and Class V would be published by January 2007; but nothing has happened in this direction till date.
   ‘The board in March 2007 invited tenders in this regard, but the tender was called off after a few days,’ said a ministry official. A printer enlisted with the printing of the textbooks, also subscribed to the view.

The average buying capacity of Bangladeshis is just a half of the citizens’ average spending in the Asia-Pacific region, shows a report on ‘Purchasing Power Parities and Real Expenditures’ covering 23 economies.
   Bangladesh is the last but one — only above Nepal — on the scale that put nine countries below the regional average in terms of ‘per capita real actual final consumption expenditure’.
   ‘Three economies with the lowest per capita real expenditures are Nepal, Bangladesh, and Bhutan, all of which are more than 80 per cent below the regional average,’ says the report published by Economics and Research Department of the Asian Development Bank recently.
   Hong Kong stands first in the ranking. Bangladesh and Nepal rated 50 and 45 on the scale respectively, while Asia-Pacific average assumed at 100. Hong Kong, now a part of China, has the actual average consumption of 125,303 HK dollars as against 6,456 HK dollars applicable for Bangladesh.
   In the below average list, Bhutan has got highest mark with 96 followed by China with 87, Mongolia 80, India 72, Vietnam 65, Cambodia 60 and Lao 55. Just above average are placed three of Bangladesh’s South Asian neighbours — Sri Lanka with 136, Maldives with 109 and Pakistan with 102.
   Economies such as Vietnam, Cambodia, Nepal and Bangladesh, where government salaries are found to be very low, would have relatively high per capita real consumption of government services compared with economies such as Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore where government salaries are much higher.
   ‘These results did not appear plausible to statisticians familiar with the ways that governments function in the region,’ observes the report which has been prepared under the lending agency’s international comparison programme 2005. A total of 57 Bangladeshi markets — 37 urban and 20 rural — were selected for the survey.
   Bangladesh has been placed 13th in terms of its share of gross domestic product at 1.45 per cent in Asia. China alone holds 44.3 per cent of the region’s GDP, India has 19.47 per cent, Iran 6.11 per cent, Indonesia 5.89 per cent, Pakistan 3.07 per cent, Malaysia 2.49 and Singapore 1.5 per cent.
   In South Asia, Sri Lanka has 0.57 per cent, Nepal 0.23 per cent and Bhutan 0.02 per cent shares of the region’s GDP. ‘A striking feature of these data is the huge dispersion, with the richest economy having a per capita real GDP of more than 40 times that of the poorest,’ says the report. The economies of Asia and the Pacific accounted for over 25 per cent of world production, as measured by GDP converted to US dollar as a common reference currency, using purchasing power parities.
   Brunei Darussalam and Singapore are among the smallest economies in the region, with their per capita real expenditures the first and second highest, respectively, at more than 17 times the regional average, finds the report.
   The per capita volume of GDP for Hong Kong is 58 times that of Bangladesh on an exchange rate basis but only 28 times on a purchasing power parities [PPP] basis, says the report pointing out that the prices for non-tradable products are generally low relative to the prices for tradable ones in low-income countries compared with high-income countries.
   ‘Therefore, a unit of local currency has greater purchasing power within a developing country than it does in global markets, and so the GDP levels for low-income countries will be higher when converted to a common currency using PPPs than when they are converted using exchange rates.’
   The report shows difference to trends that expenditures on rents as a share of GDP generally increase as incomes rise, citing examples that two rich economies — Macao, China and Brunei Darussalam — report shares of below 3 per cent; three poor economies — Nepal, Bangladesh, and Cambodia — report shares in excess of 6 per cent; and three middle-income economies — Fiji, Maldives, and Iran — report shares of over 10 per cent.

