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Politicians want unconditional dialogues with the government to create an environment conducive to holding the national elections at the earliest.
   They said they wanted a complete withdrawal of ban on political activities and the state of emergency to resolve political and economic problems of the country.
   ‘The prime task of the interim government is to hold the parliamentary elections within the shortest possible time and holding dialogues is the only way to create a congenial atmosphere for national elections…. the government must not tag any condition to holding talks,’ the acting Awami League president, Zillur Rahman, said on Sunday referring to the statement of the chief adviser, Fakhruddin Ahmed, on holding dialogues with political parties and withdrawal of the state of emergency.
   Fakhruddin, head of the military-controlled interim government, on Friday said the state of emergency would be gradually withdrawn and the ban on indoor politics outside Dhaka would also be lifted ‘if’ the political parties become more accountable.
   ‘The state of emergency will be relaxed gradually, but you know why time is needed for that. Political parties need to establish accountability within themselves through reforms,’ he told a group of journalists covering the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
   Admitting that political activities have slowed down, Fakhruddin iterated his government’s plan to lift the restrictions on indoor politics outside Dhaka. ‘But political parties have also responsibility to bring in dynamism in politics,’ he said.
   Zillur gave a warning that the Awami League would not participate in dialogues if the government tags conditions.
   Tofail Ahmed, an Awami League presidium member, said the government should not behave in a way that might make elections uncertain. ‘We hope the government will also not set any conditions. The result will, otherwise, not be good,’ he said at a discussion on Sunday.
   The Awami League wants to discuss with the government not only elections, but also other political and economic problems now prevailing in the country, he said.
   Nazrul Islam Khan, a joint secretary general of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, believes tagging conditions would deteriorate the relationship between the government and the political parties.
   ‘Unhindered dialogues between the government and the political parties would help to create a congenial atmosphere for national elections,’ he told reporters. ‘But, I fear, it will be very difficult for the government, if it tags conditions to holding dialogues, to take political parties in confidence and to make the proposed talks successful.’
   The Jatiya Mukti Council president, Badruddin Umar, and the secretary, Foizul Hakim, demanded immediate, unconditional and complete withdrawal of the state of emergency. ‘No condition or shilly-shallying regarding the withdrawal of state of emergency will be accepted,’ they said in a joint statement on Sunday.
   The Workers Party of Bangladesh president, Rashed Khan Menon, said the government must not tag conditions to holding dialogues.
   ‘The interim government must not set conditions for dialogue,’ he told New Age. ‘An unelected government does not have the right to tag conditions [for political parties].’
   ‘We will not join any talks by giving undertaking,’ he said. ‘Rather, the withdrawal of restriction on political activities will help them [the government] to create a congenial environment for holding national elections.’
   The Communist Party of Bangladesh general secretary, Mujahidul Islam Selim, said the political parties should be allowed to go for unhindered political activities. ‘Allowing political parties for unrestricted political programmes is the condition to bringing reforms within the parties,’ he told New Age.
   ‘I do not know about the state of other political parties, but the CPB has not been allowed to hold its national conference,’ he said.
   The Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh secretary general, Ali Ahsan Muhammad Mojahid, declined to comment on the statement of the chief adviser published and broadcast in the media. ‘We prefer not to make comments on the statements published in the media.’
   Fakhruddin Ahmed proposed, in an address to the nation on January 12, to hold dialogues with political parties. The agenda and set-up of the dialogue are yet to be disclosed.

The chief adviser, Fakhruddin Ahmed, has asked the authorities concerned to intensify the ongoing vigilance against the spread of avian influenza which has so far been detected in fowls in 29 districts.
   His directive was issued at the weekly meeting of the council of advisers on Sunday where his special assistant in the livestock ministry, Manik Lal Samaddar, informed him of the overall situation and the government’s measures to tackle bird flu.
   Fakhruddin directed his officials to use their past experience to prevent the spread of bird flu.
   He also asked the officials to give all-out support to the poultry farmers, especially by disbursing compensation to the affected farmers as early as possible, Syed Fahim Munaim, his press secretary, told New Age after the meeting.
   The Dhaka City Corporation veterinary officer, Azmat Ali has, meanwhile, requested people through the media not to buy poultry birds from street vendors.
   He has asked the local people not to allow such vendors to sell poultry in their localities. He also advised the wholesalers not to sell poultry to such vendors.
   The government’s Press Information Department on Sunday issued a handout to create awareness, asking farmers to separate ducks and hens and immediately inform local livestock officials in case of unusual death of poultry.
   The handout also asked the people to properly cook chickens and boil them fully as a precautionary measure against being affected with bird flu.
   Sources in the fisheries and livestock ministry said the government would soon start door-to-door surveillance to detect bird flu and check against its spread.
   The government, with the cooperation of the Food and Agricultural Organisation, will also appoint some 150 veterinary surgeons at upazilas in the districts where bird flu has been detected, the sources said.
   The Bangladesh Rifles and the officials concerned have, meanwhile, been asked to check the smuggling in of any poultry and poultry products from India where bird flu has been detected.
   The situation in Bangladesh now with regard to bird flu is far better than the situation in the adjoining Indian state of West Bengal, said officials of the Department of Livestock Services.
   An official said the people concerned should be made conscious of the need for correct waste management, particularly of poultry faeces which need to be buried deep into the soil instead of being thrown into open dustbins.
   The avian flu has been detected in 29 out of the 64 districts in Bangladesh which has prompted the authorities to cull about 3,55,000 birds since February 2007.
   Reports from Netrakona on Sunday said the district administration and the livestock services department officials Saturday night culled 2,500 ducks and chickens in a private farm at Ananda Bazar in the town.
   The district administration sounded red alert for all the 10 upazilas of the district regarding the possibility of bird flu attack, the sources said.

