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Former prime minister Khaleda Zia and her former cabinet colleagues M Shamsul Islam, MK Anwar, Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan and Matiur Rahman Nizami were on Monday ordered to appear in a Dhaka court to face the charges in the Barapukuria coalmine corruption case.
   Dhaka metropolitan sessions judge Mohammad Azizul Haque also issued warrants for the arrest of former ministers M Saifur Rahman, Aminul Haque, AKM Mosharraf Hossain and Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojahid, former acting secretary to the energy and mineral resources ministry Nazrul Islam, former Petrobangla chairman SR Osmani, former Petrobangla director Mainul Ahsan, former Barapukuria Coal Mine Company Ltd managing director Sirajul Islam and Hosaf Group chairman Moazzem Hossain.
   The court also ordered the jail authorities to produce the detained former ministers Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain and Altaf Hossain Choudhury in court on October 12.
   The court passed the orders accepting the charge sheet submitted by the Anti-Corruption Commission on Sunday which pressed charges against the 16 for embezzlement of Tk 158.71 crore by abusing power in awarding the Chinese CMC Consortium the contract for the Barapukuria mining in 2005.
   This is the third case in which Khaleda, also the Bangladesh Nationalist Party chairperson, faces charges pressed so far by the commission and the first after her release on bail on September 11.
   The immediate-past prime minister now faces charges pressed earlier by the commission in the GATCO and Niko corruption cases.
   The trials in the GATCO and Niko corruption cases, however, remain stalled as the High Court has stayed the proceedings in the cases and granted Khaleda bail.
   She is also facing another case filed by the commission on July 13 accusing her of misappropriating Tk 2.1 crore of the Zia Orphanage Trust fund. The High Court on August 26 granted her interim bail for four months in the case, which is now under investigation.
   Khaleda was granted interim bail for four months in the case by the High Court on September 10 while Mannan Bhuiyan, Shamsul Islam and MK Anwar obtained interim bail in the case from the same court on August 25 till submission of the charge sheet.
   Mannan, also the expelled BNP secretary general, MK Anwar, Shamsul Islam, and Nizami, also the Jamaat-e-Islami amir, will appear in court on October 12 and file fresh petitions seeking bail in the case, their counsels told New Age on Monday.
   The nine people, against whom the court issued warrants for their arrest, were shown fugitives.
   The charges against Khaleda and the 15 in the Barapukuria coalmine case were pressed under Section 409 of the Penal Code for criminal breach of trust, Section 5(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act 1947 for criminal misconduct in awarding the Chinese company the contract for mining and under Section 109 of the Penal Code for helping each others in committing the offences.
   The charges are punishable with imprisonment for life or 10 years for criminal breach of trust and for seven years for criminal misconduct. In addition, fine may also be imposed on them for both the offences.
   The commission’s assistant director Shamsul Alam filed the case with the Shahbagh police on February 26, accusing the 16 persons of embezzling Tk 158.71 crore by awarding the highest bidder the production, operation and maintenance contracts for the coalmine.
   According to sources in the commission, the first investigation officer of the case, Md Manirul Haque, also a deputy director of the commission, submitted his report to the commission in May, observing that the investigation did not find sufficient evidence to press charges against Khaleda and other former ministers.
   As the ministers had been busy with other business, they did not get enough time to scrutinise the documents of the contract and they signed the documents placed before them by the officers concerned, said the investigation report.
   The commission was, however, not satisfied with the first investigation report and in June assigned another deputy director, Abul Kashem Fakir, for further investigation of the case.
   In the latest turn of events, the commission on Sunday submitted the charge sheet in the case against all the 16 accused accepting the report submitted by the second investigation officer which recommended pressing charges against the 16 for embezzling Tk 158.71 crore by abusing power.
   A Tk 335.08 crore agreement signed with the lowest bidder, Sangdon Ludi Consortium, was scrapped following the company’s demand for an upward revision of the project cost, the charge sheet said.
   Although the difference between the lowest and highest bids was Tk 158.71 crore, Khaleda helped in the embezzlement by approving the recommendations of the purchase committee without accepting Petrobangla’s proposal for re-tender, the charge sheet said.

The military-controlled interim administration has approved yet another amendment to the electoral laws allowing the political parties to get registered without holding council sessions.
   The council of advisers at a special meeting with the chief adviser, Fakhruddin Ahmed, in the chair approved the Representation of People (Second Amendment) Ordinance 2008 on Monday, only a week before the Election Commission’s deadline for mandatory party registration ends, an official at the Chief Adviser’s Office said.
   The Election Commission earlier set October 15, 2008 as the deadline for registration of the political parties only after the parties ensure their constitutions are made democratic in line with the revised electoral laws.
   Now with the approval of the amendment to the previously revised RPO, the political parties will be allowed to submit a provisional constitution to the Election Commission to get registered by October 15 and contest the December 18 parliamentary polls.
   But within six months of the first sitting of the next parliament, the parties must ratify their respective constitutions by duly holding council sessions in line with the latest electoral laws that call for more ‘democratic’ practices within the parties.
   In the previous package of electoral reforms in the form of amendments to the RPO, which was gazetted August 19, 2008, the authorities made registration of political parties mandatory to be eligible to contest the December general elections.
   In that case the parties would have to change their constitutions by holding council sessions, which would not be possible for any party because of the state of emergency.
   The interim cabinet also realised that it would not be possible for any political party to hold council session to get their constitution amended within the time stipulated, and approved the Election Commission’s proposal, an official said.
   ‘In the light of reality it won’t be possible for many political parties to make amendment to their party constitutions fulfilling the conditions of registration before the October 15 deadline for registration’, the EC said in its proposal.
   For registration, the parties must fulfil a few conditions, including specific provisions in their constitutions.
   The parties must elect the members of the committees at all levels, including members of the central committee, as laid down in the constitution and fix a goal of reserving at least 33 per cent of memberships of all committees for women and achieving the goal by 2020. The electoral laws also prohibit formation of any affiliated organisations consisting of teachers, students, employees or labourer by the parties.

