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The mainstream of Bangladesh Nationalist Party on Friday said that the political parties working for restoration of democracy should make joint efforts to overcome the present crisis.
   ‘The political parties, which are working for peaceful transition to democracy, should work together to overcome the present crisis’, BNP secretary general Khandaker Delwar Hossain said at a May Day discussion organised by Jatiyatabadi Sramik Dal, labour wing of the party.
   He accused the government of hatching conspiracies to form a rubber stamp parliament by holding farcical polls in collusion with the Election Commission which, he said, had lost credibility.
   ‘This government is trying to form a rubber stamp parliament through a farcical election and the Election Commission is acting as stooge of certain quarters. They have lost credibility’, said Delwar, also chief whip of the eighth parliament.
   He asked the EC to ‘refrain from any move to hold a farcical election with participation of selected individuals. ‘Any such moves will have dire consequences. The BNP and the people of the country will never accept that.’
   He said external forces might be pulling strings. ‘People of a sovereign nation can never accept foreign dictates. So, I urge all democratic and patriotic forces to stand on a single platform to save the country’s sovereignty’, he said.
   ‘The country is run by an interim government which has no legal and constitutional basis. But, in an autocratic manner, they are formulating one law after another through ordinances and most of them are going against the people’, Delwar said.
   He asked the party’s working class activists to fight for their dues saying that rights could not be achieved without struggle. ‘May Day is being observed in the country at a time when the people cannot speak their minds, and are being deprived of their fundamental rights.’
   BNP chairperson’s adviser ASM Hannan Shah said that democracy could not be salvaged without [party chairperson] Khaleda Zia and top leaders of other parties. ‘It requires cooperation of all to restore democracy’, he said.
   Jatiyatabadi Sramik Dal president Nazrul Islam Khan, who presided over the discussion, said that both Khaleda Zia and [Awami League president] Sheikh Hasina must be present to make the proposed dialogues between the government and the political parties meaningful. ‘We have no right to go beyond their decisions’, he added.
   BNP joint secretary general Gayeswar Chandra Roy, acting office secretary Ruhul Kabir Rizvi Ahmed, former MPs Sohrabuddin, Shah Nurul Kabir Shaheen and Helen Zerin Khan, Sramik Dal vice-president Abdul Kashem and acting general secretary Anwar Hossain, and Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal acting president Sultan Salahuddin Tuku and general secretary Shafiul Bari Babu, among others, took part in the discussion.

The poor experience higher rates of inflation than the rich and bear the full brunt of the scourge as they spend the lion’s share of their incomes on food and have little money left for other needs.
   Soaring food prices affect the poor people’s welfare seriously, said a Bangladesh Bank research paper, stressing the need for a pro-poor monetary policy and comprehensive strategies for boosting farm outputs, creating jobs and widening social safety-net schemes.
   In November last year, food price inflation went up to 19.51 per cent for hardcore poor, 17.07 per cent for absolute poor, 14.95 per cent for middle income group while it was 13.09 per cent for rich people, the authors of the paper calculated.
   Poor people bear the full brunt of food inflation as they have to buy the same amount of food at a higher price and find no way to reduce their food consumption or a cheaper substitute for the staple.
   Rising food prices also reduce their real income and leave them with a little money for other purposes including education, health, fuel and energy, the paper said, detailing the negative impacts on the welfare of the poor.
   The hardcore and absolute poor spend over two-thirds of their income on food items whereas rich category people spend 41 per cent of income on foods, the paper said.
   A unit change in food prices does not have the same effect on the poor and the rich, the research paper explained.
   Food prices shared 67 per cent of rising inflation in 2007 while it was 62 per cent in 2006, it added.
   Non-food inflation adds more to the general inflation in the rural areas than in towns, it pointed out.
   Non-food inflation remains lower at the point of origin, but higher transportation costs, inadequate infrastructure, imperfect market organisation and other factors contribute significantly to the overall inflation in the country, the paper said.
   In this backdrop, the government and Bangladesh Bank should take appropriate measures for formulating anti-inflation policies, it suggested.
   The government should create more employment opportunities especially for the poor and expand social safety net to protect the vulnerable group.
   An appropriate policy response needed to increase production of food items including rice, sugar, edible oil
   and vegetables, the paper suggested.
   The government must ensure credit, fertiliser, quality seed, diesel and electricity for the farmers for higher food production as well as necessary supports for non-farm production.
   It should also take necessary measures to increase social sector spending and ensure poor people’s greater access to health and education at low costs to protect them from long-term shocks of inflation.
   Bangladesh is a net food importing country and higher price in the international market may have adverse impacts on net trade balance and foreign reserve, the paper cautioned.
   In this backdrop, the Bangladesh Bank should follow pro-poor monetary policy through minimising depreciation of domestic currency and find a better inflation mechanism to prevent prices from spiralling further.

The acting chairperson of the splinter group of BNP, M Saifur Rahman, on Friday asked the government to ensure participation of the two top political leaders – Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina – in the electoral process to make it credible and acceptable.
   ‘I do not think that holding of a credible and acceptable election is possible keeping the two leaders out of the process’, he said in a shift in his stance when a group of leaders of the group’s Sylhet unit met him at his Gulshan residence.
   ‘For the greater interest of the country, an acceptable election has to be held as the people will never accept anything but democracy’, he said declaring that his party would surely contest the next polls ‘under the leadership of Khaleda Zia’.
   Earlier on April 25, Saifur Rahman had said that the party would participate in the next elections, even without Khaleda Zia, for the sake of democracy. ‘The party activities cannot remain stopped for an individual’, he said on that occasion.
   Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan, who was expelled by Khaleda Zia before her arrest, and the acting secretary general of the splinter group, M Hafiz Uddin Ahmed, were also present at Friday’s meeting. The Sylhet unit leaders urged the central leaders to visit the district to gear up organisational activities there.
   Meanwhile, Hafiz Uddin Ahmed said the elections must be held at the earliest and the Election Commission should reconsider delimitation of the constituencies.
   ‘Elections must be held by December and it cannot be deferred under any circumstances. If the delimitation process takes time, elections should be held as per the existing demarcation’, he said.

