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Acute shortage of water, coupled with frequent power outages, is making the lives of the residents of Dhaka city extremely difficult in the blazing hot summer.
   The Dhaka Water Supply and Sewerage Authority cannot ensure smooth and sufficient supply of water as most of its generators are not functioning properly, and also because of the frequent load-shedding and the low voltage of electricity, said a WASA official.
   He blamed pilferage of WASA water through illegal connections for the existing water crisis. A section of corrupt WASA employees has given illegal connections to a large number of city residences, resulting in the crisis, he alleged.
   ‘There are more than 2,00,000 WASA connections in the capital and of them over 50,000 are illegal,’ he said.
   WASA is daily producing 160 crore to 170 crore litres of water against a demand for more than 210 crore litres, said the official.
   But WASA’s water supply has been reduced by more than 10 crore litres daily due to low voltage and load-shedding.
   At present WASA has 265 generators throughout the city but they are not sufficient for the whole capital as almost all city’s areas are undergoing four to five hours of load-shedding, said another WASA official.
   The residents of different areas complained that they have been facing water crisis for a long time, but the crisis has been intensified in the last couple of weeks.
   They said they have to depend on mosques’ tanks and some other sources of water that have recently been installed in open spaces due to the crisis.
   The areas where the water crisis is most acute are Mirpur, Kalyanpur, Pallabi, Ibrahimpur, Kafrul, Mohammadpur, Madhya Badda, Mugdhapara, Shewrapara, West Dhanmondi, Rayerbazar, Lalbagh, Kamalbagh, Islambagh, Nawabpur, Paikpara, Kalabagan, Naya Paltan, Khilgaon and Moghbazar.
   There are also complaints from people in different parts of the city that the water supplied by the WASA is not drinkable and has a bad smell. Such complaints have been reported from Jatrabari, Mirhajirbagh, Sayedabad, Khilgaon, Malibagh, Moghbazar, Rampura, Shantibagh, Badda, Mirpur and old Dhaka.
   Rakib, a resident of Goran, said, ‘A few days back we hardly got any water. Now we are getting water but it is dirty, and not drinkable even after boiling.’
   Jinnat Ali, a resident of Ganaktuli Sweeper Colony in old Dhaka, said, ‘The little water we get is not safe for drinking due to its awful smell. People here collect water from outside the colony.’
   ‘We have been facing water crisis for the last three months, but the shortage has been intensified in the last two weeks,’ said Hossain Ali, a resident of Moghbazar who stood in a long queue on Tuesday to collect water from a mosque.
   ‘We have to remain awake at night to collect water as we get some at night,’ said Sumona, a resident of Basabo.
   Sohrab Ali, a resident of a slum in Begun Bari, said that most of the days they do not get enough water for bathing as the supply is so little that water can only be used for cooking and drinking.
   Kamal, a resident of Madhya Badda, said that due to the poor supply of water, they have to depend on even the dirty and stinking water of WASA.
   A Dhaka City Corporation commissioner at Pallabi, Dipti, told this correspondent that WASA officials were blaming the fall of the groundwater table and also the frequent load-shedding for the acute crisis of water supply which has been prevailing in the locality for more than a couple of months.
   She said that load-shedding persists for more than 12 hours daily, and even at night, due to which life becomes unbearable in the hot summer.
   An official said that WASA cannot pump up enough water as some of its pumps have remained out of order for long.
   When he was asked about why the water smells so bad in some areas, he said the reason could be that cracks developed in the pipelines, through which dirty fluids seep into the water from the surrounding soil.
   WASA has 480 deep tube-wells and four surface water treatment plants.
   The Sayedabad water treatment plant collects water from the Shitalakhaya River, and the Chandnighat plant from the Buriganga River, both of which are dirty and contaminated waterways.

A state of inertia prevails in more than 10 ministries as advisers in charge of the ministries are busy holding dialogues with the political parties for transition to democracy.
   ‘I can hardly make time for my ministries in the midst of the hectic dialogue process’, law adviser AF Hassan Ariff, said while talking to reporters at his office a few days ago.
   He conceded that routine activities at his ministries were being hampered as the panel of advisers had been fully engaged for over a month in taking preparations for the talks with the political parties.
   With the advisers preoccupied with the dialogues that kicked off Thursday morning, atmosphere at the secretariat seems relaxed and officials and employees are idling the time away at their offices pushing the files aside. Many of them are often found absent from their desks during office hours.
   The dialogue process began in early April with informal consultations between the government and the stakeholders.
   At least four advisers of the five-member panel have been busy most of the time with political negotiations for about two months having little time to pay attention to the work at their ministries.
   Each of them is in charge of at least two ministries.
   Little activities were noticed at the secretariat on Thursday as the members of the panel –communications and housing adviser Ghulam Quader, LGRD and cooperatives, and jute and labour adviser Anwarul Iqbal, commerce and education adviser Hossain Zillur Rahman, law, land and religious affairs adviser AF Hassan Ariff and foreign and expatriates’ welfare adviser Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury – passed the day at the Chief Adviser’s Office.
   Files are piling up at the ministries awaiting clearance by the advisers. ‘They hold meetings behind closed doors at least once a day at the office of any of the panel members to work out plan for the dialogues’, an official at the secretariat told New Age on Thursday.