Nearly 1.5 lakh public and private poultry farms of the country will come under official surveillance as the government has launched a nationwide bird flu prevention campaign.
   ‘The government already has enforced a countrywide poultry farms inspection programme involving all field level livestock officials and Ansar and VDP,’ said Manik Lal Samaddar, special assistant to the chief adviser.
   Bangladesh Rifles has been put on alert to check smuggling of any kind of poultry products into the country from neighbouring Indian districts which are fighting a worse bird flu pandemic, Manik, who is in charge of the fisheries and livestock ministry, said at a press briefing in Dhaka Sunday.
   Squads of veterinarians and animal health workers have been deployed at eleven border points for anti-viral drug sprays and their services will be made available for farms, which are already affected or exposed to attacks, the special assistant said.
   Anti-viral drugs are also being given to farm owners and employees, who come in close contacts with farm birds.
   The recent bird flu outbreak in neighbouring Indian state of West Bengal that put the authorities there on a ‘war footing’ rang fresh alarm bell for Bangladesh’s poultry industry.
   Fresh detections of avian influenza and concerns expressed by Food and Agricultural Organisation alerted the government to the possible outbreak at a time when the country’s poultry sector was recovering from last year’s shocks.
   The latest culling of 751 household and commercial poultry birds in Rupganj of Narayanaganj district on January 22 took the number of farm birds culled to 3,16,577 since the disease was first detected in February last year.
   Massive culling of birds took place in 29 districts out of 64 in less than a year. Though farmers were partially compensated for the losses, most of them could not yet start the business.
   Regarding compensation for bird flu affected farms, the special assistant informed that the government was committed to recompense the affected farmers and help them survive the shock.
   Livestock secretary Syed Ataur Rahman said the bird flu situation was still not alarming in Bangladesh compared to that of West Bengal.
   The disease was detected so far in only 93 poultry farms out of the country’s nearly 1.50 lakh farms with over 22 crores of birds.
   The government emphasised the need for raising public awareness about safe dumping and management of poultry waste at the wet market places and also in the household.
   To prevent the spread of bird flu disease into humans, public health officials have been ordered to conduct laboratory test of suspected cases, health officials said.
   The Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research already has received some 803 blood samples from twelve different hospitals of the country. But no positive case or H5 strain of virus was detected so far, IEDCR director Mahmudur Rahman told the briefing.
   The government also has arranged isolation camps in affected districts for special treatment if any positive human cases are found, the health official said.

The High Court on Sunday issued a rule on the Election Commission and the interim government, asking them to explain in four weeks why they would not be directed to hold the stalled parliamentary elections within the span of time mandated by the country’s constitution.
   The High Court bench of Justice Shah Abu Nayeem Mominur Rahman and Justice Shahidul Islam also asked the EC and the government to explain why their failure to hold the ninth parliamentary polls within 90 days after dissolution of the parliament would not be declared unconstitutional.
   The court issued the rule after hearing a writ petition filed by Masood Reza Sobhan, a lawyer of the Supreme Court.
   Opposing the petition, additional attorney-general Salahuddin Ahmed told the court that the petition was not maintainable.
   The same petitioner had filed a writ petition for allowing appointment of more advisers to the present interim government to run the ministries smoothly until an elected government takes over, said the state attorney, adding, ‘This court on January 6 summarily rejected the petition.’
   ‘Now he has come up with a new petition claiming that it is a public-interest litigation writ petition for early parliamentary polls when the political parties are also making the same demand,’ argued Salahuddin, saying that the petition is politically motivated and conceived in connivance with the political parties.
   ‘The constitutional mandate is that the parliamentary polls will be held within 90 days after dissolution of the parliament. As the Election Commission has failed to hold the elections within the constitutional timeframe, it must come up with an explanation on the constitutionality of such a failure,’ the court told the state attorney.
   The court, on January 6, while rejecting Masood’s earlier petition had told him that he might come up with a new writ petition challenging the constitutionality of not holding the election in 90 days.
   Masood on Thursday filed the new petition, seeking the court’s directive to the EC and the interim government to hold the elections in the next 90 days.
   During the hearing of the petition, the court, however, advised him to amend the petition to challenge the constitutionality of the EC’s failure to hold the election within the constitutional timeframe. Accordingly the petition was corrected and the court issued the rule.

Dhaka metropolitan sessions judge Azizul Haque on Sunday posted for Wednesday the beginning of the trial of the detained former prime minister Sheikh Hasina in the Tk 2.99 crore extortion case. Hasina, meanwhile, filed a petition with the High Court for quashing the case.
   The court decided to record the depositions of witnesses on January 30 and 31 in the case against Hasina, her expatriate sister, Sheikh Rehana, and cousin, Sheikh Fazlul Karim Selim.
   The judge passed the order sitting in his regular courtroom in Old Town of Dhaka. The trial will be held in his makeshift courtroom on the Jatiya Sangsad omplex.
   Hasina, also the Awami League president, on Sunday filed a petition with the High Court for quashing the extortion case, filed by the East Coast Pvt Ltd managing director, Azam J Chowdhury, saying that the case was false.
   Hasina’s counsel Shafique Ahmed told reporters after filing the petition that it might come up for hearing by the High Court bench of Justice Khademul Islam Chowdhury and Justice MA Hye today.
   In her new petition for quashing the case, Hasina said the case was false and it had been filed in order to undermine her politically.
   Hasina was not named on the first information report of the case and even the plaintiff, Azam, said he had not sued her, the petition said.
   ‘I did not, actually, file any case accusing Sheikh Hasina directly,’ Azam told newsmen after attending the annual meeting of the Prime Bank at the Lakeshore Hotel at Gulshan in Dhaka on January 24.
   Azam, also chairman of the Prime Bank, filed a case with the Gulshan police on June 13, 2007 accusing former minister Sheikh Fazlul Karim Selim of extorting Tk 2.99 crore from him saying that Hasina had asked Selim to do so for awarding East Coast the installation work of a power plant in 2001.
   ‘I filed the case against her cousin, Sheikh Fazlul Karim Selim,’ Azam said. ‘Sheikh Selim took the money. He told me he had taken the money for the prime minister who had had asked him to do so.’
   The newspaper clippings of the news reports on Azam’s statement were also annexed to the petition.
   The sessions judge, meanwhile, fixed the new dates for the trial after the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court had cleared the way for the resumption of the case.
   The Appellate Division on January 24 stayed the operation of the High Court order that had stalled the trial in the case.
   The trial was stalled after the High Court bench of Shah Abu Nayeem Mominur Rahman and Justice M Shahidul Islam on January 17 had halted the case proceedings until the disposal of the rule issued by the court on July 30, 2007, asking the government to explain the legality of placing the extortion case under the Emergency Powers Rules.
   The bench on January 23 started hearing arguments on the rule. The hearing is set to resume today for the third day.

