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The official drive for food grain procurement has slowed with millers declining to sell rice to the government at the fixed rate, which is lower than the market prices, food officials said.
   Millers also said the latest price hike of diesel inflated their costs of production and transportation.
   The official procurement rate is Tk 28 per kilogram for rice, while market prices of coarse rice average Tk 31, forcing many mills to stop supplying to government warehouses.
   The government has already cancelled licences of around 1200 rice mills across the country for failing to supply rice and wheat as per previous agreements, or not willing to sign supply contracts, food officials said.
   An earlier report from Pabna said a total of 188 rice mills in the district alone lost their licences as they could not supply agreed quantity of rice to the government.
   Boosted by a bumper boro harvest, the interim government set a procurement target of 12 lakh tonnes of rice at a rate of Tk 28 per kilogram, up from last year’s price of Tk 18, to build a safe stock.
   The government also targeted at procuring three lakh tonnes of paddy from growers at Tk 18 per kg and 50,000 tonnes of wheat at Tk 26 a kg.
   It had reached agreements with 13,833 mills for supplying 9.94 lakh tonnes of food grains by August this year. And the mills supplied more than 5.95 lakh tonnes to the government warehouses since the procurement began on April 16, food ministry officials said.
   But the mills either slowed or stopped supplying food grains arguing that market prices were higher by at least Tk 3 per kg for rice and Tk one or two for wheat than the official rates.
   The latest hike of diesel price to Tk 55 a litre from Tk 40 also added to their cost, as an official estimate says fuel price hike will increase transport cost by 12 to 15 per cent.
   The declining supply from mills has worried the food officials about achieving this year’s procurement target.
   The interim government is now considering ‘selective intervention’ and extending the procurement period to achieve its boro procurement target amid demands from millers for incentives to help them supply rice as agreed earlier.
   ‘The government has no plan now to revise its procurement rates … We are rather considering selective interventions to achieve the procurement target,’ food adviser AMM Shawkat Ali told New Age on Monday.
   He, however, identified inadequate power supply, rains and household stocks by well-off farmers for their own food security, mostly in the northern areas, as major reasons for the slow growth in procurement.
   About 80 per cent of the official rice stock comes from the northern districts, which also supply major portion of local rice to the market.
   ‘Initially, the target was active, but now the flow has fallen…If necessary, the deadline for boro procurement will be extended,’ the adviser said.
   About the cancellation of licences, he said most of these mills were inoperative.
   The government also mulls over operation of mobile courts and engaging the joint forces to help the authorities achieve the target.
   It also issued a statutory regulatory order for rice procurement under the Control of Essential Commodities Act, 1956 to regulate the rice mills across the country and safeguard the government food procurement, said an official at the ministry.
   As per the order, each miller willing to procure paddy and sell rice will have to take licence from the authorities.
   ‘The rice mill owners now will have to declare their stocks and also their targets of stock. They will face punishment and risk losing their licences if they fail to comply with the rules and refuse to supply rice to the government as per the agreements,’ said the official.
   KM Laek Ali, general secretary of the North Bengal Rice Mill Owners’ Association, said that the millers were bound to continue the supply as per the agreements though they were incurring losses.
    ‘We have appealed to the directorate general of food for providing us with incentives to offset the losses. It would be difficult for us to survive if we continue selling rice at the existing rates as costing has already increased,’ he mentioned.

Detained BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia has once again stressed that the national elections must be held first and suggested that the incumbents can plan local government polls a month after parliamentary elections.
   ‘Everyone has demanded holding national election first…It was scheduled for January 2007…It has already been delayed and has become more urgent than the local body polls,’ she said as she talked with the lawyers and journalists in a special court in the Jatiya Sangsad complex after the proceedings in the Niko graft case.
   ‘If there is some doubt about holding of local government polls by the next elected political government, local body poll schedules can be announced beforehand and held in a month after the national elections,’ the former prime minister said.
   Asked about any action against BNP men who are participating in local elections violating the party’s decision, she said time would say what to do.
   Deploring the present dismal situation aggravated by soaring prices, Khaleda said that the people were struggling for food and survival.
   The number of poor people grew to four crore and middle income groups were gradually becoming poor as the interim government failed to check price hike and stopped open market sale of rice, she said. ‘Ramadan is coming when the prices will jump again and only Allah knows what will happen then.’
   ‘A famine-like situation is now prevailing. I cannot sleep after reading newspaper reports,’ she said.
   Only an elected political government now can salvage the nation and arrest the price hike, Khaleda observed, asking the government to hold the national elections and hand over the power to elected representatives immediately.
   ‘We always want to cooperate with the government, but the government must act neutrally,’ the BNP chief said accusing the interim administration of not behaving fairly with her family and party.
   About overseas treatment of her detained sons, Tarique Rahmnan and Arafat Rahman, Khaleda said, ‘They are very ill. Despite medical boards’ suggestions they are not being sent abroad. But such recommendations are being executed for others.’
   Asked about BNP leader Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury’s reported remarks that current crisis could be averted if Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina could sit together for talks, she said BNP had discussed with all in the past for the sake of democracy and the country.
   ‘I am always ready to sit with anybody for the sake of democracy,’ said the BNP chief.
   Khaleda said anybody must be tried under the ordinary law of the land for committing any offence. ‘But the way trials are taking place at special courts, there is little hope of getting justice,’ she observed.
   The BNP chairperson protested against reported misbehaviours with journalists covering a special court’s proceedings on June 30 and urged the authorities to extend cooperation to journalists in discharging their duties.