The law and order in the capital is showing signs of sliding with reports of a number of grisly murders and killings by lynch mobs in the last few days.
   The Dhaka Metropolitan Police authorities on Sunday last at a meeting with the DMP commissioner, Naim Ahmed, in the chair, however, said that the situation was under control.
   At least 19 persons have been killed or murdered and many others injured by muggers since the above claim was made five days ago, according to sources in the police.
   In the latest incident of brutality, at least three persons were lynched by a mob in Khilgaon. They were later identified as small businessmen.
   Police recovered the body of an unidentified young man, believed to have been murdered, from Purana Paltan. Unknown assailants badly beat up two young men at Mohakhali on Thursday.
   Muggers killed two people, including a member of the governing body of the Mirpur University College, in Banani on May 20. Two young men, including a Juba Dal leader, were stabbed to death at Kamalapur and Gulshan on May 19.
   At Sunday’s meeting the DMP commissioner expressed satisfaction on the one hand, while on the other he admitted that police had failed to check mugging in the city.
   He told reporters that the incidents of killing, robbery and stealing have shown a declining trend.
   The police report said that 25 people were killed in April and 24 in March.
   Available records show that a total of 45 snatching incidents took place in April and 36 such incidents occurred in March.
   A total of 151 cases of violence against women, including rape and acid throwing, were filed, and 45 snatching incidents were reported in the capital in April.

Miscreants injured two constables of and looted a shotgun and five rounds of bullet from a patrol team of the highway police at Natunbazar in Konabari under Gazipur sadar upazila early Friday.
   The police launched a drive in the area after the incident and picked up 14 people for interrogation, but failed to recover the lost gun and bullets till evening, they said.
   Critically injured constables Nayeb Ali, 56, and Mosharraf Hossain, 50, were admitted to Dhaka Medical College Hospital. Another constable, Swarup Ali, who was in the three-member patrol team that came under the miscreants’ attack, was suspended for his negligence in duty.
   The police said the miscreants, numbering 12 to 15, with sticks and sharp weapons had swooped on the policemen on foot-patrol in front of Choki Market in Natunbazar at about 3:00am.
   The miscreants hit Nayeb and Mosharraf and beat them indiscriminately, they said, adding as they fell on the ground the miscreants took away the shotgun and the bullets from Nayeb Ali.
   Swaurp Ali fled the scene, they said.
   The three policemen were on duty in Konabari bus stand area and they got information at about 2:45am that a snatching incident was held at nearby Kashimpur Jail gate area. They went to the spot on a rickshaw, but found nothing.
   They came under the attack on their way back to Konabari bus station area on foot, the police said.
   Sub-inspector Rashed Chowdhury, in-charge of Konabari highway police outpost, said a drive had been launched, but the gun and bullets could not be recovered till evening. Fourteen people were held for interrogation, he added.
   The deputy inspector general of police (Dhaka range), Amir Uddin, DIG (highway) Sadiqur Rahman, superintendent of police of Gazirur Abdul Baten, superintendent of highway police of Comilla zone Abdullah Al Mamun and other high officials of police and district administration visited the spot.

An angry mob lynched three alleged muggers and critically injured one of their accomplices on a trawler in the River Balu at Trimohini on the outskirts of Dhaka city early Friday.
   The police said a gang of muggers on board a trawler on the River Balu intercepted another trawler in a bid to loot the valuables of its passengers at around 7:00am.
   As the passengers of the trawler raised alarm, the locals rushed to the spot and caught the suspected muggers red-handed. The angry mob gave them a severe beating leaving Mohammad Russell, 30, and Liakat Ali, 32, dead on the spot and critically injuring Rafique Uddin, 32, and Salahuddin Ahmed, 28.
   On information, a team of the Khilgaon police rushed to the spot and took the injured to Dhaka Medical College Hospital where Rafique succumbed to his injuries at around 2:50pm.
   The locals, however, gave a contradictory account saying that the victims were brick and sand traders and they were killed by their rival Hiru group.
   Officer-in-charge of the Khilgaon police station, Sheikh Abu Zahed said, ‘Primarily we suspect that they have been beaten to death by angry locals for their involvement in a mugging bid and after investigation we can unearth the truth.’
   The duty officer of the Khilgaon police station said that two cases were filed in this connection accusing Rafique and his accomplices of the mugging bid.

Assailants shot dead a young man and injured his two brothers at Wari in Dhaka on Friday.
   Witnesses said a gang of six assailants opened fire on Atiqur Rahman Khan, 32, and his brothers Arifur Rahman Khan, 25, and Ashiqur Rahman Khan, 22, in front of their residence at 4/1 Hayer Street at around 7:30pm.
   A suspected gang member Naoshad Mollah Rabin also sustained bullet injuries during the indiscriminate firing. He was undergoing treatment at Dhaka Medical College Hospital under police custody.
   Local people took the three brothers to the same hospital where the on duty doctors declared Ashiq dead.
   Injured Arif alleged that an unnamed criminal demanded Tk 12 lakh to him over phone three days ago and threatened that they would occupy their residence if the money was not paid.
   No case was filed till filing this report at 10:00pm.