A group of officers and employees has been accepting bribes and abusing their power to influence important decisions for years at the Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education, widely known as the Shiksha Bhaban, sources in the directorate have told New Age.
   More than one thousand teachers and employees of government and non-government high schools, colleges and madrassahs across the country come to the Shiksha Bhaban everyday for various purposes such as inclusion in the monthly pay order list, approval of new educational institutions, recruitment of teachers, promotions, pensions, submitting audit reports, opening of new sections, etc.
   Speaking with a group of reporters Sunday, the Director-General of the DSHE, Professor KM Aurangazeb said, ‘We have started all-out action against the corrupt officers and employees’.
   ‘Acting on a tip-off our officers have caught a broker who was taking bribes from a teacher from Khulna at the main gate of the DSHE,’ he said. The broker Mostofa has been handed over to the Shahbag Police.
   Mostofa told newsmen that his work is to establish contact between visitors and DSHE and he accepted the bribe in favour of directorate employees Forkan Ahmed, Tajuddin, Altaf Hossain and Ahsanullah.
   Replying to a query Forkan said, ‘I am not involved with the bribery and what the Mostofa said is part of a conspiracy against me.’ The other employees left the office and could not be contacted immediately over the allegations of their involvement.
   Md Ikramul Hoque, deputy-director (administration) of the DSHE said a three member investigation committee headed by Professor Khan Habibur Rahman, director (colleges) has been formed to verify the alleged involvement of the employees as claimed by Mostafa.
   Referring to a 2005 government intelligence report that recommended immediate transfer of 14 top officials accused of corruption, a high official in the DSHE said, ‘The recommendation remained shelved due to the influence of the bigwigs of the immediate-past BNP-Jamaat government’.
   The National Security Intelligence, in its report submitted to former prime minister Khaleda Zia and the education ministry in early 2005 had also listed different rates of bribes that are regularly charged to sign and move files by a ring of officials and employees at the directorate.
   Terming the directorate ‘Corruption Bhaban’, the NSI report detailed the forms of corruption and irregularities within the directorate.
    Salehuddin Selim, a record-keeper of the directorate who topped the list of 14 bribe-takers in the NSI report was recommended for immediate transfer or forced retirement.
   None of the 14 officials and employees were punished; however, some of them have been transferred while one has gone on voluntary retirement recently.
   Aurangazeb told newsmen that Salehuddin Selim was transferred to a government college but Selim is still found in the office premises. Selim has not joined the college despite an official order.

Taking the advantage of the easy delivery process, a group of unscrupulous people engaged in the manpower business in connivance with officials have managed to obtain hundreds of forged passports to make money quickly, according to home ministry officials.
   The authorities have identified more than 1,000 forged passports, issued mainly from Dhaka, in the last four months, the director-general of the Department of Immigration and Passport, Abdur Rab Hawlader, told New Age on Sunday.
   He added that more than 500 such passports have already been cancelled after being discovered.
   The department has sought the cooperation of the Special Branch of Police and the Rapid Action Battalion to stop issuance of forged passports and find the culprits and bring them to book.
   ‘An easy and hassle-free deliver system has been introduced to smoothly issue passports to everyone, but some unscrupulous people have taken it as an opportunity to make money,’ said Hawladar.
   Sources in the department and home ministry said that the culprits were putting fake addresses and documents with the application forms to get passports in the quickest possible time.
   ‘Instead of home addresses of the passport-seekers, the culprits put Dhaka’s addresses to get the passport issued fast,’ said a home ministry official, adding that the sooner they prepare the passport the quicker they get the money.
   He said that mostly uneducated and ignorant people are falling prey to these unscrupulous people.
   The recruiting agencies are also realising Tk 10,000 to Tk 15,000 from a job-seeker for preparing one passport.
   ‘The culprits are taking advantage of the ignorance of the people who could easily get their passports from 15 regional offices and the 17 offices of deputy commissioners across the country,’ the DG told New Age.
   The home ministry official said many of the fake passport holders are already abroad. ‘But they will be the victims of forgery as their passports will be cancelled,’ he said, adding that action would be taken against them as per the laws on their return home.
   The home ministry on Sunday warned of stern measures against those who are using fake addresses and forged documents to get passports.
   ‘The government has taken steps to stop the malpractice of resorting to forgery to get passports,’ said a press release of the ministry, adding that such passports will be cancelled.
   Hawladar asked the passport-seekers not to depend on recruiting agencies or dalals, and to verify their application forms and go to the passport offices themselves to avoid being victims of forgery.
   Police and Rapid Action Battalion have launched an investigation of the latest passport scam. They have been asked to identify and arrest the culprits.
   The government in recent years took a number of steps to check passport forgery but the malpractice is still going on.
   The government has also introduced one-stop service at the Department of Immigration and Passport’s office in Agargaon to issue and renew passports in the quickest possible time.