The Election Commission warned the aspiring polls candidates, who have stuck colourful posters on walls in the guise of greeting people on the occasion of the Eid-ul-Fitr, that their nomination papers could be cancelled if they did not remove the posters by October 15.
   ‘The probable candidates are flouting the electoral code of conduct by sticking colourful posters on walls containing their photographs and those of their party leaders everywhere, taking advantage of the festivities and conducting polls campaigns in the guise of greetings’, chief election commissioner ATM Shamsul Huda said at a press briefing at the EC conference room on Monday.
   He asked the violators of the code of conduct to remove the posters by October 15, ‘or their candidature in the forthcoming elections will stand liable to be cancelled.’
   The CEC said the Election Commission’s monitoring officials would start visiting different areas after October 15 to photograph such graffiti and posters and preserve them [as evidence of violation] for challenging nomination papers during the scrutiny.
   Shamsul Huda said that the commission would instruct the deputy commissioners today to appoint two assistant commissioners in each district as election monitoring officers in addition to their respective duties to detect violation of the code of conduct.
   ‘Each district is going to have two election monitoring officers of the rank and status of an assistant commissioner with the authority of a first class magistrate with effect from October 16’, he added.
   The EMOs will ensure that electoral laws and regulations are being adhered to and also verify and authenticate the eight-point personal information provided by contestants under affidavit.
   ‘Detailed instructions about the activities of EMOs will be issued to the deputy commissioners, police superintendents, district election officers, upazila chief executives ( nirbahi officers) and upazila election officers’, he added.
   The new code of conduct, gazetted last week with effect from September 18, prohibits electioneering in any form until three weeks before the vote scheduled to be held on December 18.
   The CEC has said that the commission will announce the polls schedule in the first week of November.
   The code defines ‘pre-election period’ as the period between the date of dissolution of the parliament and the date of publication of the official results of the elections by gazette.
   The EC announced the code of conduct with stringent provisions like ban on using portraits of national leaders, including Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and Ziaur Rahman, in campaign posters.
   The code of conduct also bans sticking posters on vehicles and public establishments across the country, and on buildings, walls, trees and electric poles in the city corporation and municipality areas.
   Scrawling graffiti on vehicles, buildings, walls, bridges, road dividers or any other establishments, erecting archways and gates, illuminating structures and using helicopters in election campaigns have also been banned.

Dhaka is set to begin a survey on the proposed Bangladesh– Myanmar link road this month with the consent of Yangon.
   The communications ministry has already requested the foreign affairs ministry to seek opinions of the Myanmar authorities in this regard, said a senior official concerned.
   Dhaka may take up the issue of the proposed direct road link between the two neighbours for discussion with the vice-senior general Maung Aye, the vice-chairman of the State Peace and Development Council of Myanmar, who is scheduled to arrive in Dhaka this morning on a three-day official visit.
   ‘The survey on the proposed Bangladesh–Myanmar link road will begin soon… The construction work may begin in the middle of 2008,’ the communications secretary, Mohammad Mahbubur Rahman, told New Age in his office on Monday.
   The contract for conducting the study and cost estimation of the trans-boundary road by March 2009 will be signed soon as the evaluation of the proposals was under process, official sources in the communications ministry said, adding that five consulting firms were short-listed for proposal submission.
   Eight firms submitted expression of interest for the survey in response to the advertisement by the Roads and Highways Department.
   The interim administration of Fakhruddin Ahmed after assuming office in January 2007 expedited the previous government’s move to establish the direct road link between Bangladesh and Myanmar to boost trade and commerce between the two neighbours.
   The Planning Commission on March 10, 2008 approved an estimated fund of Tk 4.97 crore for the survey.
   The governments of Bangladesh and Myanmar earlier signed a memorandum of understanding on April 4, 2004 to initially construct the 25km link road — two kilometres in Bangladesh and 23 kilometres in Myanmar — at an estimated cost of Tk 195.85 crore.
   Later in July 2007, the two governments signed another agreement on the proposed road communication between Myanmar and Bangladesh, to be financed by Dhaka.
   The project area includes Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh and the Arakan province of Myanmar. As per the memorandum of understanding, two task forces —technical and financial — were commissioned for the proposed link road.
   The Bangladesh–Myanmar Direct Link Road Project has been initiated by communications ministry of the government of Bangladesh and the Roads and Highways Department is the implementing authority of the project.

Vice-senior general Maung Aye, the vice-chairman of the State Peace and Development Council of Myanmar, is scheduled to arrive in Dhaka this morning on a three-day official visit at the invitation of the chief adviser, Fakhruddin Ahmed.
   During his first-ever visit to Bangladesh, Maung Aye is expected to lead a delegation of more than 50 members including the Myanmar foreign minister, Nyan Win, and some leading businessmen.
   Maung Aye will hold official talks with Fakhruddin Ahmed at the Chief Adviser’s Office Tuesday afternoon preceded by tete-a-tete.
   The talks will cover all issues of bilateral relations and focus mainly on trade and economic ties. Dhaka will also emphasise connectivity, easing visa regime, contract farming and other issues.
   The next-door neighbours may sign several deals after the talks.
   The visit is taking place after Bangladesh and Myanmar signed an agreement in Dhaka in July 2007 to establish a 25km direct road link between the two neighbours to boost trade and tourism.
   The $20m planned Friendship Road from Gundhum in Cox’s Bazar to Baulibazar in Myanmar has also been designed to connect China’s Kunming under a tri-nation road connectivity which will give further access to Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore and to the Asian Highway.
   According to the itinerary, Maung Aye, the deputy commander-in-chief of the defence services and commander-in-chief of the army in Myanmar, will call on the president, Iajuddin Ahmed, at Bangabhaban on October 8.
   On the second day of his visit, the Myanmar general will begin his day by paying tribute to the war of independence martyrs at the National Martyrs’ Memorial at Savar. He will then hold a meeting with the chief of army staff, General Moeen U Ahmed, in the army headquarters and visit the Military Institute of Science and Technology at Mirpur.
   On October 9, Maung Aye, the second highest-ranking member of the Myanmar military regime, will go to Rangamati and stay there until his departure for Yangon from Chittagong in the afternoon.
   Moeen U Ahmed will see the Myanmar leader off at Chittagong Shah Amanat International Airport.
   Maung Aye was scheduled to visit Bangladesh in 2007, but it was cancelled because of unrest in Myanmar after the monks had gone out on nationwide demonstrations against the government.
   After 2002, this will be the third official visit between the two countries. Myanmar SPDC chairman senior general Than Shwe visited Dhaka in December 2002 and in 2003, then Bangladesh prime minister Khaleda Zia went to Yangon.

