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The Anti-Corruption Commi-ssion on Wednesday pressed charges against the detained former prime minister Khaleda Zia’s eldest son Tarique Rahman, former state minister for home Lutfozzaman Babar, Bashundhara Group chairman Ahmed Akbar Sobhan, also known as Shah Alam, and five others regarding bribery of Tk 21 crore to cover up the murder of a company director.
   This is the third charge sheet filed against Tarique, also the senior joint secretary general of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, who faces 10 cases, including four related to corruption, after his arrest on March 8, 2007.
   Charges were pressed against Tarique a day after charges had been pressed against his mother, Khaleda Zia, also the BNP chairman, in the Niko corruption case.
   His counsel said the proceedings in all but the latest case had been stayed by the High Court.
   The investigation officer of the Bashundhara murder bribery case, Rupak Kumar Saha, also the commission’s deputy assistant director, filed the charge sheet with the court of additional chief metropolitan magistrate Golam Rabbani, also against former BNP lawmaker Kazi Salimul Huq Kamal, Shah Alam’s two sons, Safiyat Sobhan Sanbir and Shahadat Sobhan, Bashundhara director Abu Sufian and Tarique’s private secretary Miah Nuruddin Apu.
   Of the eight, Tarique, Babar and Sufian are in custody. Others are in hiding. On April 23, the commission decided to press charges against the eight.
   Tarique and Salimul, also the owner of the GQ Ballpoint, were not named in the first information report of the case filed by the commission’s deputy assistant director Abul Kashem with the Ramna police on October 4, 2007.
   The charge sheet said the bribe was taken from Shah Alam for the police not to file the charge sheet, to destroy evidences and stop any police action against the accused in the Sabbir murder case.
   On July 4, 2006, Humayun Kabir Sabbir, 30, a director of the Bashundhara Telecommuni-cations Limited, was killed.
   Babar allegedly demanded Tk 100 crore from Shah Alam to cover up the killing. Shah Alam, however, agreed to pay Tk 50 crore, of which Tk 21 crore ‘has already been paid,’ the charge sheet said.
   The investigation officer pressed charges against Tarique for plotting the bribery to save Shah Alam’s son Safiyat Sanbir from the murder charge and the charge of helping the other accused in committing the offences as he was then a powerful man in the ruling party.
   Tarique helped Babar to take Tk 21 crore from Shah Alam in bribe and he also took Tk 1 crore from the amount through his associate Miah Nuruddin Apu, the charge sheet said.
   Abu Sufian, also a BNP candidate in the 1991 national elections, handed over the money to Apu at Hawa Bhaban on August 20, 2006 at the directive of Babar,’ the charge sheet said.
   Of the Tk 20 crore, Tk 5 crore was paid in cash and Tk 15 crore by 20 cheques. The money was kept with a Prime Bank account of Salimul. The money was transacted through Abu Sufian, according to the charge sheet.
   The charge sheet also said on August 7 and 8, 2006, Babar and Tarique had meetings with Shah Alam and Abu Sufian in the government residence of Babar on Bailey Road where Tarique settled that Shah Alam would pay Tk 50 crore for the police not to bring any charges against his son.
   Sufian between August 13 and August 22 paid Tk 20 core to Babar at his residence on Bailey Road and the money was deposited with a Prime Bank account of Salimul Haq for eight months and 18 days between September 13, 2006 and May 31, 2007, the charge sheet said.
   He said Sufian could not pay the remaining amount of the bribe as the BNP government handed power over to the caretaker government on October 28, 2006.
   Twenty-eight people, including some bank officials, were named as prosecution witnesses in the case.
   Babar was arrested on May 28 on various charges. The Bashundhara Group chairman along with the family was hiding in London, the charge sheet said.

Defence counsel Shafique Ahmed Tuesday said the detained former prime ministers Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia had been sued only to introduce ‘boot-wrapped democracy,’ putting loyalists in power to malign democracy by depicting elected prime ministers as corrupt.
   He said this in his concluding argument on the petition filed by Hasina, also the Awami League president, seeking her discharge from the barge-mounted power plant case.
   M Firoz Alam, the judge of the special judge’s court 1 set up on the Jatiya Sangsad complex, on Tuesday started hearing a similar petition of another accused, former power and energy secretary Toufiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury. The hearing will resume on May 12.
   Shafique pleaded charges were brought against Hasina for awarding contract for installation of barge-mounted power plants
   while the prosecution did not file with court the evaluation report on the tenders invited for the project.
   The case was filed only to malign the former prime minister, he argued, adding charges were also pressed against another former prime minister Khaleda Zia, also the Bangladesh Nationalist Party chairperson, on Monday in the Niko graft case.
   ‘They have sued the former prime ministers only to introduce “boot-wrapped democracy” in the name of new brand of democracy… To that effect, they want to put their loyalists in power maligning the mainstream politicians and keeping them [politicians] out of the process of general elections,’ Shafique said.
   He also pleaded for ordering the prosecution to submit the report of the tender evaluation committee.
   Special public prosecutor Shamim Ahsan told the court the report was very much there in the documents of the case.
   The court, however, ordered the prosecution to submit all the documents, including the case dockets for examination as Shamim instantly failed to show the evaluation committee report.
   Toufiq-e-Elahi’s counsel Sazwar Hossain argued the case was filed with mala fide intention as the then energy minister Nooruddin Khan, also a former army chief, was neither an accused nor a witness in the case.
   The court on March 9 started hearing the framing of charges after deferring the process for five times and the prosecution proposed framing charges against Hasina and seven others for their role in awarding a foreign company and its local partners the job of the 100MW barge-mounted power plant installation in Khulna in exchange for Tk 3 crore.
   Hasina, detained in a special jail on the national assembly complex after her arrest on July 16, 2007, was produced in the dock amid tight security. Toufiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury was also produced in court.
   Six others accused in the case, now in hiding, are former Power Development Board chairman Noor Uddin Mahmud Kamal, Summit Corporation managing director Mohammad Aziz Khan and its director Mohammad Farid Khan, United Group chairman Hasan Mahmud Raja and its director Abul Kalam Azad and Bangabandhu Memorial Museum curator Syed Siddiqur Rahman.

The detained Awami League president Sheikh Hasina on Tuesday said the people who were harassing her would need to go to her some day.
   Hasina, also a former prime minister, gave the warning as she talked with her lawyers and relations in a makeshift courtroom on the Jatiya Sangsad complex after appearing in the special judge’s court for the hearing in the framing of charges in the barge-mounted power plant corruption case.
   ‘The people who are now harassing me must keep in mind that I am daughter of Bangabandhu and they will need to come to me some day,’ she was quoted by one of her counsels as saying.
   Sticking to her guns, Hasina reaffirmed her determination to contest the next parliamentary elections defying any ‘pressure’ or ‘conspiracy’ by any quarters.
   ‘As the Almighty Allah is with me and so are the people, I cannot disregard people’s unflinching confidence in me. I must contest the elections. I hope people will elect me again to serve the country,’ she was quoted as saying by a lawyer.
   Hasina apprehended that she would not get justice under the present authorities, but said, ‘I will not bow to anybody under any pressure.’