Children across the country are the worst sufferers of the ongoing cold wave with public and private hospitals reporting high numbers of child patients treated for pneumonia, fever, runny nose, cough, breathing problems, and various skin diseases.
   The number of pneumonia cases among infants is most fatal and rising day by day, physicians say.
   In Khagrachari, six people, four of whom were children, died on Saturday and Sunday and pneumonia is taking the greatest toll in the eight upazilas of the district during the prevailing cold weather.
   Ali Ahmed Chowdhury, assistant professor of paediatrics at Dhaka Medical College and Hospital told New Age that ‘Pneumonia is very common in this season. So, parents should careful with their infants.’
   Pneumonia is an infection of the lungs, which can be caused by a variety of microorganisms including viruses, bacteria, fungi, and other parasites. Usually, pneumonia begins after the upper respiratory tract, the nose and the throat, are infected. Usually, the symptoms of pneumonia are seen after two to three days of a cold or a sore throat, physicians said.
   Suhanur Ahmed, a three-month-old boy was admitted to the Dhaka Shishu Hospital on Thursday after one week of fever and a cough. It was at the hospital that his family came know that he had been suffering from pneumonia, said his uncle, Muhammad Jashim, who came from Narsingdhi.
   Bablu, an 11-day-old infant was admitted with pneumonia last week to the paediatric ward of DMCH. The baby’s father, Nazrul Islam, who lives in Joydevpur, said, ‘Since his birth, Babu has been suffering from fever. Now we know that it has been pneumonia.’
   Another pneumonia patient, Maha Jabin, admitted to a city’s private hospital, was admitted apparently with a cold and fever, which proved to be pneumonia, said an on-duty doctor at the hospital.
   Paediatricians advised parents to keep doors and windows of their residences shut to avoid exposure of their children to the cold breeze.
   ‘Parents should be very careful about their children, particularly about exposure to cold. Children may be attacked by cold from sweating. So in case of sweating, parents should ensure that their children remain in dry clothes,’ said Dr Ali.
   On the other hand, asthma patients are also suffering as the northern wind starts bringing a Himalayan chill, doctor said, stressing the need for extra arrangements for comfort.
   Winter brings additional hazards for asthma patients, who are usually sensitive to dust. The presence of dust particles in air is higher in the dry season, causing breathing problems to chronic and seasonal asthma patients.
   ‘Asthma patients have to be careful about some agents that influence asthma like dust, cigarette smoke, artificial fibres, animal fur, smell of raw dye products and cold air,’ doctors advised.
   According to the record book of the Dhaka Shishu Hospital, 177 patients had visited its emergency department until 4:30pm and over 600 patients came to visit the hospital’s outdoor department on Sunday. The number was only 76 and 330 respectrively on Sunday last week.

Moves to unite the two factions of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party have gained pace following chairperson Khaleda Zia’s instruction to the party leaders to work together.
   As part of the moves, some senior and mid-level leaders from two camps have contacted each other to work out ways to bridge the gap between the feuding factions.
   Hafiz Uddin Ahmed, acting secretary general of the Saifur Rahman-led faction, on Sunday expressed his readiness to quit the post to expedite the unification process.
   ‘I am ready to quit the post if it helps to unite the two factions of the party,’ Hafiz told reporters adding, ‘but we should strengthen the efforts for democratisation of the party.’
   BNP insiders said Hafiz was ready to work with Khandaker Delwar Hossain, the secretary general nominated by the party chair after expulsion of Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan.
   Gayeshwar Chandra Roy, joint secretary general of the party, told New Age that Hafiz had been in touch with the conformists’ camp for a couple of weeks seeking avenues to end the division within the party.
   Khaleda Zia, who was paroled for a brief period on January 19 to pay last tribute to her late mother, asked her party men to stop mud-slinging and start working together to keep the party united. ‘It is irrelevant now who did what in the past… If anybody returns to the party and works with Khandaker Delwar, welcome them,’ Khaleda said at her Dhaka cantonment residence.
   A day before her arrest on September 3, 2007, Khaleda expelled the party’s longest-serving secretary general Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan and appointed Khandaker Delwar Hossain to the post amid a wave of calls for reforms within the party and open criticism against her leadership.
   On October 29, some
   members of the BNP standing committee in a midnight meeting made M Saifur Rahman
   acting chairman and Hafiz acting secretary general of the party, and also rejected
   the expulsion of Mannan Bhuiyan.
   Cracks appeared in the party’s façade of unity with two camps — one remaining loyal to Khaleda Zia and the other calling for reforms— publicly exchanging blames.

Another spell of mild cold wave is likely to sweep over different parts of the country today, Met office sources said.
   Temperatures may fall by two to five degrees Celsius over the Khulna, Rajshahi, Sylhet and Dhaka divisions. It may remain nearly unchanged elsewhere over the country.
   A mild cold wave may sweep over Rajshahi and Khulna divisions and the regions of Tangail and Mymensingh during the next 24 hours from 6:00pm on Sunday, the Met office forecast.
   The southern areas are likely to have wet weather as some clouds have arrived from the Bay of Bengal where at the north Bay convective clouds developed on Saturday whipping up squally winds leaving the sea rough.
   It prompted the met office to ask the maritime ports of Chittagong. Cox’s Bazar and Mongla to raise local cautionary signal number three.
   Besides, the Met office warned the fishing boats and trawlers to stay close to the coast and negotiate the sea cautiously until further notice.
   The warnings have remained in force, Met sources told the news agency Sunday night.
   The sun which shined over the capital at around 1:00pm, tearing through the veils of clouds after four days, brought some warmth for the people who had gone through the dank and cold weather.
   It brought relief for those who had to brave the dank and chilly weather out in the open, either working or sleeping rough.
   During the last 24 hours ending at 6:00am on Sunday, Chittagong recorded the
   highest 58 mm rainfall followed by 33mm at Barisal and 20mm at Khulna,12 at Cox’s Bazar, nine mm at Faridpur, eight mm at Jessore and six mm at Dhaka.
   The maximum temperature in the country on Sunday was recorded at 24.2 degrees Celsius at Rangamati and the lowest minimum was 11.5C at Ishwardi.
   The maximum temperature in Dhaka was 22.1C and minimum 15.1C,Chittagong maximum 19.7C and minimum 15.5C,Rajshahi maximum 22.8C and minimum 12.2C,Khulna maximum 21.2C and minimum 15C,Barisal maximum 19.5C and minimum 15.5C and Sylhet maximum 20.5C and minimum 13.7C.
   The met outlook for weather during the next two days said night temperature may fall. Little change is likely in another five days, it said in its extended forecast.