The US president George W Bush, hardening his tone towards Israel on Thursday, urged an end to ‘the occupation’ of the West Bank and pushed for a peace treaty to be signed within a year to create a Palestinian state.
   Bush does not always use the politically charged word ‘occupation’ to describe Israel’s hold on lands captured in a 1967 war. It is a term Palestinians seeking a state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip employ frequently to describe their plight.
   ‘The establishment of the state of Palestine is long overdue. The Palestinian people deserve it,’ Bush said in a statement he read to reporters in a Jerusalem hotel.
   Bush’s language, after he travelled to the West Bank city of Ramallah past Israeli checkpoints and settlements, could cause political pain to the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, whose right-wing coalition partners usually bridle at such remarks.
   ‘There should be an end to the occupation that began in 1967,’ Bush said. He had earlier met the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, and visited Bethlehem, also in the West Bank.
   Bush pressed the Palestinians to rein in militants. He said any negotiations must also ensure Israel has ‘secure, recognised and defensible borders’ alongside a ‘viable, contiguous, sovereign and independent’ Palestine.
   Challenging sceptics of his new push for peace on the first US presidential visit to Ramallah, he told a news conference with Abbas: ‘I believe it’s going to happen, that there will be a signed peace treaty by the time I leave office.’
   An Israeli official said Bush’s remarks were the basis for moving forward with negotiations.
   ‘We accept them. We see them as consistent with understandings with the Americans and as a positive foundation for moving forward,’ said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
   Critics say Bush, who steps down in January 2009, has failed to deploy Washington’s full weight in seeking to end the 60-year-old conflict during his first seven years in office.
   A summit he hosted at Annapolis in November ended a hiatus in negotiations since 2000. There, Bush said Israel should show the world it was ready to begin to end its occupation.
   But many doubt differences can be overcome now, as Bush seeks to burnish his legacy in the Middle East after five years of war in Iraq. Olmert is politically weak and Abbas cannot control the Gaza Strip, which Hamas Islamists seized in June.
   At a working dinner in Jerusalem, Bush told coalition leaders that Olmert was a strong leader who they should keep in power, Israeli officials said.
   Some right-wing ministers have threatened to quit Olmert’s government should he make any sweeping peace concessions.
   Bush reiterated in the keynote statement a vision of territorial compromise he first charted in a policy letter to then Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon in 2004, advocating mutually agreed changes in armistice lines set in 1949 after fighting with Arab armies that accompanied Israel’s foundation.
   Later, the US president wrapped up his mission to Israel and the occupied West Bank on Friday, emboldened enough to have predicted a peace treaty within a year but with no major breakthroughs for his efforts.
   Concluding his first presidential visit to the Holy Land, Bush headed for Kuwait, the first of five stops with Arab allies he hopes will aid the fragile peace process and help contain Iran’s growing regional clout.

The interim government led by Fakhruddin Ahmed celebrated its one year in office on Friday highlighting its ‘successes’ through special supplements in newspapers, programmes on television networks and discussions with cross-section of people at deputy commissioners’ offices across the country.
   The cabinet division had earlier directed all deputy commissioners to hold meetings with the elites and eminent citizens in their respective districts apparently to explain the official views on the events leading up to the declaration of a state of emergency on January 11, 2007 and its relevance to the present situation besides highlighting the ‘successes’ of the interim government.
   State-owned Bangladesh Television and Bangladesh Betar broadcast various programmes featuring the activities and performance of the interim government which assumed office one year ago in the wake of political turmoil.
   Private TV channels aired different programmes including talk shows and footages of events leading up to the emergency and the government’s activities including its drives against corruption.
   New Age correspondents in different districts reported that while exchanging views at the meetings at the deputy commissioners’ offices, representatives of local elite and different strata of the people called for immediate lifting of the state of emergency and creating an atmosphere conducive to holding a fair election.
   Although the speakers appreciated improvement of law and order in some places, they regretted that the emergency brought no good, rather problems for the village people.
   Unemployment and price hike have hit hard the rural life due to the government’s anti-corruption drive, they pointed out.
   Our Moulvibazar correspondent reported that the local administration citing the positive steps of the interim government at the meeting on Thursday said ‘one stop passport service’, ‘one stop record service’, ‘citizen’s charter’ and service for expatriate people had been introduced in the district for the convenience of the people during the last one year.
   Members of the elite, however, said people had been reeling under price hike of essential commodities, short supply of fodder and problems in the health sector in Moulvibazar district.
   The deputy commissioner urged the people to extend their support to the administration to resolve the problems. He said that it was not reasonable to expect that all the problems accumulated over the last 36 years could be resolved overnight.
   Our correspondent in Barisal said a video clipping show, organised by the district administration on Thursday highlighting the ‘successes’ of the present government began an hour late due to poor attendance.
   The speakers at the meeting appreciated the ‘achievements’ of the government and called for more reforms and strengthening the anti-corruption drives in all spheres of national life.
   Our correspondent in Jessore said the district information office held a similar view exchange meeting at the Collectorate Office on Thursday afternoon.

Violations of human rights, especially arbitrary detentions, custodial tortures, and extra-judicial killings, which had continued for the past one year of the military-backed government, should be stopped by lifting the state of emergency immediately and restoring the fundamental rights, said Odhikar on Friday.
   The rights watchdog on the day released a report on the past one year under emergency, revealing a vulnerable rights situation in the country. It recommended establishing a human rights-friendly environment and releasing all political prisoners.
   ‘Trials should be conducted respecting the human rights and ensuring the due process of law, in an open and transparent manner, to ensure justice,’ the report says, urging the government to release the university teachers, students, and employees arrested in connection with the August 2007 campus protests and to stop intimidating the media.
   ‘The government should release all the detained teachers, students, and employees who were held following the spontaneous August 2007 student uprising,’ the report reads.
   Odhikar also demanded withdrawal of legal cases filed against jute mill and garment workers for violating the emergency rules.
   Blasting custodial tortures of the accused, including the corruption suspects, it said the arrested, on many occasions, were tortured into giving confessional statements while some were even threatened with death in ‘crossfire’.
   Some 176 people have reportedly been killed extra-judicially by law enforcement agencies in the past year, says the report.
   ‘The manner of arrest and continued detention of university teachers and students raised concern that due process of law was not followed,’ observes Odhikar, adding that their arrest without warrant and holding some of them incommunicado for nearly 40 hours at unknown locations before being produced before a court were serious violations of human rights under national and international laws.
   Eviction of slum dwellers and street hawkers, lodging cases against numerous unnamed people, laying off of jute mills and termination and non-payment of their workers, censorship of the media, detention of Sidr victims, and repression of human rights defenders were all incidents of rights violation during the first year of the Fakhruddin Ahmed-led government, the Odhikar report adds.