The BNP’s secretary-general, Khandakar Delwar Hossain, on Tuesday said his party would not permit the holding of any elections to form a ‘rubber stamp’ parliament and would do whatever is required to prevent that.
   ‘We will not permit any polls to form a rubberstamp parliament and will do whatever it takes to prevent it, braving all the conspiracies with the help of the countrymen,’ Delwar told reporters at a press briefing in his Sher-e-Bangla Nagar apartment.
   He was describing his party’s stance after the Anti-Corruption Commission’s submission of a charge-sheet against BNP’s chairperson Khaleda Zia and senior joint secretary-general Tarique Rahman.
   ‘Our party and the countrymen will not accept any farcical election that keeps Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina out of the electoral process,’ he said, blasting the government for indicting Khaleda in the Niko corruption case, labelling it false and fabricated and designed by foreign quarters.
   ‘We condemn the conspiratorial cases and express our contempt for the government for pressing fabricated charges against them. We reject the accusations, and the people of the country will not accept them,’ he said.
   ‘All these cases are fabricated and part of their blue-print. We, and Awami League chief Sheikh Hasina too, have already said several times that the government has already written the verdict before the completion of the cases. These false cases are meant to disqualify the two top leaders from contesting the next polls by convicting them in the false cases,’ he said.
   ‘This government, with the help of some foreign forces, is out to implement the latter’s blue-print at the cost of national interest. They do not care about the country’s interests, its economy or the people,’ he fulminated.
   ‘They are giving our mineral resources to foreigners and making the country’s independence and sovereignty vulnerable by planning to give transit and port facilities to foreigners,’ he said.
   Delwar Hossain said the party would announce the agitation programmes against the government shortly to ensure the release party chief Khaleda.
   Naming no individual or organisation, he said he was being threatened again and again. ‘They are trying to intimidate me. But nothing will hold me back from my commitment to the party and its chief. I will continue to discharge my duties,’ he said.
   BNP’s acting office secretary Rizvi Ahmed told reporters that Khandakar Delwar’s daughter has received phone calls from unknown quarters, asking her to stop her father from holding the [Tuesday’s] press briefing.
   The party’s standing committee member RA Gani, party chief’s adviser ASM Hannan Shah, joint secretaries-general Gayeshwar Roy and Selima Rahman were present at the briefing.
   One hundred and twenty-two former lawmakers of BNP, meanwhile, in a joint statement condemned the charge-sheet against Khaleda Zia and demanded her immediate release and withdrawal of all the charges against her.
   ‘The government, on the one hand, is trying to, in its own language, “regain the trust of political parties” by holding dialogues with them,’ said the statement, ‘and on the other hand it is trying to indict Khaleda Zia and conspiring to make the political situation volatile by making it nearly impossible to tackle the present crisis.
   ‘When the people of the country consider the presence of the two top leaders in the dialogues vitally important for their success, the government’s ambivalent attitude will trigger fresh crises.
   ‘We think the government should recognise and accept the reality and be sincere in creating the ground for a free, fair and acceptable election after releasing Khaleda Zia and withdrawing all the false, fabricated and imaginary charges against her,’ the statement concluded.
   Referring to the charge-sheet against Khaleda, the acting secretary-general of the splinter group of the party, Hafizuddin Ahmed, said, ‘The case is on trial. We hope she will get freedom through justice.’
   The outgoing British High Commissioner, Anwar Choudhury, met Hafizuddin at his house in Banani yesterday morning. The BNP chairperson’s adviser, AHM Mofazzal Karim, was present on the occasion. They exchanged views on the upcoming elections, dialogues and reforms.

The state-owned lenders continue to bear the legacy of the public sector bad debts even after their corporatisation, with the finance ministry shutting its eyes to huge arrears of mills, some disinvested long ago.
   The government’s liabilities for jute and textile mills soared by Tk 213 crore this year from the year before, according to figures available up to March.
   Thirty-two jute mills and textile mills in the public sector owed four government-owned commercial banks about Tk 1,670 crore as of March, 2008, official figures showed.
   But the finance ministry seems reluctant to relieve the banks of the huge liabilities and inject fresh fund to help three corporatised lenders and stymied Rupali Bank run viably, banking and financial sources said.
   The banks demanded special budgetary allocation in the next fiscal year to clear their books of huge arrears in the public sector.
   The government assumed the liabilities of the state-owned enterprises, which were privatised from 1994 until recently.
   The public sector industries, dogged by chronic losses and bad management, took the bank loans to purchase raw jute or yarn, meet working capital needs and pay wages to the staff against loan repayment guarantee from the finance ministry.
   Sonali Bank bears the highest amount of arrears, followed by Agrani, Janata and Rupali banks, sources said.
   The liabilities of 13 jute mills stood at Tk 991.03 crore, while the rest Tk 674.79 crore was owed by 19 textile mills.
   Madaripur Textile, Sharmin Textile and Kishoreganj Textile mills, which were privatised in December 1994, owed the banks Tk 60.92 crore, Tk 74.43 crore and Tk 55.95 crore respectively.
   Three other mills of Bangladesh Textile Mills Corporation — Kohinoor Spinning, Zofine Fabrics and Barisal Textile — which were privatised in 1995, have about Tk 125 crore in arrears.
   Unpaid debts of Zeenath Textile accumulated to Tk 69.08 crore, while Noakhali Textile owed Tk 19.94 crore, Kokil Textile Tk 17.23 crore, Meghna Tk 50.31 crore, Olympia Tk 57.69 crore, Karelin Silk Tk 42.76 crore, Luxminarayan Cotton Tk 17.23 crore and Monno Textile Tk 26.63 crore.
   The situation is same for mills owned by Bangladesh Jute Mills Corporation, with now-defunct Adamjee Jute Mills topping the list of defaulters alone owing the four banks Tk 415.81 crore.
   Other major defaulting jute mills include People’s Jute Mills in Khulna [lease being processed] with Tk 229.20 crore, Kawmi Jute Mills in Sirajganj [lease being processed] with Tk 109.34 crore, Karnaphuli Jute in Chittagong [lease being processed] with Tk 82 crore, Nishat Jute Mills at Tongi [divested in 2003] with Tk 35.47 crore, Daultapur Jute Mills in Khulna [not yet transferred] with Tk 34.61 crore, Pubachal Jute Industries [privatised in 1997] with Tk 3.62 crore, Mymensingh Jute Mills [privatised in November 2003] with Tk 14.46 crore and Bawa Jute Mills [privatised in April 2004] with Tk 13.12 crore.
   Officials of the state-owned banks said the government was obliged to clear the liabilities since it was the guarantor of the loans, but had been reluctant years after years to repay the debts.
   The finance ministry should take immediate steps to repay the debts of BJMC and BTMC if it wants to see the corporatised banks overcome capital inadequacies and return to the black.
   ‘I strongly believe that budgetary allocation could be the best solution, instead of support through bonds,’ Syed Abu Naser Bukhtear Ahmed, chief executive officer of Agrani Bank Ltd told New Age.