The interim government has approved a proposal to a 1998 act aiming to scrap the authority of local lawmakers over upazila parishads, which saw no election after 1991 despite calls for strengthening local government bodies.
   The council of advisers at its weekly meeting presided over by chief adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed Sunday also returned the responsibility to hold the local government body polls to Election Commission, Syed Fahim Munaim, press secretary to the chief adviser, told New Age after the meeting.
   Although the government has been weighing the option to hold upazila parisad election prior to the parliamentary polls, expected before the end of 2008, the council had no discussion on the issue.
   No upazila election was held since the BNP government cancelled the upazila parishad in 1991. In absence of any elected people’s representatives, upazila nirbahi officers have been heading the country’s more than 460 upazila parishads since then.
   Local lawmakers were made advisers to the parishads and often accused of interfering into the administrative and development works and diverting those to benefit party loyalists.
   ‘Today’s decision will help the elected local bodies implement their decisions independently,’ said the official spokesman.
   The upazila system was introduced during the Ershad regime in 1982 through the Upazila Parishad Ordinance.
   The first elections to 460 upazila parishads were held in 1985 amid strong opposition from the then two major opposition camps led by BNP and Awami League. The opposition parties then rejected the system saying it as a plan of the then military dictator Ershad to gain political foothold at the grassroots level.
   The second and last polls were held in 1990, but elected representatives got a brief time as BNP government scrapped the system on November 23, 1991 in less than a year since it took office after the fall of Ershad.
   The Awami League government, which came to power in 1996, revived the upazila parishad in 1998, but stripped Election Commission of its authority to fix the polling dates.
   But the AL failed to hold any election to the local body.
   BNP returned to power in 2001 and the issue remained almost shelved again. A committee was assigned to assess the need of such a system, but it could not complete its task until BNP left office in October 2006.
   Non-government organisations and civic groups have accused both the governments for lacking sincerity and commitment to strengthen the upazila parishads, which initiated a process of effective decentralisation of administrative, judicial and development services.
   The council of advisers meeting on Sunday also approved another proposal to increase court fees for Land Transfer Notice and Co-share Notice to Tk 5 and Tk 10, from Tk 0.25 and Tk 1 respectively.
   The meeting also discussed elaborately the draft of the Public Demands Recovery (Amendment) Ordinance 2008 aiming to expedite the recovery of outstanding bills from inter-governmental organizations and institutions.
   Advisers, special assistants to the chief adviser and secretaries to the ministries concerned were present at the meeting.

Indonesia’s former president Suharto, whose iron-fisted rule became a byword for corruption and bloody repression but also brought economic growth, died Sunday after a long and public fight for life.
   His death at the age of 86 came more than three weeks after he was admitted to hospital with heart, lung and kidney problems, surprising doctors with his resilience.
   His team of doctors said Suharto suffered multiple organ failure overnight. A doctor who treated Suharto, Munawar, said, ‘We worked our best... God has decided otherwise.’
   Suharto was a ruthless dictator whose success presiding over huge economic progress was overshadowed by his legacy of bloodshed, human rights abuses and corruption on a colossal scale.
   His tenure was marked by repression, from the killings of at least half a million communists and their sympathisers after the abortive coup that saw him seize power in 1966, to invading East Timor and quelling separatist movements in Aceh and Papua.
   Billions of dollars ended up in the hands of friends and relatives as cronyism and corruption ran riot, and he eventually stepped down in 1998, rocked by deadly riots and mass pro-democracy protests triggered by the Asian economic crisis.
   After leaving office he dropped out of public view while avoiding criminal trial for massive corruption allegations by citing poor health. Doctors said two strokes left him with some permanent brain damage.
   Efforts to bring him to justice for alleged human rights atrocities in East Timor, which he invaded in 1975, as well as Aceh and Papua, were stymied by a lack of evidence.
   ‘We could not have expected a leader for Indonesia worse than Suharto. But he was no Pol Pot,’ said Asmara Nababan, head of the Centre for Democracy and Human Rights in Jakarta.
   Protesters also emerged, still angered by the lack of justice meted out to the former dictator who stood accused of massive corruption and human rights abuses.
   ‘The technocratic approach of the government of Indonesia at the time basically went in the wrong direction in establishing an economic system,’ said Kusnanto Anggoro, a political scientist at the University of Indonesia.
   That system, which welded corruption to the highest levels of government, meant the country was unable to deal with economic uncertainty and set the template for today’s Indonesia, where more ‘chaotic’ graft reigns, he said.
   Though accused of illegally amassing billions of dollars, a criminal corruption trial against Suharto was abandoned on health grounds in 2006. A 1.4 billion dollar civil suit is still pending.

Zia International Airport remained without electricity for about an hour and a half from 9:35pm Sunday which disrupted flight landing and take-off.
   The Dhaka Electric Supply Company managing director, Saleh Ahmed, told New Age that there was no load shedding in the area.
   He said the problem was with the power-receiving end-unit at the international
   airport. DECSO engineers rushed to the airport to resolve the problem, Saleh told New Age at about 11:00pm, five minutes before power supply was restored.
   Airport officials said they had put some emergency lights on the runway during the outage which helped only three international flights to land amid risk.
   The airport authorities could not cite reasons for the power failure. The problem intensified as one of the two generators at the airport went out of order.
   Only one generator could provide only emergency services for some vital areas at the airport, sources in the airport said.

About 3.6 lakh people on an average are getting registered as voters across the country every day and the registration of about 2.96 crore voters has been completed till January 25, official statistics said.
   The data entry, snapping of photographs and scanning of fingerprint for about 8 crore voters will be completed by June if the electoral roll preparation job goes at the current pace, an Election Commission official said.
   The field-level task that began in August 2007 gained pace in December. The official statistics provided by the office of the preparation of electoral roll with photographs project showed 2,95,96,531 voters had been registered till January 25.
   The figure was 2,81,50,432 till January 21. Both the official records showed that 3,61,524 voters on an average were registered every day in four days of the past week.
   After the completion of registration, the commission will require at least a month to complete other formalities including the publication of draft electoral roll seeking people’s objections and claims in this regard. If this task ends in June, the commission will have a final electoral roll by July, the sources said.
   According to the commission roadmap, the countrywide voter registration task would be completed by October and national elections would be held by this December.
   The chief election commissioner, ATM Shamsul Huda, repeatedly said the commission was hopes to complete electoral roll by June.
   ‘Our estimate was to register around 3 lakh voters a day, but over the past one week, around 4 lakh voters were registered a day,’ Shamsul said early January.
   The commission calculated that there might be 90 million (9 crore) voters in the country. But Shamsul said the figure of voters could be much less, between 70 and 70.5 million (7 and 7.5 crore).
   In August 2007, the commission registered 6.58 lakh voters, in September 12.59 lakh, in October 18.3 lakh, in November 66.41 lakh and in December 1.02 crore, said a report on month-wise voter registration progress.
   In the Dhaka city corporation area, 33.1 lakh voters have so far been registered; the total number of voters in the metropolis might exceed 40 lakh.
   The commission is yet to decide whether it would now publish draft voters’ roll for areas where field work has been completed or a single draft electoral roll after the completion of registration.
   It, however, plans to publish the draft voters’ roll for four city corporation areas. Draft voters’ rolls for the city corporation areas of Rajshahi, Khulna, Barisal and Sylhet have been completed.