New Zealand’s Sir Edmund Hillary, who along with Nepal’s Tenzing Norgay Sherpa became the first to conquer Mount Everest, died in hospital on Friday. He was 88.
   New Zealand flags flew at half mast at Scott Base in Antarctica on Friday, mourning the loss of one of the greatest adventurers of the 20th century.
   ‘The legendary mountaineer, adventurer, and philanthropist is the best-known New Zealander ever to have lived. But most of all he was a quintessential Kiwi, the New Zealand prime minister, Helen Clark, said on ‘Friday in announcing Hillary’s death.
   Hillary scaled the world’s highest mountain in 1953, telling companions after the climb: ‘We knocked the bastard off’.
   The cause of Hillary’s death was not announced, but he had been ill for some time and local media reported he had been suffering pneumonia. Radio New Zealand said he died at Auckland City Hospital on Friday morning.
   ‘He was a colossus. He was a heroic figure who not only knocked off Everest but lived a life of determination, humility, and generosity,’ said Clark.
   Born in Auckland on July 20, 1919, Hillary led an uneventful life until he achieved his Everest triumph at the age of 33.
   Then a beekeeper from near Auckland, the strapping six foot (1.83 meter) Hillary was chosen by British expedition leader John Hunt to make the final assault on Everest because of his experience in the Himalayas and immense energy and strength.
   Sherpa Tenzing was chosen as his climbing partner.
   Hillary and Tenzing set off on a cloudless morning after spending a night at high altitude on the south peak of the infamous South Col.
   Encumbered by clothing and oxygen equipment modern climbers would deem museum pieces, they inched ahead until they reached the most formidable problem on the final ridge, a 40 foot (13 meter) rock now known as the Hillary Step.
   Hillary ‘jammed’ his way up a narrow crack running vertically up the rock using all his strength and determination and then hauled Tenzing up and they moved on with little to impede them.
   At 11.30:am they became the first to step onto the summit of the highest mountain on earth. For years neither would say who stepped foot on the summit first, but after Tenzing’s death in 1986, Hillary said it was him.
   ‘Next moment I had moved on to a flattish exposed area of snow with nothing but space in every direction. Tenzing quickly joined me and we looked round in wonder,’ he wrote in his autobiography.
   By late afternoon they were back at the South Col camp and on June 2 word of the conquest was broken by the London Times.
   The news won huge media coverage, with the ‘British’ triumph coinciding with the coronation day of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth and Hillary was knighted even before he descended from Everest.
   ‘It was ground-breaking stuff, trying to find out if the human body could even survive those altitudes in those days,’ said two-time Everest summit veteran Andrew Lock, Australia’s top high altitude mountaineer.
   After Everest, Hillary led a number of expeditions. In 1958, he and four companions traveled overland in three modified tractors to become the first to reach the South Pole by vehicle.
   ‘Sir Edmund’s name is synonymous with adventure, with achievement, with dreaming and then making those dreams come true,” said acting Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard.
   The New Zealand flag flew at half-mast at Scott Base in Antarctica on Friday and there is a ‘very subdued’ atmosphere on the base that Hillary started 51 years ago, said Antarctica New Zealand chief executive Lou Sanson.

Government officials have requested the central bank to relax the eligibility clause that bars them from availing of the Tk 300-crore home loan refinancing scheme launched by the Bangladesh Bank.
   The scheme, initiated in July, offers low-cost and easy term loans to help middle-class people buy apartments in cities and suburbs.
   One of the criteria of the scheme stipulates that anybody employed in an organisation that offers housing loan facility is not eligible for home loans under the refinancing scheme.
   A group of civil servants in applications argued that they could take a maximum of Tk 1.2 lakh housing loan from the government, which was too small to buy a flat in any city.
   The application is under consideration and the central bank will take a decision on it shortly, an official of Bangladesh Bank said.
   The central bank scheme offers long-term housing loan at 10 per cent interest rate to be channelled through commercial banks and other financial institutions. It will create some pressure on the banks and leasing companies to lower home loan interest rates, which average 14 per cent, the official hoped.
   Commercial banks and lease financing companies, which offer housing loans, do not have any product for target groups, he pointed out.
   Monthly instalment under the central bank scheme will be quite reasonable and close to the amount a borrower spends on house rent, he added.
   The official, however, admitted that the loan amount offered under the scheme would not be enough to buy an apartment of 1250 square feet size. ‘An individual borrower will have to have Tk 10-15 lakh as equity.’
   Service-holders or businessmen, whose monthly incomes are less than Tk 30,000, can apply for a maximum of Tk 20 lakh loans to buy an apartment of size not exceeding 1250 square feet. The loan is repayable in 20 years with one year grace period.
   Already a number of banks and financial institutions signed participation agreement with Bangladesh Bank.
   They include National Credit and Commerce Bank, Mercantile Bank, Prime Bank, Mutual Trust Bank, Trust Bank, Southeast Bank, National Bank, Asia Bank and One Bank. The financial institutions are Delta Brac Housing, National Housing, IDLC, United Leasing, IIDFC, Lanka Bangla, Fidelity Assets, Midas Financing, Prime Finance, International Leasing, Peoples Leasing, Phoenix Finance and GSP Finance.
   Of them, DBH has already received Tk 55 lakh from the central bank under the refinancing scheme.