The government on Tuesday banned the export of all varieties of rice excepting aromatic ones for next six months, as the domestic market of the staple remained overheated.
   The ministry of commerce imposed the restriction through a statutory regulatory order signed by a deputy secretary, Abu Sayeed Chowdhury. ‘The order comes into effect immediately.’
   It is believed that the ban came as a precautionary measure against any rice crisis in future in the country while the price of rice is on the upturn on the international market.
   For last one year, Bangladesh has been experiencing crisis amid rice-price rises on the local market, primarily because of crop loses for floods and cyclone.
   Even within six months, the price has doubled despite huge import of food grains from the international market.
   However, this year, the country reaped a bumper harvest of boro rice.
   Bangladesh annually produces about 26 million tonnes of rice and imports another 2.5 million tonnes to meet the demand for about 150 million people.
   Last year, a cyclone and two spells of flooding in July-September destroyed 1.8 million tonnes of rice in the fields, forcing the government to import additional 2 million tonnes from international market.
   A serious shortage has doubled the domestic price of rice to Tk 40 a kg since January last year.

Myanmar’s military government raised its death toll from Cyclone Nargis on Tuesday to nearly 22,500 with a further 41,000 missing, nearly all of them from a massive storm surge that swept into the Irrawaddy delta.
   Of the dead, only 671 were in the former capital, Yangon, and its outlying districts, state radio said, confirming Nargis as the most devastating cyclone to hit Asia since 1991, when 143,000 people died in Bangladesh.
   Meanwhile, Save the Children said it expected the death toll from Myanmar’s devastating cyclone to reach as high as 50,000.
   The aid agency’s Bangkok-based spokesman Dan Collinson said the rapidly escalating death toll would rise sharply again in the next few days as victims of Saturday’s powerful cyclone were located.
   ‘More deaths were caused by the tidal wave than the storm itself,’ the minister for relief and resettlement, Maung Maung Swe, told a news conference in the rubble-strewn city of five million, where food and water supplies are running low.
   ‘The wave was up to 12 feet high and it swept away and inundated half the houses in low-lying villages,’ he said, giving the first detailed description of the weekend cyclone. ‘They did not have anywhere to flee.’
   The information minister, Kyaw Hsan, said the military were ‘doing their best’, but analysts said there could be political fallout for the former Burma’s rulers who pride themselves on their ability to cope with any challenge.
   ‘The myth they have projected about being well-prepared has been totally blown away,’ said political analyst Aung Naing Oo, who fled to Thailand after a brutally crushed 1988 uprising. ‘This could have a tremendous political impact in the long term.’
   Earlier, the foreign minister, Nyan Win, said on state television 10,000 people had died just in Bogalay, a town 50 miles southwest of Yangon.
   Reflecting the scale of the disaster, the junta said it would postpone to May 24 a constitutional referendum in the worst-hit areas of Yangon and the sprawling delta.
   The government lifted states of emergency in three of the five states declared official disaster zones and some parts of the worst-hit Yangon and Irrawaddy regions.
   The information minister also said the government had sufficient stocks of rice despite damage to grain stored in the huge delta, known as the ‘rice bowl of Asia’ 50 years ago when Burma was the world’s largest rice exporter.
   The total left homeless by the 120 miles per hour winds and storm surge is in the several hundred thousands, United Nations aid officials say.
   Even in delta villages that managed to withstand the worst of the winds, food and water is already running low.
   ‘There’s not much food,’ one woman at a pineapple stall in Hlaing Tha Yar, a village one hour’s drive west of Yangon, said. ‘The price of a cabbage is now 1,000 kyats instead of 250.’
   Residents of Yangon itself were queuing up for bottled water and there was still no electricity four days after the cyclone hit.
   Prices of food, fuel and construction materials have skyrocketed, and most shops have sold out of candles and batteries. An egg costs three times what it did on Friday.
   ‘Generators are selling very well under the generals,’ said one man waiting outside a shop.
   The disaster drew a rare acceptance of outside help from the diplomatically isolated generals, who spurned such approaches in the aftermath of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.
   Bernard Delpuech, a European Union aid official in Yangon, said the junta had sent three ships carrying food to the delta region. Nearly half the country’s 53 million people live in the five disaster-hit states.
   Army-controlled media have made much of the military’s response, showing footage of soldiers manhandling tree trunks or top generals climbing into helicopters or greeting homeless storm victims in Buddhist temples.
   Aid agency World Vision in Australia said it had been granted special visas to send in personnel to back up 600 staff in the impoverished Southeast Asian country.

Workers of three garment factories of the Azim Group on Tuesday rampaged through the Chittagong–Kaptai Road and the Chittagong–Cox’s Bazar Highway, suspending traffic for six hours till 2:00pm, the police and witnesses said.
   The workers vandalised about 100 vehicles as they went out on demonstrations on the road stretch between Bahaddarhat and Kalurgaht demanding increased wages and other facilities, the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters’ Association and the police said.
   Some outsiders also joined the workers during the demonstrations and at one point they vandalised a few neighbouring garment factories, witnesses said. Former first vice-president of the BGMEA Ershad Ullah claimed 12 factories had been attacked.
   ‘Some outsiders attacked our factories, but the lawmen kept silent although we informed them of the matter,’ he said.
   Hundreds of vehicles remained stranded from Bahaddarhat to Tiger Pass, the police and witnesses said.
   The police and the Rapid Action Battalion were deployed in the area to stave off trouble.
   The workers blocked the roads as they found the sweater factories closed for an indefinite period, said BGMEA joint secretary Mohammad Moinuddin.
   He said the owner closed the factories over a row regarding increased wages that took place on Monday.
   The Azim Group general manager, Sulal Kanti Shil, claimed Tuesday’s trouble was a follow-up on Monday’s agitation inside the three sweater factories in the Kalurghat industrial estate.
   He claimed some factory officials were injured in Tuesday’s violence. ‘The workers demanded higher pay against each piece of sweater and other facilities,’ he said. ‘The owners closed the factories in such a situation.’
   The blockade was called off at 2:00pm and workers went back after a settlement reached at a meeting between labour leaders and the factory management in the presence the police and battalion officials, BGMEA leaders and meeting sources said.
   The management agreed to increase the wages, they said.