The education ministry has finalised the rules on evaluation of the performance of non-government secondary schoolteachers with provisions for both reward and punishment.
   ‘The annual performance evaluation form was printed in March and has been sent to the upazila education office. Now we have finalised the rules for the evaluation system and are hopeful that the set of rules will be sent to the officials concerned in the form of a government circular shortly’, an official said.
   Teachers’ promotion, increase in salary structure, training and rewards will depend on evaluation reports. The system, which will be in place from the current year, will also help the authorities maintain discipline in the institutions’, the official said adding, ‘Such an evaluation system in the form of annual confidential report is already in place for government school and college teachers.’
   About the decision, a joint-secretary to the ministry said that some donors and lending agencies had suggested annual performance evaluation for non-government teachers as they thought the system would ensure accountability and quality education.
   But a leader of the non-government schoolteachers’ association was critical of the system. ‘We receive basic salaries from the government but the donors have long been opposing subsidy for all non-government teachers. I think the evaluation system is the first step towards stopping the state expenditure for non-government teachers.’
   ‘The upazila education officer will be the evaluating officer for a headmaster and chairman of the school managing committee will countersign it. The headmaster will be the evaluating officer for the assistant-headmaster and chairman of the school managing committee will put countersignature,’ according to the rules finalised by the ministry. ‘An assistant-headmaster will evaluate the performance of assistant teachers and the headmaster will countersign it’, the rules said.
   The teacher under evaluation must be known to the evaluating officer for at least three months. After countersigning the evaluation report, a copy will go to the upazila secondary education officer and another copy will be preserved at the headmaster’s office.
   The teacher under evaluation will have to collect evaluation form from the upazila education office by December 31. The form will have to be submitted to the evaluating officer by January 15 enclosing personal information as required by the form. The form will also be available on the education ministry website (www.moedu.gov.bd).
   The evaluation form will have to be submitted to the officer authorised for putting countersignature by January 31.
   There are more than 2.4 lakh teachers in 18,183 non-government secondary schools while nearly 9,000 teachers are employed in 317 government secondary schools.
   All teachers of non-government educational institutions have been receiving 100 per cent of their basic salaries from the state exchequer since July, 2006.
   The government spends about Tk 3,357 crore a year on the pay and perks of more than 4.7 lakh teachers and employees of more than 27,600 non-government high schools, colleges and madrassahs.
   There are also a significant number of teachers and employees at many other non-government institutions who do not get salary from the government.

The Bangladesh Nationalist Party has postponed a decision on whether to attend the formal dialogue with the interim government until the detained party chairperson Khaleda Zia gives the green light.
   ‘We have not made a decision on the dialogue as yet,’ the party secretary general Khandaker Delwar Hossain said on Friday.
   ‘The chairperson is in jail. I have asked permission of the prison authorities to see her but have not received a reply as yet’, he said adding, ‘Presence of Khaleda Zia at the dialogue is essential to make the dialogue successful.’
   The Jamaat-e-Islami, a component of the BNP-led alliance, is also buying time as BNP is still undecided about attending the talks.
   Jamaat’s assistant secretary general Abdul Quader Mollah said the alliance would hold a meeting soon to discuss the political situation including the dialogue. ‘We have not taken a decision on the dialogue as the government is yet to fulfill the demands of the alliance.’
   The demands include release of BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia, Awami League president Sheikh Hasina and Jamaat chief Matiur Rahman Nizami to ensure their participation in the dialogues, he said.
   A faction of Islami Oikya Jote, a member of the BNP-led alliance, has decided to participate in the dialogue, said IOJ secretary general Abdul Latif Nezami.
   ‘IOJ chairman Fazlul Haque Amini will lead a 10-member delegation’, he said adding, ‘We have sent a list of 10 representatives as IOJ is a combine of five parties.’
   He added that the IOJ would consult the [BNP-led ] alliance before attending the dialogue with the government.

The US Senate on Thursday approved an additional $165 billion to wage war in Iraq and Afghanistan for another year after lawmakers blocked proposed timetables for withdrawing American troops from Iraq.
   By a vote of 70-26, the Senate passed the new war money the Pentagon says it urgently needs to avoid civilian layoffs and the interruption of soldiers’ paychecks within months.
   The House of Representatives still must weigh in on the legislation. Last week, it passed a drastically different bill that failed to provide any new money for the wars and would withdraw US combat troops from Iraq by the end of 2009.
   The House is likely to consider its next step in early June after lawmakers return from a week-long recess.
   The president, George W Bush, speaking to US troops at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, repeated his opposition to Congress setting troop withdrawal schedules or other conditions on the Pentagon.
   ‘The United States Congress needs to pass a responsible war funding bill that does not tie the hands of our commanders,’ Bush said.
   Assuming lawmakers ultimately give Bush the war funds he has requested, Congress will have appropriated more than $800 billion for combat in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001. Most of the money has gone for the unpopular war in Iraq.
   As the Senate was debating the new war money, a House panel was looking into allegations that the defence department had failed to properly account for $15 billion in expenditures in Iraq, much of that for payments to contractors.
   Besides the war funding, the Senate also attached
   expensive expansions of US unemployment benefits and help for war veterans who want to get a college education. Bush opposes those measures, as well as other domestic spending included by the Senate.
   Noting that Bush has asked for money to continue rebuilding Iraq and for other foreign aid projects, Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert Byrd, a West Virginia Democrat, said, ‘But the president says he will veto the bill if we add funding for bridges in Birmingham or for help with the high cost of energy bills in Maine or to fight crime in US towns...’
   The two Democratic presidential candidates,senator Hillary Clinton of New York and senator Barack Obama of Illinois, interrupted their campaigns to cast votes against the war money.
   They voted for expanding veterans’ benefits and more jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed in the United States.

The Awami League will announce a tougher movement to underscore the demand for unconditional release of its detained president, Sheikh Hasina, when the time is ripe.
   The acting president of the party, Zillur Rahman, on Friday made the statement at a programme at the party’s central office, saying that the demand for Hasina’s release has become a public demand as all political parties, including the Jamaat-e-Islami, were making the same demand.
   ‘The AL is united in its demand for the unconditional release of Hasina who has been detained in false and baseless cases, and we shall announce a tougher movement if she is not released soon,’ said Zillur at a doa mahfil, organised by people of Tungipara who reside in Dhaka to demand Hasina’s freedom.
   Zillur criticised the interim government’s proposed plan of formulating a national charter, saying this government had no right to frame such a charter and only an elected government could do so.
   The AL’s presidium member, Amir Hossain Amu, said the interim government was depriving Hasina of proper medical treatment.
   ‘They will be responsible if she loses her sight and hearing due to lack of proper treatment, and they will face serious consequences for that,’ he said.
   The gathering was chaired by the organisation’s president Sheikh Kabir Hossain, and AL’s joint general secretary Mukul Bose was among those who spoke.