Ethnic minorities armed with guns and bows and arrows raided a village in Assam, killing three Muslim villagers in the latest clashes, the police said on Monday.
   Another seven people died in hospital after clashes over the weekend died on Monday.
   At least 43 people had lost their lives and thousands left homeless in violence that started over the weekend between indigenous Bodo tribes and Bangladeshi settlers. At least 12 people were killed by police firing.
   More than 1,000 central police have been deployed in the state, but the state government says it still needs more forces to contain the violence.
   The clash has reignited a long-simmering conflict as local Assam tribes, mainly Hindu but with some Christians, fear being overrun by Muslim immigrants. More than 40 per cent of Assam is now Muslim, mainly immigrant settlers.
   The clashes are some of the worst since 1983, when more than 2,000 people, mainly Bangladeshi immigrants, were killed in clashes with tribal peoples in central Assam.
   The current conflict was sparked by an increasingly strong student movement that has been campaigning against immigrants, analysts say.
   More than 100 people have been injured and 50,000 have fled their homes to take refuge in makeshift camps set up by the police.
   ‘Locals are threatened by the growing Muslim population, which is above 40 per cent,’ said Noni Gopal Mahanta, of the Peace and Conflict Studies Centre of Gauhati University.
   ‘There has been simmering tension for quite some time and now the situation is grim,’ Mahanta said.
   The violence is the latest communal violence to hit India. In Orissa, clashes between Hindus and Christians over conversions have killed at least 36 people.
   In Assam, officials have blamed the National Democratic Front of Bodoland, a tribal separatist group, for being behind the violence. Security forces have caught four NDFB militants with weapons in the violence-hit area.
   ‘It’s a pre-planned ethnic cleansing instigated by the NDFB,’ said Himanta Biswa Sarma, a senior minister in Assam.
   The NDFB, a largely Christian group, has held to a ceasefire with New Delhi over the past few years and has denied the charge. Tribal groups blame New Delhi for neglecting their welfare, ignoring development of the region and flooding the area with outsiders.
   Ringed by China, Myanmar, Bangladesh and Bhutan, India’s northeast is home to more than 200 tribes and has been racked by separatist revolts since India gained independence from Britain in 1947.

Clashes between Hindus and Muslims in a western Indian town left at least four people dead and 80 injured, forcing police to impose a curfew, an official said Monday.
   The violence erupted Sunday when some Muslims tore up posters put up by a Hindu group near their shops in Dhule, a town 170 miles northeast of Mumbai, India’s financial and entertainment capital, the police officer Jeet Patel said.
   Local Muslims objected to the posters, which urged Hindus to wake up following a series of bomb blasts across Hindu-majority India. A group calling itself the Indian Mujahideen claimed responsibility for some of the bombings.
   Muslims and Hindus attacked each other with stones and burned several shops, homes and vehicles in the area, Patel said.
   The police fired tear gas and warning shots to disperse the rioters, he said.
   Paramilitary soldiers also were called in to control the mob and a curfew was imposed in the area, Patel said.
   He said three people were killed in the mob violence and one by the police firing.
   Muslims comprise nearly 25 per cent of Dhule’s 550,000 people. Friction and misunderstandings sometimes spark clashes between the two communities, which otherwise live and work together.
   India’s Muslims, who account for about 14 per cent of the country’s population of nearly 1.1 billion, lag far behind the Hindu majority in most social indicators, from literacy to household incomes.

The law ministry has defended as lawful the temporary release of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina by an executive order.
   ‘The law ministry’s opinion on the temporary release of Sheikh Hasina by an executive order was right and made in accordance with the law,’ law adviser AF Hassan Ariff told reporters on Monday. He, however, declined comments when asked, through his assistant personal secretary, about the High Court’s observation that the government had no lawful authority to do so.
   At the hearing of the petition filed by Hasina, also the Awami League president, seeking bail in the Niko and barge-mounted power plant corruption cases on Sunday, the High Court vacation bench of Justice Mohammad Anwarul Haque and Justice Zubayer Rahman Chowdhury made the observation.
   ‘After submission of the charge sheet in any case, the court is the only custodian of the accused who is under trial, and the government cannot interfere [in the matter] in any way as that may derail the trial’, said the court, referring to the Code of Criminal Procedure.
   ‘Traditionally, the hakim issues an order [in respect of] an under-trial accused…Now we see that the government, being the prosecutor, is passing order as a hakim and acting as police’, said the court.
   Deputy attorney-general Mohammad Ali Akhand contended that the government had the power to issue an executive order for release of an under-trial prisoner according to section 401(4A) of the CrPC.
   Dismissing his assertion, the court said, ‘Go through the entire section 401…The provisions the section stipulates [apply to] a person already convicted by a court, not to a person who is under trial.’
   ‘The government has the power to release an under-trial prisoner for a limited period in special circumstances, but cannot allow any person to go beyond the jurisdiction of the trial court’, the court observed.
   The court further said, ‘The trial court put the accused under your (government) custody and you allowed her to go abroad. Now, if the accused goes into hiding, who will take the responsibility?’
   Section 401(4A) of the CrPC reads, ‘The provisions of the above sub-sections [relating to the government’s power to suspend or remit any sentence and to release the convict on conditions] shall also apply to any order passed by a criminal court under any section of this code [CrPC] or of any other law, which restricts the liberty of any person or imposes any liability upon him or his property.’
   But the law ministry viewed that since Hasina’s liberty had been restricted by orders of the courts, the provisions for temporary release by an executive order under section 401(4A) could also be applied to her, according to the ministry sources.
   The court on Sunday, however, said that in such cases the government must take the opinion of the trial court concerned, but no such opinion was taken from any court.
   The home affairs ministry issued an executive order on June 11 releasing Hasina from jail for eight weeks to allow her to take medical treatment abroad.
   The military-controlled interim government on Sunday extended, for the third time, the temporary release of Sheikh Hasina by another month, a day before the expiry of the second extension. ‘Sheikh Hasina’s parole has been extended again from October 6 to November 6’, said a home ministry order on the day.
   The AL chief was arrested by the army-led joint forces at her residence in Dhaka on July 16, 2007 on charge of extortion. She is now facing trials in five cases in which she has been exempted from personal appearance in the court.