Mohammad Selim Bhuiyan, a member on the executive committee of the Bangladesh Cricket Board, was on Friday remanded in custody for interrogation for four days in the Niko scam case.
   An anti-corruption task force arrested Selim, also a former president of the Dhaka Club, at his office in the Landmark Building at Gulshan for his alleged involvement in the Niko corruption case and handed him over to the Gulshan police Thursday night.
   The Anti-Corruption Commission’s assistant director Sahidur Rahman filed a general diary with the Gulshan
   police, mentioning Selim as arrested in connection with the Niko case.
   He was produced in the court of the chief metropolitan magistrate on Friday and the investigation officer sought him to be remanded in custody for seven days.
   The magistrate, Shahin Uddin, allowed a remand for four days.
   The court also asked the investigation officer to be cautious during interrogation and take necessary steps for his medical treatment.
   The commission earlier filed cases with the Tejgaon police against former prime ministers Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina and 10 others in connection with the Niko deals.
   The name of Selim came up after the investigations began.

The Awami League has said the skyrocketing prices of essential commodities, disinvestment, growing unemployment and fertilizer and power crisis have caused widespread frustration among the people in the one year of the interim government’s rule.
   Assessing the performance of the government in the one year since it assumed office on January 12, 2007, the acting AL president, Zillur Rahman, called for coordinated efforts to overcome the crises and demanded immediate withdrawal of the ban on politics, release of the party president, Sheikh Hasina, and other party leaders and holding of elections by July.
   ‘Spiralling prices of essential commodities are yet to be arrested, sweeping disinvestments have left thousands of workers jobless and unemployment and poverty are widespread,’ Zillur said at a press conference at the party chief’s Dhanmondi office in the afternoon.
   He said that power and fertiliser crises created by the BNP-Jamaat government continued through last year pushing the farmers into a terrible situation.
   Besides, the cyclone Sidr has left a devastating impact on rural economy. The lives of the poor, farmers, low income groups and the middle class have become unbearable, he said.
   ‘We know it is impossible for the caretaker government alone to tackle the situation’, said Zillur, adding that therefore coordinated efforts involving the people, political parties and the government were essential to overcome the crisis.
   He said that as per the constitution, the main duty of a caretaker government was to facilitate holding of a free, fair and credible election by the Election Commission and the AL hoped that the government would bring pace in the process without giving the vested quarters any chances to create controversies over the issue.
   ‘The Election Commission has been reconstituted, voter registration process is under way, an election roadmap has also been announced and all the issues were in our 31-point reform proposals,’ he said, adding that the government should hold the polls as per the roadmap, if possible it should be held within June-July.
   The party also called for creating an election-oriented atmosphere by lifting the ban on politics, unconditional release of Sheikh Hasina and her proper medical treatment, release of all detained AL leaders, including its general secretary Abdul Jalil, withdrawal of ‘false’ cases filed against Sheikh Rehana and AL leaders and activists, immediate start of dialogues between the government and political parties on national issues and establishment of an independent secretariat for the Election Commission.
   It also demanded import of adequate rice and other essential commodities on an emergency basis, uninterrupted supply of power, fertiliser and diesel with proper monitoring systems, rehabilitation of poor farmers in the cyclone-affected areas, keeping the war criminals out of polls, trial of the war criminals and formation of a commission for preparing a list of the war criminals, unconditional release of the teachers and students of Dhaka University, steps to check distortion of the history of the liberation war recognition of the contribution of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and execution of the verdict in the Mujib murder case.
   Although the press conference was arranged to review the performance of the interim government in the last one year, Zillur criticised the role of the past BNP-Jamaat government in two and a half pages of the four-page report.
   AL presidium members Amir Hossain Amu, Abdur Razzak, Tofail Ahmed, Matia Chowdhury, Suranjit Sengupta and acting general secretary Syed Ashraful Islam were present at the press conference among others.
   The AL on January 3 decided to publish its assessment of the performance of the government during the last one year and assigned its two central leaders Nuh-ul-Alam Lenin and Abdul Mannan Khan to prepare the report.