The High Court on Monday stayed for two months the proceedings in the Niko and barge-mounted power plant graft cases against former prime minister Sheikh Hasina.
   The High Court bench of Justice Khademul Islam Chowdhury and Justice Mashuque Hossain Ahmed also asked the Anti-Corruption Commission to explain in four weeks why the cases would not be quashed.
   The court passed the orders after hearing separate petitions, filed by Hasina, also the Awami League president, now abroad for treatment after her temporary release by an executive order on June 11, seeking the cases to be quashed.
   The detained former prime minister Khaleda Zia, also the BNP chairperson, on Monday filed a writ petition challenging the legality of the Niko graft case against her and seven others.
   The same bench in likely to hear the writ petition today.
   Earlier in the morning, AK Roy, the judge of the special judge’s court 2 set up on the Jatiya Sangsad complex, deferred till July 14 the hearing in framing charges in the Niko graft case against Hasina and eight others as the case records were with the High Court for the hearing in Hasina’s petition for quashing the case.
   The court also ordered the prison authorities to ensure proper medical treatment of former state minister for energy and power Rafiqul Islam, also accused in the case.
   Khandaker Kamal Uzzaman, the judge of another special judge’s court on the JS complex, deferred till July 16 the hearing in framing charges in the Niko case against Kahleda as the defence counsel told the court that a writ petition was filed challenging the legality of the case.
   The Anti-Corruption Commission filed two cases with the Tejgaon police on December 9, 2007 — one against Hasina and eight others and the other against Khaleda and seven others — accusing them of causing huge losses to the state by awarding Niko three gas fields declaring them abandoned.
   The trial of Hasina and seven others in the barge-mounted power plant graft case was on July 1 deferred till July 10 as the records o the case were with the High Court for the hearing of her petition for quashing the case.
   M Firoz Alam, the judge of the special judge’s court 1 set up on the Jatiya Sangsad complex, had passed the order after both prosecutions and defence counsels had sought adjournment of the proceedings.
   The trial in the case, in which the depositions of six prosecution witnesses have so far been recorded, was held back on June 12 as the High Court on June 11 asked the special court for the records.
   The High Court had issued the order during hearing in the petition filed by Hasina for quashing the case.

The nomination papers of 62 out of 1,207 candidates — for the posts of mayors, councillors and also female councillors in the reserved seats of four city corporations — in the August 4 elections were rejected, mostly for default on loans.
   Out of the 62, six were aspirants for the posts of mayors, 47 for councillors and nine for women councillors in the reserved seats of the city corporations of Rajshahi, Khulna, Barisal and Sylhet. None of the mayoral nominations in Sylhet and Barisal city corporations’ polls was cancelled.
   The concerned returning officers, after a two-day period of scrutiny on Monday, declared the candidacy of 1,145 aspirants valid and rejected the remaining nomination papers. After scrutiny of the candidates in the four city corporations, the number of aspirants stood at 62 for mayoral posts, 890 for the posts of councillor, and 193 for the seats reserved for women.
   Scrutiny of the nomination papers for the polls of nine municipalities was also completed on Monday.
   The aspirants whose nomination papers were rejected can appeal to the Election Commission in the next two days and challenge the returning officer’s decision. For the first time any aggrieved person can also appeal to the EC, challenging the RO’s decision to accept any nomination paper.
   The aspirants will get time until July 13 for withdrawal of their nomination papers. Soon after the end of the deadline for withdrawal of the nomination papers, the ROs will announce the final list of the contesting candidates and allocate symbols to them on July 14.
   The New Age correspondent from Sylhet said the nomination papers of ten aspirants — six submitted for the posts of councillors and four for reserved seats for women — in the Sylhet City Corporation elections were rejected on grounds of loan default and lack of information.
   Mizanur Rahman Khandakar, deputy election commissioner and returning officer of the Sylhet City Corporation elections, on Sunday declared valid all the 21 nomination papers, including that of detained mayor Kamran, submitted for Sylhet’s mayoral post.
   Among the rejected aspirants, Kamrul Hasan Chowdhury and Mofizur Rahman were disqualified as loan defaulters and other four persons for lack of information in their submitted forms, said sources in local EC office.
   Of the four disqualified candidates who applied for contesting elections to the women’s reserved seats, the nomination papers of Baby Devi and Fatema Zaman Rosy were rejected for loan defaulting and other two for lack of information, said sources in the EC office.
   A total 293 nomination papers — 21 for mayoral posts, 223 for general councillor posts and 49 for women’s reserved seats — were filed with the Election Commission’s office in Sylhet.
   Our correspondent in Rajshahi reported that the RO of Rajshahi rejected five nomination papers for would-be councillors on Monday. On Sunday he rejected the nomination papers of two mayoral candidates and three for reserved seats of women councillors.
   Returning officer Syed Muhammed Musa rejected the nomination forms of Asheke Rasul Meher Ali as he is a loan defaulter, Arman Ali as he has been convicted by a court, Golam Kuddus as he is a college teacher and Nasir Uddin as he is rice dealer for open market sale, said sources in the EC office.
   Our correspondent in Barisal said a total of eleven nomination papers, including that of a woman for reserved seat, out of 231 candidates submitted for posts of councillors and reserved seats for women were rejected. Of them, the nomination papers of seven aspirants were rejected for loan default.
   Manirul Islam, deputy election commissioner in charge and returning officer of Barisal City Corporation elections, said that the nomination papers of all of the 14 mayoral candidates have been declared valid.
   Sources said the nomination paper of Lutfor Rahman, a candidate for councillor of ward no. 12, has been declared void after his rival candidates filed documents about his enlistment as a contractor of the BCC.
   The EC’s Barisal office has sought the Election Commission’s suggestion about two nomination papers as allegations of loan default against the two aspirants were sent to them after their nomination papers were declared valid.
   The two aspirants are Rezaul Huq Harun, joint convener of the Awami League’s district unit and mayoral candidate, and Selim Howladar, candidate for councillor of ward no. 8, as letters sent by Agrani Bank’s official reached the EC’s Barisal office after their nomination papers were declared valid on Sunday.
   Two hundred and forty-five candidates, including 14 for mayors, 189 for general ward councillors and 42 for ten reserved seats of female ward councillors of 30 wards, have submitted nomination papers.
   New Age’s Khulna correspondent said that the RO of the Khulna City Corporation polls disqualified 26 candidates for general councillors, out of 281 on Monday. On Sunday the RO disqualified four mayoral candidates out of 15, as they were found to be loan defaulters, and one candidate for reserved seat for female councillor out of 47.
   The deputy divisional returning officer, Mohsin Ali, said the candidates whose nomination papers were declared unacceptable may appeal to Khulna’s additional divisional commissioner within Tuesday to challenge his decision.