The Privatisation Commission has floated tenders for disinvesting 10 public sector enterprises, including giant units such as Khulna Newsprint Mills and Chittagong Chemical Complex, in order to reactivate the stalled process of disinvestment, said commission officials.
   Eight other units in the process of disinvestment are – Particle Board and Veneering Plant, Chittagong, National Sugar Mills in Kishoreganj, Daulatpur Jute Mills in Khulna, Rajshahi Silk Factory in Rajshahi, Thakurgaon Silk Factory in Thakurgaon, Karnaphuli Rayon and Chemical Limited in Rangamati, Service Facilities Centre, Banchharampur, Brahmanbaria and Handloom Facilities Centre at Raipura, Narsingdi.
   Tenders for two enterprises – Particle Board and Veneering Plant, Chittagong and Handloom Facilities Centre, Raypura, Narsingdi – have already been opened for evaluation of the offers made by interested parties.
   In all, as many as 26 industrial units have been listed by the commission in recent times for privatisation as soon as possible, commission officials have informed New Age.
   ‘The failure to sell out Rupali Bank, mainly because of lack of willingness of the bidders themselves, has dealt the Privatisation Commission a big blow. We are not in a position to assert disinvestment until some more units are privatised,’ said a high official of the statutory regulatory body responsible for privatisation of state-owned enterprises.
   Only four entities have been handed over to private entrepreneurs during the tenure of the interim government and letters
   of intent issued for selling off three more units, disinvestment process of which was initiated earlier. Since its inception as a board in 1993, the Privatisation Commission has offloaded 74 enterprises so far.
   In the wake of stagnation in the process of privatisation of public sector entities, especially the loss-making ones, the interim government has focussed on making the enterprises financially viable although little success is seen in the cases of state-owned jute mills.
   However, ways and means for making the state-owned enterprises viable have also been discussed in the pre-budget consultation and certain measures are expected to be taken in the next [2008-0-9] budget, said sources in the finance ministry.
   Sixteen enterprises which are being readied for inviting tenders, are – Rangamati Textiles Mills Ltd, Magura Textiles Mills Ltd, Monowar Jute Mills in Narayanganj, Dhaka Leather Company Ltd at Savar, North Bengal Paper Mills Ltd at Pakshi in Pabna, Bangladesh Can Company Ltd in Chittagong, SAF Industries Ltd in Jessore, Arco Industries Ltd in Chittagong, Procurement and Sales Organisation at Kaptai in Rangamati, Lumber Processing Complex at Kaptai in Rangamati, Karnaphuli Timber Extraction Limited at Kaptai, Chittaranjan Cotton Mills Limited at Godnile in Narayanganj, Tangail Cotton Mills Limited at Gorai in Tangail, Textile Facilities Limited Centre Choumuhani in Laxmipur, Aroma Tea Limited at Fauzdarhat in Chittagong and Fish Landing Centre and Wholesale Fish Market at Daburghat in Sunamganj.

Powerful storms swept across a number of places of the country including Dhaka, Mymensingh, Rangpur, Sherpur, Jamalpur and Gaibandha on Thurday and Friday evening killing five people and causing damage to dwellings and standing crops.
   In the capital, rickshaw-puller Almas (40) died after a tree fell on him during the nor’wester on Friday evening in the Tejgaon industrial area.
   Almas, a resident of Tejgaon slums died after being taken to Dhaka Medical College Hospital.
   Seven-year-old Majnu, son of Samir Ali of village Madarpur in Sherpur district, died when the tin roof of his house collapsed during the storm that pounded eight villages in Kazirpur union of Sribardi upazila on Thursday evening.
   Lokman Ali (60) of village Alirpar in Jamalpur, Golam Mostafa (40) of village Betkamari in Gaibandha sadar and Rumon Miah (20) of village Sarisa in Mymensingh also died during the nor’westers on Thursday evening.
   A number of dwellings and schools were blown off and power supply lines snapped by the gusty winds during two spells, one at about 10pm and the other at about midnight, villagers in Rangpur said.
   Hailstorm accompanying the nor’wester damaged standing crops including boro, maize and jute in many places particularly in Peergachha, farmers said.
   At least 30 people including children were injured in house collapses in three villages of the district, they added.
   Rangpur met office said that the speed of the wind was about 123 kilometers per hour.

Most secondary educational institutions lack proper academic atmosphere and violate government circulars on classroom teaching, according to a government study published in the past week.
   ‘Institutions are not following government circulars properly regarding conduction of assembly, starting time of institutions and class duration,’ noted the report of the study conducted by the programme monitoring unit of female secondary school assistant project (Phase II) under the education ministry.
   ‘With the exception in a few institutions, environment of most of the institutions is not favourable for the creation of proper academic atmosphere,’ said the study.
   The study finds that 90.91 per cent of institutions are conducting examination using question papers prepared by local teachers’ association and this is a clear violation of education ministry directive.
   ‘With a few exceptions, all institution has national flag, but did not know the process of hoisting of the flag…. Many of the institutions made convention in their own way to perform the national anthem, which is not desirable,’ according to the findings of the study conducted late 2007.
   Fifty-six secondary schools and madrassahs of 28 upazilas in 19 districts were surveyed for the study. Female students of all the institutions surveyed receive stipend.
   Thirty-three mobile training resource team members, 56 heads of institution, 56 assistant heads and 56 subject teachers were surveyed. Fifty-six members on the school managing committees and 56 girls of Class X were also surveyed.
   The report recommended continuation of regular teachers’ training programme to improve the overall quality of education and intensifying monitoring system.
   The report says that 57.59 per cent of institutions use lesson plans provided by the leaders of teachers’ association… 81.82 institutions have the syllabus, but no lesson plan is used.
   It further says 57.58 per cent of the institutions have sufficient number of books, but there are no well-furnished libraries and books were just stacked in a place.
   The campuses of 60.61 per cent of institutions were found not clean as they did not have boundary walls, according to the report.