The chief election commissioner, ATM Shamsul Huda, on Friday termed the reported decision of the interim government to hold dialogues with political parties as a right step.
   ‘It is good that the government will sit with political parties. When the Election Commission sat with the parties, some political issues like that of the war criminals came up; but we have nothing to do with such issues. Now that the government is thinking about holding talks with the parties, we view it as a right step,’ the CEC told reporters after attending the annual prize distribution ceremony of central Kachi Kanchar Mela.
   The council of advisers at a special meeting on Thursday decided to hold talks with the political parties to accommodate their views in conducting the parliamentary elections before the end of the year.
   Asked whether there would be any problem in implementing the election roadmap because of the resignation of four advisers, Huda replied in negative.
   ‘We are working on our own. They [advisers] have been impressed by our work, and have not tried to put pressure. So there will be no problem because of the changes in the advisory council.’
   He said that the EC would complete the reform of the electoral laws after holding talks with the BNP in accordance with the High Court verdict.
   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 the end of December, 2008. The electoral roll may be completed earlier and so the national elections may be held before the deadline [December]. But we cannot say for certain, at least at the moment.’
   ‘This [reforms] will not be completed without BNP. They are one of the major parties in the country. So we will sit with BNP soon after the High Court completes the hearing in the case [regarding the dispute over BNP representation in the dialogue] and gives its verdict.’
   Asked about the confusion over holding of polls by the end of this year, the CEC said, ‘I see plenty of signs that the polls are going to be held. Those who had expressed doubts about the polls last year, are now getting confident about polls. I hope that holding of the city corporation polls in April will make the people more confident.’

The Amnesty International has said it is inquiring into cases against former prime ministers Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina, and others to see whether or not due process was being followed.
   ‘Two of our delegation members had talked to their lawyers twice…We will see whether there is a pattern in these cases and also see if this happened in other cases. Then we will write to the government. It depends on inquiry results,’ the AI secretary general, Irene Khan, told the news agency.
   In a one-to-one interview at Hotel Sheraton on Thursday, Irene Khan spoke about general elections, state of emergency, political dialogue, arrest of Dhaka University teachers, police reforms, human rights cases and an effective national human rights commission.
   Asked on kind of confusion about the general elections, she said although there were some doubts among the people, but people want the elections this year and the chief adviser, the army chief and the foreign adviser assured her that it would be held this year.
   The AI chief executive said the army chief told her that the army was helping in the registration of voters and would help the government to hold free, fair and neutral elections.
   She, however, said a credible election would also depend on political parties — how far they would go for political reforms and in what manner. Political parties are complaining that due process is not being followed in cases. So, the elections will depend also on reaction of the parties and future political situation.
   She said to hold the elections properly, the government at the same time would have to ensure institutional reforms of human rights and rule of law.
   Asked about the state of emergency, Irene Khan said the state of emergency was a temporary arrangement and soon it was lifted it was better. She suggested lifting of restriction on the media calling it unnecessary.
   Replying to a question, she said the chief adviser did not consider that the emergency was a governance mechanism. ‘If the government feels it will be able to function without the state of emergency, then it should be lifted soon.’
   Irene Khan, who left Dhaka for London Friday morning, said the chief adviser told her that political leaders were being tried under previous laws. No new laws or courts were made to try them. ‘If it is so, you can imagine what were our laws and court system in the past, but none raised the question until high profile political leaders are arrested,’ she said.
   The AI chief said general people had suffered and did not get justice so long. She said if these politicians came to power they must scrap these repressive laws and stop these practices to ensure justice to every citizen.
   About the release of four arrested teachers of Dhaka University, Irene Khan said it was not a correct step to arrest the teachers who did not make offence by bringing out silent procession. ‘They exercised their right to expression and they are prisoners of conscience.’

Former adviser to the interim government Geeteara Safiya Chowdhury and her husband Nazim Kamran Chowdhury have been accused of threatening and confining the landlady of the building in the city’s Gulshan area which houses three of the couple’s firms.
   Farhana Islam, owner of House 7/A, Road 41, Gulshan 2, made the accusations on Friday in a general diary filed with the Gulshan police.
   The complainant alleged she had rented four floors of her building to three firms of the couple. She said although the rent contract expired on September 30, 2007, the couple refused to vacate the floors, which remained occupied by the firms.
   Farhana said, ‘After the resignation of Geeteara as an adviser on January 8, she and her husband started to threaten her and other tenants of the house.’ The complainant, however, did not mention why the couple were behaving in such a violent manner.
   For the sake of security of her other tenants, Farhana said, she sealed the gate in the back of the building on Thursday. In retaliation, Nazim Kamran’s brother Mokim Chowdhury and Geetiara’s brother Abu Rushd along with their security guards locked the front gate, confining the landlady and some of her other tenants to the building for hours.
   Farhana sought police help but no police went to the house till 11:00pm.
   Later, other people, including newsmen, went to the house and released her and the tenants, breaking the lock on the front gate, the complainant said.