The military-controlled interim administration has apparently been buying time to hold the much-talked-about dialogue with political parties for expediting ‘smooth transition to democracy’ through a credible election at the year’s end.
   The chief adviser, Fakhruddin Ahmed, has apprised the president, Iajuddin Ahmed, on Tuesday of his preparation for the general elections, the dialogues with political parties, and a pre-dialogue address to the nation which is expected to be aired at the end of second week of this month.
   The dialogues were expected to be held much earlier as the chief adviser in his first anniversary speech in January had announced that talks with the parties would begin very ‘soon’.
   His colleagues in the cabinet have time and again sung the same tune, but the government spent nearly four months to prepare the ground for a fruitful dialogue through a series of informal parleys with the major parties and civic groups. After the chief adviser’s meeting with the president at Bangbabhaban, an official hand-out stated that the former’s planned address to the nation might take place sometime at the end of the second week of the month.
   He is expected to announce the modalities, time and venue for the dialogue, based on the outcome of the pre-dialogue talks between the stakeholders and a four-member panel of advisers.
   It was expected earlier that the talks between the government and political parties would begin in April, but the government appointed the panel to create an atmosphere conducive to dialogues through preparatory consultations.
   The advisers have persistently been saying that the formal dialogues would begin as soon as the consultation phase is over.
   But a week after the submission of a report on the outcome of the consultations, they now seem less confident. They said that they were still trying to find ways to include members of the civic groups in the formal discussions and so they could not spell out a specific time for the talks. In his hour-long meeting with the president, the chief adviser informed him of the preparation for holding the planned dialogues and the general elections, and also apprised him of the food situation, said a Bangabhaban press statement.
   Fakhruddin also briefed Iajuddin about the various aspects of his planned address to the nation through the radio and television, said the statement.
   The president’s secretary Serajul Islam and the military secretary to the president Maj Gen Aminul Karim were present, among others, at the meeting.
   The panel of advisers led by Ghulam Quader held a meeting at the communications ministry yesterday.
   ‘We are consulting with the experts so that we can effectively include the civic groups in the dialogues with the parties,’ commerce adviser Hossain Zillur Rahman told reporters after the meeting, which was also attended by LGRD and cooperatives adviser Anwarul Iqbal and law adviser AF Hassan Ariff.
   Zillur said the political parties had already agreed with the government on the need for representation of the civic groups in the dialogues. ‘The preparation for the formal talks is almost at the final stage,’ he mentioned.

The army headquarters on Tuesday announced that it had no intention or desire whatsoever to participate in the planned dialogue between the caretaker government and political parties.
   Also, the army headquarters requested the mass media to refrain from making any imaginary and negative opinion out of their personal notion that might create confusion in the public minds about the army.
   An ISPR communiqué said the army had been discharging its responsibility at the instructions of the government and extending cooperation towards holding fair elections under the incumbent caretaker government. ‘This cooperation will continue in future, if necessary.’
   The release said the role of the army was praised by all quarters against the backdrop of the January 11, 2007 changeover. At the critical juncture of the nation, the army at the instructions of the president came in aid of the caretaker government and subsequently participated in nation-building and different development and welfare activities.
   ‘And this praiseworthy role of the army was reflected in different mass media, including newspapers of the country.’
   Recently, the release pointed out, various fictitious and confusing opinions are being published in editorials of different dailies, TV talk shows and open discussions.
   It said in view of the state of emergency in place, even the army chief at different functions and exchanges with editors of different mass media and interviews with local and foreign media gave a clear picture about the role of the army.

A remark by the president, George W Bush, saying India was partly responsible for rising global food prices has sparked a nationalistic storm across the political spectrum, with the defence minister calling it a ‘cruel joke’.
   The Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, India’s main opposition party, threatened on Monday to force a parliamentary debate on Bush’s remarks that India’s increasingly prosperous middle classes were helping push up prices.
   The political uproar highlighted how quickly a latent anti-US nationalism in India could rear its head despite years of diplomatic rapprochement. It also underscored how food price rises have become a huge electoral issue in India.
   ‘US policies are also responsible for the food grain shortage,’ the defence minister, AK Antony, told local media on Sunday, saying that official encouragement of biofuels in the United States was causing food shortages.
   He added that Bush’s remark was a ‘cruel joke’.
   ‘Bush has never been known for his knowledge of economics,’ India’s junior trade minister Jairam Ramesh said.
   ‘He has just proved once again how comprehensively wrong he is. To say that the demand for food in India is causing an increase in global good prices is completely wrong.
   Rapid economic growth and better wages, powered by nearly two decades of liberal reforms that have made India’s economy the third-largest in Asia, have fuelled demand for farm products at a time when output has stagnated.
   India has imported wheat in the last two years and imports of edible oils have risen to help meet rising consumer demand and changing food habits. India has also banned non-basmati rice exports to ensure local availability.
   At the same time, dwindling global stocks of staples like wheat and rice, Asian demand and government mandates to produce crops for fuel have stretched the world’s ability to feed itself.
   Praising the growing prosperity of developing countries, Bush said on Friday ‘there are 350 million people in India who are classified as middle class’.
   ‘That’s bigger than America ... and when you start getting wealth, you start demanding better nutrition and better food. And so demand is high, and that causes the price to go up,’ Bush said, according to a White House transcript.
   During the Cold War, India was an ally of the Soviet Union. It is only recently that the growing Asian power has tilted towards Washington, a move that has often sparked opposition from influential leftist parties that prop up the government.
   The Congress-led coalition is worried inflation, at a three year high of more than 7 per cent, could ruin their chances in general elections due by early 2009.
   Hindu nationalist and leftist opposition have made food inflation one of their main electoral platforms.
   The opposition quickly jumped on prime minister Manmohan Singh’s silence over Bush’s remarks. ‘He has got only a few days left in office and at least he should now stand up to protect the country’s honour and dignity,’ BJP vice-president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said.
   ‘India will not accept such interference. The government should take serious note of the US president’s statement and give a strong reply.’
   The West Bengal chief minister, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, one of India’s main leftist leaders, was quoted by the Press Trust of India as saying Bush ‘has gone out of his mind since his downfall is near’.
   One thing that failed to spark debate in India was Bush’s estimate that there were 350 million middle class Indians – despite that figure being challenged by many experts.
   A study by the McKinsey Global Institute last year estimated India’s middle classes numbered only 50 million, out of a total 1.1 billion population.

