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Special forces stormed a Mumbai Jewish centre and battled to free guests at two hotels Friday, as India blamed Pakistan for an audacious Islamist militant attack that left at least 130 people dead.
   But the BBC put the death toll at 140.
   After battling the terrorists for two days at the Oberoi-Trident, the National Security Guards Friday cleared the hotel of militants, killing two of them while six bodies were recovered from the premises, reports Press Trust of India.
   ‘The Oberoi-Trident is now in under our control. The two terrorists holed up there have been killed,’ NSG director general JK Dutt told reporters outside the hotel in south Mumbai.
   Six bodies were also recovered from the hotel, he said.
   The NSG has recovered two AK-47 assault rifles, one pistol and grenades, some unexploded, from the terrorists, he said, adding the explosives will now be defused.
   ‘We are presently sanitising every room to make sure no undesirable elements are there and relief can be provided to guests there,’ Dutt said.
   But according to the AFP, troops and security forces were still trying to bring the situation under control more than 36 hours later in India’s financial capital, where around a dozen sites were targeted in a brazen assault on Wednesday night.
   It was not known how many hostages and attackers, if any, remained at large on Friday afternoon, and it was unclear if 24 bodies found inside the Oberoi/Trident hotel were in addition to the 130 already reported dead.
   Officials said the Oberoi hotel was now under the control of authorities, while heavy gunfire was heard at the Taj Mahal, the other five-star hotel targeted in the attack which also hit a hospital and Mumbai’s train station.
   Commandos stormed a Jewish centre which had also been hit, as security forces tried to flush out any remaining militants from the attack, which foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee blamed on neighbouring Pakistan.
   An Indian commando said the guerrillas had shot at almost anyone who crossed their paths during the shocking attack, apparently launched by a group of young militants who arrived in the port city by boat.
   ‘They were the kind of people with no remorse — anybody and whomsoever came in front of them they fired,’ said the soldier, a member of India’s marine commando force who would not reveal his identity to reporters.
   He said he had seen ‘blood all over’ and bodies ‘strewn here and there,’ and that military response teams had tried to avoid harming the civilians who had been trapped in the hotels when the attack was launched.
   ‘We could have got those terrorists but for so many hotel guests,’ he said.
   As world leaders condemned the attack, Indian suspicion fell on Pakistan — whose feared intelligence services have been implicated in attacks inside India in the past. The nuclear-armed nations have fought three wars in the past.
   Mukherjee’s accusation was the first time that an Indian official had accused Pakistan by name of involvement in the latest bloodshed.
   India has also been grappling with homegrown unrest from Muslims and Maoists, and few details had been made public about the identity, motivations or even numbers of attackers.
   One of the gunmen holed up inside the Oberoi on Thursday told India TV by phone that the Islamists had carried out the attacks, which included shooting up the Mumbai train station, because of alleged persecution of Indian Muslims.
   PTI reported earlier that Indian officials were pointing the finger at the Pakistan-backed Lashkar-e-Taiba — notorious for a deadly assault on the Indian parliament in 2001 that almost pushed India and Pakistan to war.
   Police officials said 130 people had been confirmed dead and that more than 370 were wounded. Eyewitnesses who survived the ordeal recounted scenes of terror and carnage.
   An Australian man who survived the attack at the Taj Mahal hotel and was rescued by soldiers, Paul Guest, told Australian radio there were scenes of unimaginable carnage.
   ‘There was blood all over the floor and bits of bodies,’ he said.
   The Israeli embassy said around 10-20 Israeli nationals were among those held hostage or trapped. Israeli media reported that India had turned down an offer for help and security advice.
   Indian media reports said up to nine foreign nationals were among the dead. A Japanese businessman, two Australians, a Briton, a German, a Canadian and an Italian are believed to be dead.
   Witnesses said the attackers had at first gone through the sites looking for people with US and British passports.
   India’s relations with the United States have flourished in recent years as the country of 1.1 billion people moved away from its close ties to Russia and embraced a market economy that has dramatically raised growth.
   Both the United States and Britain expressed condolences and offered to help investigate the incident in Mumbai, which has been hit by terror attacks before. Nearly 190 people were killed in train bombings in 2006.
   ‘It is clear that we have got to help the Indian government deal with this terrorist incident and we have sent people from the Metropolitan Police to help,’ British prime minister Gordon Brown said.
   India’s newspapers laid much of the blame at the door of the country’s intelligence agencies, which they said had failed spectacularly in allowing a handful of gunmen to wreak such havoc and devastation.
   The Indian Express singled out prime minister Manmohan Singh, which said he had ‘special responsibility’ because he had been ‘partly distracted’ by modernising the country’s foreign policy and its economy.
   ‘He has not been able to make the slightest difference to our internal security,’ the paper said

Ruthless gunmen, terrified guests, pitch darkness and a fear of harming hostages posed huge challenges to commandos charged with ending Mumbai’s hostage crisis, their commanders said Friday.
   A masked leader of India’s crack Marine Commando Force, known as MARCOS, told reporters that his men had been severely hampered by the sheer number of people still inside the Taj and Oberoi/Trident hotels when they moved in to flush out the militants.
   ‘We could have got those terrorists but for so many hotel guests,’ he said.
   ‘The bodies were lying strewn here and there. There was blood all over and in trying to avoid the casualty of those civilians, we had to be that much more careful,’ he said.
   Dressed in combat black, with his face completely covered by a mask and reflective sunglasses, the commando said his men had had to literally feel their way through the hotel corridors and rooms in complete darkness.
   Asked to give some details about casualty numbers, he said it had often been impossible to differentiate between dead bodies, the injured and people simply pressing themselves to the floor in terror.
   ‘When an exchange of fire takes place in darkness and there are bodies strewn all over, and blood all over, you’re actually not looking who is injured or killed.
   ‘You’re just looking for someone with lots of weapons on him,’ he said.
   Security officials said the men — described by eyewitnesses as ‘just like boys’ dressed in cargo pants and T-shirts with rucksacks across their shoulders — were a highly motivated and determined group.
   Split into small groups, they created panic Wednesday night by attacking locations across Mumbai before focusing their assault on the two five-star hotels and a separate office-residential building housing a Jewish centre.
   ‘They were the kind of people with no remorse,’ the masked commando said. ‘Anybody and whomsoever came in front of them they fired.’
   Lieutenant General S Noble Thamburaj, who heads the Indian army’s southern command, said his men had needed to show enormous patience, even when dealing with a lone remaining and wounded gunman in the Taj Hotel.
   The militant was continuously ‘moving between two floors’ of the building. ‘He has cut off lights and sometimes he gets holed up’ in one or other of the rooms, said Thamburaj.
   ‘We heard a sound of a lady and a gentleman. So it is possible that this terrorist has got two or more hostages with him. It is also possible that there is more than one terrorist,’ he added.
   Thamburaj said a large number of hotel rooms had been locked from the inside and the occupants refused to answer even when his men identified themselves.
   This made it near impossible to be sure which rooms might contain gunmen — with or without hostages — or just frightened guests.
   ‘The life of hostages... was of great importance to us. We told the commandos not to rush... not be under pressure from the media or citizens when we are in the final stages of the operations,’ he said.
   Security personnel also had to use sniffer dogs to ensure bodies were not booby-trapped before removing them and declaring the area ‘sanitised,’ added Thamburaj’s junior officer, Major General RK Hooda.
   While most of the guests and the staff had been evacuated, Thamburaj did not rule out the possibility of people still being trapped.