Proshika chief Quazi Faruque Ahmed will launch a political party styled United Citizens Movement tomorrow under the state of emergency.
   ‘We will formally launch a political party on October 8,’ Quazi Faruque told New Age. ‘We have got approval from the government to hold the launching ceremony at the Institution of Engineers Bangladesh.’
   He claimed that UCM had already formed committees in 36 districts and 165 upazilas. It had also opened offices in most of the 36 districts, he said.
   Some offices of Proshika, a non-governmental organisation, including the Bogra office, were used as meeting venues for preparatory works of the new party, according to our correspondent in Bogra.
   The council session of the UCM Bogra district unit was held at the hall room of the Proshika district office on September 26.
   A section of Proshika employees were also involved with the Rajshahi district committee of the new party, according to our correspondent in Rajshahi.
   Rajshahi district UCM president Aminur Rahman, however, declined to reply to questions on involvement of the Proshika employees in the party.
   About use of Proshika offices, its resources and network, Quazi Faruque told New Age that Proshika offices, its resources and network won’t be used for the party.
   He, however, said he would continue as chairman of the NGO. ‘I’m neither a paid employee nor chief executive of Proshika. There is independent management to run the organisation,’ he claimed.
   Quazi Faruque told reporters at the makeshift office of the party at Mirpur that the main aims of his party would be to fight for the rights of the poor, reduce poverty, ensure basic rights and restore democracy.
   ‘Poor labourers, professionals, women and freedom fighters are the blood and basic strength of our new political platform,’ he said.
   Faruque said UCM would formally register with the Election Commission as a political party and contest the parliamentary elections slated for December 18.
   UCM had been working for about 12 years to establish democracy and fight for the rights of the poor, reduce poverty and defend basic rights, according to a release.
   Faruque’s attempt to use an NGO for launching a political party follows a similar but failed attempt to do so last year by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, head of Grameen Bank, the country’s top micro-credit provider.
   Half a dozen new political parties were launched in a year under the state of emergency. The parties were formed in keeping with the new political order on the basis of the January 11, 2007 changeover.
   The parties are Progressive Democratic Party led by Ferdaus Ahmad Quarishi, Bangladesh Welfare Party led by Syed Muhammad Ibrahim, National People’s Party of Sheikh Shawkat Hossain Nilu, Guardian Party and Bangladesh Naya Samaj Dal.

The BNP secretary general, Khandaker Delwar Hossain, on Monday said charges had been pressed against the party chairperson Khaleda Zia in the Barapukuria coalmine graft case in a bid to blackmail her into agreeing something she was unwilling to accept.
   ‘They are trying to blackmail her and force her to do something she is unwilling to agree. It aims to prevent her from contesting the polls’, Delwar said adding that holding of a fair election would not be possible by issuing threats of conviction.
   Delwar made the allegations while talking to newsmen at his Sher-e-Bangla Nagar flat in the afternoon. The Anti-Corruption Commission on Wednesday approved the charge sheet against Khaleda Zia, also former prime minister, and 15 others, including ten of her cabinet colleagues, in the case accusing them of corruption in giving the contract for operation of the Barapukuria coalmine to a Chinese company.
   Although the first investigation officer did not find sufficient evidence for pressing charges against Khaleda, the charge sheet was framed after changing the investigation officer which exposed the ‘ill motive’ of the government and the Anti-Corruption Commission, Delwar said.
   He called ‘farce’ the trials under the emergency power rules and demanded that all such trials should be held under general laws.
   ‘The court will judge the merit of the case but as a law practitioner, I can say it
   [Barapukuria mine graft case] has no merit…,’ he said.
   ‘Khaleda was not involved in any irregularities. What she did was that she had approved the recommendations of the purchase committee’, he said.
   Delwar also ridiculed the remarks of election commissioner Sohul Hossain that till now there was no bar to Khaleda’s contesting the polls. ‘We do not want to contest the polls at anybody’s mercy. We want to participate in the polls as per the legal provisions’, he said.
   The BNP secretary general said creating an environment conducive to elections was the responsibility of the government and the Election Commission. ‘They should not do anything that hinders a congenial atmosphere.’
   ‘The state of emergency must be lifted before the elections in order to remove the fear from the minds of the people…,’ he said.
   ‘The government is talking much about creating a level playing field and for it they have to meet all the five demands of our alliance’, he said referring to the BNP-led alliance’s five-point charter of demands.
   Delwar demanded withdrawal of all ‘false’ cases filed against the politicians.
   When asked for comments on the views of acting Awami League general secretary Syed Ashraful Islam that he had no doubt that elections would be held in December, Delwar said, ‘It is his [Ashraful] opinion and I am representing our parties. People will judge who is right or wrong.’
   Party joint secretary general Selima Rahman and office secretary Rizvi Ahmed were present.