Sudan summoned the top US diplomat in Khartoum saying he had interfered in the internal affairs of the country and rejected US criticism of the appointment of Musa Hilal to a central government post.
   The US charge d’affaires, Alberto Fernandez, told Reuters in an interview last week that Khartoum’s lack of implementation of internal peace accords and international agreements had created an environment of distrust
   which would hinder peace talks in Sudan’s remote Darfur region.
   ‘These kind of comments are a flagrant intervention in domestic affairs,’ senior foreign ministry official Abdel Basit el-Senousi, who met Fernandez, told state news agency SUNA. Fernandez was summoned on Saturday.
   Senousi also said on Sunday the foreign ministry rejected US criticism of Darfur Arab tribal leader Hilal’s appointment as an adviser to the minister of federal affairs.
   ‘We told him that the government of Sudan and the presidency has the right to appoint anyone they want to any position,’ he told Reuters.
   Hilal was named by the US state department as a coordinator of a feared militia known as the Janjaweed and is subject to a travel ban and an asset freeze by the United Nations for his part in atrocities in Sudan’s west.
   Fernandez had said he was still concerned about progress on implementing a deal to end Sudan’s separate north-south war and that there were still big gaps between what was written on paper and what had been implemented.
   The US embassy declined to comment on the summons.

With Islamic militants now massing at the gates of Pakistan’s main north-western city, the president, Pervez Musharraf, faces a new challenge on his return from a foreign tour, analysts and officials said.
   After a week-long charm offensive in Europe aimed at convincing Western allies he can tackle al-Qaeda, Musharraf will fly home this week to find rebels clashing with security forces just outside bustling Peshawar.
   In the nearby tribal belt bordering Afghanistan, Pakistani troops are still battling fighters led by the main suspect in the killing of Benazir Bhutto, adding to global concerns for the stability of the nuclear-armed nation.
   Analysts said Musharraf must resolve a long-standing dilemma — go after the militant leadership and risk even more suicide attacks in Pakistan’s big cities, or hold back and see the insurgents push further into the country.
   ‘These militants have been expanding their influence in the northwest, and it has been happening for quite a few days,’ Brigadier Mahmood Shah, the former secretary for the tribal areas during 2003 and 2004, told the news agency.
   ‘The government is reacting late to the threat and the situation,’ added Shah, who was in charge of the region at a time of massive military operations to drive out Islamist fighters.
   Former army general Musharraf repeatedly insisted during meetings in Europe last week that Pakistan and its estimated 50 nuclear warheads are safe from any militant takeover.
   But as he delivered his speeches, around 30 militants and two soldiers were killed on Friday in fighting involving helicopter gunships and tanks in the huge tribal weapons bazaar of Dara Adam Khel, on the outskirts of Peshawar.
   Pakistani forces launched an operation to recover four trucks of ammunition that had been hijacked by rebels — but the militants responded by blocking a major highway.
   The army is denying that the clashes are linked to the situation in the tribal area of South Waziristan, the stronghold of al-Qaeda-linked radical warlord and Benazir assassination suspect Baitullah Mehsud.
   Insurgents in Mehsud’s area of control captured a paramilitary fort earlier this month and have attacked several others in a dramatic escalation of violence since Benazir’s death that has cost more than 200 lives.
   ‘This particular area and operation in Dara Adam Khel is detached from other parts of FATA (the tribal areas),’ chief military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas said.
   Dara Adam Khel was ‘known for criminal gang activities’ and ‘criminal gangs have joined (Islamic) miscreants and the result of this is that they have hijacked explosives trucks,’ Abbas said.
   ‘The whole Indus highway is blocked by these miscreants and the objective of this operation is to clear that road and provide relief to the people.’
   But Rahimullah Yousafzai, an analyst on tribal affairs and leading journalist in Pakistan, said the current battles near Peshawar and in South Waziristan were linked, due to a change in militant tactics.
   ‘It is a diversion, they are trying to help militants in South Waziristan by engaging the army elsewhere,’ Yousafzai said.
   ‘The ammunition trucks were being carried by the army to Waziristan—this seizure was to help Baitullah Mehsud.’
   Pakistani security forces retook control of a major road tunnel in the northwest late Sunday after a day of fighting in which at least 24 militants were killed, the army said.
   Militants had occupied the Japanese-built tunnel in the lawless town of Darra Adam Khel on Friday, blocking traffic between the main city of Peshawar in North West Frontier Province and the city of Kohat.