The Bangladesh Nationalist Party started nominating party candidates after the party had completed interview of the aspirants.
   The parliamentary board of the party, headed by its chairperson Khaleda Zia, interviewed 1,489 aspirants willing to contest the national polls for 263 constituencies.
   Thirty-seven seats are kept reserved for the BNP’s major ally Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami which will field its own candidates with the election symbol of ‘scales.’ Candidates of two other allies, Islami Oikya Jote and Bangladesh Jatiya Party, will contest the polls as BNP candidates with the party’s election symbol of ‘paddy sheaf.’
   The board interviewed aspirants of Barisal, Chittagong, Khulna, Rajshahi and Sylhet divisions and districts of Dhaka division but for Dhaka district till late Thursday night and adjourned interviewing till 2:30pm Friday.
   The board resumed interviewing aspirants of the Dhaka district, including Dhaka city, at 3:30pm and completed interviews at about 8:30pm.
   Nomination seekers and several thousand of their supporters crowded the party chairperson’s office at Gulshan. They sang and chanted slogans.
   Road 86 of Gulshan was made off-limits to traffic during the interviews, which resulted in a snarl-up in the area.
   Khaleda asked the aspirants not to hide any information and work together for the parson the party would nominate and ensure the party’s victory, the interviewees said.
   She also assured the leaders who would not be nominated of recognising their contribution to the party.
   A formal announcement of the nominations was expected on Friday, according to party insiders.
   ‘But the board and the chairperson preferred not to formally disclose the list today on strategic reasons,’ a board member told New Age on Friday.
   Candidates so far selected for the constituencies in the Rajshahi division are Jamiruddin Sircar for Panchagarh 1, Md Mojahar Hossain for Panchagarh 2, Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir for Thakurgaon 1, Mahbubur Rahman for Dinajpur 2, Habib Un Nabi Khan Sohel for Rangpur 3, Md Rahim Uddin Bharasha for Rangpur 4, Nur Mohammad Mondol for Rangpur 6, Tajul Islam Chowdhury for Kurigram 2, Matiur Rahman for Kurigram 3, Md Abdul Mamin Talukdar for Bogra 3, Khaleda Zia for Bogra 6, Md Shahjahan Mia for Chapainawabganj 1, Md Shamsuzzoha Khan for Naogaon 2, Md Akhtar Hamid Siddiqui for Naogaon 3, Fazlur Rahman Patal for Natore 1, Kazi Golam Morshed for Natore 3, Matiur Rahman Nizami (Jamaat) for Pabna 1, AKM Selim Reza Habib for Pabna 2, Maulana Abdus Subhan (Jamaat) for Pabna 5, Shahidul Islam Kushtia for 2, Md Sohrab Uddin for Kushtia 3, Syed Mehedi Ahmed Rumi for Kushtia 4, Tariqul Islam for Jessore 3, Omar Sadat for Jessore 4, Mufti Muhammad Wakkas (IOJ) for Jessore 5, Nitai Roy Chowdhury for Magura 1, and Shah Mohammad Sharif Khasruzzaman for Narail 2.
   The Thakurgaon 2, Dinajpur 1, Rangpur 1, Rangpur 5, Kurigram 4, Jessore 2 and some other constituencies have been kept reserved for Jamaat-e-Islami.
   Candidates selected for the Barisal division constituencies are Khandaker Mahbub Hossain for Barguna 2, Altaf Hossain Chowdhury for Patuakhali 1, ABM Mosharraf Hossain for Patuakhali 4, Hafiz Uddin Ahmed Bir Bikram for Bhola 3 and Nazimuddin Alam for Bhola 4.
   The Dhaka division candidates are Mahmudul Hasan for Tangail 5, Ahmed Azam Khan for Tangail 8, Md Mostafizur Rahman Babul for Jamalpur 3, Md Sirajul Haque for Jamalpur 5, Mahmudul Haque Rubel for Sherpur 3, AKM Mosharraf Hossain for Mymensingh 5 and M Shamsul Islam for Munsiganj 3.
   The candidates for the Sylhet division are MM Shahin for Moulvibazar 2, Rafique Chowdhury for Sunamganj 1, Nasir Uddin Chowdhury for Sunamganj 2, Md Fazlul Haque Achhpia for Sunamganj 4 and Kalim Uddin Ahmad for Sunamganj 5.
   The Chittagong division candidates are SAK Ekramuzzaman for Brahmanbaria 1, Fazlul Haque Amini (IOJ) for Brahmanbaria 2, Haroon-Al-Rashid for Brahmanbaria 3, Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain for Comilla 1, MK Anwar for Comilla 2, Kazi Shah Mofazzal Hossain Kaikobad for Comilla 3, Syed Abdullah Mohammad Taher (Jamaat) for Comilla 11, Khaleda Zia for Feni 1, Jainal Abedin for Feni 2, Mosharraf Hossain for Feni 3, Mahbub Uddin Khokan for Noakhali 1, Mohammad Shahjahan for Noakhali 4, Moudud Ahmed for Noakhali 5, Abul Khair Bhuiyan for Lakshmipur 2, Shahiduddin Chowhdhury Anny for Lakshmipur 3, ABM Ashraf Uddin for Lakshmipur 4, Kamal Uddin Chowdhury for Chittagong 1, Aslam Chowdhury for Chittagong 3, Wahidul Alam for Chittagong 4, Giyas Uddin Quader Chowdhury for Chittagong 5, Salauddin Quader Chowdhury for Chittagong 6, Ershad Ullah for Chittagong 7, Shamsul Alam for Chittagong 8, Abdullah Al-Noman for Chittagong 9, Amir Khosru Mahmud Chowdhury for Chittagong 10, Mizanul Haque Chowdhury for Chittagong 13, Zafrul Islam Chowdhury for Chittagong 15, Mostafa Kamal Pasha for Chittagong 16, AHM Hamidur Rahman (Jamaat) for Cox’s Bazar 2, Lutfor Rahman Kajal for Cox’s Bazar 3, Shahjahan Chowdhury for Cox’s Bazar 4 and Sachinpu Zerry for Bandarban.
   The Chittagong 4 constituency has been reserved for Jamaat-e-Islami.
   The party will complete the nomination process today.