A severe cyclone was expected to hit Myanmar’s main city Yangon later Friday after the storm bypassed neighbouring Bangladesh, meteorologists said.
   The cyclone Nargis had already hit outlying coastal regions and was packing winds of 120 to 150 miles (192 to 240 kilometres) per hour, Tun Lwin, director general of the meteorological department in Yangon, told the news agency.
   The storm was centred about 210 kilometres west of Haing Gyi island at the mouth of the Ayeyawaddy (Irrawaddy) river, or about 430 kilometres southwest of Yangon.
   ‘It started to hit Ayeyawaddy division since this morning. It will hit Ayeyawaddy, Yangon and Bago divisions later Friday. The tide could be increased by 10 to 12 feet (three to 3.5 metres),’ he said.
   Myanmar’s state-run newspapers have run warnings about the impending storm.
   Haing Gyi island could not be contacted for further information after it was hit.
   The meteorological department said it was not yet known whether the storm had caused any damage or casualties.
   In Bangladesh, fishing crews have been told to stay close to the shore and not to venture into the Bay of Bengal, after fears it would slam into the southeast coast.
   But government forecaster Ayesha Khatun said the disaster-prone country was likely to escape the impact of Nargis.
   ‘It is not going to hit Bangladesh. It will hit Myanmar later Friday, although the southern tip of Bangladesh could be affected,’ she said.
   Bangladesh is still picking up the pieces after last November’s devastating cyclone Sidr which smashed into the southern coast, killing more than 3,500 people.
   Half a million people perished in Bangladesh in a cyclone in 1970. Some 138,000 died in 1991 in a tidal wave caused by a cyclone.

The Awami League on Friday rejected the delimitation of constituencies and called on the government and the Election Commission to withdraw immediately the draft gazette issued in the regard.
   Protesting against the police ban slapped on the party’s hunger strike scheduled for Monday, the AL presidium at a meeting decided to ask permission today to stage the programme peacefully, meeting sources said.
   ‘We reject the Election Commission’s decision to delimit the constituencies’, the acting general secretary of AL, Syed Ashraful Islam, told reporters after the meeting held at the Gulshan residence of acting party president Zillur Rahman. ‘Such steps will cause unnecessary delay in holding the polls’, he added.
   He said that the EC was already three months behind schedules in implementing its roadmap and such moves [redrawing the boundaries of constituencies] ignoring the objections of the political parties would cause delay in holding the elections and confuse the people.
   The meeting formed a three-member team comprising the party advisory council members including Abul Mal Abdul Muhit and HT Imam to review the EC’s draft gazette and asked the team to submit its report in two weeks, meeting sources said.
   ‘The Election Commission at the dialogue told us that delimitation might take place in 50 constituencies. But it has made massive changes in 134 constituencies complicating the situation’, Ashraf said.
   He said that the team would look into whether there was any plot for election engineering behind the large-scale delimitation and a report would be placed to the EC demanding cancellation of its decision.
   ‘We have decided to observe our planned hunger strike at the party’s Bangabandhu Avenue office and the party chief’s Dhanmondi office with permission of the government’, Ashraf said adding that the party had staged its earlier hunger strike and signature campaigns with the government’s permission. We will ask permission tomorrow [Saturday] for Monday’s programme.’
   ‘It is unfortunate that the police imposed a ban on our programme… how is it possible when we are yet to ask permission’, he said, adding: ‘The party presidium will decide the next course of action if we are not given permission.’
   He said that there was no legal ground for the ban and the party would ask permission as it had not received any written order from the police in this regard.
   ‘The police said that the hunger strike could not be staged without permission. We generally ask permission two or three days before holding a programme. We will ask permission Saturday for the May 5 programme’, presidium member Abdur Razzak told New Age.
   Matia Chowdhury, another presidium member, said that the party would ask permission as it had done before and that she saw no legal ground for imposing ban when indoor politics was allowed in the capital.
   The party presidium at a meeting on April 23 announced a countrywide hunger strike for April 29 but later postponed the programme outside the capital and deferred the programme to May 5 confining it to Dhaka.
   But the Dhaka Metropolitan Police on Wednesday imposed ban on the programme.
   Sources said that the meeting had censured presidium member Suranjit Sengupta for his suggestions that representatives of the army should be present at the proposed dialogues between the government and political parties and rejected outright the idea of third party representation in the talks.
   ‘We have heard that one of our presidium members made such remarks. We do not know why did he say so. He did not attend today’s meeting as he is in Sylhet now….we will ask him about the reason for making such suggestions’, Ashraf said.