At least 20 people were killed and 32 others were injured in a road accident on the Dhaka-Chittagong Highway at Doulatpur in Daudkandi upazila of Comilla Monday morning.
   According to the police and witnesses, the accident occurred at about 9:00am when a Dhaka-bound bus collided head-on with a Homna-bound bus, killing 20 people on the spot and injuring 32 others.
   Nineteen of the deceased were identified as Md. Habib, 60, bus driver Nayan, 45, Swadhin Mahmud, 55, Md. Nasiruddin, 45, Salma, 35, Nasir, 42, Akbor Hossin, Abdul Mannan, 19, Abdul Hasam, 42, Zahir, 30, Riaz, 32, Alam Hossain, 38, Basiruddin, 40, Abul Kahir, 35, Amina Begum, 23, Abdur Rahim, 35, Hossain, 34, Zahir Hossain, 30, and Serajul, 24. Another one’s identity could not be known. The bodies were sent to the Comilla Medical College Hospital morgue for post-mortem examinations.
   The injured were sent to different hospitals in Comilla and Daudkandi.
   The five severely injured, Yusuf, 40, Ferdousi, 35, Samiya, 6, Abdul Samad, 28, and Taijuddin, 45, were sent to the Dhaka Medical College Hospital.
   A case was filed with the Daudkandi police station. The deputy commissioner, M Manjurur Rahman, visited the spot.

A suicide car bomber rammed the Indian embassy in Kabul Monday, killing 41 people including two Indian envoys in the Afghan capital’s deadliest attack since the 2001 fall of the Taliban, officials said.
   The blast in the heart of the city scattered human flesh and severed limbs in front of the embassy compound, tearing down an outside security office and part of a wall. Charred and bloodied bodies littered a road outside.
   ‘The toll of casualties we have so far is 41 martyred and 139 wounded. Among those killed are six policemen,’ Afghan interior ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary said.
   Many of the dead were Afghans collecting Indian visas.
   The Indian embassy’s military attache and a political counsellor were killed along with two Indian guards. The body of one of the diplomats was flung onto the roof of the embassy and only found hours later, officials said.
   The Indian ambassador, Jayan Prasad, who was not hurt in the explosion heard across the city centre, said the suicide attacker rammed the diplomats’ vehicle as it was entering through the gates of the embassy compound.
   ‘The embassy has been blown up badly, the outer structures,’ another embassy official said. ‘We are walking on rubble.’
   The nearby Indonesian embassy was also damaged and five Afghan security guards and two Indonesian diplomats were hurt, the Indonesian president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, was quoted as saying in Jakarta.
   The blast was the worst in Kabul since the start of an Islamist insurgency launched after the hardline Taliban were toppled from government by US-led forces for harbouring the al-Qaeda network after the 9/11 attacks.
   The Taliban have carried out a wave of suicide bombings across the country in the past seven years, but a spokesman for the movement denied his group was involved in the Indian embassy attack.
   ‘We have not done it,’ spokesman Zabihullah Mujahed said.
   The militants have previously denied involvement in attacks with high civilian casualties but authorities often blame them, pointing to their record of suicide bombings.
   President Hamid Karzai accused ‘enemies’ of the good relationship between Afghanistan and India, one of the country’s staunchest allies as the war-torn country battles the increasingly bloody Taliban insurgency.
   The Afghan foreign minister, Rangeen Dadfar Spanta, visited the embassy soon after the attack to show support, his spokesman Sultan Ahmad Baheen said.
   ‘The enemies of Afghanistan and India’s relationship cannot hamper our relationship by conducting such attacks,’ Baheen said.
   India has provided significant support to Afghanistan’s efforts to restore order after the ouster of the Islamic extremist Taliban movement, which seized power in 1996.
   ‘Such acts of terror will not deter us from fulfilling our commitments to the government and people of Afghanistan,’ the Indian government said in a statement.
   The United States and European Union quickly condemned the attack, pledging to stand by Afghanistan as it battles a growing wave of extremist violence in the region that has also seen a wave of deadly attacks in neighbouring Pakistan.
   In Islamabad, the foreign minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, added to the outcry, saying Pakistan ‘condemns terrorism in all its forms and manifestations as this menace negates the very essence of human values.’
   The unrelenting extremist attacks have strained ties between Afghanistan and Pakistan, which each accuse the other of not doing enough to stop the tide of bloodshed.
   The international community has sent about 70,000 troops to Afghanistan to help them fight the militants but the insurgency has only gained pace, notably over the past two years.
   In other violence Monday, a Canadian soldier died after being badly hurt in a bomb blast in the southern province of Kandahar, a Canadian commander said.
   A roadside bomb similar to those used by the Taliban killed three Afghan police in the same province and a separate one killed four more in the neighbouring province of Uruzgan, government officials said.