The Awami League is expected to finalise today seat sharing arrangement with its allies for the December 29 parliamentary polls, but will not make public the alliance nominations for now for strategic reasons, party insiders say.
   They said that the party might give away 56 seats to the ‘grand’ alliance partners – 40 to Jatiya Party, four each to Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal and Workers Party of Bangladesh and one each to National Awami Party and Ganatantri Party and two each to Jatiya Party (Manju) and Zaker Party – for the polls.
   At a presidium meeting held on the day to finalise seat sharing among the components, AL chief Sheikh Hasina warned of plot to sabotage the polls. ‘Large quantities of explosives were recovered in recent days from different parts of the capital which indicates that they [conspirators] may be plotting subversion’, Hasina was quoted by a presidium member as saying.
   The presidium member told New Age that Hasina had said at the meeting held at her Dhanmondi office that uncertainty over the polls remained as BNP was yet to make it clear whether it would contest the forthcoming national polls. ‘Moreover, Khaleda Zia has not yet registered as a voter…’
   About seat sharing, AL sources said it had set aside two electoral constituencies for Islamic parties – Islamic Front Bangladesh led by Syed Bahadur Shah and a faction of Islamic Oikya Jote led by Mezbaur Rahman Chowdhury. AL chief Sheikh Hasina is scheduled to meet Bahadur Shah today.
   The talks between Awami League and Liberal Democratic Party, led by Oli Ahmed, on seat sharing has apparently failed as the AL has offered LDP four constituencies against its demand for 20 seats.
   This time the AL wants to hold up announcement of the alliance nominations until BNP announces its own alliance nominations.
   Hasina on Friday had a meeting with Jatiya Party leaders Anisul Islam Mahmud and Ziauddin Bablu at her Dhanmondi office and discussed with them the issues of seat sharing. The meeting could not make a final decision. The leaders, however, hoped the process would be completed today.
   The meeting decided that the Sheikh Hasina and HM Ershad would contest for three constituencies each.
   Hasina will contest for Bagerhut-1, Rangpur-6 and Gopalganj-3 constituencies and Ershad is likely to vie for Dhaka-17, Rangpur-3 and Kurigram-3 constituencies.
   After the meeting, Jatiya Party’s acting chairman Anisul Islam Mahmud said discussion on seat sharing was still continuing and hoped that it would be finalise today. ‘We are talking about seat sharing on the basis of the arrangements made for the cancelled January 22, 2007 polls. We reviewed some 50 constituencies and we are happy with the discussion’, Mahmud said.
   An LDP delegation led by its secretary general Zahanara Begum went to Hasina’s Dhanmondi office but failed to meet her.
   Zahanara told reporters that they had gone there to meet with Sheikh Hasina but did not get an appointment as the latter was busy with a meeting of her own party. ‘We will sit with the Awami League to talk about seat sharing in a couple of days’, she said.
   Awami League, meanwhile, changed four of its nominations – Dewan Shafiul Arefin Tutul got party ticket for Manikganj-2 constituency instead of Shamsuddin Ahmed, Dr Abdul Khaleque for Rajshahi-2 replacing Akter Jahan, Abdur Rahman Badi for Cox’s Bazar-4 instead of Prof Mohammad Ali and Principal Shah Alam for Pirojpur-2 constituency replacing Habibur Rahman Sheikh.
   A member of the AL parliamentary board told New Age that it would also make changes to a few more party nominations.

The state of emergency still remains a negative factor for credible polls while there is a consensus among political parties and the government on holding the general elections in a free, fair and credible manner, said the EU election observation mission head, Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, on Friday.
   Lambsdorff also felt that the role of the army in election process was non-existent other than providing security.
   Talking with reporters at a briefing, Lamsdorff, who represents Germany in the European parliament, observed the situation now was better with flawless electoral roll and an independent Election Commission, which he described as positive factor compared with the situation two years ago.
   He, however, called the existence of the state of emergency a negative factor.
   He said, ‘It is not ideal to begin an election process under the state of emergency… We hope the emergency will be lifted at some point of the election process to ensure a clean environment for election,’ said Lambsdorff, who also headed the previous EU election observation mission before January 11, 2007.
   He said if there had not been relaxation of the emergency rules, removing restrictions on freedom of assembly and freedom of expression, the EU team would not have been here for full observation of the elections scheduled for December 29.
   As for role of the army in the ongoing electoral process, the EU parliament member said as such, the role of the army in the election process was non-existent other than providing security.
   He said, ‘The authorities will make the decision whether they will exclusively use the police for security and safety of participants in the elections process or deploy the army for that purpose.’
   Asked whether they will pull out from observation if the emergency is not withdrawn, he said the mission would focus whether a genuine atmosphere is there where campaign goes freely, and the safety and security of all stakeholders engaged in the elections are guaranteed. ‘We hope the state of emergency can be lifted.’
   As for boycott of the elections by any major party, Lambsdroff said such a boycott would be an unfortunate development as Bangladesh should return to fully-fledged democracy and all should participate in the polls.
   Referring to his meeting with political parties and government officials, he said, ‘I have found consensus among the stakeholders that elections should take place.’
   Asked about reservations of some parties about certain local polls observation teams, Lambsdroff said he was aware of the issue and said domestic observation was important and they should be allowed to observe the polls to a great extent to help to ensure transparency of voting.
   He said in all, 150 EU election observers would be deployed on the polling day.
   A core team of nine experts and 46 long-term observers of the European Union are working across the country. They will be joined in by 88 short-term observers shortly before the polling day.
   The election observation mission will announce a preliminary report two days after the elections and a detailed report two months after the elections with recommendation for changes, if required, for future elections.
   He said the EU election observation mission was independent and would observe the laws of land and their enforcement as well as the best practices of the international standards as Bangladesh prescribes the international convention on civil and political rights.

Most of over 10,000 Urdu speakers staying in Bangladesh, who have registered as voters for the first time, prefer not to cast their votes fearing their problems may aggravate if they exercise franchise.
   Talking to New Age, many of them said casting vote in Bangladeshi elections might cause them problems like losing their dwellings in the squalid slums, where they had been living for nearly four decades after the independence of Bangladesh in 1971.
   They fear that casting votes could cost them their ‘refugee’ status.
   The Urdu speakers, known as stranded Pakistanis, who were made voters by the Election Commission following a court ruling, said their problem was political which should be resolved politically. Registering as voters and exercising franchise in elections will not help resolve the decades-long problem.
   ‘The court asked the Election Commission to register the stranded Pakistanis as voters, but the government is silent about the status of the camp dwellers after they became voters’, said M Shoukat Ali, general secretary of Stranded Pakistanis General Repatriation Committee.
   Urdu speakers staying in a Mohammadpur slum known as Geneva Camp seemed to have little interest in casting vote in the December 29 polls.
   They fear the defeated parties [in the particular polling stations] may turn hostile towards the camp dwellers as the country’s politics is sharply polarised between two major political parties – Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Awami League.
   ‘It is better not to go to the polling stations, and not to invite trouble…’, said a camp dweller in his mid-thirties who has registered as a voter.
   There are also rumours that those who have registered as voters will be evicted from the camps, and that they will be stripped of the benefits they are enjoying as refugees, said a section of the camp dwellers.
   ‘We have seen that the major political parties did nothing for us when they were in power. Why should I cast vote when I know the parties will do nothing to address our problems’, Sabri Ali, a weaver, said.
   Abdul Huq, a resident of the slum, however, rued not to have registered as a voter. He looked enthusiastic when the New Age team approached his shanty. He mistook the newsmen for a voter registration team and asked his family members to come out and get registered.
   He said he was still willing to be a voter and cast vote in elections but wanted a guarantee that his benefits would not be slashed if his name appeared on the voters’ list.
   A 76-years old fuel-wood trader, Soleman Khan, said he and his family members this time would vote for a particular political party hoping that the party would be able to reduce prices of essential commodities.
   The High Court bench of Justice MA Rashid and Justice M Ashfaqul Islam, in a verdict on May 18, said the Urdu speakers, who had been living in Bangladesh since independence and had expressed allegiance to its sovereignty, were citizens of the country and entitled to be enrolled as voters.
   In compliance with a court order, the EC conducted a three-day campaign and registered about 10,000 Urdu-speaking people staying in camps.
   Some of the people who want to go to Pakistan refused to be voters.
   The Urdu-Speaking People’s Youth Rehabilitation Movement, however, alleged a number of eligible people
   living in camps in Dhaka
   could not fill up voter registration forms in the absence
   of publicity and obstacles created by a group of camp people.
   They said the commission had done the job in a half-hearted manner only to comply with the court order.
   More than 300,000 stranded Pakistanis have been staying in Bangladesh for 37 years as Pakistani authorities are not taking them back.
   Many of these people have integrated into Bangladesh’s society while most others are languishing in about 70 refuge camps in 13 districts.