The Energy and Mineral Resources Division on Sunday asked Petrobangla to give priority to the fertilizer plants, instead of the power plants, in supplying gas in the ongoing Boro season.
   An inter-ministry meeting, chaired by special assistant to the chief adviser M Tamim, decided that the Shikalbaha power plant would suspend generation, if needed, so that more gas can be fed to the Raujan power plant and gas supply to Chittagong Urea Fertilizer Limited and Karnaphuli Fertilizer Company can be ensured for smooth production.
   Tamim asked Petrobangla to give priority to fertilizer plants as the meeting observed that if there were electricity shortage, Boro cultivation would not be hampered as electricity could be ensured by cutting supply to urban areas, but if there were fertilizer shortage there would be a serious problem as it would take time to import fertilizer.
   The meeting discussed the gas shortage in the Chittagong belt because of the declining gas production in the offshore Sangu gas-field.
   The officials of the Bangladesh Chemicals and Industries Corporation told the meeting that the fertilizer plants often faced gas shortage as Petrobangla gives priority to the power plants, and requested the government to give priority to the fertlizer plants during the ongoing Boro season.
   The officials specially mentioned three plants — Kafco and CUFL in Chittagong and Jamuna in Jamalpur — where gas supply should be ensured on a priority basis.
   KAFCO’s chief executive officer, Muhammad Qaiser Jamal, told the meeting that gas production from the Sangu gas-field has been declining at an average rate of four million cubic feet per day for the last few months.
   He observed the Kafco would face a fuel crisis if the declining trend of gas production continues in Sangu.
   The production capacity of Sangu, operated by UK-based Cairn Energy, has gradually declined to around 60 million cubic feet per day in recent times from 150 mmcfd in 2006, causing severe gas shortage in Chittagong.
   The Chittagong region, covering greater Chittagong, Comilla and Noakhali, has a demand of around 350 mmcfd of gas but gets around 290 mmcfd only. Once Sangu was the major supplier of gas to the Chittagong region but Petrobangla now injects additional gas from other gas-fields to feed the area.
   Tamim asked Petrobangla’s officials to prepare a plan on how to ensure gas supply to Chittagong, keeping in consideration the declining production in Sangu.
   The energy ministry convened the inter-ministry meeting attended by energy secretary Mohammad Mohsin, officials of the industry ministry, Bangladesh Chemical Industries Corporation, Power Division, Power Development Board, Petrobangla and various gas agencies.
   The meeting decided that gas supply to the outdated Shikalbaha power plant, which gets around 11 mmcfd of gas, would be stopped as the plant is not fuel-efficient, and the same amount of gas would be diverted to the more modern Raujan plant. One of two 210 MW units of Raujan will get around 35mmcfd of gas as other unit is out of operation.
   Tamim asked the PDB to submit a report on whether the Raujan power plant could be converted into a dual-fuel plant to reduce dependence on gas, find out the cost of electricity generation and the time to needed to complete conversion.

Barack Obama routed Hillary Rodham Clinton in the racially charged South Carolina primary Saturday night, regaining campaign momentum in the prelude to a February 5 coast-to-coast competition for more than 1,600 Democratic National Convention delegates.
   ‘The choice in this election is not about regions or religions or genders,’ Obama said at a boisterous victory rally. ‘It’s not about rich versus poor, young versus old and it’s not about black versus white. It’s about the past versus the future.’
   The audience chanted ‘Race doesn’t matter’ as it awaited Obama to make his appearance after rolling up 55 per cent of the vote in a three-way race.
   About half the voters were black, according to polling place interviews, and four out of five of them supported Obama. Black women turned out in particularly large numbers. Obama, the first-term Illinois senator, got about a quarter of the white vote while Hillary and former senator John Edwards of North Carolina split the rest.
   Hillary flew to Nashville as the polls closed, and looked ahead. ‘Now the eyes of the country turn to Tennessee and the other states voting on February 5,’ she said, adding ‘millions and millions of Americans are going to have their voices heard.’
   Edwards finished a distant third, a sharp setback in the state where he was born and scored a primary victory in his first presidential campaign four years ago. Even so, he vowed to remain in the race, his goal, he said, to ‘give voice to all those whose voices aren’t being heard.’
   The victory was Obama’s first since he won the kickoff Iowa caucuses on January 3. Hillary, a New York senator and former first lady, scored an upset in the New Hampshire primary a few days later.

The director general of the IMF called on Saturday for a ‘serious’ response to the risk of a US recession and encouraged fiscal stimulus programmes in some countries.
   Speaking in Davos, the head of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn said, ‘Whatever the answer is on a recession, what is clear is there will be a serious (US) slowdown and it needs a serious response.’
   The head of the IMF, which usually encourages reductions in public spending, indicated that there was room for fiscal loosening in some big countries and interest rate cuts.
   ‘Some countries are not in a situation to increase the deficit, but other countries are in the position where there is some room for fiscal loosening,’ he added, declining to name the countries he had in mind.
   On interest rates, he said that an expected economic slowdown would lead to falls in inflation which would allow some central banks to lower borrowing costs to boost the economy.
   The US Federal Reserve has slashed interest rates aggressively, but the European Central Bank is resisting pressure from some European politicians to act because it remains concerned about inflation.
   ‘There will probably by even more room (to lower rates) in the coming weeks or the coming months depending on the price of commodities and on the decreasing demand,’ Strauss-Kahn said. He also said the IMF would issue economic forecasts next week that would show emerging countries doing ‘rather well’ despite the problems faced by the US economy.
   He also called for a global solution to the current economic problems, which originated in the US housing market but have spread to infect the global financial system and financial markets.
   Losses by banks which invested in complicated securities backed by high-risk US mortgages have led to a credit crunch in which bank lending has been restricted.
   Fear of losses and a lack of transparency about the extent of the problems have led to highly volatile trading on world stock markets.

Third seed Novak Djokovic overcame a leg injury to win his first grand slam title with a 4-6, 6-4, 6-3, 7-6 victory over unseeded Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the Australian Open final on Sunday.
   Djokovic, who became the first Serbian man to win a grand slam singles crown, received court-side treatment during the fourth set.
   He had been labouring after chasing down a Tsonga drop-shot in the fifth game of the set and was forced to call for the trainer.
   The 20-year-old, however, did not seem to be hampered by the injury when he returned and neither man was able to break serve in the fourth set.
   The unseeded Frenchman had a break point in the 11th game but wasted the opportunity when Djokovic calmly put away a cross-court volley.
   The Serb held and so did Tsonga to force the tiebreak.
   But Djokovic, who lost last year’s US Open final to Roger Federer, upped his game in the tiebreak, taking two points on Tsonga’s serve and he sealed it 7-2 when the Frenchman’s forehand sailed wide.
   Tsonga, bidding to become just the second Frenchman to win a grand slam singles title in the Open era, had taken a surprise one-set lead when he recovered from losing the first game of the match to break Djokovic in the second and 10th games.
   Both players held serve in the second set until Djokovic broke in the seventh game and he went on to level the match.
   Djokovic then stepped up a gear in the third when he broke the 22-year-old in the third game.
   The pair traded service games with neither really threatening to break until the final game of the third set.
   The Serb took a 0-40 lead to give him three break points, which Tsonga saved.
   Djokovic created three more set points, all of which he wasted, before making no mistake on his seventh opportunity to take the set 6-3.