In an apparent breakthrough for delivering help to millions of Myanmar’s cyclone survivors, the military government agreed to allow in ‘all’ aid workers, the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, said on Friday.
   The UN chief met junta supremo Than Shwe in his remote new capital of Naypyidaw for more than two hours to ask him to permit more foreign expertise for the victims of cyclone Nargis.
   ‘I had a very good meeting with the Senior General and particularly on these aid workers,’ Ban said. ‘He has agreed to allow all the aid workers.’
   Asked by a reporter whether he considered it a breakthrough, Ban replied: ‘Yes, I think so, he has agreed to allow all aid workers regardless of nationalities.’
   At the start of the meeting the 75-year-old Senior General’s stony-faced silence gave no clues as to whether he would overcome his deep suspicions of the outside world and its offers of help after the cyclone struck three weeks ago, leaving nearly 134,000 dead or missing.
   He was in dark green trousers and a shirt covered with military decorations — as he was when he emerged this week from Naypyidaw, 250 miles north of Yangon, to inspect the destruction and army relief effort and meet survivors.
   Ban saw the extent of the disaster for himself on Thursday, flying in a helicopter over flooded rice fields and destroyed homes in the delta, the former ‘rice bowl of Asia’ that bore the brunt of the May 2 storm and its 12 foot (3.5 metre) sea surge.
   Unless the generals open their doors, thousands more people could die of hunger and disease, disaster experts say.
   ‘I am so sorry, but don’t lose your hope,’ Ban told one woman as he peered into a blue tent at the Kyondah relief camp 75 km south of Yangon.
   ‘The United Nations is here to help you. The whole world is trying to help Myanmar.’
   Hundreds of thousands of people do not have enough to eat in cyclone-hit regions of Myanmar, while other parts of the country are struggling with soaring food prices, the UN said on Friday, report AFP.
   Myanmar’s main rice-growing region in the Irrawaddy Delta was devastated when Cyclone Nargis hit three weeks ago. Fields are strewn with bodies, while crucial supplies of fish and pork were wiped out, the Food and Agricultural Organisation said.
   ‘Out of 2.4 million affected people, hundreds of thousands in the remote areas of the Irrawaddy Delta still do not have sufficient food to eat,’ the FAO said in a statement.
   ‘With regular access to food disrupted after cyclone hit the delta, sharply rising food prices in the other parts of the country are posing a risk to national food security,’ it added.
   Markets outside the delta are stocked with food, but since the storm the price of a 50-kilo (110-pound) bag of low-quality rice has doubled to 18 dollars in Yangon, the FAO said.
   A litre (2.1 US pints) of drinking water is up 60 per cent to 35 cents, it said.
   ‘Poor people in Myanmar spend on average 60 to 70 per cent of their household budget on food, and they cannot afford to buy the same quantities of food at the present high prices,’ the FAO said.
   He Changchui, FAO’s Asia-Pacific director, said the next planting season must go ahead in a few weeks to prevent a food shortage.

The police have made no headway in the investigation of the mysterious death of a canteen boy at RAB-10 camp at Lalbagh in the city.
   Habibullah, 12, son of Abdul Motaleb of Kishoreganj, who worked as a canteen boy at the camp, was found dead in the kitchen on Thursday afternoon.
   Police arrested Farid Mia, the cook of the canteen, also a RAB member, on suspicion of murder. He is now being interrogated by the law enforcers.
   Sub-inspector Sanwar Ullah, investigation officer of the case, told New Age, ‘Primarily we suspect that the boy was murdered as the body bore marks of multiple injuries. Besides, there were blood stains on a wall.’
   Humayun Kabir, an official of RAB-10, told New Age that RAB had filed a case with Lalbagh police station in this connection and the police arrested one person.