Islamic militants who attacked India’s economic capital Mumbai had pre-stocked weapons and explosives inside one of the hotels they targeted, Indian intelligence sources told AFP Friday.
   The Intelligence Bureau, India’s domestic spy agency, said it had detained a Muslim militant, Abu Islami, found to have checked into the five-star Oberoi/Trident hotel four days before the rest of the attackers landed in Mumbai by boat.
   ‘He used the room to store explosives’ including 40 hand grenades ‘and weapons for a prolonged operation,’ a top Intelligence Bureau official told AFP on condition he not be named. ‘We are asking him who supplied the weapons, the explosives, the Chinese-made grenades. He came in much before the main body of the terrorists landed by boat’ on Wednesday evening, he said.
   At least 130 people have died so far and more than 350 others have been injured in the attacks in Mumbai.
   The Intelligence Bureau also said credit cards and one identity card from the Indian Ocean nation of Mauritius were recovered from the militant’s room.

The holy Eid-ul-Azha will be celebrated on December 9 (Tuesday) as Zil-Hajj moon was not sighted anywhere in the country on Friday.
   The decision was made at a meeting of the National Moon Sighting Committee at the Islamic Foundation Friday evening with the acting religious affairs secretary, M Mamunur Rashid Chowdhury, in the chair.
   Islamic Foundation director general M Fazlur Rahman, information ministry joint secretary M Mokhlesur Rahman Khan, Baitul Mukarram National Mosque’s acting Khatib Mufti Mohammad Nuruddin, Madrassah-e-Alia principal Mohammad Islam Gani, Meteorological Department deputy director Shah Alam and other members of the committee attended the meeting.

The Indian foreign minister, Pranab Mukherjee, said Friday that elements in Pakistan were responsible for the Islamist militant attacks in Mumbai, the Press Trust of India reported.
   ‘According to preliminary information, some elements in Pakistan are responsible,’ Mukherjee told reporters in Jodhpur in the western state of Rajasthan.
   It was the first time the Indian government had specifically named Pakistan as having a role in the attacks which left at least 130 dead. Officials had previously talked of the militant gunmen coming from ‘outside the country’.
   Proof to back up the accusation ‘cannot be disclosed at this time,’ PTI quoted the minister as saying.
   The minister noted that Pakistan had recently assured New Delhi that it would not allow use of its territory for launching attacks against India.

Pakistan’s foreign minister appealed to India Friday not to get sucked into a blame game over the Mumbai attacks and drag relations between the nuclear-armed neighbours back into the deep freeze.
   Speaking in New Delhi, where he was on a four-day official visit, Shah Mehmood Qureshi condemned the multiple Islamist assaults on India’s financial capital, calling the militants ‘barbaric animals.’
   But Qureshi said India had spoken too swiftly earlier on Friday in blaming ‘elements in Pakistan’ for the attacks.
   ‘My honest view is that the government should have reflected more in coming to its conclusions — it should have tested our spirit,’ he told a gathering of female journalists.
   ‘Let us build a new relationship or we could get sucked back into a situation that we have been living in for 60 years and that will be a tragedy as large as this one,’ he said, referring to the attacks on Mumbai that left at least 130 people dead.
   ‘We should avoid a replay of that beaten track of the blame game,’ he said.
   India and Pakistan have fought three wars since independence from Britain in 1947, two over the disputed Himalayan state of Kashmir.
   India has frequently accused Pakistan of sheltering guerrilla groups which have launched attacks against Indian targets— allegations that Islamabad strongly denies.

Climate change can increasingly strain interstate relations and lead to armed conflicts in South Asia, a volatile region where inability of governments to provide for basic needs, including security, may cause disappearance of certain states.
   A US government report has drawn the scenario, pointing out that a common resource like water is becoming ‘more scarce’ in the region of the Himalayas that feed rivers of China, Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh.
   ‘Cooperation over changing water resources is likely to be increasingly difficult within and between states, straining regional relations’, reads the report styled ‘Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World’ prepared by the National Intelligence Council.
   Predicting a growing influence of various non-state actors such as businesses, tribes, religious organisations, and even criminal networks, it said several countries could even be ‘taken over’ and run by criminal networks.
   ‘In areas of Africa or South Asia, states as we know them might wither away, owing to the inability of governments to provide for basic needs, including security,’ forecasts the recently released report.
   A global report titled ‘Climate Change as a Security Risk’, published in 2007, warned that Bangladesh could face security threats due to climate change, which was likely to trigger environmental migration and cause escalation of tension between neighbours in the years to come.
   The latest US report acknowledges that the countries of South Asia will remain an important source and concentration of rapidly growing population of youthful age. The report cautions that the countries with such demographic distribution ‘mark a crescent or “arc of instability” stretching from the Andean region of Latin America across Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and the Caucasus, and through the northern parts of South Asia.
   In Washington’s list, societies most hostile to the United States are found in the Islamic Middle East, as well as Pakistan and North Africa. ‘India is an important exception,’ the report adds.
   It also forecast that the international system — as constructed following the Second World War — would be almost unrecognisable by 2025. ‘The transformation is being fuelled by a globalising economy, marked by an historic shift of relative wealth and economic power from West to East, and by the increasing weight of new players — especially China and India,’ said the report.