Coal production from the Barapukuria coal mine in Dinajpur resumes on Monday after a two-month suspension for taking preparations for coal extraction from a new phase on completion of extraction from another one.
   ‘All our preparations are completed to go for coal extraction from a new phase [1103] from January 14. The test coal extraction from the underground, however, will begin by Saturday or Sunday,’ a high official of the Barapukuria Coal Mining Company Limited, a subsidiary of Petrobangla, told New Age on Friday.
   Once the mine starts coal extraction, the Barapukuria power plant, a concern of the Power Development Board, will start electricity generation from the out-of-operation unit of the two 125MW units, to facilitate electricity supply to the irrigation areas as the peak Boro season begins from January 15, PDB officials said.
   The coal production from the mine was suspended in the third week of November for shifting all the equipment installed at phase 1109, from which coal extraction was completed, to phase 1103 for production.
   The Chinese contractor of the company, a consortium led by the CMC, has so far extracted around 2.3 lakh tonnes of coal from phase 1109 since 2005.
   The contractor, however, failed to maintain a daily production of around 3,000 tonnes of coal. Instead, it produced around 1,000 tonne coal most of the days.
   The coal mine authorities had around 90,000 tonnes of coal at its stock when the production was suspended. With that stock of coal, one unit of the power plant has been generating electricity. Each of the two power plant units consumes around 1,000 tonnes of coal a day.
   According to coal mine and PDB officials, the reserve of extracted coal currently stands at around 45,000 tonnes.
   ‘Initially, around 1,000-1,500 tonnes of coal will be extracted per day from the new phase. After one or two weeks, we expect the coal production would increase to 2,000 tonnes a day,’ said the BCMCL official.
   He said the PDB was informed that it could go for electricity generation with both the units from January 14 with the reserved and the newly extracted coal.
   The power plant, also installed by the CMC, has been facing problem, because most of the time the authorities have to run only one unit as the other remains out of order for either technical glitch or coal shortage.
   ‘We are yet to be confirmed by the power plant authorities on when they will start power generation with both the units,’ said the BCMCL official.
   The power secretary, M Fouzul Kabir Khan, however, told New Age on Friday that both the units would go for power generation simultaneously from January 16. ‘A PDB member was sent to the power plant to oversee the activities,’ he said.
   Fouzul said they wanted to run the units as soon as possible to supply electricity to irrigation areas as peak Boro season was beginning shortly. ‘The production of electricity by the plant is important as it will help mitigate voltage problem in the northern districts.’
   The secretary said the PDB had already floated a tender for importing around 50,000 tonne coal. ‘We asked the PDB to import coal for the irrigation season, in case coal production at the Barapukuria mine is hampered,’ he said.
   Coal production from another phase, 1110, of the coal mine has remained suspended for months because of emission of carbon monoxide.
   BCMCL officials said coal production from this phase might start in May–June after clearing the carbon monoxide by injecting nitrogen into the closed phase.

Nepal’s main political parties and former Maoist rebels have agreed to hold key polls on the Himalayan nation’s political future on April 10, a minister said on Friday.
   The elections, leading to the formation of a body that will write a new constitution, had been postponed twice due to disputes following the November 2006 signing of a landmark peace deal.
   ‘The cabinet decided to hold constituent assembly elections’ on April 10, Maoist official and the forestry minister, Matrika Prasad Yadhav, told reporters.
   ‘We are confident that elections will not be postponed this time,’ added Krishna Bahadur Mahara, a Maoist spokesman and communications minister.
   The home minister, Krishna Prasad Sitaula, also asserted that the polls ‘will not be deferred’.
   Last year the elections were delayed due to wrangling between the Maoists — who had fought a decade-long insurgency — and the mainstream parties over voting rules and the status of the country’s unpopular monarchy.
   The dispute was resolved last month when parliament agreed to abolish the centuries-old institution and declare a republic. However, King Gyanendra will remain on the throne for the time being, as the deal between the Maoists and the government to make Nepal a republic will only be put into effect at the first meeting of the new constituent assembly.

Jahangirnagar University campus remained tense on Friday after clashes between the activists of Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal and Bangladesh Chhatra League beginning Wednesday night.
   The authorities Thursday night formed two inquiry committees after the clashes on Wednesday night. A large number of police personnel have been deployed on the campus to stave off untoward incidents.
   The two rival groups have filed four cases against each other with both the Ashulia and the Savar police.
   Sources said the vice-chancellor convened an emergency syndicate meeting Thursday night and formed the two committees, headed by Professor Shafiul Huda of geography and Professor Mirza Mofizudin, also provost of the Pritilata Hall. The committees have been asked to submit reports at the earliest.
   Sources said Chhatra League activists, led by Shohel Parvez, attacked the activists of Chhatra Dal at the Mir Mosharraf Hossain Hall Wednesday night. At least seven activists, including Sohel Parvez, of Chhatra League were injured. The injured Chhatra Dal activists include Raj, Shaer, Hanif, Monayem, Chanchal and Jahir.
   Chhatra Dal activists, led by the university unit organising secretary Rabiul Islam, on Thursday clashed with Chhatra League activists again near the university administrative building.
   At least 100 rooms of Mir Mosharraf Hossain Hall, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Hall, AFM Kamal Uddin Hall and Maulana Bhasani Hall were vandalised.
   General students alleged Chhatra League activists locked up the gate of the Kamal Uddin Hall and harassed a number of general students on Friday afternoon.