The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court on Monday refused to entertain the Anti-Corruption Commission’s petitions to halt the High Court orders that had granted bail to seven politicians and businessmen and stayed proceedings in 15 graft cases.
   Appellate Division chamber judge Justice Md Joynul Abedin, however, asked the ACC to file regular petitions seeking permission to appeal against the High Court orders. The court passed the order after hearing provisional petitions filed by the ACC for halting the High Court orders.
   The corruption suspects, whose bail was not stayed by the Appellate Division, are former ministers Moudud Ahmed, Mirza Abbas and Mohiuddin Khan Alamgir, ex-MPs Mosaddak Ali Falu and Mirza Azam, who has already been released, and businessmen Gias Uddin Al Mamun and Giridhari Lal Modi.
   Meanwhile, the High Court vacation bench of Justice AKM Fazlur Rahman and Justice Sheikh Abdul Awal on the day extended the bail granted earlier to 75 people, including former prime minister Khaleda Zia’s eldest son Tarique Rahman, in separate cases.

The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court on Monday posted for October 12 the hearing in the appeal filed by Awami League president, Sheikh Hasina, which challenged the High Court order that had rejected her bail in the Tk 5 crore extortion case.
   Justice Joynul Abedin, the judge of the Appellate Division chamber, passed the order after hearing the petition in which Hasina also sought bail in the extortion case on health grounds.
   On September 24, the High Court vacation bench of Justice Sheikh Rezwan Ali and Justice M Rais Uddin rejected Hasina’s bail petition.
   Hasina, who is now in the United States for medical treatment after being released by an executive order on June 11, filed the petition seeking bail in the case on September 21.
   The Unique Group managing director, Noor Ali, lodged the case with the Tejgaon police on June 13, 2007, accusing Hasina, her cousin Sheikh Helal and Helal’s wife Rupa Chowdhury of extorting Tk 5 crore from him.
   The three were accused of taking Tk 5 crore for helping Noor’s firm to win a contract of the Power Development Board in 1997.
   The army-led joint forces arrested Hasina at Sudha Sadan on July 16, 2007 and sent her to jail on the day, showing her arrested in a Tk 2.99 crore ‘extortion’ case filed by businessman Azam J Chowdhury with the Gulshan police on June 13, 2007.
   She was later shown arrested in the extortion case filed by Noor Ali.

The Awami League acting president, Zillur Rahman, Monday accused the government of hatching a conspiracy to keep Sheikh Hasina away from elections.
   ‘The government may have an evil design to prevent Sheikh Hasina from taking part in the general election,’ Zillur said.
   His remarks came when journalists at his Gulshan residence sought his reaction to BNP secretary general Khandaker Delwar Hossain’s comments that the government was working in such a way so that Khaleda and Hasina cannot participate in the elections.
   ‘Our stand is very clear that the Awami League won’t contest the upcoming parliamentary polls without Sheikh Hasina,’ he said.
   Awami League presidium member Abdur Razzak was with their acting chief at that time.
   Zillur Rahman also charged the government with defying High Court orders regarding the proceedings of cases against Hasina and her release on bail.
   He said it was very unfortunate that the government was behaving in an undemocratic manner while dealing with the cases of Hasina.
   Zillur Rahman welcomed the fresh amendments to the Representation of People’s Order Ordinance’ 2008, but said the motive behind the reforms had to be made clear before everything.
   Abdur Razzak alleged that the government was showing a discriminatory attitude towards the Awami League and its allies.

South Korea’s food watchdog has ordered China-manufactured snacks from Nestle SA and Mars Inc to be taken off shelves after detecting melamine in their samples, it said on Saturday.
   The Korea Food and Drug Administration said 2.38 parts per million and 1.78 ppm of the substance were found in M&M’s milk chocolate snack and Snickers peanut Fun Size, both produced by Mars and manufactured in China.
   ‘We are urgently recalling the products due to melamine detection,’ KFDA said in a statement.
   Mars said it was temporarily withdrawing the products from the Korean market because it was legally obliged to do so and that the melamine levels announced by the KFDA did not pose a health risk.
   Kit Kat bars from Nestle were also found carrying 2.89 ppm of melamine, bringing the total number of melamine-detected items to 10 in Seoul.
   Nestle said the KFDA asked it to withdraw one batch of mini Kit Kat made in China from the market, after their tests detected minute traces of melamine in a single batch out of eight Nestle confectionery items tested. No melamine was detected in the other seven products, the company said.
   ‘The company immediately complied with the authorities’ request, even though this product is absolutely safe by recognised international standards,’ Nestle said in a statement.
   ‘South Korea has no regulations on maximum levels of melamine in food, and the conditions under which the South Korean authorities conducted their tests are unclear,’ it added.
   Melamine, widely used in kitchen utensils, can pose serious health risks if consumed in large quantities. At least four children in China died after drinking tainted infant milk formula last month.
   KFDA said it is currently examining 428 processed products manufactured in China. It had completed checks on 288 items as of Saturday.

The Rapid Action Battalion arrested a student of Dhaka Medical College and his associate in possession of a huge quantity of contraband Yaba tablets at Gulshan in Dhaka early Monday.
   The team seized Yaba tablets worth Tk 2.47 lakh and seven cellular phone sets from their possession.
   The arrested are Sayyed Shaqibul Hasan Shaqib, 27, of Gulshan and an MBBS from Dhaka Medical College Hospital and his associate Abdus Salam Rajon alias Shuvo, 22 of Banani and also an honours student of Government Titumir College in Dhaka.
   The RAB sources said a RAB-1 team raided the Shahabuddin Medical College area under the Gulshan police station at around 2:00am and arrested Shaqib and Shuvo along with 80 pieces of Yaba tablets.
   Based on their confessional statements, the RAB team also recovered 1,400 more Yaba tablets, Tk 2.47 lakh and seven cellular phone sets from Shuvo’s Amtoli residence.
   During primary interrogation, the arrested admitted that they have been collecting the Yaba tablets from different bordering areas and supplying them to different posh areas in the city since long.
   A case was filed with the Gulshan police.
   RAB-1, captain SM Mahbubul Alam Murad told New Age that they came to know that a good number of medical students are addicted to contraband Yaba tablets and one of their seniors supply the tablets to them on the college campus.
   Shaqib confessed that he is in the business since he got admission in DMCH. He used to collect Yaba from Yaba baron Amin Huda but as Huda is now behind the bar, he collected them from one Joy of Teknaf.
   He also confessed that in the beginning he supplied Yaba only to the medical college campus but later on he supplied the drug to the Gulshan, Banani, Baridhara, Uttara and DOHS areas for more profit.
   RAB director general Hassan Mahmood Khandkar told New Age, ‘We will continue our drives against Yaba peddling.’