The High Court on Monday granted anticipatory bail till July 16 to Dhaka city’s mayor, Sadeque Hossain Khoka, in the case filed against him for amassing and hiding illegal assets in his wealth statement submitted to the Anti-Corruption Commission.
   The High Court bench of Justice Sharif Uddin Chaklader and Justice Md Emdadul Haque Azad also stayed the proceedings of the case, now pending with the Dhaka metropolitan senior special judges’ court, till July 16.
   The court asked the ACC to explain why the case should not be quashed for its failure to submit the charge-sheet to the court in 60 working days after the filing of the case.
   The court passed the orders after hearing separate petitions filed by Sadeque, also the immediate past president of the Dhaka city unit of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party.
   Sadeque, who was under treatment at a city hospital, rushed to the High Court in the late afternoon to seek bail in the case yesterday.
   In the morning the senior special judge, M Azizul Haque, issued a warrant for the mayor’s arrest as he was shown to be a fugitive in the case. The judge also asked the police to submit their report in court by July 10 after executing the warrants.
   The warrant was served to the Ramna police station at about 3:00pm, court officials told New Age.
   The ACC’s assistant director, Shamsul Alam, filed the case against Khoka with the Ramna police station, stating that the mayor had acquired assets worth Tk 17.57 crore beyond his known sources of income and concealed assets worth Tk 9.96 crore.
   Shamsul, also investigation officer of the case, on July 1 pressed charges against Khoka for amassing illegal wealth of Tk 9.76 crore and hiding information on assets worth Tk 9.65 crore in his wealth statement. He also sought a warrant for the mayor’s arrest as he was shown to be absconding in the charge-sheet.
   On the following day, metropolitan senior special judge Azizul Haque posted for July 7 the hearing of the acceptability of the charge-sheet as the counsel of the mayor’s wife, also accused in the case, filed a petition saying the court should not pass any order in the case because the High Court had already stayed the proceedings against her.
   Rafique-ul-Huq, appearing for the mayor, told the court, ‘According to Section 15 (Ga) of the Anti-Corruption Commission Rules 2007, investigation has to be completed within 60 days of filing a case, and if the rules are not followed properly the proceedings of the case will be quashed.’
   The ACC took 67 days to file the investigation report, which was gross violation of the ACC’s rule, Huq argued. He also said that the ACC did not follow another mandatory provision — appointing the investigation officer of any graft case by gazette notification.
   Public prosecutor Khurshid Alam Khan, appearing for the ACC, said investigation of the case was completed by the stipulated time. ‘The provision is directory, not mandatory,’ he said.
   ‘If the investigation is not completed by 60 working days, the ACC will take departmental action against the investigation officer of the case, but its proceedings cannot be quashed as per the ACC’s rules,’ added Khurshid.

Finance adviser Mirza Azizul Islam on Monday said there was no guarantee that prices would decline, though he regretted that the media had taken his earlier remarks about price factors out of context.
   He said he had given a reference to the period of ruler Shayesta Khan just to make a point that contexts and factors of today would not match with those of several centuries ago.
   ‘It was only selectively used in the media although I mentioned about international prices or that in the neighbouring country,’ the adviser regretted, adding that partial use of his remarks gave the audience a wrong impression of his views about market prices.
   Most of the media quoted Mirza Aziz as telling a seminar in Dhaka Saturday that it would be unrealistic to expect that prices of essentials, especially rice, would come down, and the government rather planned budgetary steps to stop prices from spiralling further.
   On Monday, he clarified his remarks, but maintained that nobody could guarantee an abrupt decline in prices of essential goods because of many factors influencing the market volatility.
   ‘Nobody can guarantee hundred per cent whether prices will come down or not. It depends on international prices, fiscal policy, monetary policy and so many things,’ he said.
   The adviser, however, pointed out that he had at the DCCI seminar mentioned about various measures related to tax incentives and social safety-net programmes to offset the impacts of the price hike on the poor and vulnerable groups.

A physician of the Dhaka Orthopaedic Hospital along with one of his associates was arrested Monday after his wife was found dead in their residence at Mirpur Sunday night.
   Fahmida Akter Nazma, 45, was found dead in a pool of blood in the toilet of their flat at Lane No 15, Block A, Section 2 in Mirpur at about 11:30pm Sunday.
   Tendons of both her legs were severed, eyes gouged out and the body was burnt with hot water, the police said.
   The victim’s husband, Tozammel Hossain, said he had gone out at about 8:30am Sunday and returned to the flat at about 11:00pm.
   As the door of the flat was found under lock and key and he informed it to the neighbours.
   After opening of the door, Nazma was found dead inside the toilet, he said.
   The police sent the body to the Dhaka Medical College Hospital morgue and handed over it to the family Monday evening after a post-mortem examination. She was later buried in the graveyard of her ancestral house at Fatullah in Narayanganj.
   Nazma was married to Tozammel in September 1996 when he was posted to Bandarban, the victim’s brother, Mehedi Hasan, said.
   ‘Tozammel had forced Nazma to have an abortion in 1998 and since then they had been maintaining a bitter relation,’ he added saying that Tozammel used to torture Nazma mentally for reasons unknown.
   He, along with other members of his family, held Tozammel responsible for the killing of Nazma. A case was also filed with Mirpur police and the police arrested Tozammel and his associate, Humayun Kabir, in connection with the killing.
   The police produced the two before the chief metropolitan magistrate’s court on Monday and sought a five-day remand for them.

The chief adviser, Fakhruddin Ahmed, who arrived in Kuala Lumpur Monday to attend the D-8 Summit beginning today, was given a red carpet reception at Kuala Lumpur International Airport.
   The Malaysian deputy foreign minister, Abdur Rahim Bakri, greeted the chief adviser at the tarmac at about 4:00pm local time.
   The foreign adviser, Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury, and the Bangladesh High Commissioner to Malaysia, M Khairuzzaman, and senior officials of the Malaysian government were present.
   The chief adviser then drove to Hotel Renaissance in a ceremonial motorcade.
   Fakhruddin left Dhaka
   for Kuala Lumpur in the morning.
   A flight of the Biman Bangladesh Airlines carrying the chief adviser and his entourage took off from the VVIP tarmac of Zia International Airport at 10:50am.
   Earlier when the Biman flight entered the Thai airspace, the chief adviser exchanged pleasantries with Malaysia-bound Bangladeshi workers, enquired about their jobs and wished their success.
   The head of the interim government is leading a 21-member Bangladesh delegation to the summit of economic alliance of eight developing Muslim countries.
   The delegation includes foreign affairs Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury, principal secretary to the chief adviser Ali Imam Majumder and press secretary to the chief adviser Syed Fahim Munaim.
   The chief adviser is scheduled to return home this night after the one-day summit.