A UN internal investigative unit has found an unexpected amount of fraud and abuse at the United Nations and is currently investigating 250 cases, including alleged sexual and financial offenses.
   ‘Our caseload has been very steady over the last three months, around 250 cases,’ Inga-Britt Ahlenius, head of the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services, told reporters. ‘We found mismanagement and fraud and corruption to an extent we didn’t really expect.’
   Ahlenius said two-thirds of the cases being reviewed related to peacekeeping missions. Around 80 involved possible sexual exploitation and abuse.
   The former chief auditor of Sweden held the news conference in response to media reports suggesting that there has been widespread fraud related to UN peacekeeping contracts.
   She said investigators have already confirmed that contracts worth around $600 million involved fraud at some level. The total UN peacekeeping budget for 2007-2008 exceeds $5 billion.
   Overall, Ahlenius said that the OIOS and its Procurement Task Force had so far submitted to UN’s top management 25 reports detailing mismanagement, fraud and corruption.
   Robert Appleton, head of the Procurement Task Force, a temporary body set up in 2006 after corruption was revealed in the UN oil-for-food programme in Iraq, said only a minority of UN contracts were irregular and many allegations could not be substantiated.
   ‘There’s no question that some of the large contracts here have been tainted, but in terms of the number of contracts, it’s not anywhere near the majority,’ Appleton said.
   Ahlenius said the OIOS had begun urgently reviewing a $250 million contract the United Nations signed with a unit of US defence firm Lockheed Martin Corp without competitive bidding to build five peacekeeping bases in Sudan’s war-torn western region of Darfur.
   ‘We have been mandated by the General Assembly to carry out a review of the circumstances,’ she said.
   The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, has come under fire for awarding the contract to Lockheed unit Pacific Architects and Engineers Inc without opening the field to competitors.

Bangladesh will go into a Test match for the first time in their history with eight batsmen and without a specialist spinner when they play New Zealand in the second Test starting at the Basin Reserve here today.
   It was confirmed on Friday when skipper Mohammad Ashraful announced the starting line-up for the match with all-rounder Sakib al Hasan replacing left-arm spinner Enamul Haque.
   Sakib was included apparently to bolster the batting though Ashraful tried to justify the move branding him a specialist spinner. ‘We have taken him as a bowler and he will be treated in the same way. He will bat at number eight,’ said Ashraful.
   Sakib, who made his Test debut against India in Chittagong, has played in his three previous Test matches as a batsman. He was dropped from the squad before the second Test against Sri Lanka in Colombo after making just 96 runs in three Tests.
   He had bowled in all his three Test matches but could not make any impression. In his brief Test career, Sakib bowled a total of 48 overs, without getting a wicket.
   Still he was considered as a bowler firstly because of Enamul’s ability to exploit conditions in the first Test in Dunedin and secondly for his batting that the team management believed would add strength to the lower order.
   ‘We didn’t see Enamul getting any turn in the first Test. The wicket at the Basin Reserve suggests he is unlikely to enjoy success here as well. So we decided to drop him,’ said Ashraful.
   Enamul, the only Bangladeshi bowler to take 10 wickets in a match, was playing just his second Test match in Dunedin in two years. He also did not get a wicket in his previous Test match against India in Chittagong.
   The selectors included him in Test squad ahead of veteran Mohammad Rafique, but his performance in Dunedin raised serious questions about his ability to play on away grounds.
   It was expected left-arm spinner Abdur Razzak, a proven one-day performer who is also part of the 15-member Test squad, would be included in the starting line-up if the axe fell on Enamul.
   But the team management instead went for Sakib, who has been considered a batsman who can bowl. Ashraful said Sakib’s good bowling in the one-day series is also a reason for them to pick him.
   ‘True, he was struggling with the bat in the one-day series. But he was bowling really well and it gave us the courage to pick him in the squad as a bowler,’ added Ashraful.
   Sakib will now come into bat after Tamim Iqbal, Junaed Siddique, Habibul Bashar, Ashraful, Shahriar Nafees, Aftab Ahmed and Mushfiqur Rahim, making the batting line up the longest ever in the 51-Test history of Bangladesh.

The Pakistan president, Pervez Musharraf, has said any unilateral action by US-led coalition forces against militants in the border region with Afghanistan will be regarded as an invasion, a newspaper reported on Friday.
   Musharraf told Singapore’s The Straits Times that Islamabad would resist any entry by coalition forces in the tribal areas to hunt down Islamic militants, regarding that as a breach of Pakistan’s sovereignty.
   ‘I challenge anybody coming into our mountains. They would regret the day,’ he told the newspaper in an interview conducted in the garrison city of Rawalpindi.
   Musharraf also told the newspaper he would resign if a government that emerged from elections, now scheduled for next month, sought his impeachment.
   Pakistan has been under pressure from Washington to stamp out al- Qaeda and pro-Taliban militants US officials believe are hiding in remote regions along the border with Afghanistan and fomenting violence there.
   The New York Times said earlier this month the US government was considering expanding the authority of the CIA and the military to conduct aggressive covert operations in Pakistan.
   Pakistan officials dismissed the report at the time and said Islamabad would not permit any such action.
   Musharraf also criticised US Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton’s proposal to deploy a US, and possibly a British, team to safeguard Pakistan’s nuclear assets.
   Her statement, Musharraf said, was an ‘intrusion into our privacy, into our sensitivity ... She doesn’t seem to understand how well-guarded these assets are.’
   International concern about the safety of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons has been increasing, and earlier this week, Mohamed Elbaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, was quoted as saying he feared the nuclear arsenal could pass into the hands of extremists.