The US president, George W Bush, delivers his final State of the Union speech Monday, its agenda-setting powers diluted by pressing, unfinished business abroad and the fight to succeed him at home.
   With not quite 12 months left in his term, the deeply unpopular president is slated to revive a few bold ideas — like his May 2007 call to double US funding to battle AIDS — and argue that US-led forces are winning in Iraq.
   But he faces a US economy in crisis; the uncertain fate of his suddenly personal, late-game Middle East peace drive; a struggle over ending North Korea’s nuclear programmes; and tensions with Iran over its atomic ambitions.
   ‘I will report that over the last seven years, we’ve made great progress on important issues at home and abroad. I will also report that we have unfinished business before us, and we must work together,’ he said on Saturday.
   He will urge lawmakers to approve a proposed US economic stimulus package hoped-for by mid-February; make permanent his giant tax cuts, which expire in 2010; and approve free trade pacts with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea.
   Bush is also expected to call on the US Congress to renew his signature education reform law, approve a controversial law allowing warrantless spying on US citizens, and curb its appetite for costly pet projects.
   Bush told the USA Today newspaper in an interview on Thursday that he would not wax sentimental over his time in office, partly because ‘we’ve got so much going on’ that there is little time to dwell on the past.
   ‘Look at the world — you’ve got Iraq, Iran, Middle Eastern peace opportunities, North Korea, Sudan, Burma. This is a world that is full of opportunities to spread freedom and hope and opportunity,’ he said.
   But spokeswoman Dana Perino acknowledged a day later that ‘it is unrealistic’ to expect lawmakers to bring Bush’s calls for overhauling immigration policy and pension programs back from the dead.
   The speech comes not quite three months after the president helped revive Middle East peace talks, and about three weeks after he visited the region in hopes of promoting an agreement to create a Palestinian state by late 2008.
   For years, Bush has battled charges of keeping the peace process at arm’s length by saying he was the first sitting US president to call for such a state — but aides say he wants to be able to point to more than words before his term runs out.
   Bush, whose time in office was shaped by the September 11, 2001 attacks by Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network, is unlikely to address the fact that the terrorist mastermind he vowed to capture ‘dead or alive’ is still at large.
   And six years after Bush used the same forum to declare Iran, North Korea, and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq an ‘axis of evil,’ all three countries are still source of major headaches.

A Dhaka court has quashed the case against businessman and former lawmaker Nazim Kamran Choudhury, husband of former industries adviser Geeteara Safiya Choudhury, and eight others on charges of forcible occupation of their landlords’ property.
   The court quashed the case on January 13 on the basis of the report of the investigation officer as the allegations were not proved. The news agency obtained the details of the court order on Friday.
   One of the defendants Abu Rushd Tarek on Friday told the news agency, ‘An impartial investigation found no truth to the allegations made in the case.’
   Tarek is Geeteara’s younger brother and a director of the advertising firm Adcomm. The other accused included top executives and employees of Signage, Megavision as well as Adcomm.
   Farhana Islam, wife of Mahbub Ul Islam, filed the case on November 14, 2007.
   The complainant said tenant Nazim Kamran Choudhury and others had been occupying the Islam’s property at Road No 41, Gulshan-2, after the expiry of the five-year rental agreement.
   She also alleged that from 5:00pm to 5:30pm on Oct 22, the accused forcibly brought a generator onto the premises against the house owners’ objections. While doing so, she alleged, the accused also manhandled her and assaulted her with a sharp weapon.
   The court directed the officer-in-charge of the Gulshan police station to investigate the case. Sub-inspector of the police station Md Sharif Uddin Bhuiyan submitted his investigation report on December 3 last year.
   The report said the people in the neighbourhood had witnessed the altercation over the generator. Two persons had been made witnesses in the case but neither of them showed up.
   The report said the complainant failed to prove the charges.
   Dr Mahbub ul Islam had rented the house for a five-year period to three firms owned by Geeteara Safiya and Nazim Kamran, a former BNP lawmaker elected in 1979.
   Just days before the expiry of the rental deal, the landlords on June 27 last year issued a notice to the tenants to leave the house. But after a verbal agreement on renewal of the deal with Adcomm director Abu Rushd Tarek, the accused didn’t leave the property, the investigation report said.
   The other defendants in the case were Shamsunnahar Tarek, Mukim Choudhury, Shahadat Hossain Shahadat, Adit Bhagat, Ripon, Bipul and Yar Ali.

The Anti-Corruption Commission on Sunday filed two cases against Maruf Nizam, a government official and his wife for hiding information on their wealth in the statements to the commission and for owning illegal wealth.
   The commission’s deputy director Abul Kalam Azad filed a case accusing Maruf, younger brother of former BNP lawmaker Sarwar Jamal Nizam and accused in the case of the abduction and killing of businessman Jamaluddin Chowdhury, of hiding information on wealth of Tk 8,29,518 in the statement submitted to the commission.
   He was also accused of possessing wealth of Tk 23,39,248 beyond his known sources of income in the case filed with the Double Mooring police.
   The commission’s deputy director Jahangir Alam filed the other case with the same police station accusing the principal officer of the Mercantile Marine Department, Captain Habibur Rahman, and his wife, Kohinur Sultana, of amassing wealth of Tk 2,14,53,274 through abuse of power.
   The army-led joint forces arrested Habibur at his office soon after the declaration of the state of emergency for his alleged involvement in corruption. Maruf has been in hiding for a few months.

A leader of a Purba Banglar Communist Party (ML–Janajudhdha) faction was killed in an ‘encounter’ between the Rapid Action Battalion and his associates at Ataikula in Pabna early Sunday.
   The deceased, Mohammad Ali, 28, resident of Goaishbari Natunpara at Ataikula, was the second-in-command of the faction.
   The battalion said he was accused in cases filed in connection with murder, robbery, extortion and other crimes.
   A battalion team, tipped off on gathering of the ultra left party activists, raided a place in the village. The party activists fired on the battalion team as it approached the place. The law enforcers fired back.
   In the shootout, which lasted for five to seven minutes, the activists managed to get away, leaving behind Mohammad Ali, killed on the spot in the gunfight.
   The battalion seized a shutter gun, seven bullets and four bombs from the place.
   Mohammad Ali’s elder brother Abdur Rab was also killed in a shootout with the law enforcers on May 7, 2007, the battalion said.