The interim government has revoked its February 14 order which allowed the students to take SSC and HSC exams without passing the qualifying exams, according to an education ministry circular issued on Monday.
   ‘We have faced severe criticism from different quarters immediately after issuance of the February 14, 2008 order which allows the students to take secondary and higher secondary certificate exams without passing the qualifying exams,’ a joint-secretary of the ministry told New Age Monday.
   The circular has asked educational institutions to make it mandatory for the students to take the pre-tests and tests before sitting for public exams. ‘The institutions can take model tests as per requirement but no fees can be taken from the students for such tests,’ the circular said.
   ‘In the February 14 order, the ministry cancelled an order issued in October 19, 2003 which made it mandatory for the students to pass the qualifying tests to take the SSC and HSC exams conducted by the education boards,’ the joint-secretary said.
   ‘As the schools will give qualifying tests from next week, we have cancelled the February 14 order and issued a fresh order to make an end to criticism,’ the joint secretary said, adding, ‘Copy of the circular has been sent to all the education boards and the upazila secondary education officers have been asked to convey of the matter to all the institutions under his/her jurisdiction,’.
   ‘Before the February 14, 2008 order, the ministry on November 6, 2007 issued an order asking the institutions to implement the October 2003 order strictly. The February 14, 2008 order was issued at the recommendations of an intelligence agency,’ chairman of an education board said.
   ‘The number of successful candidates increased significantly in the past five years as the students who passed the qualifying tests were given the chance to take the public exams,’ the chairman said, ‘If the February 14 circular was not cancelled, a huge number of students would take the public exams without adequate preparations and would eventually fail, pushing up the number of unsuccessful candidates,’ he said.
   Nearly 10 lakh students take the SSC and equivalent exams and above five lakh students HSC and equivalent exams every year under nine education boards of the country.

Two French scientists who discovered the AIDS virus and a German who found the virus that causes cervical cancer were awarded the 2008 Nobel prize for medicine or physiology on Monday.
   Luc Montagnier, director of the World Foundation for AIDS Research and Prevention, and Francoise Barre-Sinoussi of the Institut Pasteur won half the prize of 10 million Swedish crowns ($1.4 million) for discovering the deadly virus that has killed millions of people since it was identified in the 1980s.
   Harald zur Hausen of the University of Duesseldorf and a former director of the German Cancer Research Centre shared the other half of the prize for work that went against the current dogma as to the cause of cervical cancer.
   ‘The three laureates have discovered two new viruses of great importance and the result of that has led to an improved global health,’ said Jan Andersson, a member of the Nobel Assembly at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute.
   ‘We have reached two of the laureates, the two men, and they were both very, very happy. As far as I know Francoise has not yet been reached,’ Andersson told a news conference.
   The award marks a vote for Montagnier in a long-running dispute over who discovered and identified the virus, Montagnier or Dr Robert Gallo, then of the US National Cancer Institute.
   Montagnier and Gallo each accused the other of working with contaminated samples and it took a meeting of two presidents — then Jacques Chirac of France and Ronald Reagan of the United States — to persuade the National Institutes of Health and the Institut Pasteur to share royalties for the discovery and for the two researchers to agree to share the credit in 1987.
   When Montagnier and Barre-Sinoussi began their research in the early 1980s, a hitherto undocumented immune deficiency syndrome began striking down victims in the west.
   The institute said the French researchers isolated and cultured cells from patients with swollen lymph nodes characteristic of the early stage of acquired immune deficiency.
   By 1984, they had obtained samples of the retrovirus from a variety of people. These included people who had been infected from sexual contact, haemophiliacs, patients who had received blood transfusions and infants who had contracted the disease from their mothers.
   The researchers found the virus infected and killed lymphocytes from both diseased and healthy donors and reacted with antibodies from infected patients. Their findings also helped explain how HIV impaired the immune system.
   Zur Hausen was recognised for research based on his idea that oncogenic human papilloma virus, or HPV, caused cervical cancer, the second most common cancer among women.
   Zur Hausen, who began his research in the 1970s, assumed that if HPV was causing the cancer it should be possible to detect it by searching tumour cells for a specific viral DNA.
   For 10 years, Zur Hausen searched for different human papilloma virus types, detecting them in cervix cancer biopsies. The virus types he found, and later cloned, are found in about 70 percent of cervical cancer biopsies around the world.
   ‘More than 5 per cent of all cancers worldwide are caused by persistent infection with this virus,’ the Nobel assembly said.
   An estimated 500,000 women are diagnosed with the disease each year and about 300,000 die from it, mostly in the developing world. Merck & Co’s Gardasil and GlaxoSmithKline’s Cervarix are vaccines that protect against some strains of the virus.
   Medicine is traditionally the first of the Nobel prizes awarded each year. The prizes for achievement in science, literature and peace were first awarded in 1901 in accordance with the will of dynamite inventor and businessman Alfred Nobel. An economics prize was established in 1968.