One person was killed and 30 others injured on Monday in a string of six bomb blasts in Pakistan’s southern city of Karachi, raising tensions a day after a major suicide attack in the capital.
   The Karachi explosions came in the wake of a suicide bombing that killed 19 people near a rally in Islamabad to mark the first anniversary of the bloody storming of the radical Red Mosque in the capital.
   Pakistan’s new government is facing growing unrest just five months after defeating US-backed president Pervez Musharraf’s allies in elections, with Islamist violence on the rise and political fissures opening up.
   ‘One person was killed and at least 30 injured in a series of low intensity bomb blasts in the Pashtun-dominated areas in Karachi,’ the police officer Mohammad Saqlain said, adding that seven children were among the wounded.
   There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blasts but the police said they appeared to be small explosions aimed at raising tensions in the city, rather than major attacks.
   ‘Apparently the purpose was to create panic in the city. There is also a possibility that these people who planted the bombs wanted to fan ethnic tensions in the city,’ provincial police chief Babar Khattak said.
   ‘Bomb disposal teams have been sent to the sites of the explosions to determine their nature,’ Khattak said.
   One of the blasts completely destroyed a car, leaving half a charred chassis and two wheels.
   Tension gripped several areas affected by the bombs, with mobs pelting cars with stones, burning tyres and chanting anti-government slogans, an AFP reporter said.
   The police appeared to pull back from the areas and the sound of gunfire could be heard but it was not clear who was opening fire.
   Karachi has seen a number of deadly attacks blamed on various Islamic militant and political groups since Pakistan joined the US-led ‘war on terror’ in 2001.
   The deadliest attack in Karachi’s history came in October 2007 when 139 people were killed in a double suicide bombing targeting the homecoming parade from exile of former premier Benazir Bhutto.
   Benazir was killed by another suicide attack in the garrison city of Rawalpindi in December last year.
   Pakistan is battling a resurgence in attacks after a brief lull owing to the government’s negotiations with Taliban militants in the tribal belt bordering Afghanistan, which it launched after coming to power.

The Pakistani police recovered the head of a suspected suicide bomber Monday as they probed a blast that killed 19 people near a protest marking the anniversary of a raid on the radical Red Mosque.
   Investigators made the gory find on a nearby rooftop as they made fingertip searches of the scene of Sunday’s blast, which targeted policemen guarding the rally by thousands of Islamists in the Pakistani capital.
   There was no immediate claim of responsibility but officials said they were examining a range of possible culprits, including the mosque’s former students and Taliban militants based near the border with Afghanistan.
   ‘At this stage it is too early to say who is behind it,’ interior secretary Kamal Shah said.
   ‘We have assembled a team of senior policemen and officials from the (government’s) Special Investigation Unit and they will meticulously probe this attack,’ Shah said.
   A senior security official said that the head found on the rooftop at the site was damaged on one side but intact on the other, leading to hopes that a sketch of the suspect could be prepared.
   The force of suicide bombings usually removes the attacker’s head, but not those of the victims.
   Meanwhile the toll rose overnight to 14 policemen and five civilians, hospital and government officials said.
   The prime minister, Yousuf Raza Gilani, visited injured police officers at one Islamabad hospital before leaving on a visit to Malaysia, while funerals were being held in the capital for the dead.
   ‘I pay tribute to the policemen. They did not care for their lives and protected the people attending the convention’ by the Islamists, Gilani told reporters.
   The White House, which counts Pakistan as a key ally in the ‘war on terror’ launched after the 9/11 attacks on the United States, denounced the bombing as a ‘needless act of violence.’
   Last year’s operation against the mosque unleashed a wave of revenge suicide attacks that left around 1,000 people dead and pushed the newly-elected government into entering peace talks with Taliban militants.
   Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network also called on Pakistani Muslims last year to avenge the military raid.
   Militants said to be loyal to the Red Mosque have been blamed for some of those attacks, especially a number of blasts in Islamabad, although most have been attributed to Pakistani Taliban rebels.
   Sunday’s demonstration saw religious students from across the country calling for US-backed president Pervez Musharraf to be publicly hanged for the siege and storming of the radical mosque, in which 100 people were killed.
   Pakistani security officials said they were focusing on possible links between the blast and the presence of some members of banned Islamic extremist groups, including the al-Qaeda-linked Jaish-e-Mohammed and Sipah-e-Sihaba, at the rally.
   ‘We have no firm leads but we are examining the possibility that some of these groups may have been involved or were in league with followers of Lal Masjid (Red Mosque),’ a senior security official said.
   A spokesman for Pakistan’s main umbrella organisation of Taliban militants, led by top commander Baitullah Mehsud, said he was not aware of any of the group’s members having claimed responsibility.
   ‘I am not in a position to indicate any claim of responsibility, I have not heard from any of our groups,’ spokesman Maulvi Omar said by telephone from an unknown location.
   The bombing is likely to increase the pressure on the Pakistani government, which has come under fire from the United States and other Western allies with troops in Afghanistan over its negotiations with militants.
   Pakistani forces launched an operation nine days ago against Islamic radicals near the northwestern city of Peshawar, but the government has yet to convince its foreign backers it is serious about combating militancy.