The nation, the media in particular, passes another World Press Freedom Day this year with the citizens’ fundamental rights, including rights to freedom of expression, suspended under a state of emergency.
   The media, both print and electronic, have been witnessing a severe crisis, financial and otherwise, since the declaration of the state of emergency on January 11, 2007.
   In its report, Freedom of the Press 2008: A Global Survey of Media Independence, the US-based rights watchdog Freedom House ranked Bangladesh among the 64 countries where the press is not free.
   The survey ranked Bangladesh at 151; Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bhutan were ranked at higher places and India and Nepal were ranked among the 59 countries, where media are partly free.
   Under the emergency, the declaration and media enlistment of more than 160 newspapers and periodicals was cancelled while the first and only 24-hour news channel in Bangladesh, CSB, was taken off air in 2007.
   Fifty-three journalists were also injured, 13 arrested, 37 assaulted, 92 threatened and 13 sued. A media practitioner was forced to sign an undertaking not to make any report without permission of the Bangladesh Rifles and another came under attack, according to information available with Odhikar, a human rights organisation.
   ‘Even though no journalist was killed for their work in 2007, the authorities did not fully clear up the circumstances of the death in March of Jamal Uddin, correspondent for the news agency Abas and local newspaper Dainik Giri Darpan, in Rangamati in the south-east, whom the authorities said had committed suicide. The president of the Rangamati press club said the journalist’s body bore marks of blows all over his body, which had been found lying at the foot of a tree, with a rope around his neck,’ said Reporters Without Borders in its annual report 2008.
   Severe cash crunch led to the closure of the Bangla daily Ajker Kagoj and the transfer of ownership of another Bangla daily Jai Jai Din and the English daily Bangladesh Today.
   Three other media houses also ran into financial constraints after their owners had either been arrested or gone into hiding in connection with drives against crimes and corruption.
   Journalists and other members on the staff at several other media organisations were deprived of regular wages and other financial benefits for months on end.
   An employee of the daily Independent said he had to send his family to his village and was staying in a mess because of irregular payment of wages for months following the arrest and detention of the newspaper owner, Salman F Rahman.
   Similar is the story with a number of newsmen of different media organisations, including daily newspapers Janakantha, Amar Desh, Khabarpatra and Khabarer Antaraley, and television channels Channel 1, RTV, Baishakhi and Bijoy TV.
   Janakantha editor and publisher Atiqullah Khan Masud, Amar Desh, NTV and RTV chairman Mosaddak Ali Falu, Channel 1 chairman MAH Selim and managing director Gaisuddin Al Mamun, CSB director Salauddin Quader Chowdhury, Salman F Rahman, vice-chairman of Beximco which owns the Independent, Khabarpatra owner Hafiz Ibrahim, Khabarer Antoraley publisher Sigma Huda and Bijoy TV chairman ABM Mohiuddin Chowdhury were arrested and detained during the anti-corruption drive.
   Jugantor owner Nurul Islam Babul and NTV managing director Enayetur Rahman Bappi were also arrested. They were, however, released after begin remanded on bail by the Supreme Court.
   A director of the Globe-Janakantha Shilpa Paribar told New Age they had not been able to pay salaries regularly to journalists and others for quite some time now, ‘despite all our good intentions,’ as the editor and publisher was in jail.
   Wages of newsmen at News Today have reportedly been reduced in the face of financial constraints faced by its owner companies.
   Ajker Kagoj stopped publication on September 19, 2007 in the face of a financial crisis.
   Ittefaq terminated the job of about 150 newsmen and press workers after one of its owners, former minister Anwar Hossain Manju, went into hiding.
   The military-controlled interim government on September 6, 2007 stopped transmission of the CSB.
   Although there are at least 23 laws restrictive to the freedom of expression in general and freedom of press in particular, there is no law to ensure the citizens’ rights to information.
   The longstanding demand for the enactment of a comprehensive law on access to information is still a far cry.

London-based Economic Intelligence Unit has said political scene in Bangladesh will remain unsettled till the early part of 2008-09 fiscal year as mounting discontent over rising food prices could lead to widespread demonstrations.
   In its country report for May, the EIU said the public discontent would ‘test the caretaker government’s ability to govern and could prolong the state of emergency.’
   The report, released on May 1, said despite the introduction of a range of electoral reforms, the next election battle would be fought between long-standing rivals, the Awami League and the BNP — the two largest political parties.
   ‘To ensure that the elections are held in a free, fair and transparent way, it will need all the main political parties to take part, following the cancellation of the parliamentary poll in January 2007.’
   It said that ahead of the dialogue, the Awami League and the BNP are likely to use the opportunity to press for the release of their respective leaders, Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia.
   Members of the BNP have already threatened to boycott the election unless Khaleda Zia is released, while the AL have organised a nationwide hunger strike to press for the release of Sheikh Hasina.
   It said preparations for the nationals elections could be hampered by mounting discontent over food prices. Garment workers in the capital city of Dhaka defied the state of emergency in April by holding strikes to demand higher wages to cover the cost of rising food prices.
   The situation is unlikely to improve over the short-term, despite reports of a bumper rice harvest, and further demonstrations are likely, which will test the caretaker government’s ability to govern and in turn could prolong the state of emergency.
   Assuming that the main political parties decide to take part in the next election, the caretaker government will be able to claim that it has reinforced the electoral process, the report said.
   ‘What it will not be able to do, however, is to move the country away from a two-party political system,’ it said, adding that political opinion is so strongly polarised in Bangladesh that the parliamentary contest will once again pit the Awami League against the BNP.
   The EIU expects the budget deficit in fiscal year 2007-08 (July-June) to rise to the equivalent of 5 pr centof GDP, compared with the official target of 4.7 per cent.
   It said real GDP is expected to grow by 5.7 per cent in 2007-08 and by 6 per cent in 2008/09 while consumer price inflation is expected to average 8.9 per cent in 2008, after averaging an estimated 9.1 per cent in 2007.
   The report said the trade deficit is expected to swell to record levels in 2008-09 as demand for industrial raw materials strengthens and international oil prices stay high.
   The caretaker government has secured a loan from the IMF to help finance imports, the cost of which has increased substantially on the back of high international prices for fuel and food.
   The latest external trade data pointed to a recovery in the textile sector, it mentioned.
   On outlook for 2008-09 fiscal policy, the EIU said Bangladesh would continue to post a budget deficit in the forecast period, as revenue expansion fails to keep pace with growth in spending.
   It said the interim government faces a difficult task in achieving its revenue target, owing to the narrow tax base and low rates of revenue collection. At the equivalent of 10 per centof GDP in fiscal year 2006-07, the revenue collection rate in Bangladesh is one of the lowest in the world.
   \Despite the measures outlined in the 2007-08 budget to boost collection, the EIU report said revenue is expected to remain low as a proportion of GDP during the forecast period.