Up to 60 heavily armed men on horseback ambushed a patrol of peacekeepers in Darfur, in a new attack on international forces in Sudan’s strife-torn west, the United Nations said on Friday.
   The raiders, wearing uniforms and armed with AK-47 rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns, took weapons from the Nigerian troops from the joint UN/African Union Mission in Darfur, an official added.
   It was at least the fifth serious confrontation between armed groups and UNAMID troops since they took over from a beleaguered African Union force at the beginning of the year.
   The attack happened close to the capital of West Darfur, El Geneina, on Wednesday.
   UNAMID spokesman Noureddine Mezni said the force had decided not to release details immediately as they were still trying to identify the attackers.
   ‘We have bandits and we have armed groups and we have the (rebel) factions. With our very limited number of troops, it is not an easy job,’ Mezni told Reuters.
   ‘We are a peacekeeping organisation but there is no peace on the ground to keep. We are appealing for the cooperation of all sides in this conflict. We are here to help.’
   Mezni said it was unclear how the attackers had taken the UNAMID light weapons. ‘But the peacekeepers were outnumbered ... No shots were fired and no one was injured.’
   The UN has warned the peacekeeping force remains seriously undermanned - with only 9,000 out of a promised 26,000-strong force on the ground - and poorly equipped. The force was sent to keep the peace in a remote region about the size of France.
   Law and order has collapsed in Darfur where international experts say five years of conflict has killed 200,000 and driven 2.5 million from their homes. Khartoum puts the death count at 10,000 and accuses Western media of exaggerating the conflict.
   Nigeria, the country that has contributed the most soldiers to the current force, has borne the brunt of some of the worst violence against peacekeepers in the region.
   At least 12 soldiers were killed after armed raiders, thought to belong to a splinter rebel faction, attacked a Nigerian-manned base in the eastern Darfur town of Haskanita in September.
   UNAMID is in the process of erecting a memorial stone to around 60 international peacekeepers killed since they first arrived in Darfur on 2004. UNAMID troops held a minute’s silence this week in memory of 45 Nigerians killed in a road crash in Nigeria on Wednesday after returning from duties in Darfur.
   Troubled peace negotiations between Sudan’s government and Darfur rebels were left in ruins this month, when the powerful insurgent Justice and Equality Movement launched a shock attack on Khartoum.
   Government officials vowed they would never negotiate with JEM after the attack. State media late on Thursday reported the lawyers were finalising cases against a number of people arrested on suspicion of taking part in the May 10 raid on Omdurman, a suburb of Khartoum.
   Aid workers running the world’s largest humanitarian operation in Darfur have warned that deteriorating security is having a serious impact on their work.
   The UN’s World Food Programme said it was cutting humanitarian deliveries by half and forced a sharp cut in rations for aid-dependent Darfuris from May after a surge of bandit attacks on its convoys.

China said on Friday it would take up to three years to rebuild its earthquake zone as the death toll from the nation’s worst disaster in a generation surpassed 55,000.
   The government also warned that millions of survivors were at a growing risk of disease, but there was positive news with another dramatic survival story, this time an elderly couple who had been stranded for 11 days.
   The May 12 earthquake, which measured 8.0 on the Richter scale, destroyed entire towns across an area the size of South Korea, and the death toll has climbed daily as authorities have gained a clearer picture of the devastation.
   A total of 55,740 have been confirmed dead, a rise of 4,500 from the day before, the government said, but that number was likely to soar much higher with another 24,960 people still missing.
   More than 5.47 million people were left homeless in south-western Sichuan province — or around one in five in the affected area — with most now crammed into overflowing tents or stuck under tarpaulins.
   ‘Now is the peak season for disease outbreaks and the situation is extremely grim,’ Sichuan vice-governor Li Chengyun told a news conference in Beijing.
   He said people badly needed tents and medical supplies, especially antibiotics, although he noted no outbreaks of disease had yet been reported.
   China has made a global appeal for 3.3 million tents and ordered the construction within three months of one million simple homes made of light materials.
   But Li warned it would take much longer to rebuild communities, not to mention addressing the lasting psychological scars inflicted by an earthquake so powerful it was felt in Bangkok.
   ‘We aim to improve roads and infrastructure and build new villages, towns and cities within three years,’ the vice- governor said.
   ‘The mountains were basically shaken loose by the earthquake, causing mud flows and landslides, making reconstruction much more difficult than the work before the earthquake.’
   In the hills above Dujiangyan, about 50 kilometres from the quake’s epicentre, people were working overtime to build pre-fabricated homes.
   In a bid to tap into public sentiments and raise funds, the government plans to launch a national lottery for earthquake relief and rescue work, the civil affairs minister, Li Xueju, said, quoted by the state-run Beijing Times.
   The government has already ordered five per cent cuts to this year’s national budget to free up more than 13 billion dollars for relief and reconstruction work.

Ravindran says he already voted in Myanmar’s referendum, being held on Saturday (today) in parts of the country where two million cyclone survivors are still waiting for food, shelter and medicine.
   Or rather his wife voted for him — when authorities showed up at their door two days ago and ordered her to tick two ballot papers.
   ‘They gave the ballot paper to my wife and asked her to tick it right in front of them. What kind of election is this? Do you think anyone will say no?’ the 58-year-old businessman said.
   ‘I do not want any trouble, but this is not a fair referendum.’
   Nearly five million people are eligible to vote Saturday in the main city of Yangon and the nearby Irrawaddy Delta, where 134,000 people are dead or missing from the cyclone that hit three weeks ago.
   Across the region, up to 2.5 million people need emergency food, water, shelter and medicine, but the United Nations estimates that only one quarter of them are receiving any international help.
   Despite the devastation, Myanmar is pressing ahead with the vote on ratifying a military-backed constitution, which the junta says will clear the way for democratic elections in two years.
   The National League for Democracy, led by detained Nobel peace prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, says the charter will simply enshrine military rule and has denounced the generals for prioritising the vote over helping storm victims.
   The outcome of Saturday’s balloting matters little. The military has already claimed a 92.4 per cent victory in the first round of voting, held May 10 in regions spared by cyclone Nargis.
   But its insistence on holding the vote has angered many here, who say that even in the main city of Yangon they still do not have reliable supplies of water and electricity, while food prices have tripled since the storm.
   ‘What change will it bring to me, when the price of food, even rice, is soaring? My business is bad. Everything has gone up in price,’ said Kyiat Htee, a 45-year-old street vendor peddling clothes in Yangon.
   ‘I am angry with this government. But what can I do? If I vote yes, the junta wins. If I vote no, I lose. So what difference does it make for me?’ he said. ‘I am more concerned about feeding my family.’
   The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, who had urged the regime to delay the vote, met with junta leader Than Shwe on Friday in the capital Naypyidaw to press him to accept a full-scale relief effort.
   Ban has not spoken publicly about the referendum since arriving in Myanmar, and the regime has shown no sign of heeding his earlier calls to delay the vote.
   Western countries have widely derided the draft constitution, which was the product of 14 years of talks among military-picked delegates.
   Among its provisions, the constitution would make it illegal for Suu Kyi to ever hold office, while reserving one-quarter of seats in parliament for the military.
   The voting comes just three days before Suu Kyi’s party will mark the anniversary of its 1990 election victory, when she led her followers to a landslide win.
   The party was never allowed to rule, and she has been under house arrest for much of the time since. The military is expected to extend her detention by Monday.
   Voters in Yangon said they were resigned to seeing the military declare a total victory.
   ‘If you try to meddle in politics, the authorities will come and seize you in the middle of night, and that will be the last of you,’ Ravindran said. ‘We all live in fear of harassment and intimidation.’