Aid for Africa – and whether enough was coming from the world’s major economic powers – was in the spotlight Monday as the Group of Eight nations met with seven African leaders at its annual summit.
   Activists have accused some G-8 countries, particularly France, Canada and Italy, of skimping on aid to Africa, and urged them to ramp up their contributions. The US, Japan, Britain, Germany and Russia make up the other members of the G-8.
   The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, also has urged G-8 leaders to take a tough stance on Zimbabwe in the wake of president Robert Mugabe’s widely denounced election win. Mugabe was the only candidate in the presidential runoff after his opponent dropped out amid reports of state-sponsored violence.
   President Bush, arriving Sunday for his eighth and final Group of Eight summit, emphasised the urgency of providing aid for Africa, calling on wealthy nations to provide mosquito nets and other aid to prevent children from ‘needlessly dying from mosquito bites.’
   ‘Now is the time for the comfortable nations to step up and do something about it,’ Bush said.
   African aid was the centrepiece of the G-8 summit three years ago in Gleneagles, Scotland, where leaders pledged to increase foreign aid by $50 billion a year by 2010 – with half of that going directly to Africa – and to cancel the debt of the most heavily indebted poor nations.
   Collectively, the G-8 has delivered just $3 billion of the $25 billion in additional aid pledged to Africa in 2005, according to DATA, which stands for Debt, AIDS and Trade in Africa, a group founded by U2 singer Bono and music producer Bob Geldof, both of whom are active in campaigns for Africa.
   Germany, the US and Britain were following through on commitments, while progress from Japan, France, Italy and Canada was either unclear or weak, DATA said.
   The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development reported in April that foreign aid by major donor countries slumped in 2007 as debt-relief plans tapered off and amid a global economic downturn in Japan and some other rich nations.
   Japan said there has been no backtracking on the commitments made to Africa.
   ‘I don’t understand the criticism,’ said Japanese foreign ministry spokesman Kazuo Kodama. ‘The G-8 leaders are very aware of the commitments they have made to African leaders.’
   Soaring food prices was another key topic on the agenda at the summit, with some experts predicting that the leaders would announce a food aid package and possibly funds to invest in agricultural development in poorer nations.
   The European Commission president, Jose Manuel Barroso, proposed Monday spending $1.6 billion that had been set aside for European farm subsidies to support agriculture in the developing world over the next two years.
   Talks were expected to shift Tuesday and Wednesday to climate change as leaders will try to move forward UN-led talks aimed at forging a new global warming accord by the end of 2009. The negotiations have stalled because of deep disagreements over what targets to set for greenhouse gas reductions, and how much developing countries such as China and India should be required to participate.
   The rift over climate change widened as the head of the European Commission urged leaders of the world’s wealthy nations to act first in setting targets for reducing greenhouse gases – putting president Bush in an increasingly lonely position.
   The European Commission president, Jose Manuel Barroso, said the G-8 nations must reach agreement among themselves on climate change measures and avoid taking the approach that ‘I will do nothing unless you do it first,’ which he called a ‘vicious circle.’
   ‘If we agree, then we are in a much better position to discuss with our Chinese and Indian partners and others,’ Barroso said.
   The UN and World Bank chiefs said top industrialised nations need to push forward global talks on climate change and demonstrate their commitment to help poorer nations grapple with rising food prices.
   The UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, and the World Bank president, Robert Zoellick, said rich nations need to strengthen their efforts to meet poverty reduction, education and other development goals because of instability in the world economy.
   China and India say it is up to the developed world – the biggest polluters – to take the lead in the fight against climate change. Bush says no, developing nations must also sign on to make any global deal work.
   It was unclear whether nations would be able to agree to a goal of cutting their emissions by 50 percent by 2050. The Bush administration has not shown any enthusiasm for such a commitment without cooperation from the Chinese and Indians.
   A more ambitious goal of setting nearer-term targets for 2020 was considered well beyond reach.
   Going into a G-8 summit – after a separate summit Tuesday with India, Brazil, South Africa and Mexico – China has said it is ready to discuss setting medium- and long-term goals for reducing emissions of polluting gases and is open to negotiating targets.
   But Beijing has not changed its view that the main responsibility still lies with developed countries. India has vowed to keep its emissions below those of developed countries, but is also looking for them to set the pace.

Senior officials and experts of the seven-nation Bay of Bengal group, which comprises Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar and Thailand, will sit in the capital for their first ever meeting for devising an agenda for poverty alleviation and identifying possible projects to this end.
   The recommendations of the experts for agricultural development to ensure food security in the member-nations of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectorial Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) will be finalised in the ministerial meeting scheduled to be held on July 9 in Dhaka, said officials of the planning and foreign ministries.
   Jafar Ahmed Chowdhury, secretary of the Planning Division, told New Age on Monday that the meeting would share the experiences, especially the difficulties, in poverty alleviation and attainment of the UN Millennium Development Goals in all the seven countries.
   ‘Agriculture and food security will get prominence in the first ever meeting on such an issue, apart from climate change and its impact on the poor,’ he said.
   ‘We will discuss how to set a guideline for poverty alleviation and identify some projects for reducing poverty in the region,’ Jafar added.
   A draft agenda of the meeting of the senior officials of the BIMSTEC stated that a formal and institutional mechanism might need to be developed for strengthening the networking system among the member countries.
   The draft stipulates that the member countries of the group are required to describe the strategies being followed to ensure national and household food security. The meeting is expected to highlight the importance of agricultural development to reduce influx of population from rural to urban areas by creating rural employment
   The BIMSTEC countries will now discuss their successful efforts in achieving the global development goals in the local context, particularly in reducing poverty by emphasising health and education as two critical areas. A common development agenda may be identified in the meeting.
   Climate change is also likely to feature prominently at the discussion of the economic ministers of the BIMSTEC.
   ‘Can the member-states agree on a common agenda for preserving the environment, with particular reference to cross-boundary environmental issues, management of natural calamities and early warning system?’ was one of the questions in the draft agenda.
   Also, the successes and difficulties in micro-finance programmes will be discussed to prepare a common agenda for all the members. The role of female-headed households in economic development may also be highlighted in the meeting.

South Korea’s embattled president Lee Myung-Bak Monday sacked three cabinet ministers to try to end mass protests against US beef imports which have shaken his government.
   Lee replaced the agriculture minister, the minister for health and welfare and the education minister, presidential spokesman Lee Dong-Kwan said.
   ‘The reshuffle is aimed at making a new start in an effort to overcome difficulties at home and abroad,’ the spokesman said, citing surging oil prices which have prompted a government energy-saving drive.
   The prime minister, Han Seung-Soo, kept his job to maintain stability and give him another chance, the spokesman said, adding: ‘Difficulties at home and abroad such as soaring oil prices were considered.’
   Lee’s entire cabinet and top aides offered their resignations last month to take responsibility for the beef furore, which caught the new conservative government unaware.
   The administration’s agreement in April to resume US beef imports, suspended in 2003 following a US mad cow case, sparked weeks of mass street protests over supposed health concerns.
   The candlelit rallies became a focus for wider grievances against the president, who took office only on February 25.
   Lee, who has seen his popularity ratings plunge, replaced almost all his top aides last month after their offer to resign.
   Seoul went back to Washington to secure extra health safeguards under the beef deal before officially resuming the imports on June 26.
   Some 50,000 people by police estimates gathered Saturday in Seoul to demand the scrapping of the imports and Lee’s resignation.
   But Christian and Buddhist religious groups, which recently joined the rallies, announced they were suspending such activities.
   A union spokesman at the largest carmaker, Hyundai Motor, said workers would down tools for two hours on Thursday and a similar period early Friday.
   The union called similar stoppages last week to protest at the beef imports, prompting official warnings that political stoppages are illegal.
   ‘This (upcoming) strike is purely related to our wage bargaining with management,’ the spokesman said.
   The police said they would start cracking down on protesters who block main streets. Lee, in a BBC interview aired Monday, said the rallies are starting to hurt the country’s economy and image.
   ‘If the demonstrations continue, I do believe it will have a very detrimental effect on the future of the Korean economy,’ Lee said.
   Continuing rallies would also have a negative impact on overseas investors and foreign governments.
   ‘They will have difficulty trying to understand why this is persisting,’ he said.
   The protests have sparked a huge deployment of riot police, baffling or alarming foreign visitors. They have also caused major disruption in the heart of Seoul and hit city centre businesses hard.
   Ahn Byong-Man, a presidential adviser for state planning, was named minister of education, science and technology to replace Kim Doh-Yeon.
   Jang Tae-Pyoung, former chief of a state anti-corruption panel, was designated minister of food, agriculture, forestry and fisheries in place of Chung Woon-Chan.