Two minor schoolboys, who remained missing since Tuesday afternoon, were found murdered in an abandoned house at Nayatola in the city’s Maghbazar area Thursday.
   Drug addicts might have killed Mehedi Hasan Biplob, 8 and Jewel Rahman, 10— both class II students residing at Mirertek— even after their poor fathers paid the ransom, police said.
   Families said Jewel’s father Alal Uddin, a rickshaw-puller, filed a general diary with Ramna thana as the two boys went missing since Tuesday afternoon.
   Meanwhile, an unnamed caller asked Biplab’s taxicab driver father Siddique Sheikh to e-fill Tk 6,000 against a mobile phone number to get his son back.
    Biplob’s father made the electronic payment and the unidentified caller said the two boys had been released and would be back home shortly.
   As the two boys did not return even after a long wait and the anonymous caller could not be contacted, the worried parents then announced the missing news through loudspeakers on Wednesday.
   On Thursday, some dwellers of Nayatola area informed the police of bad smell like that of decomposing body coming out from an under-construction house besides 114 and 114/1 holdings.
   A team of Ramna police rushed to the spot and recovered the decomposing bodies of the two minor boys at around 2:00 pm Thursday. Both the bodies bore stab injuries and the boys might have been sexually violated before being strangulated, police said.
   ‘I borrowed money and fulfilled the demand of the abductors, but could not save my son. They killed my boy, who didn’t do any harm to anyone,’ said rickshaw-puller Alal Uddin, father of Jewel, wailing.
   Daulat Akbar Khan, officer-in-charge of Ramna police station, said, ‘Heroin addicts might have committed the heinous act. We will nab them as soon as possible.’
   A case was filed with Ramna police station on Thursday and it was transferred to Detective Branch police next morning.
   ‘We have received the case docket and documents today and we were trying to capture the criminals,’ assistant commissioner of DB police Nasir Ullah told newsmen.

Former Pakistani premier Nawaz Sharif said on Friday that the ruling coalition will reinstate judges sacked by Pervez Musharraf on May 12, posing a fresh threat to the president’s grip on power.
   Sharif said the government would introduce a parliamentary resolution to restore some 60 judges, including the country’s chief justice, whom Musharraf deposed under a state of emergency in November.
   The two-time ex-premier made the announcement a day after holding talks in Dubai with coalition partner Asif Ali Zardari to resolve a deadlock over the issue that threatened their fragile alliance.
   ‘God willing, all the deposed judges will be restored on May 12,’ Sharif told a news conference in the eastern city of Lahore after meeting with senior members of his Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz Party.
   ‘The national assembly will approve a resolution the same day followed by the issuance of notification of the restoration of judges sacked unconstitutionally on November 3,’ he said.
   Musharraf imposed emergency rule and ousted his arch foe Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and the other judges when it appeared they might overturn his re-election as president the previous month.
   The judges could take up fresh challenges to Musharraf’s re-election after they are restored, a move that would prompt yet another standoff between the president and the judiciary in the troubled nuclear-armed nation.
   ‘We will continue our struggle to rid this new democratic era of Pervez Musharraf,’ Sharif said.
   Sharif’s party and the Pakistan People’s Party of slain former premier Benazir Bhutto trounced Musharraf’s allies in elections in February and formed a government the following month.
   Zardari, the co-chairman of the PPP, and Sharif agreed at a summit in the hill resort of Murree in March to restore the judges, but a 30-day deadline that they also gave at the time expired on Wednesday.
   The PPP had insisted that judicial reforms also be part of the package that brings back the judges. But Sharif, the head of the PML-N party, wanted them to be reinstated without conditions.

Thousands of immigrants marched through cities across the United States on Thursday, but smaller crowds suggested their cause had lost momentum in this election year.
   Immigration-rights activists have retrenched to focus
   this year’s rallies on stopping workplace raids after Washington failed last year to act on reforms that included a path to legal status for illegal immigrants.
   In Los Angeles, an estimated 8,000 people converged on City Hall. But the numbers were nowhere near the 500,000-strong showing in March 2006 that caught authorities off-guard and prompted activists to hail the start of a new civil rights movement.
   ‘This is a very young country built off immigrants. The immigrants of yesterday are citizens today, so immigrants of today should become citizens tomorrow,’ said Jose Rodriguez, who came to the United States from Mexico illegally in 1989 and has since gained permanent residency.
   ‘The police are deporting immigrants because they have broken the law but I think there is a higher law and that is to treat someone in a humane way,’ said Rodriguez, 42.
   In Phoenix, no one turned out to march, in contrast to past years when central thoroughfares were packed with protesters.
   In Tucson, Arizona, a few hundred pro-immigration supporters walked through the streets carrying placards
   with messages such as ‘Citizenship Yes! Deportation No!’ That fell short of organisers’ hopes that several thousand would attend.
   Activists said the low turnout stemmed from the failure to push a bill through Congress last year that would have given illegal immigrants a chance to legalise their status. An estimated 12 million illegal immigrants, mainly from Mexico, live in the United States.
   ‘The marches didn’t achieve anything last year and there was no real focus this time,’ said Salvador Reza, coordinator of the Macehualli Day Labour Centre in Phoenix. ‘People would go out if there was reason to go out.’
   Mark Jones, a professor of political science at Rice University in Houston, said the protests were smaller because activists had lost their momentum during an election
   year when the issue had
   largely been put on the back burner.
   ‘I think as an issue it has died away, it isn’t an issue in the campaigns,’ Jones said. ‘They don’t see the need to react to (presidential candidates) Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama or John McCain. It’s much harder to mobilise people around a messy compromise when there is not a threat.’
   A march in Chicago drew only about 2,000 people along the same route into downtown that attracted tens of thousands in the past two years.
   About 1,500 protesters gathered in the south end of New York’s Union Square, opposing immigration raids they say had increased on Amtrak passenger trains and Greyhound buses.
   In one major raid last month, US immigration agents arrested about 400 employees at five Pilgrim’s Pride Corp chicken plants from West Virginia to Texas in connection with immigration-related crimes, including identity theft.
   ‘It’s too late for this president to do anything on immigration reform. We’re looking to press the next president hard,’ Fausto Sicha, 27, an Ecuadorean student, said at the New York rally.
   In Washington, several hundred immigrants and activists called for an end to workplace raids.
   ‘We’re here to request that they (authorities) show some mercy and stop the raids and legalise us,’ said Teodulfa Alvarez, an illegal immigrant and mother of two living in Virginia.