The government is expected to dole out Tk 100 a day to each jobless man and woman, especially in poverty-stricken areas, for 100 days under a Tk 2,000 crore employment scheme to be launched in the next budget if such people cannot be provided with work.
   Finance ministry officials said the planned minimum employment guarantee scheme would cover at least 20 lakh people all over the country during the lean season of the year.
   ‘The scheme will be generally meant for every part of the country, but the major focus will be on areas facing monga [a seasonal famine-like situation] and areas vulnerable to natural calamities such as Sidr,’ a finance ministry official told New Age on Wednesday.
   A major objective of the scheme is to help the poor to offset the effects of the soaring prices of essential commodities, especially food items, which have made people’s life miserable, said the officials.
   The employment guarantee scheme will seek to ensure employment for one member of each of the households the member wants. It has been designed in the light of a similar programme in India, national rural employment guarantee scheme involving Rs 14,300 crore, introduced by the Congress-led alliance government in 2006-07.
   Statistically, exactly 20 lakh people can be covered by the Tk 2,000-crore employment scheme if the government gives each person Tk 100 for 100 days. But, the officials said, a higher number of people could be benefited from it if the money is distributed properly after examining the authenticity of the needs of the people.
   Asked why the finance ministry was planning to pay Tk 100, and not Tk 150, a day to the beneficiaries, an official concerned said many workers might sit idle to benefits from the employment scheme if it is equal to that of their daily wage.
   Economist Atiur Rahman and former caretaker government adviser Akbar Ali Khan, among others, advocated the idea of introducing the minimum employment guarantee scheme to provide the poor and unemployed workers with work and money to cope with the goods price spiral.
   Announcing the planned scheme recently, the finance and planning adviser, AB Mirza Azizul Islam, said the government would try to compensate jobless people during lean season with cash if it failed to provide them with work.
   The adviser has also said time and again the government would widen various other existing safety net programmes to support the poorer segment of the population.
   The government’s development works supporting the poor, unemployed labourers during the lean season traditionally include dirt work such as road and embankment construction and repair of rural infrastructure.
   The Indian scheme was also criticised as disappointing as critics reportedly said the scheme squandered public money and built wasteful assets, such as building local infrastructure like village roads, small dams, ponds and buildings.
   Dwelling on better ways to provide the benefit of this scheme, Uttam Kumar Deb of the Centre for Policy Dialogue said the government could also use the scheme to help the labourers to get jobs by having them migrated to other areas inside the country where jobs are available in that period.
   ‘The government can facilitate the migration by providing them with transport cost and information on the availability of jobs in other areas. The NGOs [non-governmental organisations] can also be engaged in this regard,’ he said.
   The Centre for Policy Dialogue, a local research organisation, floated the idea of introduction of such a scheme in its budget proposals in 2007 in view of the regional disparity in three divisions of Rajshahi, Khulna and Barisal.

Pakistan’s government must take urgent action to protect children from the effects of the global food crisis, a senior UN children’s fund official said on Friday.
   ‘These children are in danger and we need to devise ways to respond to the crisis and save them,’ David Toole, regional director of UNICEF South Asia, told a press conference.
   Toole, who was on a four-day visit to Pakistan as part of a South Asian tour, said during his meetings with government officials he called for ‘out-of-the-box’ thinking to tackle spiralling food prices and shortages.
   ‘The government should unveil incentives such as distribution of cash and other mechanisms available at his disposal for people with limited resources all over the country to minimise the impact of the wheat and rice shortage,’ he added.
   ‘Efforts should also be focused on targeted food subsidies as well as on other comprehensive programmes to strengthen food production,’ Toole said.
   Pakistan’s 160 million people have suffered from a huge increase in food prices as well as from shortages in wheat, the main dietary staple here, and rice.
   Toole said the food crisis was ‘huge, making it difficult for millions of people in South Asian countries including Pakistan to feed their children, who are likely to be adversely affected by the crisis.’
   Pakistan also faced ‘enormous challenges’ other than food security, including a high infant mortality rate, Toole said.
   ‘This is the greatest challenge as about 500 children die every day (in Pakistan) before their first birthday mainly because of
   serious health and maternal problems among women,’ Toole said.

Five people including a policeman were killed on Friday in violent protests by an Indian community demanding special government treatment for their caste, a state minister said.
   The violence took place in the Bharatpur district of western Rajasthan state, where 28 people died in similar protests last year.
   ‘They (protesters) pelted police (with stones), killing one policeman. Then police opened fire and four people were killed,’ the Rajasthan home minister, Gulab Chand Kataria, said.
   Another dozen people were injured in the protests by thousands of people from the local Gujjar community, which wants the government to classify them ‘Scheduled Tribes’ entitled to government jobs and education benefits.
   The Gujjars, traditionally shepherds who make up about five per cent of Rajasthan’s population, called off massive protests last year after the government promised to form a panel to study their case.
   The panel rejected their demand to be included in the category but recommended
   the formation of another board to provide them special assistance.
   Thousands of police, including anti-riot forces, have been deployed in the region to prevent further clashes.