The Anti-Corruption Commission on Monday approved the submission of charge sheets against the Barisal mayor, Majibur Rahman Sarwar, former minister Rafiqul Islam, former lawmaker Mirza Azam and five others for amassing illegal wealth and hiding information on assets.
   The commission’s spokesman Hanif Iqbal at a briefing on Monday said, ‘Allegations of corruption against the people, sued in five cases, have been primarily proved and the charge sheets of the cases will soon be filed with court.’
   He said the commission had approved the notices to ask for wealth statements from former Islami Bank director Mir Quashem Ali and surgery professor at Bangabandu Sheikh Mujib Medical University hospital AK Fazlul Haque.
   Graft charges will be pressed against Sarwar, also former BNP lawmaker, and his wife, Syeda Nasima Sarwar, for acquiring wealth of Tk 9.09 crore and hiding information on assets of Tk 3.89 crore, said a commission handout.
   It also said that the commission would press charges against former Awami League minister Rafiqul, his wife Nurunnahar alias Lily Islam and son Mostofa Ashish Islam for owing wealth of Tk 1 crore illegally and hiding information on asset of Tk 53.52 lakh.
   Charges will also be pressed against former BNP lawmaker Mirza Azam for owing Tk 56.20 lakh beyond his known sources of income and hiding information on asset of Tk 34.84 lakh, the handout said.
   It said charges would be pressed against ward commissioner Monowar Hossain Dipjol, also a film actress, and his wife Romana Monowar for amassing illegal wealth of Tk 5.15 crore and hiding information on assets of Tk 3 lakh.
   The commission approved the filing of a case against former prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s assistant private secretary Alauddin Ahmed Chowdhury, also a deputy secretary who is now an officer on special duty, and his wife Jahanara Arzu for owing illegal assets of Tk 68.49 lakh and hiding information on assets on Tk 44.26 lakh, according to the handout.

The government has constituted a taskforce to check entertainment and software piracies as well as infringement of intellectual property rights amid allegations of thriving trade of pirated works, said officials of the cultural affairs ministry.
   The terms of reference of the taskforce will cover items of intellectual property rights including literary works, drama, songs, paintings, photographs, movies, audio cassettes and compact disks, broadcasting programmes and computer programmes.
   Stakeholders such as singers, visual artists, dramatists, filmmakers, publishers, industrialists and software developers are the victims of massive copyright violations.
   ‘The taskforce against piracy will start its works shortly. Crackdown will be launched to stop piracy and take actions against the violators of intellectual property rights,’ secretary to the cultural affairs ministry Mohammad Sharful Alam told New Age on Monday.
   The ministry had already received necessary information from the intelligence agencies about widespread violation of intellectual property rights across the country, the secretary mentioned.
   ‘We have already held meetings with the country’s prominent singers, publishers, businessmen and filmmakers. After two more meetings with some other stakeholders next week, the taskforce will start its work,’ he added.
   The cultural affairs ministry had issued a circular on June 30 about the formation of the nine-member taskforce to deal with piracy. The deputy secretary of the ministry has been made convenor and the government’s copy rights registrar made member secretary of the taskforce.
   Other members of the taskforce are representatives from the home ministry, Rapid Action Battalion, Bangladesh Computer Council, Bangladesh Writers’ Club, Bangladesh Computer Society, Bangladesh Audio Cassettes and CD Producers’ Society and Bangladesh Film Producers and Distributors’ Association.

The first hurricane of the 2008 Atlantic storm season formed on Monday, hundreds of miles (km) away from the United States and the Caribbean islands, the US National Hurricane Centre said.
   The Miami-based centre said it was still too early to determine if Bertha would hit any land as computer models showed it would eventually start curving to the northwest and then to the north, possibly taking it near Bermuda.
   By 4:54am EDT, Hurricane Bertha was about 845 miles east of the northern Leeward Islands of the Caribbean and was moving toward the west-northwest at 17 miles per hour.
   The storm’s top winds had reached near 75 mph, just over the threshold at which tropical storms become hurricanes.
   The hurricane centre said some additional strengthening was expected during the next couple of days but it did not forecast Bertha to become stronger than a minimal Category 1 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane intensity.
   Energy markets have paid close attention to storms in the Atlantic since the devastating 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons, during which a number of powerful hurricanes ripped through the Gulf of Mexico, toppling oil rigs and severing pipelines.
   None of the computer models used to predict storm tracks indicated Bertha could steer south, into the Caribbean or toward the Gulf.
   Hurricane forecasters have predicted this season, which began on June 1, will be average or above average. An average season has around 10 tropical storms, of which six reach hurricane strength with winds of at least 74 mph.
   The record 2005 season, which included Katrina, the hurricane that swamped New Orleans and killed 1,500 people on the US Gulf Coast, saw 28 storms form.