The Power Development Board has sought around Tk 980 crore from the government to install two more 50MW units at the Karnaphuli Hydropower Station, sources in the power division said.
   ‘The board sent the “development project proposal” to the division for the installation of the units – 6 and 7 — at a cost of around Tk 980 crore last month to increase generation from the five-unit plant that has a capacity of 230MW,’ said a source on Thursday.
   ‘We will send the project proposal next week to the Planning Commission for approval of the executive committee of the National Economic Council,’ he said.
   The hydropower station in Kaptai Lake was installed in 1962, with two 40MW units and the 50MW third unit was set up in 1982 and two 50MW units were set up in 1988.
   Electricity generation from the plant, however, decreased in recent times because of a decline in the lake’s water level. The power board has taken steps to overhaul Unit 4 and 5 to increase generation.
   The power board and the division want to add two new units to the plant as early as possible as the generation of the power plants in the Chittagong region has been affected because of gas shortage and it will not be possible to install new gas-based station in the region.
   Although the government took the initiative to set up the sixth and the seventh unit at the plants four to five years ago and almost finalised funds from Japan, Japan pulled out of the funding following a controversy that the units might affect the ethnic minorities in Rangamati.
   Thousands of ethnic minority people were severely affected and lost their dwellings when the artificial lake was created for the power plant in the 1960s and fears are there that any additional unit would inundate more areas.
   Sources in the Power Division said that the power board had carried out a detailed feasibility study and found no one would be affected if the power units were installed as the existing water rule curve in the lake would increase.
   ‘The units will only be operated when the water level is suitable. We need the units for the Chittagong region as the region is facing severe gas and power shortage,’ said a source.
   Although the power board has recently signed an agreement with a Chinese company to set up a 150MW power plant at Shikalbaha, the plant might be operated with liquid fuel because of gas shortage.
   The cost of electricity generation at plants run by liquid fuel is 8 to 10 times higher than that at gas-run plants. The production cost of hydropower, on the other hand, is much less than the cost at gas-run plants.

Thailand’s prime minister on Friday urged opposition supporters not to incite another military coup with their provocative rhetoric over proposed amendments to the country’s constitution.
   Premier Samak Sundaravej’s ruling People Power Party and its five coalition partners are considering a series of changes to the constitution, which was drafted by a panel installed by the junta that ousted Thaksin Shinawatra in 2006.
   Samak said he was facing accusations of being disloyal to the country’s revered monarchy, as did Thaksin before he was removed.
   ‘There is widespread incitement by those who are focusing on the issue of the constitutional amendments and accuse me of being disloyal to the monarchy like Thaksin. They believe I should be removed from office,’ Samak told a seminar of the National Economic and Social Advisory Council.
   Samak refuted any similarities to Thaksin and reiterated that his government had been democratically elected after winning December polls.
   ‘There are people trying to incite the military to stage another coup,’ he said, adding that a rumour had circulated claiming the military had already executed a drill in preparation for a coup.

Around 15 people were killed and over 60 were wounded when a bomb hidden in a motorcycle exploded outside a mosque in Yemen’s volatile northern city of Saada on Friday, a security source said.
   The blast happened as worshippers, including army officers, were leaving the Salman Mosque after Friday prayers, officials and security sources said.
   ‘It is a large mosque,’ the governor of Saada, Motahhar Rashad, told Al Jazeera. He earlier gave the Arab network an initial count of six dead and 35 wounded.
   But a Yemeni security source, who declined to be identified, put the death toll higher at ‘around 15’ and said between 60 and 70 people were wounded.
   The security source said the imam of the mosque, Askar Zaayl, was also the office manager of Ali Mohsen, Yemen’s northern military commander who has led the government’s fight against rebels loyal to Abdul-Malik al-Houthi — a member of the Zaydi sect of Shia Islam.
   Mohsen was not in the mosque at the time of the blast though other Yemeni officers were. It was not known who planted the bomb near the door of the mosque, but the north-western province has been rocked by sporadic violence since a conflict broke out in 2004 between government forces and rebels loyal to Houthi.
   Hundreds of people have been killed and thousands have fled their homes in Saada since the conflict began.
   Seven Yemeni troops were killed late on Tuesday in an ambush by the rebels, who often clash with troops of the US-allied Yemeni government and tribes loyal to it.
   Yemeni officials say the rebels want to return to a form of clerical rule prevalent in the country until the 1960s. The rebels say they are defending their villages against what they call government aggression.

Ten US diplomats were ordered to leave Belarus within 72 hours on Wednesday, intensifying a dispute over sanctions and human rights in the former Soviet republic.
   US charge d’affaires Jonathan Moore, speaking to reporters after being summoned to the foreign ministry, said the embassy would abide by orders from Belarusian authorities.
   The US state department called the move unjustified and unwarranted, but gave no hint whether Washington would retaliate.
   The Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, in power since 1994, has long been accused of crushing freedom of speech and assembly.
   He has been barred from both the United States
   and European Union on allegations he rigged his 2006 re-election.
   Moore said he believed new sanctions would be introduced if Belarus did not release all detainees deemed to be political prisoners. ‘Yes. I believe it will be soon,’ he said.
   Belarusian authorities said Washington had failed to comply with a demand to reduce its embassy’s staff, the second this year.
   ‘The foreign ministry provided a list of 10 diplomats which must leave the country in the course of 72 hours,’ Moore said. He said 15 diplomats were now in Minsk.
   ‘We will do everything possible so that the US diplomats leave the country within the required time limit.’
   The Belarusian foreign ministry’s Internet site said a note had been issued to Moore about the demand to reduce embassy staff from 17 to six.
   The US ambassador left the country last month at the urging of authorities, and another diplomat had also gone.
   Denouncing the move as unjustified, state department spokesman Sean McCormack said, ‘We are considering our response to this action.’