US First Lady Laura Bush accused Myanmar’s military rulers of failing to warn their citizens in time about a killer cyclone and pressed the junta to accept US aid in the disaster’s wake.
   ‘Although they were aware of the threat, Burma’s state-run media failed to issue a timely warning to citizens in the storm’s path,’ Laura Bush said Monday in an unusual appearance at the White House briefing room podium.
   ‘It’s troubling that many of the Burmese people learned of this impending disaster only when foreign outlets, such as Radio Free Asia and Voice of America, sounded the alarm,’ she said. Washington calls the country Burma.
   Laura Bush, who has taken a leading role in shaping US policy towards Myanmar, said Washington ‘stands prepared’ to increase its assistance well beyond an initial emergency 250,000-dollar outlay by the US embassy in Yangon.
   She declined to give a precise dollar figure, saying the junta first had to allow a US disaster assistance response team into Myanmar to assess the scope of the devastation from Tropical Cyclone Nargis’s weekend rampage.
   ‘I can’t speak to how large that would be. But I feel assured that it would be substantial, if we can give it,’ she said, promising help to provide water, sanitation, food and shelter.
   Laura Bush made clear any assistance would go through the United Nations or international nongovernmental organisations — and not directly to a regime under US sanctions for failing to embrace democratic reforms.
   ‘I hope that the military will realise they have to accept aid from everybody they can possibly accept it from. And maybe that will be the something good that can come out of this terrible destruction,’ she said.
   The US State Department Monday issued a travel warning for US citizens in Myanmar, telling them to strongly consider leaving the country, and advising all other Americans to ‘defer non-essential travel’ there.
   Laura Bush declared that ‘the response to the cyclone is just the most recent example of the junta’s failure to meet its people’s basic needs.’
   She also warned the regime against holding a planned constitutional referendum Saturday and said her husband, US president George W Bush, on Tuesday would sign a law giving imprisoned democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi the Congressional Gold Medal — the highest civilian honour US lawmakers can bestow.
   ‘That’s important,’ said the first lady, who called the award a way to ‘let the people of Burma know that the United States is standing with them.’
   She denounced the referendum, saying the regime ‘orchestrated this vote to give false legitimacy to their continued rule’ and that ‘it would be very, very odd, I think, if they went ahead.’
   Laura Bush cited violence against the opposition and noted that Aung San Suu Kyi — under house arrest for more than 12 of the past 18 years, following her party’s sweeping victory in 1990 elections that the junta ignored — would be barred from holding office under the draft constitution.
   ‘If it proceeds under current conditions, the constitutional referendum they have planned should not be seen as a step toward freedom, but rather as a confirmation of the unacceptable status quo,’ said the first lady.
   ‘We appeal to China, India, and Burma’s fellow ASEAN members to use their influence to encourage a democratic transition,’ she said, referring to the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
   At the same time, Laura Bush acknowledged Washington had ‘only anecdotal’ evidence that its sanctions — which the US president further tightened last week — were having an effect on Myanmar’s leaders.
   Asked whether she worried that US aid might not reach Myanmar’s people, Laura Bush replied: ‘I’m worried that they won’t even accept US aid.’
   The source of such concerns was unclear. The head of a UN office that coordinates humanitarian aid said the junta had shown their willingness to accept such aid.

BDR sector commander in Dinajpur on Tuesday issuing a strong warning against smuggling out of food grains said anyone found taking out rice or paddy will be shoot at sight.
   Exchanging views with UP chairmen and farmers of the border areas at Mohanpur BDR camp the sector commander, Col Rezaul Kabir, said they were apprehending smuggling out of boro paddy and rice as price across the border tends to be higher.
   ‘We shall not hesitate to shoot if anyone is found smuggling or attempt to take out food grains across the border,’ warned Col Kabir.
   Abdul Ahad, chairman of Katla union parishad in bordering Birampur attending the meeting, said production of the current crop in West
   Bengal was much lower than expectation giving rise in
   price of rice on the other side of the border. ‘Paddy price is declining in our markets
   when upward trend is marked in West Dinajpur (India) market.’
   He said as the farmers were harvesting bumper IRRI-boro, paddy was selling at Tk 650 to 675 per maund at Birampur market on Monday.
   Col Kabir urged the UP chairmen and farmers to guard against smuggling out of food grains. If needed they should raise a group of volunteers in every village and cooperate with local BDR to plug every route of smuggling.
   ‘This country is our, we all belong to this soil. Bumper harvest of boro crop is ours. Let us vow we shall not allow smuggling out a single crop,’ he told the UP chairmen, members and farmers.

Former Awami League lawmaker Maqbul Hossain was jailed on Tuesday for 13 years and his wife, Golam Fatema Tahera Khanom, for three years for amassing illegal wealth and hiding assets in the wealth statement submitted to the Anti-Corruption Commission.
   Khandaker Kamaluzzaman, the judge of the special judge’s court 9 set up on the Jatiya Sangsad complex, ordered confiscation of Maqbul’s wealth of Tk 5.33 crore, which was disproportionate to his legitimate income.
   The court also fined Maqbul Tk 10 lakh and his wife Tk 5 lakh. If they fail to pay the fines, Maqbul will serve one more year and the wife six more months in jail.
   Maqbul was sentenced to imprisonment for 10 years for amassing illegal wealth beyond his known sources of income and for three years for hiding assets in his wealth statement submitted to the commission.
   The court ordered consecutive execution of the sentences, meaning Maqbul to serve a total of 13 years in jail. His wife was sentenced for abetting her husband in committing the offences.
   The sentences against the couple will come into execution after their arrest or surrender as they are in hiding.
   The commission’s deputy director M Akhter Hossain filed the case with Mohammadpur police on August 16, 2007.

The chief adviser, Fakhruddin Ahmed, has underscored the need for diversifying the use of potato through changing food habit to help ensure food security of the country.
   In a statement on Tuesday, he said it was equally important to create awareness in all tiers of the society alongside carrying out a massive campaign of various recipes of potato to popularise it.
   The chief adviser appreciated the initiative of organising a three-day potato campaign marking ‘International Potato Year 2008’, declared by the Food and Agriculture Organisation.
   Fakhruddin hoped that such programmes would be extended to the grassroots level to inspire people from all walks of life.
   He said it was very important to ensure proper preservation, marketing and various types of use of potato so that the farmers get the fair price of it.
   The chief adviser also urged all concerned government and non-government organisations, media as well as the people to come up in this regard.
   Meanwhile, a three-day potato campaign, organised by the government, begins today at Bangladesh-China Friendship Conference Centre in the city.