The World Bank on Thursday approved a soft loan of $247 million to help Bangladesh recover from the dual shocks of August flooding and November cyclone.
   Of the amount granted under the global lenders’ International Development Association arm, $170 million comes as additional lending and $52 million is diverted from ongoing projects to flood restoration, says a release.
   Another $25 million is being made available for cyclone recovery through existing projects, said a release of the multilateral lending agency.
   The additional lending includes $100 million coming to supplement the bank’s development support credit scheme. The rest $70 million has been approved to support the emergency flood restoration and recovery assistance programmes.
   The credits from IDA, the World Bank’s concessionary lending arm, are repayable in 40 years, including 10 years’ grace period and they carry a service charge of 0.75 per cent.
   ‘Our estimates indicate that the total impact of the floods was about $1.4 billion, constituting about 2 per cent of GDP,’ said Xian Zhu, the global lender’s country director for Bangladesh.
   ‘This assistance will help Bangladesh rebuild houses, transport infrastructures, crops, fisheries, livestock, schools and education centres, and individual and community water and sanitation facilities,’ he said.
   Praful Patel, World Bank vice president for the South Asia region, who recently visited the cyclone affected areas, said the bank’s support is designed to help the country cope with the strain on the economy and the immediate relief needs of nearly nine million cyclone victims.
   The second supplemental financing of $100 million to the fourth development support credit will allow the government to undertake emergency spending without foregoing planned critical development expenditures.
   It will also enable it to remain on track in implementing its policy and institutional reform agenda, the bank hopes.
   The floods directly affected over 13 million people in 46 districts, caused over 1,000 deaths, affected over 2 million acres of agricultural land, and damaged infrastructure, social and educational facilities and private assets, including housing, crops, livestock, and fisheries.
   This floods support package is designed to ensure speedy recovery and reconstruction through additional financing to three existing WB projects ? municipal services project ($25 million), rural transport improvement ($20 million), and social investment programme ($25 million provided as grant).
   Another $25 million is being reallocated within ongoing projects for medicine, power and clean water supply infrastructure.

The FBI has failed to pay phone bills on time, causing telecommunication firms to temporarily cut off wiretaps used for terrorism investigations, an audit found.
   In a review of the FBI’s handling of special funds used for secret operations, the Justice Department’s inspector general found an archaic payment system that goes through disorganized third-party offices.
   A summary of the audit released Thursday noted that a telecommunication specialist pled guilty in June 2006 to stealing more than $25,000 in confidential funds.
   The audit found that the employee had taken advantage of the FBI’s mismanagement of bills to steal money from refund checks, as the agency even has trouble cashing refunds from overpaid bills.
   The audit concluded that the Federal Bureau of Investigation was particularly bad about paying phone bills by their due date.
   ‘As part of our audit, we analysed 990 telecommunication surveillance payments made by 5 field divisions and found that over half of these payments were not made on time,’ the report said.
   ‘We also found that late payments have resulted in telecommunications carriers actually disconnecting phone lines established to deliver surveillance results to the FBI, resulting in lost evidence including an instance where delivery of intercept information required by a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act order was halted due to untimely payment.’
   The FBI assistant director, John Miller, played down the impact of the phone interruptions and insisted that the agency would modernize its payment system.
   ‘While in a few instances, late payment of telephone bills resulted in interruptions of monitoring, these interruptions were temporary, and in our assessment, none of those cases were significantly affected,’ Miller said.

Myanmar’s democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi met for one hour Friday with a junta official, in what her party described as a positive sign nearly two months after her last contact with the regime.
   The Nobel peace prize winner was taken from her rambling lakeside home in Yangon, where she has been held under house arrest for a total of 12 years, to meet with the labour minister, Aung Kyi, at a nearby military facility, Myanmar officials said.
   He was appointed by the junta to handle contacts with Suu Kyi in the wake of the regime’s deadly crackdown on pro-democracy protests led by Buddhist monks in September.
   Security was tight around the facility, and government officials declined to say what was discussed.
   It was the fourth meeting between the pair since the military opened fire on peaceful protesters in the streets of Yangon, leaving at least 31 dead and 74 missing, according to a UN report.
   The two last met November 19 and have had no known contacts since then, despite intense international pressure on the regime, including a raft of new sanctions on the military leadership imposed by the United States and the European Union.
   Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy said it had received no information about the meeting, but spokesman Nyan Win said he hoped she would also be allowed to meet with her supporters.
   Suu Kyi was allowed to meet with four NLD officials November 9, but the party has had no direct contact with her since then.