Nepal has banned the export of grains to try and avert a food crisis as prices soar, an official in the impoverished Himalayan nation said on Thursday.
   ‘There is a high possibility of food crisis in a poor country like ours where domestic production is not enough,’ Hari Dahal, a spokesman at the ministry of agriculture, told the news agency.
   ‘The ban will help us in stockpiling food items for ourselves,’ he said. In recent weeks, the price of rice in the local market has risen by more than 35 per cent to 1,500 rupees (23 dollars) per 30-kilogram (66-pound) bag, up from 1,100 rupees, Dahal said.
   ‘The rise in the price of petroleum products in the international market and the reduction in agricultural production worldwide means food insecurity has increased, triggering this price hike,’ he said.
   Some 31 per cent of Nepal’s 27 million people live on less than a dollar a day, so the price rises are likely to hit the poorest the hardest, he said. The price of staples such as rice and wheat has soared globally since last year as food demand grows in emerging markets and more farmland is earmarked for biofuels, with drought and natural disasters adding to the supply problem.
   Nepal has no accurate figures about agricultural imports or exports, but officials say the country exports some grains to Tibet, India and Bangladesh. The country is sandwiched between India and China, and also imports items like rice from both.
   The Himalayan nation produced 7.9 million metric tonnes of cereals in the last fiscal year, including rice, maize, wheat, barley and millet, out of which 5.1 million tonnes were for human consumption, Dahal said.
   ‘We need around the same amount this year but we are already facing 17,000-metric-ton food deficit because of rapid population growth, low agricultural production and because of floods and drought,’ Dahal said

Hillary Rodham Clinton has an unmistakable bounce in her step these days — a sense of energy and optimism that somehow belies the daunting challenge she faces in wresting the Democratic presidential nomination from Barack Obama.
   ‘I feel good. We’re making progress every day,’ she told supporters Thursday in Kentucky, which holds its primary May 20. ‘Wish I could be here for the Derby. ... I hope everyone’s going to place a little money on the filly,’ a reference perhaps to horse Eight Belles and herself.
   Buoyed by her convincing win in Pennsylvania’s primary April 22, Hillary has been campaigning intensively before Indiana and North Carolina’s contests next week. She’s greeted by large crowds who respond enthusiastically to her plans for improving the faltering economy, and several polls out this week suggest she would be the stronger candidate to face Republican John McCain this fall, both nationally and in important swing states.
   Obama, meanwhile, is still contending with the fallout from the controversy surrounding his former pastor and polls showing a tight contest in Indiana, where he once led.
   While Obama has won several superdelegate endorsements this week, including that of former DNC chairman and one-time Hillary backer Joe Andrew, the former first lady has secured a few of her own after weeks of superdelegate drought. On Tuesday, she got a boost in North Carolina with the endorsement of Democratic governor Mike Easley, another superdelegate.
   All of which has given her advisers at least a glimmer of hope that, after a long period of being thought a sure loser, Hillary has regained enough momentum to persuade uncommitted superdelegates to give her candidacy another look. While it may still be a long shot, advisers believe she is in a stronger position to make that argument now than she has been for much of the primary season.
   ‘There is a settled view among Democrats and in the general electorate that senator Hillary is the better candidate to have knowledge and leadership to turn the economy around,’ Hillary strategist Geoff Garin said, noting what he called the former first lady’s ‘continued success and Senator Obama’s continued difficulty connecting with blue-collar and middle-income voters, both men and women.’
   Indeed, Hillary advisers say conversations with uncommitted superdelegates suggest they are concerned about Obama’s persistent weakness among some key demographic groups, particularly Catholic and Hispanic voters. In nominating contests so far this year, Hillary has bested Obama among both groups by a margin of 60 per cent to 36 per cent.
   Then there’s the Illinois senator’s well-publicised tangle with his pastor of 20 years, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Obama broke with his spiritual mentor earlier this week after Wright made a number of controversial statements to reporters in Washington, including suggestions that the US government had invited the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the US government was capable of planting AIDS in the black community.
   The uproar over Wright has thrown Obama badly off message in a week he hoped to regain footing among working-class whites in Indiana and elsewhere. Hillary advisers believe the controversy has further demonstrated their belief that Obama may be too unknown and untested to stand up as the party’s nominee.
   ‘In my district, senator Hillay got 67 per cent and I think a large part of that was Jeremiah Wright and those issues. It looks like she’s got the momentum,’ said Jason Altmire, an undecided superdelegate from Pennsylvania.
   Hillary strategists also contend that Obama’s message of hope and political reconciliation has worn thin in recent months as the tanking economy has become voters’ dominant concern. Hillary’s emphasis on policy proposals such as her plan to ease home foreclosures has more salience with voters than Obama’s theme of mending a broken system in Washington, her advisers believe.
   Hillary has tried to cast herself as the champion of the middle class even as she casts Obama as out of touch with the concerns of those voters. For example, she’s advocating a summer gas tax holiday — an idea Obama opposes and one that has been widely panned by a range of influential economists.
   Still, Hillary strategists acknowledge the odds still don’t favour her.

British prime minister Gordon Brown’s governing Labour Party suffered its worst defeat in some four decades in local elections, according to full results, cited by the BBC on Friday.
   With all 159 local council results outside of London counted, Labour had lost 331 seats and lost control of nine councils to hold 18, while the opposition Conservatives gained 256 seats and boosted their council tally by 12 to 65.
   The poll drubbing, dubbed a ‘bloodbath’ by London’s Evening Standard newspaper and ‘Black Friday’ by others, was the worst for Labour since the 1960s under then premier Harold Wilson, according to the BBC and other media.