Protesters occupying Bangkok’s main airports vowed Friday to ‘fight to the death,’ as police said they would negotiate with the demonstrators before trying to evict them under emergency laws.
   Embattled prime minister Somchai Wongsawat had imposed a state of emergency around the airports on Thursday night but security forces feared a raid could spark a bloody confrontation with the anti-government activists.
   Airlines began flying stranded air travellers out from a naval base Friday, but tens of thousands of passengers are believed to have missed flights after four days of unrest that have badly hit Thailand’s tourist industry.
   ‘We are not afraid. We will fight to the death, we will not surrender and we are ready,’ one of the main protest leaders, Somsak Kosaisuk, told a crowd of supporters at the domestic Don Mueang airport.
   Anti-government activists braced for an assault overnight, extending razor wire cordons to about three kilometres (two miles) around the flagship Suvarnabhumi international airport and blocking access roads, witnesses said.
   Police say around 4,000 protesters from the People’s Alliance for Democracy — a movement backed by elements of the palace, the army and Thailand’s Bangkok-based elite — are occupying Suvarnabhumi for a fourth day.
   Another 2,500 are at Don Mueang, where the cabinet’s temporary offices have been located since protesters seized their headquarters at Government House in Bangkok in August, calling for the government to resign.
   Somchai’s attempts to assert his authority by declaring emergency rule and authorising action to clear the airports were apparently undermined by the police announcement of further talks with the protesters.
   ‘We will use the gentle way first. The priority is to negotiate and not crack down immediately — we are all Thais,’ regional deputy police commander Major General Piya Sorntrakoon told AFP.
   The army has already said it is opposed to the use of force against the protesters , stoking tensions between the government and the military in a nation that has seen 18 coups since the end of absolute monarchy in 1932.
   The PAD have vowed not to quit until Somchai resigns, alleging that their arch-foe, exiled former premier Thaksin Shinawatra — who was ousted in a 2006 coup — is the puppetmaster behind the government elected in December.
   The military denied rumours on Thursday that it was planning to launch a similar putsch, following reports that Somchai was about to sack the powerful army chief for calling for the dissolution of the government.
   Yet in a further sign of the civilian-military rift, government spokesman Suparat Nakbunnam said Somchai would remain in Chiang Mai ‘indefinitely.’
   ‘As there are still uncertainties in the tensions between the government and army, for his safety the prime minister will stay in Chiang Mai,’ he said.
   With the crisis affecting Thailand’s ties with the rest of the world, the secretary general of Southeast Asian bloc ASEAN travelled to Thailand to assess whether a summit scheduled for December in Chiang Mai can proceed.
   Airlines meanwhile struggled to get even a handful of passengers out of the U-Tapao naval base about 190 kilometres (118 miles) southeast of Bangkok — a low-tech, one-runway airfield built by US forces during the Vietnam War.
    ‘Around 40 flights are going to fly in and out of U-Tapao today (Friday),’ said an official at the Department of Civil Aviation.
   ‘Yesterday there were only half that number, around 20 flights, because most airlines did not know that U-Tapao has been opened.’
   The Ministry of Tourism called a crisis meeting Friday attended by airport officials and representatives from 50 airlines to try to map out a strategy for getting people in and out of the kingdom.

Thai prime minister Somchai Wongsawat sacked his national police chief on Friday, fuelling speculation that the government is preparing to crackdown on protesters besieging Bangkok’s main airports.
   General Patcharawat Wongsuwan, who was moved to an inactive post, had resisted previous orders to crackdown on the street protesters who began a ‘final battle’ to unseat the government on Monday, Thai media reported.
   ‘The removal was the result of his performance during this current crisis,’ government spokesman Nattawut Saikuar told NBT television a day after Somchai declared a state of emergency to end the crippling airport sieges.
   Dozens of riot police with truncheons and shields gathered at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport on Friday, but took no action against the People’s Alliance for Democracy protesters camped outside the main terminal.
   In a televised address, Somchai said the government would use ‘gentle measures’ against the protesters. ‘Don’t worry. Officials will use gentle measures to deal with them,’ Somchai said, and invited human rights and media organisations to observe and film the process.
   Earlier, the police said they hoped talks with protest leaders would end the siege, but warned they would ‘take other steps’ if they failed.
   ‘We are asking them to allow the airport to resume operations,’ Lieutenant-General Suchart Muenkaew, the chief police negotiator, told reporters.
   But PAD leaders denied talks would even take place.
   ‘We will not enter in any talks with the police. We will fight until the end,’ spokesman Parnthep Pourpongpan told a crowd of supporters.
   The siege at Don Muang and Suvarnabhumi International Airport have cut the Thai capital’s air links to the world, leaving thousands stranded and hurting the tourist-dependent economy.
   The University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce said if the political turmoil and airport closures go on for another month, it would cost the economy up to 215 billion baht ($6 billion).
   ‘While the question on whether the mess can be cleared up in a year is still an important one, the question on whether confidence would return even if it does get cleaned up in a month is beginning to look less clear,’ said Carl Rajoo, an economist at Forecast in Singapore.
   Declaring a state of emergency at the airports from the government stronghold of Chiang Mai, 700 km (400 miles) north of Bangkok, prime minister Somchai Wongsawat said the export- and tourism-driven economy could not tolerate further disruption.
   But with security forces reluctant to act, and the protesters insisting they’ll stay out until the government falls, the standoff could continue.
   PAD guards had set up roadblocks on the main expressway to the airport and were stopping all cars and checking passengers and trunk compartments.
   The roadblocks were manned by youths in black jackets, faces partly covered by masks. Some wore body armour and wielded wooden stakes and golf clubs.
   ‘We will not leave. We will use human shields against the police if they try to disperse us,’ PAD leader Suriyasai Katasila told Reuters.
   Thailand’s three-year-old political crisis has deepened dramatically since the PAD began a ‘final battle’ on Monday to unseat a government it accuses of being a pawn of former leader Thaksin Shinawatra, ousted in a 2006 coup. Somchai is Thaksin’s brother-in-law.
   Pressure has built on the army to step in since Somchai rejected military calls to quit, but pro-government forces threaten to take up arms if the elected administration is ousted, raising fears of major civil unrest.
   Army chief Anupong has repeatedly said he would not take over, arguing the military is powerless to heal fundamental political rifts between the Bangkok elite and middle classes who despise Thaksin, and the poor rural and urban majority who love him.
   But rumours of the army preparing to launch what would be Thailand’s 19th coup or attempted coup in 76 years of on-off democracy continue to swirl around the capital.
   The government began shuttling thousands of stranded tourists by bus to U-Tapao, a Vietnam War-era naval airbase 150 km (90 miles) east of Bangkok, as an alternative landing site for airlines.
   According to a schedule hand written on a white board outside the terminal, flights from Cathay Pacific, Thai Airways and Malaysian Air Services were expected.
   In bound flights bringing tourists for the peak season were expected to start arriving on Friday as well.

The Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission tomorrow will announce the gas price increase by about 12–15 per cent, officials said.
   The commission will, however, announce that the increase will be effective sometime between January and March as the interim government requested the commission not to increase gas price during the remaining days of its tenure.
   ‘The full commission will sit Sunday morning to make the final decision on the price increase. The price increase decision will be announced in the afternoon,’ said an official.
   The commission will give the decision allowing Petrobangla to increase gas price by 12–15 per cent following its proposal to increase the price by 66 per cent on an average for consumers of different categories, he said.
   According to the Petrobangla proposal, gas price for domestic use should be increased to Tk 550 for single burners from the existing Tk 350, to Tk 600 for double-burners from Tk 400 and to Tk 208 a unit for metered gas from Tk 133 to meet the commission’s revenue requirement.
   Petrobangla also proposed that gas price for power and fertiliser plants should go up to Tk 93.73 a unit from Tk 76.91 and Tk 63.48, for industries and captive power plants to Tk 182.25 from Tk 148.13 and Tk 105.59 and for commercial use to Tk 291.54 from Tk 233.12.
   After going through Petrobangla’s financial statements, the commission, however, said as per Petrobangla’s calculation there was no need for such massive increases and an average increase of 12–15 per cent should be enough for Petrobangla to fulfil its revenue requirement.
   This government is not interested in increasing price towards the end of its tenure to avoid controversy.
   The interim government is likely to end with the handover of power to an elected government through the general elections scheduled for December 29.
   ‘Apart from this interim government, we will also need to consider the situation of the next elected government. The next government may not want to increase gas price immediately after assumption of office. The price increase may come in force sometime between January and March,’ said the commission official.