Awami League presidium member Abdur Razzak alleged that the Representation of the People (Amendment) Order was being further modified to benefit ‘a party of anti-liberation elements’.
   ‘We have come to know that the authorities are taking steps to make further changes in the just amended RPO to specially benefit a particular political party,’ Razzak said addressing a programme organised Monday morning to distribute saris among destitute women at the Ram Sita Temple at Tikatuli in Dhaka on the occasion of Durga Puja. The proposal for further amendment to the RPO was, however, approved by the council of advisers at its meeting in the afternoon.
   Asked to mention the name of the ‘particular political party’, Razzak indicating to Jamaat-e-Islami, Bangladesh said: ‘Everyone knows them; they are the anti-liberation elements who have termed the war of independence as a civil war and those who have not yet sought apology for their misdeeds during the war in 1971.’
   These elements are actively whipping up religious fanaticism and nurturing and encouraging communal feelings, he added.
   Razzak, however, told New Age that the Awami League would also gain benefit from the proposed further amendment to the RPO and register the party with the Election Commission after holding the party’s working committee meeting. The party, according to the proposed revision, will hold its council session after six months, he said.
   According the amendment proposal, the political parties will be allowed to get registered with the Election Commission by adopting a resolution that the party constitution would be amended holding its council session within six months. The party’s central committee will make the resolution in its meeting.
   Asked to explain the reason for opposing the proposed amendment, Razzak said, ‘Jamaat-e-Islami is demanding scraping the amended RPO and they also oppose the party registration while the Election Commission is mulling over changes in the amended RPO to benefit the party, which is by no way a democratic political party.’
   He, however, did not specify the sections in the amended RPO that would benefit Jamaat in particular.

A suicide bomber killed 15 people and wounded a Pakistani opposition politician on Monday in the latest attack to underscore the threat posed by Taliban and al-Qaeda militants.
   The attacker blew himself up in a crowd of people at the house of Rashid Akbar Nowani, a minority Shia MP from the party of former premier Nawaz Sharif, in the town of Bhakkar in Punjab province, the police said.
   Pakistan’s new civilian government is fighting a wave of Islamist violence blamed on militants in the tribal belt bordering Afghanistan, and is also under intense US pressure to crack down on the extremists.
   ‘It was a suicide attack, the head of the bomber has been recovered,’ senior police officer Khadim Hussain said.
   ‘The bomber walked up to the MP’s house and detonated himself in the midst of a crowd of party workers, supporters and relatives,’ Hussain said.
   Local police chief Iqbal Qureshi said the death toll had risen to 15.
   Hospital officials said at least 60 people were hurt, including Nowani, who suffered leg injuries.
   Television pictures showed corpses wrapped in cloth and placed on rudimentary beds after the attack, while the blast left pieces of flesh stuck to a ceiling fan.
   There was no immediate claim of responsibility.
   But officials said the MP may have been targeted because he is from the Shiite Muslim community and lives in an area where there have been frequent sectarian attacks blamed on al-Qaeda and Taliban-linked Sunni militants.
   The blast came just four days after a suicide bomber detonated explosives outside the house of a senior member of Pakistan’s ruling coalition in a northwestern town, killing four people.
   That politician, prominent anti-Taliban campaigner and Awami National Party leader Asfandyar Wali Khan, narrowly survived the attack when his bodyguard jumped on the bomber.
   Militants also fired rockets Sunday at the family house of the chief minister of troubled North West Frontier Province, Amir Haider Khan Hoti, but caused no casualties.

The Power Division today places before the cabinet purchase committee the proposal to select the lone bidder for the installation of 450MW Bibiyana independent power plant.
   The committee, headed by finance adviser Mirza Azizul Islam, is expected to give its decision to select the consortium of the Powertek Berhad of Malaysia, Siemens Project Ventures of Germany and the Korea Electric Power Company for installing the plant, division officials said.
   ‘If the purchase committee approves the selection of the consortium, it will be awarded the contract to set up the plant from which the Power Development Board will buy electricity for 22 years,’ said a division official.
   The consortium offered to sell power to PDB at a ‘levelised tariff rate’ of 4.5394 cents a kilowatt-hour or about Tk 3.15.
   The rate offered by the
   lone bidder is much higher than that of the two existing large independent power plants.
   The price is also much higher than that of the PDB’s bulk
   tariff.
   The power board might need to pay $1208.51 million or approximately Tk 8,500 crore more for the Bibiyana power in comparison to the existing 450MW Meghnaghat Power Plant.
   The division in its proposal observed that the government would have to incur a loss of Tk 110 crore each year if it purchased power from Bibiyana as PDB’s selling price was lower than the Powertek’s offered rate.