Former BNP lawmaker Syed Moazzem Hossain Alal, also Juba Dal secretary general, was admitted to Sher-e-Bangla Medical College Hospital early Thursday with cardiac complaints.
   Barisal jail and hospital authorities said Alal was admitted to the coronary care unit at the hospital at about 2:00am with severe chest pain.
   Zakir Hossain, a physician of cardiology at the hospital, on Friday told New Age Alal’s health condition was stable.
   The family said they were not allowed to visit Alal.

A van driver of a private security service provider went missing with Tk 70 lakh of a commercial client in the city Wednesday night.
   Savar police on Friday arrested three officials of Group-4 Security Service Bangladesh Private Limited on suspicion, but failed to trace the driver, Golam Mostafa Sardar.
   Police said Alam Corporation, a customer of City Bank, Elephant Road branch, entrusted Group-4 with its cash deliveries all over the country.
   The company Wednesday night handed over Tk 70 lakh in two bags to Group-4 supervisors Profullo Kumar and Anwar Hossain and security guard Akbar Ali Munshi onboard a delivery van Dhaka-metro-Tha-11-7316, which was to carry the cash to Savar.
   As the van reached Tetuljhora College Road of Savar at around 10:30 pm, driver Golam Mostafa Sardar asked others to get down from the vehicle as one of the tyres was punctured. The three officials got down and returned after having tea only to see that the driver was missing with the bags containing the money.
   Deputy manager of the security company Murad Hossain Khan filed a case with Savar police station in this connection Thursday.
   The police raided driver Mostafa’s village home at Kharhatti under Kashiyani in Gopalganj and interrogated his wife early Friday, said sub-inspector Imam Hossain of Savar police.
   ‘Today we have arrested three officials of the company as they drove straight to Savar without reporting to the company’s Baridhara headquarters in Dhaka,’ the police officer said.

Awami League leader Rashida Mahiuddin, also a broadcaster on Bangladesh Television, was laid to rest in the Mirpur Intellectuals’ Graveyard on Friday.
   Rashida, a spinster, died of a heart failure in LabAid Cardiac Hospital Thursday morning at the age of 48.
   She was on Tuesday initially admitted to Modern Hospital at Dhanmondi with complaints of toothache. Her condition deteriorated after the affected tooth was pulled out. She was transferred to LabAid Wednesday evening.
   Mesbah Azad, media coordinator of LabAid Hospital, said, ‘Rashida Mahiuddin died clinically in Modern Hospital on Wednesday and she was taken here in that condition.’
   Her body was taken to her home town Muktagachha on Thursday and later brought back to Dhaka and kept at BIRDEM Hospital.
   Her coffin was taken to the Awami League office on Bangabandhu Avenue Friday morning and a namaz-e-janaza was held there. The second namaz-e-janaza was held at Baitul Mukarram Mosque.
   The acting Awami League president, Zillur Rahman, and the acting general secretary, Syed Ashraful Islam, offered their condolences.
   The Bangabandhu Shangskritik Jote president, Alamgir Kumkum, general secretary Tarana Halim, Arun Sarkar Rana and Falguni Hamid expressed their shock at the death of Rashida, a founder of the cultural organisation.
   She contested the general elections for the Muktagachha constituency seat in 2001 on the Awami League ticket.

The dawn-to-dusk nationwide strike called by the Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday against spiralling prices of essential commodities had a mixed response with party activists forming human chains and staging demonstrations at several places that were by and large peaceful.
   However, essential services functioned normally as public offices remained open and vehicles were seen plying smoothly on the roads. There were some minor incidents of stone pelting at some places.
   In the national capital, major wholesale markets as well as some retail markets downed their shutters as a large number of traders held a demonstration at Rajghat.
   According to the Confederation of All India Traders, over five lakh traders across the city joined the strike.
   The bandh also evoked mixed response in BJP-ruled states of Gujarat, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand despite activists of the party and supporting organisations staging dharnas and shouting slogans against the centre for its ‘failure’ to check the steep rise in the prices of essential commodities.
   In Maharashtra, BJP activists formed human chains in Nagpur, Amravati, Akola, Washim, Nashik, Aurangabad and Pune.
   However, the bandh disrupted normal life in Assam, Himachal Pradesh and Manipur with shops, markets and business establishments remaining closed. In Bihar, Jammu and Kashmir, Orissa and Uttar Pradesh, it evoked a partial response.

Former deputy minister for communications Salahuddin Ahmed was released on Friday on parole for six hours to attend the namaj-e-janaza of his father Saidul Haque.
   Saidul Haque died of old age complications at his village home at Shikdarpara under Pekua upazila in Cox’s Bazar at about 9:00pm Thursday.
   The DIG (prisons), Major Shamsul Haider Siddiqui, told the news agency that Salahuddin was sent to Cox’s Bazar jail in the morning from the prison cell of the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University and released at 1:00pm on parole for six hours.
   Family said Salahuddin, also a former BNP lawmaker from Cox’s Bazar-1, brought to Cox’s Bazar jail from Dhaka at about 11:00am.
   He was taken back to Cox’s Bazar jail after his father’s burial at the family graveyard.
   

Southern Sudan’s minister of defence and another government official were killed on Friday in a plane crash, southern government officials said.
   Dominic Dim, the south’s defence minister and minister of Southern People’s Liberation Movement affairs, and Justin Yak, a presidential adviser for local government affairs, were on the plane that crashed near the southern town of Rumbek, the officials said.
   Deng Goc, a spokesman for the SPLM, confirmed that Dim had been on the plane but could not confirm if Dim had died.
   Yak’s wife was also killed in the crash, a government source said.
   The former southern rebel SPLM signed a 2005 accord with the northern National Congress Party, ending Africa’s longest civil war.
   The accident comes a day after southern army officials said Sudan’s northern and southern forces had agreed to withdraw from an oil-rich border flashpoint where clashes in the last month have killed dozens.