An estimated 90,000 passengers have missed flights since protesters shut down Bangkok’s airports, the tourism minister said Friday, and emergency centres will be set up to help them.
   ‘Around 90,000 passengers are estimated to have been unable to leave Thailand from November 26 to 28,’ tourism minister Weerasak Kowsurat told AFP after a crisis meeting with airlines.
   ‘Most foreign travellers including tourists who suffered from the closure of the airports are still in Thailand.’
   The main Suvarnabhumi international airport has been shut since late Tuesday when anti-government protesters besieged it.
   Weerasak said that 7,000 travellers were stuck at the airport when it was raided, more than double the figure given by airport authorities at the time.
   They were taken to hotels on Wednesday, and are among the tens of thousands of travellers trying to get out of the kingdom.
   Weerasak said the ministry would open information centres at four Bangkok hotels, where airlines could set up desks and travellers could reschedule flights, get new tickets and check in.
   ‘The plan for these centres is already approved in principle and expected to start operating at four hotels in Bangkok in the next 48 to 72 hours,’ he said.
   ‘No big batch of travellers’ had been able to leave through the U-Tapao naval base 190 kilometres (118 miles) southeast of Bangkok, he said, which has ferried a handful of passengers out but can only handle 48 flights a day.
   Suvarnabhumi can handle 700 flights every day.
   ‘The travellers had better wait at their hotels for further information because U-Tapao airport cannot cope with a large number of people,’ he said.
   The government is in talks with coach companies to try and arrange mass transport down to the Vietnam War-era naval base, he added.
   He said that immigration authorities had also agreed to extend the visas of all foreign tourists trapped and people will not face the usual fines if they overstay their visas.

EU Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso called in Doha on Friday for a ‘human rescue’ plan alongside financial rescue packages, as aid agencies rapped most other major world leaders for staying away from a UN summit on aid.
   Barroso, who unveiled on Wednesday a 200-billion-euro ($254b) stimulus package to revive Europe’s ailing economy, said it would be ‘obscene’ to discuss responses to the global financial crisis without also discussing the ‘human crisis.’
   Speaking on the eve of a UN Conference on Financing for Development, he said it is important to keep on schedule towards achieving the UN’s Millennium goals for aid to developing countries.
   Leaders should not just address the financial crisis but also look at the many other problems around the world, Barroso told journalists, adding: ‘It is not about a financial rescue but a human rescue.’
   Against that background, Ariane Arpa, head of the Oxfam International delegation, said: ‘Very few rich country leaders have chosen to take part.
   ‘The fact that so few heads of state have seen fit to travel to Doha is a real cause for concern,’ she said.
   Among expected speakers at the four-day conference are the heads of many countries from all over the world, ranging from Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe.
   But Barroso and president Nicolas Sarkozy of France are the only leaders from major developed regions scheduled to address the meeting, which officially opens on Saturday.
   ‘Already climate change and volatile food and fuel prices are threatening to undo the progress that has been made,’ Arpa said.
   ‘Now the financial crisis is set to kick the poorest countries while they are down — yet another example of the poor paying the highest price for the mistakes that rich countries have made.’
   Christian Aid and Actionaid said in a joint statement that they are ‘concerned that the present financial crisis will be used by rich countries as an excuse to renege on aid commitments.
   Developed countries have so far committed to pay less than 20 billion dollars a year of the 50 billion dollars in additional aid which they agreed in 2004 to donate by 2010, UN figures show.
   The new money leaves total annual development aid far short of the 130 billion dollars a year targeted for 2010 by the UN’s Millennium Development Goals.
   At a pre-conference ‘retreat’ for leaders on Friday, participants were to discuss Qatari proposals for a reform of the international financial system, including a mechanism for monitoring the world’s leading 30 banks, organisers said.
   A mooted IMF early-warning system for financial crises is also expected to figure on the agenda.
   A UN spokesman said Friday’s talks aimed to ‘act as a bridge’ from the November 15 Group of 20 summit in Washington ‘by proposing concrete actions that limit the impact of the financial crisis on developing countries.’
   The four-day meeting follows on from a 2002 conference in Monterrey that achieved a landmark North-South agreement on development principles.
   Olivier Buston, European director of ONE, a lobbying group working with campaigners Bob Geldof and Bono, said Europe’s promise of an increase in aid to 0.51 percent of GDP by 2010 is ‘in danger, mainly because of cuts from Italy and France.’
   ‘Crucially, these cuts were planned before the recent recession,’ he said.
   Buston said he hopes US president-elect Barack Obama will “keep to” his pledge to double foreign aid.
   Friday’s ‘retreat’ and the financing conference come in the wake of a call by the World Bank on Thursday for donors to boost aid to poor nations hit by a financial crisis that is ‘not of their making.’
   Sarkozy is due to arrive on Saturday in Doha, where he is to hold a joint meeting with the Qatari emir and Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir to discuss the Darfur conflict.
   The French leader, in his address to the conference that runs until Tuesday, is expected to try to assure African countries that the financial crisis would not jeopardise European aid.

Inadequate laboratory facilities and no set standard and non-enforcement of law on feeds for poultry, fisheries and livestock force farmers to use substandard feed causing them financial loss alongside posing a threat to public health, experts said.
   The government has promulgated the Fish and Animal Feed Ordinance 2008, but it is yet to formulate any rules to check sales of substandard feeds, sources in the fisheries and livestock ministry said.
   A section of feed millers and premix manufacturers are trying their best so that the government does not formulate the feed standard and specification rules, they said.
   The feed millers, having no registration or license, adulterate feed and manipulate market in terms of price hike cashing in on the non-enforcement of the law and absence of any set standard of the feed.
   They mix substandard protein sources in feeds, which do not contain required energy and protein, sources in feed industry said.
   Even the millers use harmful chemicals ingredients as raw materials to produce fish, poultry and animal feeds, they added.
   In most cases, the energy level in the feeds is 2,000-2,200 kilocalories, which should be minimum 2,800-2,900 kilocalories and the existence of protein in it is less than 12-14 per cent against the required level of 16-18 per cent, sources in the Central Nutrition Laboratory under the Livestock Research Institute said.
   ‘We do not have adequate lab facilities to check the quality of feeds. The central nutrition laboratory has limited facilities like test of dry matter, crude protein, crude fibre, ether-extract, total ash, silicon and calcium phosphorus, which is not sufficient,’ Bangladesh Poultry Association joint secretary Khondoker Mohsin said.
   Due to the inadequate lab facilities, the farmers cannot know the quality of feeds and they are being cheated frequently, he added saying that the government lab should have facilities to test amino acid, bacterial load, vitamin, mito-toxin and mineral for confirming the toxicity in the feeds. He also demanded increasing the number of labs in the country.
   A section of cattle and poultry farmers apply steroid for fattening cattle heads and increasing weight of the poultry birds, said Professor Sheikh Nazrul Islam of the Institute of Nutrition and Food Science under the Dhaka University, adding the chemical is transmitted into human bodies through meat consumption causing serious health hazards.
   Regarding the laboratory facilities, chief veterinary officer of the Central Veterinary Hospital Musaddique Hossain told New Age, ‘We have no sophisticated machineries like LC-MSMS to detect mito-toxin and other chemicals in feeds.’
   There are only six officials and technicians in the central nutrition laboratory in Dhaka, he added saying that they also did not have any training on feed technology.
   The Department of Livestock Services need more feed testing laboratories at district level to maintain the quality of feed, said the official, adding that about 65 per cent cost of the farmers depended on feed, quality of which is essential for increasing the productivity as well as to reduce the overall cost of the farmers.
   ‘We already have taken some initiatives to check feed adulteration and we need to formulate rules under the ordinance to make it functional at the field level,’ said fisheries and livestock secretary Syed Ataur Rahman.
   The country has some 52 mills, which annually produce around 14-15 lakh tonnes of feeds for animal and fish.