Duke of Gloucester Prince Richard arrives in Dhaka today on a four-day visit to Bangladesh.
   His visit will mainly focus on the United Kingdom’s continuing and wide-ranging commitments to long-term development in Bangladesh, including contribution to disaster management and relief and reconstruction projects in southern Bangladesh after the floods and cyclone in 2007.
   He is expected to call on the president, Iajuddin Ahmed, said a release of the British High Commission in Dhaka on Tuesday.
   The release said, ‘A royal visit, coming shortly after trips by three cabinet-level ministers in just four months, further underlines the new heights reached in the enduring broad and strong bilateral relationship between the UK and Bangladesh.’
   The British high commissioner, Anwar Choudhury, said, ‘We are absolutely delighted to welcome His Royal Highness. His personal visit demonstrates the importance the UK attaches to people-to-people links with Bangladesh; these links are the bedrock of the friendship between our countries.’ The Duke of Gloucester visited Bangladesh once before, in October 1987.

Two senior US officials, including assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs Richard A Boucher, are scheduled to arrive in the capital today and tomorrow to weigh the country’s political situation and its commitment to US-led war on terror.
   US State Department’s coordinator for counterterrorism Dell L Dailey is expected to reach today on a two-day tour. He hopes to meet senior government officials on issues related to counterterrorism and US-Bangladesh cooperation on the global war on terror, said an announcement from the US embassy in Dhaka Tuesday.
   Diplomatic sources told New Age that Boucher was set to arrive tomorrow. During his three-day stay here, the US state official will hold talks with Bangladesh’s officials and government leaders on the latest political development and the country’s preparations for the general elections planned at the yearend.
   He is expected to call on chief adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed, home adviser MA Matin, army chief Moeen U Ahmed, foreign secretary Touhid Hossain and chief election commissioner ATM Shamsul Huda.
   Steps towards holding the elections, political situation under the emergency, status of political detainees and trial process of political bigwigs are likely to be among the key concerns of the American government which Boucher is to convey to Bangladesh’s government leaders, sources in the administration and diplomacy hinted.
   As the coordinator for counterterrorism, ambassador Dailey is tasked with coordinating and supporting the development and implementation of US government policies and programmes aimed at countering terrorism overseas.
   ‘This will be the first visit of the US State Department’s coordinator for counterterrorism to Bangladesh, underscoring the growing importance of the cooperation between our two nations in this area,’ a release of the US embassy said.

More than 81 per cent of the voters of the national estimate of 80 million have been registered and the Election Commission expects the final electoral roll to be available by September.
   Registration of 6,45,61,215 voters with photographs and fingerprints in 331 administrative areas out the 541 was completed till May 3. Registration in 111 more areas is going on.
   The final electoral roll with photographs for 13 areas, including four city corporations and seven municipalities where the commission has planned to hold polls in July, have also been published.
   A total of 1,87,22,106 identity cards were prepared and 97,85,063 of them were distributed till May 3.
   Brigadier General Shahadat Hossain Chowdhury, project director of the Preparation of Electoral Roll with Photographs and Facilitating the Issuance of National Identity Card, on Monday told New Age the entire field-level task would be completed by June and the final electoral roll will be available by September.
   Draft rolls are being published every month for areas where voters’ registration is completed.
   Once the draft rolls is published, it will be available for viewing for 15 days after its publication in the offices of district and upazila election officers or assistant registration officers, union councils, municipalities, wards, cantonment boards and polling stations used as voters’ registration centres.
   Voters can file objections and claims or ask correction of mistakes within 15 days, if there are any. The revising authorities will look into the objections and claims.
   Decisions regarding the claims, complaints and objections will need to be incorporated within 10 days of their resolution and the final roll will be published within the next 12 days.
   The commission began the field-level task of listing voters with photographs in August 2007, and the final electoral register will be published by October, according to the electoral roadmap announced by the commission on July 15, 2007.

The installation of the 2X120 MW Siddhirganj power plant has become uncertain as the Indian contractor has informed the Electricity Generation Company of Bangladesh that one of the gas turbines was damaged in an ‘accident’ in Chennai when it was being brought to Bangladesh.
   Sources in the Power Division and EGCB said that the Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd, which bagged the $113 million turnkey contract on January 31, 2007 for installation of the power plant, told them last week that the turbine was damaged after it fell from the trailer on its way to Chennai from Hyderabad.
   The turbine was being brought to Chennai for being shipped to Bangladesh, they said. The two units are scheduled to come into operation by November.
   The company also said that it was taking back the turbine to Hyderabad for checking what damage had occurred and its shipment might be a delayed by a month, said sources.
   An EGCB team of officials, who went to Hyderabad to check the specifications of the second turbine, was asked to check the damage caused to the turbine and tell the company when the turbine would have to be installed, they said.
   Power secretary M Fouzul Kabir Khan told New Age on Tuesday that they did not know to what extent the turbine had been damaged due to the accident.
   ‘A team of the EGCB, which went to inspect the second turbine, informed us that the damaged turbine was yet to be brought back to Hyderabad. The EGCB board will send an expert to inspect the damage and to learn when the turbine can be installed,’ he said.
   He hoped that the second turbine would be installed in time.
   Fouzul said that if the company failed to bring the power plant into operation by November, the government would take action as per the contract and ask the company to pay the required penalty.
    Officials in PDB and EGCB said that it was ‘unusual’ and ‘rare’ for the turbine to fall from a trailer as its weight was 300 tonnes.
   One of the officials said that BHEL was supposed to provide a new turbine, not a repaired one.
   Officials of Power Division said that they would request the Asian Development Bank, which is providing loans for the project, to ask BHEL to expedite the installation of the power plant.
   The engineering, procurement and construction contract was awarded to BHEL under pressure from the Asian Development Bank as the project’s consultant, the Netherlands-based KEMA International, had recommended BHEL, although the Indian company was the second lowest bidder.
   Although the government, during the signing of the contract with BHEL, had announced that the power plant would be a 240 MW plant with two 120 MW units, the company is installing two 105 MW units as per the tender documents it had submitted.
   The EGCB and Power Division officials have reportedly informed the government that it would be a 210 MW plant.