Two strong earthquakes killed at least 102 people in Kyrgyzstan and China’s Himalayan region of Tibet on Monday, officials said.
   Rescuers raced to reach a remote village in Kyrgyzstan after a strong earthquake killed at least 72 people in a mountainous area near the border with China, officials said.
   At least 30 people were killed in the strong earthquake that struck China’s Himalayan region of Tibet, state media reported, citing local government sources.
   The earthquake struck at 4:30pm (0830 GMT) in a sparsely populated area about 84 kilometres west of the Tibetan capital of Lhasa, the US Geological Survey said.
   US seismologists initially put the magnitude of the quake at 6.6, but later revised that down to 6.3.
   The tremor in Tibet came after a 6.6-magnitude quake struck near China’s border with Kyrgyzstan. Shortly thereafter, another strong earthquake rattled China’s far northwest.
   ‘Right now the number of dead is 72,’ the deputy emergency situations minister, Turatbek Dzhunuchaliyev, said in a press conference.
   He added that more than 60 people needed urgent hospitalisation and 128 houses had been ruined in the quake, which was felt as far away as the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek, about 400 kilometres away.
   Emergency officials said earlier that more than 100 people had been injured, mostly in Nura, a village of some 960 residents close to the point where the borders of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and China intersect.
   ‘The picture we saw was frightening. The village of Nura is fully destroyed, 100 per cent,’ the emergency situations minister, Kamchybek Tashiyev, said.
   ‘These were dilapidated houses, made of clay and straw, so they were totally destroyed,’ Kanatbek Abdrakhmatov, head of the Institute of Seismology in Bishkek, said.
   Victims were being ferried by helicopter from Nura to the main regional city of Osh, 220 kilometres away.
   ‘The helicopter will make as many flights as needed to transport wounded people needing medical attention to the regional centre,’ said Tashiyev.
   Rescue workers and doctors were also treating people on the scene and the International Committee of the Red Cross had given victims food, tents and blankets, Dzhunuchaliyev said.
   But rescue efforts were being hampered by the remoteness of the village and a lack of telephone links with it, while roads had become impassable in some places due to the quake, officials said.
   ‘Efforts to assist the victims are being complicated by the distance of the villages... from hospitals, by a lack of communications and by the destruction of the roads,’ said health ministry official Dinara Sagynbayeva.
   The US Geological Survey said the epicentre of the earthquake was 60 east-southeast of Sary-Tash at a depth of 27.6 kilometres.
   An aftershock of magnitude 5.1 hit the region just over two hours later, the USGS said.
   The Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, offered his condolences in a telegram to his Kyrgyz counterpart Kurmanbek Bakiyev and ordered Russian rescuers to assist the relief effort, the Kremlin said in a statement.
   Medvedev was to visit Kyrgyzstan on Thursday for a summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States, a grouping of former Soviet republics.
   Kyrgyzstan, a landlocked and mountainous nation of five million people, is one of the poorest states of the former Soviet Union and lies in a seismically active region.
   In February 2003, a 6.8 magnitude earthquake in northwest China, with an epicentre close to Kyrgyzstan in the foothills of the Tian Shan mountains, claimed 268 lives and razed 20,000 houses.
   Soon after Sunday’s quake a moderate tremor with a magnitude of 5.7 hit China’s far northwest, just over the border with Kyrgyzstan.

Norway’s telecoms giant Telenor, which has 62 per cent stake in Grameenphone, is eager to invest more in Bangladesh, the company’s top official was quoted to have told the chief adviser Monday.
   The Telenor chairman, Harald Norvik, accompanied by the chief executive, Fredik Baksaas, and a member of the board, met Fakhruddin at the latter’s office.
   ‘This was just a courtesy meeting, and they discussed possibilities of new investment and GP’s planned IPO,’ said a senior government official, who attended the meeting and did not want to be named.
   The government official, however, said the meeting did not mention the on-going dispute between Muhammad Yunus and the world’s seventh largest mobile phone company over the management and ownership of $3.2 billion Grameenphone, Bangladesh’s biggest.
   Their visit follows an announcement last month that the Grameenphone CEO, Anders Jensen, would leave the company by the end of the year ‘for personal reasons’.
   Grameenphone said this was a regular visit by the top Telenor officials. They arrived Monday morning and met the head of government hours later.
   Telenor has businesses - mobile, fixed phone, broadband and boadcast services - in 12 countries, with a subscriber base of 150 million.

The United Nations is likely to send election observers for the general elections slated for December 2008 even if it is held under the state of emergency.
   ‘The UN will most probably send officials to monitor the elections,’ said UN resident coordinator Renata Lok Dessalian after she had called on foreign adviser Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury at the ministry Monday afternoon.
   The top UN official in the country also argued that the city and municipality elections were held ‘peacefully under such a situation [state of emergency]’.
   Renata was hopeful that the government would work out a way so that the people could vote without any fear and intimidation.
   ‘I am positive that the government will devise a methodology whereby people can vote freely without intimidation and the parities can also have the freedom to conduct their campaigns unimpeded,’ she added.
   Renata also discussed with the adviser the forthcoming visit of UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon to Bangladesh early November.
   They also discussed Bangladesh’s overall participation in the 63rd session of the UN General Assembly, which Iftekhar said was significant.

A man suspected of having links with an ultra-left outfit was killed in ‘crossfire’ between his associates and the police at Bisaykhali Bazar in Jhenaidah early Monday.
   The deceased was Mohidul Islam, 30, a resident of Kanchannagar of the upazila.
   The police superintendent, Jahangir Hossain Matabbar, said the Detective Branch had arrested Mohidul at Damodarpur of Kaliganj Sunday afternoon.
   Based on his statement, they went out with Mohidul at 2:30am to recover firearms from a place at Bisaykhali. When the police reached a brick kiln, Mohidul’s associates fired on the lawmen, prompting them to fire back. Mohidul was caught in the ‘crossfire’ and was killed.
   The police seized two shutter guns, a light gun, two bombs and ten bullets from the spot.
   Mohidul is accused in several cases, the police said, adding that he was an operative of the Biplobi Communist Party.

The Truth and Accountability Commission resumed hearing clemency pleas of corrupt individuals, who voluntarily confess their graft and pledge to return the ill-gotten assets to the state exchequer, after Eid holidays on Monday.
   With the examination of four individuals on the day, the TAC took testimony of 140 individuals since it had started its functions on September 1, the TAC chairman, Justice Habibur Rahman Khan, told New Age.
   Most of the individuals, who have so far appeared before the TAC, are lower-grade employees of the government, mainly from the registration department, Bangladesh Road Transport Authority and Titas Gas, to avoid criminal proceedings against them for their wrongdoings.
   The TAC last week vented frustration as no ‘big fishes’ appeared before it to seek clemency ever since it came into effect for a five-month term.
   It, however, extended the timeline till October 30 for the mercy seekers to file petitions, hoping that the corrupt officials, politicians and businessmen will come to get clemency certificates from the TAC, a TAC official said.
   The commission had received 252 petitions, mostly referred from the Anti-Corruption Commission and the National Coordination Committee on serious crime and corruption, from individuals until the Eid holidays had begun on October 1.
   Asked whether any politician or businessman applied for clemency after the holidays, an official replied in the negative.
   The TAC has ordered that over Tk 16.44 crore, declared by the mercy seekers, be deposited to the exchequer. About 25 per cent of the clemency seekers have already deposited their money to the government exchequer, TAC sources said.