Celebrations of 400 years of Dhaka as capital began on Friday with a two-day state programme inaugurated by the chief adviser, Fakhruddin Ahmed, at the national assembly complex.
   Fakhruddin released four pigeons to marking the beginning of the celebrations in a ceremony on the South Plaza of Jatiya Sangsad Complex amid festivity. Four hundred balloons were also released into the air.
   The chief adviser also cancelled a commemorative postal stamp marking the occasion.
   The celebrations began with the slogan, Rajdhani Dhakar 400 Bachhar Purtite, Ahen Moji Phurtite — Let us revel on 400 years of Dhaka.
   Fireworks marked the programme as Fakhruddin left the place, followed by a cultural programme where artistes sang kawalis, danced and recitation of poems.
   Stalls have been set up at the place showcasing Dhaka’s heritage, including muslin and jamdani.
   The inauguration of the two-day programme, organised by the cultural affairs ministry, was telecast live on Bangladesh Television. Government and non-governmental organisations will be holding programmes till 2010 to mark the 400 years of Dhaka.
   The Dhaka City Corporation, Bangladesh Parjatan Corporation, Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Dhaka University, Asiatic Society of Bangladesh, Dhaka Club, Dhakabasi and other organisations are partners to the celebrations.
   The two-day inauguration will be wrapped up today with daylong programmes. Other programmes likely to continue for three years include boat races, food festivals, especially of bakar khani, biriyani and Old Town delicacies, kite festivals, puppet shows, children’s painting competitions and the establishment of a Dhaka gate.
   Fifty-three colourful processions will be rolled out today in Old Town of Dhaka as the city was once known as a place of 52 markets and 53 lanes.
   The National Museum and other heritage sites such as Lalbagh Fort, Ahsan Manzil, Hussaini Dalan were illuminated and the places will remain open to all free for today.
   Fakhruddin put out a call for all — civil society actors, town planners and other authorities concerned — to put in their efforts to save the capital and to keep it liveable. ‘Dhaka has become a symbol of history. We all need to put in our efforts to revive the lost heritage of the city.’
   ‘The Buriganga, Dhaleswari, Sitalakhya and Turag rivers slow around the capital as a lifeline of the city. The rivers need to be saved by reviving the tributaries, lakes and canals,’ Fakhruddin said.
   The inauguration, presided over by the cultural affairs adviser, Rasheda K Chowdhury, was also addressed, among others, by the LGRD and cooperatives adviser, Anwarul Iqbal, and the cultural affairs secretary, Sharful Alam.

An intimidating fast bowling by the South African pacers and three suicidal run-outs resulted in yet another innings defeat for Bangladesh despite Sakib al Hasan putting the hosts in a spin with his 6-99 in the first innings at Centurion on Friday.
   The hosts completed the win well inside three days, this time by an innings and 48 runs, after Bangladesh crumbled to be dismissed for 131 runs in the second innings. It was Bangladesh’s 33rd innings defeat in 57 Tests.
   South Africa took the series 2-0 as they also own the first Test by an innings and 129 runs.
   Bangladesh were needed to score 179 runs in the second innings to make the hosts bat again only to see none of the recognised batsmen taking any responsibility. Debutant Roqibul Hassan and skipper Mohammad Ashraful had a good start, but both of their innings ended with needless run-outs.
   Ashraful, who reached double figures only for the second time in his last nine innings with 21, was also responsible for the run-out of Mehrab Hossain Jr. When Roqibul was run-out for 28, Bangladesh lost their hopes of taking the game at least to fourth day. Mashrafee bin Murtaza was unbeaten on 23.
   The openers needed to survive only 15 minutes until the lunch break after South Africa were all out for 429 runs after resuming the play at 357-5, but they failed.
   Imrul Kayes edged a catch at slip as Bangladesh went for lunch with 8-1 and when it was the tea time they turned into a bunch of no-hopers with six wickets gone for 95 runs. In between the breaks South African pacers tormented them with repeated bouncers and the fielders also maintained hundred percent accuracy.
   Tamim Iqbal could have been out three times before Neil McKenzie took another spectacular catch at gully off Morne Morkel to end his innings on 21. McKenzie also took a similar catch in the first innings to get rid of Junaed Siddique, the top scorer for Bangladesh in the innings.
   Junaed this time failed to repeat the feat and was undone by a short ball from Jacques Kallis for 16. Kallis took 1-24 while Makhaya Ntini, Monde Zondeki and Morkel claimed two wickets each for 44, 10 and 21 runs respectively.
   The pick of the bowlers in the Test was, however, Bangladesh’s Sakib al Hasan, who helped the Tigers to take some honour for his six-wicket haul. Sakib, who took 3-77 overnight, added three more wickets, all in the space of four balls of an over, to achieve the feat.
   After ending the 271-run partnership between Ashwell Prince and Mark Boucher (117), Sakib also claimed the wicket of Morkel and Zondeki in that over. Shahadat Hossain took the final two wickets as Prince remained unbeaten on 162, his career-best innings that also earned him the man-of-the-match and man-of-the-series awards.

Visiting Russian president Dmitry Medvedev met Thursday with Cuban president Raul Castro seeking to forge closer ties with the former Soviet Union’s Cold War ally, on the last leg of a tour to boost Russia’s reach in Latin America.
   Not long after arriving in Havana around 2050 GMT from Venezuela, Medvedev held two rounds of official talks — one private and one between the two countries’ delegations — at the imposing Palace of the Revolution.
   Then the Cuban president, who maintains a low public profile, and Medvedev paid a visit to the new Russian Orthodox cathedral in colonial Old Havana, with bells tolling and security tight.
   It marks the last stop for Medvedev on a four-nation trip, including Peru, Brazil and Venezuela, where he visited Russian warships due to carry out joint manoeuvres next week.
   It was unclear whether Medvedev, on the first visit by a Russian leader to Cuba since 2000, would also meet ailing former president Fidel Castro, 82.
   The visit could be light on substance: there were no agreements scheduled to be signed though the countries do have cooperation in fields such as oil, nickel, telecommunications, biotechnology and tourism.
   Medvedev’s Latin America tour largely has sought to boost trade, despite the world economic slowdown, but was also seen as a rebuff to US moves in formally Communist-ruled parts of Europe, such as planned missile defence facilities.
   The Russian leader arrived from Venezuela, where he signed a string of accords, including a nuclear energy deal, with anti-US president Hugo Chavez.
   Medvedev is only the second Russian president to travel to Cuba after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, which led to a decade of distant relations broken by a visit by former president Vladimir Putin in 2000.
   But Putin’s decision to close a Russian spy base in Lourdes, south of Havana, in 2001, created a new chill in relations that lasted until 2007, when Moscow showed a new interest in Latin America.
   Medvedev’s visit follows an accelerated process of reconciliation, including new deals on military, energy, telecommunications and transport ties.
   ‘Cuba has been and will continue to be one of our key partners in Latin America,’ Medvedev said after hosting Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque in Russia this month.
   ‘Relations are developing in a very dynamic way,’ Medvedev said on announcing a planned trip by Raul Castro to Russia in 2009.
   The Russian ambassador said Saturday the country was negotiating major investments in Cuba’s oil and nickel industries, with deals under consideration with specific Russian firms to search for oil offshore in Cuba’s exclusive economic zone in the Gulf of Mexico.
   Raul Castro replaced his ailing brother, who held Cuba’s helm for five decades, he has implemented minor and not radical systemic economic changes. The government controls the economy and media, and still outlaws opposition forces.
   Earlier this month, Russia granted Cuba a 20-million-dollar trade credit as part of agreements on oil, mining and transport, during a visit by Russian deputy premier Igor Sechin.