The government will constitute a trust for utilising the Tk 300 Climate Change Fund, a high-level meeting decided on Monday.
   The meeting chaired by the finance and planning adviser, AB Mirza Azizul Islam, decided that the trust would operate the fund allocated for adaptation to climate change and identify and review projects to be undertaken in this connection.
   However, it is not yet certain whether the fund to be handled by the trust would be integrated into the proposed multi-donor trust fund, he told journalists after the meeting at the finance ministry. The multi-donor fund may separately be operated although it would be well-coordinated with the local fund.
   The finance adviser in his budget speech made the announcement of a Tk 300 crore Climate Change Fund, given the country’s vulnerability to climate change and its negative impact on sustainable development and people’s livelihoods.
   A national steering committee will formulate necessary policy on the trust to give it legal effect so that no question can be raised about its legitimacy, an official concerned told New Age. Now, necessary directives will be given to the environment ministry to begin the process of constitution of the trust to operate the fund, added the official.
   Two-thirds of the money allocated in the current budget could be spent as regular activities while the rest one third [34 per cent accurately] would be placed under a rolling fund.
   ‘This provision has been made to make the fund self-sustaining,’ said Mirza Aziz.
   Asked if international funds would be raised during the planned conference on climate change in Bangladesh, he made it clear that unlike earlier Paris Consortium or the annual meeting of the development partners, it would not be a pledging meeting of the donors and lenders.
   The chief adviser, Fakhruddin Ahmed, and the British prime minister, Gordon Brown, may attend the September conference to be sponsored by the UK Department for International Development as the leading donor in Bangladesh’s efforts to adapt to the climate change effects. ‘Its prime objective is to sensitise the world to the problems of climate change and work out strategies on how to cope with it,’ said the finance adviser.

The Awami League presidium meets today to try to settle the selection of candidates for mayoral posts in the elections to city corporations scheduled for August 4.
   The party, which earlier decided to contest the local government elections along with its allies, is in a dilemma over the selection of mayoral candidates for the Rajshahi and Sylhet city corporations as the combine has more than one candidates for the posts along with some rebel candidates.
   The party will soon meet its allies to sort out the issues and to finalise the candidature for the mayoral posts.
   Today’s meeting will be held at the house of the party’s acting president Zillur Rahman at Gulshan in Dhaka.

Aminur Rahman Chowdhury, younger brother of former state minister Jafrul Islam Chowdhury, was sent to jail after he surrendered to Banskhali upazila court in connection with a murder case on Monday, court sources and police said.
   Amin, chairman of Kalipur union parishad in Banskhali upazila, was sent to jail after upazila magistrate Jainal Abedin rejected his bail petition.
   Amin and seven others were charged with the abduction and murder of Asraf Ali, the 18-year-old son of Hosne Ara Begum of the same upazila, on August 1, 2004 over land dispute, police said.
   He had been in hiding for long after being named in the charge sheet.
   Amin’s name was dropped from the charge sheet submitted during the rule of the BNP-led alliance.
   But after re-investigation in 2007, the police submitted a fresh charge sheet accusing Amin and seven others, the police said.
   Amin is also an accused in the case relating to the murder of 11 members of Shil family in Banskhali and some other criminal cases.
   Harunur Rashid, officer-in-charge of Banskhali thana, told New Age that the CID was investigating the sensational 11-murder case.
   He said that Amin chairman was also an accused in a number of extortion cases.

The chairman of the Nobel Committee, Professor Ole Danbolt Mjos, and the director of the Nobel Peace Centre, Ms Bente Erichsen, are scheduled to arrive in Dhaka on July 15 to attend the inauguration of an exhibition on Nobel Peace Prize.
   The chief adviser, Fakhruddin Ahmed, is expected to inaugurate the exhibition at the Grameen Bank Headquarters on July 17.
   Professor Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank received Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo in December 2006.
   During their six-day visit to Bangladesh, Professor Mjos and Ms Erichsen will also participate in several events organised by the Grameen Bank and the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Dhaka.
   They will also visit the field sites of the Grameen Bank and meet its members to see their activities undertaken with the micro-credit of the bank.
   The Grameen Bank will also host a dinner and reception in honour of Professor Mjos and Ms Erichsen and arrange a public lecture where the Nobel Committee chairman is expected to address the students from various universities and colleges.

A military engineering service employee was stabbed to death and another person accompanying the victim injured by muggers near Zia International Airport early Monday.
   The deceased was identified as Billal Hossain, 45, and the injured as Abdul Latif – brother of Billal’s colleague Mahiuddin.
   The police said Billal and Latif had boarded on an auto-rickshaw from the Staff Road for ZIA at about 3:00am to receive Mahiuddin’s nephew, ho was scheduled to return from Oman at about 5:00am.
   Two muggers, who were boarding on the auto-rickshaw before the victims got into it, took away cash and two mobile phone sets from Billal and Latif at dagger point.
   As the victims tried to resist, the muggers stabbed and pushed them down from the running three-wheeler near Moonmoon Kabab Ghar.
   A patrol team of the Airport police took them to the Dhaka Medical College Hospital where attending doctors declared Billal dead. Latif was undergoing treatment. No one was arrested.

The Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission is likely to hear Petrobangla and other gas agencies on July 17 on the proposal to increase gas tariffs for consumers of categories by 18–65 per cent.
   Petrobangla submitted an application to the commission in the last week of June seeking to increase gas price for consumers of all categories.
   ‘We, however, have found the Petrobangla application incomplete and asked for proper documentation. We have fixed July 17 as the tentative date to hear Petrobangla and gas companies on the proposal. If Petrobangla does not provide documents by then, the date might be deferred,’ said the commission chairman, Golam Rahman, on Monday.
   He told New Age after the hearing, the commission would decide whether Petrobangla application would be accepted. ‘If the application is accepted, the commission will then hold a public hearing in the Petrobangla proposal to decide on any increase in the prices,’ he said.
   Petrobangla proposed that the gas price for domestic use should go up by around 50 per cent, industries by 18 per cent, power plants by 21 per cent, fertiliser 41 per cent and captive power plants by 65 per cent, sources in Petrobangla said.
   The commission in the past week heard of power agencies on the Power Development Board proposal to increase electricity tariff for general and bulk consumers.
   The energy watchdog, however, rejected the power board proposal to increase price for general consumers.
   The chief adviser’s special assistant, M Tamim, in the past week said even if the energy regulatory commission approved the increased rate of gas and electricity prices, the government would not allow Petrobangla and the power board to enforce the new rates in near future.