The Bangladesh Foreign Trade Institute, a public-private organisation for trade policy research, has recently been activated after four years of dormancy since its establishment.
   The country’s increasing integration into the global trading regime under the World Trade Organisation has enhanced the importance of such a trade policy think-tank that can help both the government and private sector, said the commerce adviser, Hossain Zillur Rahman, on Tuesday.
   Professor Mohammad Ali Taslim, a teacher of economics in Dhaka University who had earlier led the Tariff Commission in global negotiations, has joined the Foreign Trade Institute as its first chief executive officer with the goal of making this organisation effective within a year.
   Presiding over the first ever meeting of the board of directors of the institute, the adviser expressed the hope that it could become an example of public-private partnership after it had taken a clear shape.
   ‘This is the beginning of a new journey of an organisation which was established in 2004 but had no full set-up. We hope that similar organisations will be set up in different sectors following the footsteps of this one,’ said Zillur.
   Emphasising the need for diversifying exports, he pointed out that Bangladesh had long been dependent on only a few exportable items, which makes the country’s export trade very vulnerable.
   Professor Taslim said the main objective of this organisation would be to make Bangladesh more competitive in international trade, and establishment of similar organisations would largely depend on the success of this institute. ‘You will see results in a year,’ he told a questioner when asked about his vision.
   When he was asked if any foreign donor-financed organisation would be sustainable in the long run, he pointed out that the institute had to become self-sustaining within a short span of time.
   The European Commission provided 7 million euros while the government of Bangladesh and the trade bodies together floated an endowment fund of 0.7 million euros for the operation of the institute.
   Housed in TCB [Trading Corporation of Bangladesh] Bhaban, the Foreign Trade Institute is also mandated to increase trade-related capacity of government agencies and private sector enterprises through training and consultation. The institute’s board of directors, chaired by the commerce minister, is equally represented by public and private sector office-bearers.
   Ex-officio vice-chairmen of the board of directors are commerce secretary Feroz Ahmed and Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry’s president Annisul Huq, and its members include executive chairman of the Board of Investment Kamal Uddin Ahmed, principal of the Foreign Service Academy Shahed Akhtar, president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association Anwar-ul-Alam Chowdhury, president of the Bangladesh Textiles Manufacturers Association Abdul Hai Sarkar and president of the Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry Hossain Khaled.

Asian nations Tuesday joined the international community in offering aid and support for victims of the devastating cyclone in Myanmar, after a rare appeal for help from the reclusive nation’s military junta.
   The Southeast Asian country, whose rulers normally shun foreign aid, reached out to the world as the death toll climbed to more than 22,500 after tropical cyclone Nargis tore through the impoverished nation at the weekend.
   ‘I believe that the government and people of Myanmar will soon overcome the difficulties caused by the cyclone and restore normal life and production,’ the Chinese premier, Wen Jiabao, said in a message to his Myanmar counterpart General Thein Sein.
   Wen also expressed sympathies and condolences to the Myanmar people, said the statement, which was posted on the Chinese foreign ministry’s web site, although there was no mention of any potential aid from Beijing to Myanmar.
   China is one of Myanmar’s closest political allies and has invested large sums of money to take advantage of its neighbour’s energy and mineral assets, while helping to build the country’s infrastructure.
   Immediate neighbour Thailand airlifted more than 400,000 dollars’ worth of food, drinking water and medical supplies, the foreign minister, Noppadon Pattama, said.
   Economic giant Japan offered 28 million yen (270,000 dollars) in emergency aid including tents, electric power generators and other emergency goods ‘considering the urgency of the situation there and humanitarian aspects to it,’ the foreign ministry said in a statement.
   ASEAN appealed for ‘generous’ international aid for member Myanmar, with Surin Pitsuwan, secretary general of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, saying the 10-member grouping has begun to mobilise help through coordination centres in its capitals.
   ‘We are now appealing to all ASEAN governments, the private sector and the civil society... to please respond generously,’ he told reporters in Singapore.
   Surin also called for help from ASEAN’s dialogue partners, which include the United States, the European Union, China, Japan and South Korea, as well as from aid organisations and civil society groups worldwide.
   Meanwhile Singapore, which has close ties to Myanmar, expressed solidarity and help.
   ‘I am deeply saddened to learn about the widespread damage caused by Cyclone Nargis over the weekend,’ Singapore’s foreign minister George Yeo said in a letter, dated Monday, to his Myanmar counterpart Nyan Win.
   ‘My heart goes out to the people of Myanmar who have been affected by the tragedy,’ Yeo said. ‘If there is any way Singapore can help, please do not hesitate to let us know.’
   The New Zealand prime minister, Helen Clark, said her country was willing to provide aid – but only through UN agencies.
   ‘We really have minimal relations with the government in Myanmar but we can’t stand by and see people affected by this tragedy left helpless. No humane country would,’ she said.
   Australia said it was ‘ready, willing and able’ to send aid, while South Korea announced it would provide Myanmar with emergency materials worth 100,000 dollars.
   Elsewhere around the world support and offers of assistance were tempered by criticism of Myanmar’s rulers for failing to take steps to prevent the horrific death toll.
   The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, said the organisation ‘will do whatever (necessary) to provide urgent humanitarian assistance,’ and stressed that a disaster management team was ready to leave for Myanmar.
   The European Union also released two million euros (three million dollars) in initial emergency aid.

The Indian high commissioner, Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty, said on Tuesday lack of management was mainly responsible for the water crisis in Bangladesh.
   His remark came when a participant in a discussion on the relationship between Bangladesh and India drew his attention to the Farakka Barrage issue.
   ‘Water availability is not the issue. Problem is lack of management,’ Chakravarty said at the discussion following a lecture by Indian author Nitish Sengupta on his book ‘Bengal Divided: The Unmaking of a Nation’ at Gulshan.
   The participant said the Farakka Barrage had turned out to be a matter of life and death and that the issue had hit the relationship between the countries hard.
   Chakravarty said those who blamed India for overflow of water in Bangladesh in the rainy season and drought in the summer were actually living in an unreal world.
   ‘You have enough water. You can’t manage it,’ he said.
   Sengupta, a former Indian bureaucrat and politician, said that cross-border communication and people to people contacts were important for strengthening relations between the countries.
   He stressed the need for turning the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation into a reality to enhance cooperation among the countries in the region.