The central bank has sought exemption from the provision of publishing newspaper and gazette notification before forfeiting unclaimed bank accounts which a total deposit of about Tk 2.20crore, official sources said.
   ‘The Bangladesh Bank has sought from the finance ministry exemption of the provision stipulated in the Bank Company Act 1991 as publication of such notifications will cause extra expenses for the government,’ said a senior finance ministry official.
   The official also said the central bank had been granted a similar exemption in 2007 before forfeiting the unclaimed bank accounts.
   Sources in the finance ministry said that the central bank had obtained exemption from publishing newspapers and gazette notifications for forfeiture of non–operative and unclaimed accounts having deposits of about Tk10.47 crore in the past financial year.
   The central bank in a similar manner forfeited Tk 10.59 crore in 2005–06 while the amount was Tk 2.39 crore in 2004–05.
   Abdul Matin, an account holder in the state-owned Janata Bank and private commercial Prime Bank Limited, told New Age on Thursday he had deposits of about Tk 70,000 which had been lying idle in the two banks for 10 years as he had been working in the Middle East.
   ‘Now I heard the Bangladesh Bank wants to transfer my money to the state treasury without any public notice or advisement,’ Matin said.
   Mahbubul Haque, a client of the state-owned Sonali Bank head office branch, told New Age he had more than Tk 50,000 in his account lying idle for 11 years.
   ‘I have no idea as money from such accounts is transferred to the state exchequer for no transaction for a long time,’ he said.
   A senior Bangladesh Bank official said the central bank could be exempted from the obligations of publishing lists of such accounts before transferring the money to the state exchequer.
   He also said the commercial banks usually inform clients of the list of non-transaction and unclaimed accounts before the money is transferred to the state exchequer. ‘We have put the unclaimed account lists on the official web page of the central bank,’ he said.

The Workers Party of Bangladesh president Rashed Khan Menon on Friday said terrors like Bangla Bhai would rule the roost if the BNP-Jamaat alliance won the forthcoming parliamentary elections.
   ‘Terrors like Bangla Bhai will raise their ugly heads and the bloody August 21 grenade attacks will repeat if the BNP-Jamaat alliance returns to power’, said Menon, the candidate nominated by the Awami League-led alliance for Dhaka-8 constituency in the December 29 parliamentary polls.
   Exchanging views with the activists of Juba League, associate organisation of the Awami League, at the AL’s central office on Bangabandhu Avenue, the WP leader called on the people to strengthen the democratic, progressive and non-communal political forces in the country.
   Referring to the latest terror attacks in the Indian commercial capital of Mumbai, Menon warned that Bangladesh might find itself in similar situation if the BNP-Jamaat alliance managed to return to state power.
   Dhaka city AL leaders Mukul Chowdhury, Awlad Hossain, Dilip Roy and Workers Party city secretary Quamrul Ahsan, were among those who took part in the exchange of views chaired by Dhaka city AL leader BM Atique.
   Menon also exchanged views with the people of Barisal living in Dhaka at the Asad Auditorium and T & T Club in the city on the day.

An arrested man died in police custody at Motijheel police station in Dhaka on Friday.
   The deceased was Monir Hossain, 25, a resident of Shantibagh area under Motijheel police station.
   The police said local people caught Monir red-handed at about 6:30am for stabbing a woman Rahima Begum.
   The mob severely beat up Monir and then handed over him to Motijheel police, they said adding that he (Monir) was a close aide to listed criminal `Galakata’ Rubel and wanted in several criminal cases.
   The police took him to the emergency unit of Dhaka Medical College Hospital at about 7:00am, from where he was released after giving him first aid.
   The police again took him to the hospital at around 12:15pm but the attending doctors declared him dead, the police said.
   The victim’s family alleged that Monir died due to severe torture in the police custody.
   They also claimed that Monir looked well after receiving first aid in the hospital.
   The police rejected the allegation saying Monir was taken to the hospital for the second time as his condition deteriorated but he died there.

Political parties and professional bodies on Friday condemned the terrorist attacks on Mumbai on Wednesday in which more than 125 people, including foreigners, were killed.
   In the context of rising terrorist incidents, the organisations called for united action by the South Asian nations to fight out the elements of terrorism and restore peace, stability and human rights to all the countries of the region.
   The Workers Party of Bangladesh president, Rashed Khan Menon, and the general secretary, Bimal Biswas, observed that Islamist militancy, a creation of the imperialist forces, had become a threat to civilisation. ‘It is a design to destabilise South Asian countries including India, Pakistan and Bangladesh,’ said a statement issued by them.
   The Communist Party of Bangladesh president, Manjurul Ahsan Khan, and the general secretary, Mujahidul Islam Selim, termed the attack a matter of concerns for South Asian peoples and they called on all to remain alert to future risks of terrorism.
   The Gana Forum president, Kamal Hossain, called on South Asian leaders to resist terrorism in a coordinated manner.
   The Democratic Lawyers Association, in a statement, also condemned the attack.

Four genetic variations appear to determine the speed at which people burn up food, researchers said on Thursday, a finding that could one day see doctors offer their patients more individual care.
   Differences in metabolism can make some people more susceptible to diseases such as diabetes and explain why response to diet, exercise and drugs to treat certain conditions varies from person to person.
   Knowing right away how a person’s body will break down molecules in the blood that build up muscle and cells and provide energy could lead to better care, said Karsten Suhre, a researcher at the Helmholtz Centre in Munich.
   The researchers scanned the genes of 284 people and found four — FADS1, LIPC, SCAD and MCAD — linked to determining metabolic rates.
   ‘These genes appear to be involved or play a key role in metabolism,’ Suhre said in a telephone interview.
   This potentially paves the way for more personalized health care in which doctors could use knowledge of a patient’s metabolism gleaned from their genetic make-up to determine treatment, he said.
   This could prove particularly useful for treating conditions strongly linked to metabolism such as coronary artery disease and obesity, he added.
   ‘These findings could result in a step toward personalized healthcare and nutrition based on a combination of genoytyping and metabolic characterization,’ Suhre and colleagues wrote in the Public Library of Science Journal PLoS Genetics.