General Michel Suleiman, set to be elected Lebanon’s president on Sunday, has kept the army unified through three years of turmoil that have taken the country to the brink of a new civil war.
   As Lebanon’s new head of state, his main challenge will be trying to reconcile feuding politicians who have agreed that he should lead a country paralysed by their power struggle.
   ‘I cannot save the country alone. This mission requires the efforts of all,’ Suleiman, who will be elected by parliament, said in comments to a Lebanese newspaper.
   Commander of the military for a decade, Suleiman kept the army out of fighting this month when the political conflict triggered Lebanon’s worst civil strife since the 1975-90 war.
   Instead of taking on the gunmen, his troops deployed only to keep the peace after the battles ended in victory for Hezbollah — Lebanon’s most powerful group and an organization with which Suleiman
   has enjoyed good ties in the past.
   ‘Security is not achieved with muscles, but joint political will,’ said Suleiman, whose handling of the latest crisis was praised by Hezbollah but frowned
   upon by the ruling coalition
   for the army’s perceived acquiescence in the group’s offensive.
   Despite their criticism of the army, factions in the anti-Syrian governing alliance did not withdraw their support for Suleiman as a consensus candidate for a post they had once hoped to fill with a leader from among themselves.
   Suleiman, 59, fills a chair vacated in November by Emile Lahoud — an ally of Damascus seen by his opponents as a Syrian puppet.
   Suleiman was appointed army chief in 1998 when Damascus controlled Lebanon. He coordinated closely with Syrian troops before they
   withdrew from Lebanon in 2005 under Lebanese and
   international pressure triggered by the assassination of
   former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri.
   As president, Suleiman will have to grapple with a slew of divisive issues including a UN Security Council resolution that calls for all militias in Lebanon to be disarmed — a demand supported by Hezbollah’s Lebanese opponents.
   Suleiman has been unwilling or unable to stop the Iranian- and Syrian-backed Shia group from building up its arsenal and replenishing it after the 2006 war with Israel.
   If Lebanon’s sectarian tensions have tested the army’s unity, its resources have also been stretched by the deployment of 15,000 soldiers in the south after the 2006 war and
   by prolonged battles with Islamist militants in the north in 2007.
   Suleiman, a Maronite Christian from the village of Amchit, oversaw the deployment in the south under a UN resolution which halted the Hezbollah-Israel war.
   The presidency is reserved for a Maronite under Lebanon’s sectarian power-sharing system.
   Suleiman’s profile as a national figure soared during 15 weeks of fighting between the army and al-Qaeda-inspired Islamist militants who launched an insurrection in the north a year ago.
   Lebanese rallied around the troops during their campaign against the militants in a Palestinian refugee camp. More than 420 people, including 168 soldiers, were killed in the fighting before the revolt was put down.
   Fluent in English and French, Suleiman is married with three children. He graduated from the Military Academy in 1970 and holds a Lebanese University degree in politics and administration.

Pakistan’s main ruling party has drafted a set of constitutional amendments that would erase the legacy of president Pervez Musharraf, its leader said on Friday.
   Asif Ali Zardari said his party would present the 62-point draft to the prime minister later Friday and send copies to partners in the seven-week-old coalition government.
   He provided few details, but made clear that the reforms would reverse changes made to the constitution since Musharraf seized power in a 1999 military coup.
   Musharraf’s opponents want to strip him of powers to dissolve parliament, fire the prime minister and appoint the heads of the armed forces.
   Zardari said the package could be put to a vote in parliament within weeks, though some observers are predicting that it will quickly bog down in political horse-trading. Constitutional amendments require a two-thirds majority.
   Zardari is the widower of Benazir Bhutto, whose December assassination helped her Pakistan People’s Party to victory in February parliamentary elections. The party leads a coalition government that has vowed to reduce Musharraf, a stalwart US ally who dominated the country for eight years, to a largely ceremonial role.
   But cracks have appeared in the ruling alliance, damping Western hopes that Pakistan’s reversion to democracy will produce a stable government focused on tackling Islamic militancy and mounting economic problems.
   Zardari and his main coalition partner, former premier Nawaz Sharif, are at odds over how to restore senior judges purged during Musharraf’s crackdown on opponents before he retired as army chief last year.
   Sharif, whose government was ousted in the 1999 coup, this month pulled his ministers from the cabinet over the government’s failure to meet a pledge to bring back the judges quickly. Zardari says he wants Sharif to return, but insists that the judges can only be restored through time-consuming changes to the law and constitution.
   Addressing a seminar on media freedom, Zardari appealed to his coalition partners for unity.
   He evoked the sacrifices of Benazir and her father, a former prime minister executed under an earlier military ruler, to bolster his party’s claim to lead the struggle for democracy. He also took a swipe at lawyers who are threatening to mount massive street protests next month unless the judges are reinstated. Sharif has vowed to join them, stirring predictions that the government will collapse.

Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain are taking quiet steps to choose their running mates, fresh signs that the presidential race is rapidly moving toward their general election matchup and the race for the Democratic nomination is over.
   McCain has a head-start in the vice-presidential search, with
   Obama still fighting off a persistent longshot opponent in Hillary Rodham Clinton. While the Republican candidate will be getting better acquainted with three potential picks during a weekend gathering at his home, Obama’s team is in the early stages of compiling background information on possible running mates.
   In another sign that the race for the general-election is on, Vietnam War hero McCain took aim at Obama for not having served in uniform. His comments came after the Illinois senator accused McCain of partisan posturing for opposing a bill that would guarantee full college scholarships for those who serve in the military for three years.
   The Democratic-led Senate on Thursday passed the measure
   supported by Obama with help from 25 Republicans who abandoned the president, George W Bush, who opposed it.
   McCain opposes the measure, as does the Pentagon, out of concern that providing such a benefit after only three years of service would encourage people to leave the military after only one enlistment as the US fights two wars and is trying to increase the size of the Army and Marine Corps.
   Separately Thursday, Obama, who is just 61 delegates away from the total needed for the nomination, reached out to Jewish voters in Florida, promising an ‘unshakable commitment’ to Israel if he is elected. Obama stresses that he wouldn’t negotiate with the militant Palestinian group Hamas.
   Meanwhile, Democratic officials said Obama’s campaign is quietly scouting for a running mate, with former Fannie Mae CEO Jim Johnson overseeing the early vetting, which allows for a quick start.
   Johnson won’t be starting from scratch, since he did same job for Democratic nominees John Kerry in 2004 and Walter Mondale in 1984.
   Many of the people Johnson vetted for Kerry will be likely candidates for Obama’s consideration. Those names included Hillary Clinton, New Mexico governor Bill Richardson, anti-war Republican senator Chuck Hagel and Kerry’s eventual choice of former senator John Edwards.
   Obama refused to acknowledge the role of Johnson, one of his top fundraisers, when The Associated Press asked the Illinois senator about it in the Capitol Thursday. Obama said he hasn’t hired Johnson, whom he called a friend. ‘I am not commenting on vice-presidential matters because I have not won this nomination,’ Obama said.
   The Democratic officials who revealed Johnson’s role spoke on a condition of anonymity because Obama has insisted that the process be kept quiet.
   Hillary spokesman Howard Wolfson said Obama’s vice- presidential selection process ‘is clearly premature in that he is not yet the nominee.’ He also said the Hillary campaign didn’t have a similar process under way and there had been no discussions with the Obama campaign about her becoming Obama’s No. 2.
   Some Democrats are calling on Obama to pick Hillary as his vice-president.

A six-member family of Hasargaon under Srinagar police station in Munshiganj is on the run after filing a case against two police officers, including the officer-in-charge and six influential people of the area.
   ‘We along with our three children are hiding as the law enforcers are trying to track us down and implicate us in a fabricated case,’ said Shamsunnahar Begum, wife of a fisherman, at a press conference at the Dhaka Reporters Unity on Thursday.
   She stated that they had contacted the local police station several times seeking support against Azahar, Nasir Molla, Bachchu, Nawab Ali, Jahangir and Ratan Mir who harassed them to grab a small water body on 1.63 acres of land.
   ‘We filed a case with the Additional District Magistrates Court on April 15,’ she said.
   After filing the case, sub-inspector Ilias Hossain picked up her husband Abu Sayeed on April 27 from Tantir Bazar in possession of fish worth about Tk 80,000 when he was going to the market to sell them, she added.
   Ilias forcibly took him to the police station, said Shamsunnahar. ‘Then the sub-inspector asked Nasir Molla to file a case against my father-in-law, husband, brother-in-law and son for stealing fish.’
   The officer-in-charge of the police station and others reportedly snatched a big fish and sold the rest for Tk 55,000. ‘The next day, the police produced my husband at the court, who came out from jail on bail after three days.’
   ‘I filed another case on May 6 accusing OC Kamrul Islam, SI Ilias and six others with judicial magistrate court, she said.
   The defendants are now threatening us to withdraw the case, she accused. Despite repeated attempts, OC Kamrul could not be contacted for comments.

The Border Security Force of India handed over 14 Bangladeshi fishermen, who served eight months jail term in India, to the Bangladesh Rifles through Benapole check post in Jessore on Thursday.
   BDR officials said the Indian coast guard had arrested the 14 fishermen as they entered into Indian territory illegally during a storm when they were fishing in the Cox’s Bazar area.
   They were handed over to the BDR after eight months of imprisonment in Alipur jail.
   The fishermen are: Shahid Sikder, 28, Abu Kalam, 40, Wahid Mollah, 30, Harun, 32, Nur Alam, 35, Siraj, 24, of village Boro Nanadi in Bhola and Yusuf, 22, Abu Kalam, 28, Rahim, 40, Jamal Hossain, 30, Jafar Ahmed, 28, Firoj Alam, 21, Alauddin, 36, and Akther Hossain, 22, of village Char Falcon under Ramgati upazila of Lakshmipur.
   Meanwhile, the BDR handed over Indian national Toriqul Mollah, 33, to BSF through the check post on the same day after he served in Bangladesh jail term for six years and a half.
   BDR arrested Toriqul for intruding into the Bangladesh territory through Satkhira border in June, 2001.

At least 350 students of Chittagong University were sued for indulging in vandalism in the Sholoshahar Railway Station area over death of a fellow student in a train accident on Thursday.
   The stationmaster of Sholoshahar Railway Station, Abul Hossain, filed the case with the Government Railway Police Thursday night accusing 350 unnamed students of damaging property worth Tk 50. 20 lakh.
   Mahmudul Hasan Mamun, a third year student of the accounting department of CU, got entrapped between two running compartments of the university’s shuttle train and died on the spot triggering protest by the students who went on a rampage blocking a road in the railway station area, suspending traffic movement for more than five hours.
   They called off the agitation as the CU vice-chancellor assured them of compensating the victim’s family.