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton faced a new day of destiny Tuesday with Democratic primaries in Indiana and North Carolina, as the climax approached in their gripping White House race.
   Opinion polls pointed to another messy draw on the biggest single day of voting left in the epic battle for the Democratic nomination, with Obama tipped to win in North Carolina and Hillary ahead in Indiana.
   Voters lined up before sunrise in the capital of the midwestern state of Indiana, where the first polling places opened at 6:00am (1100 GMT) under overcast skies.
   The day’s voting closes in North Carolina at 8:30pm (0030 GMT), with a combined total of 187 pledged delegates on offer in the two states.
   Whatever the outcome, neither candidate can win enough delegates Tuesday to secure the Democratic presidential nomination.
   But victory or defeat in either state could sway the ‘superdelegates’ set to cast deciding votes in the stalemate.
   ‘This is going to be a tight race,’ Obama told union workers in Evansville, Indiana just after midnight as he closed out a final campaign push. ‘Every poll shows a dead heat.’
   The rivals raced through both states in a frenetic dawn-to-midnight campaign swing Monday but both signalled the contest would drag on through the bitter end of the primary calendar, on June 3 in Montana and South Dakota.
   ‘We hope to do as well as we can, we started out pretty far behind,’ Hillary told reporters on a late-night flight across Indiana.
   The former first lady also took another swing at OPEC, after oil prices busted the symbolic 120 dollars-a-barrel barrier.
   Hillary’s camp admits she cannot overtake the Illinois senator in the count of pledged delegates who will formally anoint the nominee at the Democratic convention in August.
   So she is pinning her hopes on persuading nearly 800 superdelegates, who look set to have the deciding vote, that he cannot beat Republican presidential candidate John McCain in November.
   But Obama dismissed Hillary’s claims he may be a general election liability, after a punishing month in April which sucked some of the euphoria out of his candidacy.
   ‘Once you’re the front-runner, then it is, I think, the obligation of the candidates who are behind to try to whack you over the head, and the press is happy to oblige,’ Obama said.
   Hillary was due to spend election night in Indiana, while Obama was heading back to North Carolina later Tuesday.
   Analysts say Hillary, 60, needs to take the rustbelt state of Indiana to at least halt a flow of Democratic superdelegates to Obama and stay in the race.
   In Indiana, a rolling average of polls by RealClearPolitics.com gave Hillary a five-point lead over Obama – about 49 per cent to 44. In North Carolina, which has a large black population, Obama was ahead 50 to 43 per cent.
   RealClearPolitics gives Obama 1,491 pledged delegates from all the races so far to Hillary’s 1,337. Neither can reach the winning line of 2,025 without backing from the superdelegates, party officials free to vote either way.

At least 50 people were injured in a clash between students backed by local people and transport workers at Fakirtala on the Sirajganj-Kazipur regional highway in Sadar upazila on Tuesday morning.
   The police said trouble erupted between the students of Sirajganj Polytechnic Institute and transport workers when a bus did not drop one of their teachers at the scheduled stoppage but to the next stop.
   The clash ensued when the teacher along with his students blockaded the highway in protest against the incident and the transport workers asked them to withdraw at about 11:00am.
   The violence took a serious turn when local people joined forces with the students against the transport workers. Five buses were vandalised during the clash, disrupting transport movement on the highway for two and a half hours.
   On information, the police went to the spot and charged baton on the demonstrators. ‘As the law-enforcers failed, RAB troops went there and brought the situation under control,’ says a spot account of the violence.
   The police said at least 50 people were injured during the clash and clubbing by the law-enforcers.
   Of the injured, 20 were admitted to Sadar Hospital and other local clinics. Condition of four of them was stated to be ‘critical’.

Myanmar’s pro-democracy opposition said Tuesday that it was ‘extremely unacceptable’ for the ruling junta to go ahead with a constitutional referendum after a cyclone killed 15,000 people in the country.
   The National League for Democracy said in a statement that the regime had yet to provide meaningful assistance to hundreds of thousands of victims four days after the storm hit.
   ‘We haven’t seen effective assistance to storm victims, even though the authorities have declared (regions) as disaster zones,’ the party said.
   ‘It is extremely unacceptable because they are giving priority to the constitution process without respecting the social difficulties faced by people during this disaster.’
   Myanmar’s military rulers announced Tuesday that they would go ahead with a referendum on Saturday in most of the country, despite the cyclone damage.
   The voting will take place two weeks later in the 47 townships hardest-hit by the cyclone, state television announced.
   The balloting will be the first in Myanmar in nearly two decades.

The army on Tuesday responded to reports on Phulbari coalmine project area and the involvement of the army carried by Bangla and English newspapers on May 5.
   The Inter-Service Public Relations Directorate quoted the reports as saying that some army personnel in uniform had travelled the project area and asked the people whether they would leave the Phulbari village for compensation.
   The reports also alleged that the armed forces had been used to allow the foreign companies to loot national resources.
   In fact, the ISPR statement said, an army officer of the National Defence College had carried out a survey on Phulbari coalmine project as part of training.
   The subject of the research of the trainee was ‘Evaluation of Phulbari Deal: Search for Policy Option’.
   The trainee submitted a set of 14 questions to 30 people of the locality and had sought assistance from the local army camp for the research.
   The questionnaire did not have any purpose other than gaining statistical information and had nothing to do with the interest of Phulbari coalmine scheme, the ISPR statement asserted.

Saddam Hussein, the ousted Iraqi president who was hanged in 2006 for crimes against humanity, feared he would pick up sexual diseases while he was in US custody, according to extracts from prison writings published in an Arabic newspaper.
   Saddam said he asked his prison guards not to put their washing on the same line as his, fearing he could contract ‘young people’s diseases,’ the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper reported, citing his journal.
   ‘My main concern was to avoid contracting a sexual disease in a place like this, and AIDS,’ he said.
   ‘What can the Americans and other invaders... bring to an (invaded) country apart from dangerous diseases?’ Saddam said according to Al-Hayat, without saying how it obtained the documents.
   Some of the writings were published in the newspaper in the form of dated letters, or poems written by Saddam himself.
   Saddam was hanged on December 30, 2006, after an Iraqi court found him guilty of crimes against humanity for ordering the execution of 148 Shias from the town of Dujail after an assassination attempt against him in 1982.
   He was sent to the gallows at the age of 69, three years after being captured by US invading forces who found him, long-haired, bearded and bedraggled, in a hole near his hometown of Tikrit.
   Pictures of Saddam published by a British tabloid in May 2005 showed the leader in prison, bare-chested in only his underwear and washing his clothes by hand in a bucket.
   In another extract published by Al-Hayat, Saddam wrote that he once joked with his doctor, saying he hoped he would be able to get married once again and have children.
   ‘I joked with him saying... may Allah will enable me to get married and have children again, to name two of them Uday and Qusay, and the third Mustapha,’ wrote Saddam, who was reportedly married four times.
   According to an American nurse assigned to Saddam during his detention, he was an avid reader who loved to write during his time behind bars.
   ‘He had a lot of stories that he had written. He had a pamphlet that he wrote in every day and then when time came to visit him he’d read things to me,’ Robert Ellis said following Saddam’s hanging.
   In his writings, Saddam also warned of the threat posed by neighbouring Shia Iran to Iraq and the Arab world, saying it was more dangerous than Israel.

A 20-member delegation of the Bangladesh Armed Forces leaves today for Myanmar to assist relief and salvage operations in the cyclone-hit country.
   According to government decision, the delegation, led by Brig Gen Taslim Uddin, will fly to Myanmar by TC-130 transport plane of the Bangladesh Air Force, said an ISPR release on Tuesday.
   The delegation will hand over relief supplies to the Myanmar authority on behalf of the Bangladesh government. The relief supplies include potato, medicines, oral saline, water-purification tablets, saris, lungis, pants, napkins and other clothes.
   Besides, the team will also express sympathy at the loss of life and property in cyclone Nargis that hit the country’s coastal areas on Saturday night.