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The government has decided to raise railway fares and freight rates after a gap of 17 years to cut down losses of the Bangladesh Railway.
   A 10-member committee, headed by a joint secretary of the Ministry of Communications, has already been formed and asked to submit its recommendations and the new rates to the government before the end of this month, said BR’s officials.
   The previous governments had for long felt the necessity of increasing the BR’s rates, but no initiative was taken until the present government’s move in spite of the huge losses incurred by railway service over the years.
   The BR’s officials said that it is imperative for the government to increase the fares and freight charges to reduce the continuous operational losses of their beleaguered organisation.
   The BR incurred losses of estimated sums of Tk 546 crore in the 2008-09 fiscal year, Tk 527 crore in 2007-08 and Tk 481 crore in 2006-07.
   The additional chief commercial manager of BR, Habibur Rahman, told New Age that the organisation had not increased fares and freight charges since 1992.
   The minimum price of a ticket for travelling from Dhaka to Chittagong on a mail train is Tk 72 and Tk 150 on an inter-city train. Several years ago the BR included value added tax in the fares of air-conditioned coach services, which did not have any impact on the mass-level passengers.
   Rahman pointed out that, on an average, 20 to 30 per cent hike of the rates was needed to bring down the BR’s operation losses to a tolerable level.
   The communications ministry has asked the committee to fix the proposed charges after analysing BR’s operational cost and income. It has also asked the committee to suggest how to reduce the amount of subsidy that the government has long been providing to the BR.
   The BR’s officials said that the railway is still regarded as the principal mode of transport in the country despite the speedy development of road transport facilities.
   Some 50 million people, which is only seven per cent of the country’s total number of passengers, availed themselves of train service in the last fiscal year. The BR also carried freight amounting to 3,206,000 tonnes in the 2004-2005 fiscal year, which is only 13 per cent of the freight carried in the country.
   Its share of passengers was 70 per cent and of freight 43 per cent in the seventies.
   There were 4,478 accidents in the seven years between 2000 and 2007 or 640 a year or nearly two a day. One hundred and seventy-two people were killed in these accidents.
   A reform project of $740 million was implemented since 2007 to revive the past glory of the BR. The fund, loaned by the multinational donors, will be used to replace the outdated signalling system, lay new rail tracks and procure new locomotives and coaches. But the progress of the project was slowed down by bureaucratic tangles in recent times.

None of the six successive governments – political and interim ones —has formally withdrawn the ‘repressive’ lawsuits filed against some 2,524 leaders and combatants of Parbatya Chattagram Jana Sanghati Samiti who had returned to normal life after signing of the landmark CHT Treaty 12 years ago.
   Ethic minority leaders in the CHT say although the treaty, signed on December 2, 1997, stipulated lifting of all cases filed against ethnic minority people during two decades of bush war, the authorities failed to publish any gazette to this effect as of now.
   There are still a total of 114 cases pending with courts and the government remained silent on those cases, said a report released by the JSS, a political platform of 12 ethnic minority groups, on the state of progress in the treaty implementation.
   Immediately after the peace deal, the JSS had provided a list to the government of 999 criminal cases lodged against its activists, most of whom were tried in absentia during the insurgency, asking the authorities for their withdrawal, said a former combatant.
   ‘The then Awami League government had sorted out 720 cases for withdrawal, but no official gazette was published to this effect in last 12 years,’ Rupayan Dewan, a leader of the JSS told New Age, venting his frustration over insincerity of the successive governments.
   He, however, hoped that the present Awami League-led coalition government would be careful to implement the treaty since the AL during its previous tenure had signed the CHT peace deal, allowing peaceful life of the people of the hill districts.
   Furthermore, none of the cases filed and tried in military courts has so far been lifted, said the report, adding that repression in different forms by the security forces on hills people were still on.
   A number of appeals for presidential mercy against convictions are stalled at the home ministry, said the JSS, which among others has taken up elaborate programmes to mark the day of treaty signing.
   The United People’s Democratic Front, a platform formed by dissident ethnic minorities in 1998 asking for full autonomy for the three hill districts that accounts for one-tenth of the country’s total land area, this time round has decided to support the reform programme of the government although it has long been observing the day as a “black day”.
   ‘It is our firm believe that restoration of peace in the hills is possible through full implementation of the treaty,’ Ujjal Smrity Chakma, convenor of the UPDF Khagrachhari unit, told New Age apparently shifting its earlier position on the deal.
   The government has also taken up different programmes in the hill districts apparently to show its sincerity towards implementation of the treaty as the ruling party in its election manifesto pledged for full implementation of the deal.
   The JSS report lauded some of the government’s efforts in last 11 months, saying it was not enough yet.
   The government must focus on some fundamental aspects of the CHT for social and economic emancipation of the hills people, it added.
   Till now the CHT has no recognition as being a predominantly ethnic minority region and no measures have been taken to preserve their cultures and heritage in line with the deal, said the ethnic minority leaders, asking the government to take effective measures to preserve the heritage of the region.
   They alleged that the settlers from the plains have continued streaming into the region causing break up of social fabrics of the hills inhabited mainly by the indigenous groups.
   They observed that a little progress has been made in the past years in dismantling temporary military camps, empowerment of the regional council, elections to the three hill district councils, settlement of land disputes by setting up a functional commission and rehabilitation of the repatriated refugees and internally displaced people.
   The JSS report also asked the government to take measures for introduction of special administrative arrangements under the CHT regional council, remove land disputes, start demilitarisation by lifting all temporary army bases and shutting the army-run operation ‘Uttaran’ and pacification scheme; and rehabilitation of internally displaced people to restore peace in the hills.
   There is no alternative to full implementation of the treaty for social and economic development of the people, said the chairman of CHT Regional Council, Joytirindra Bodhiprio Larma, who had once led the armed wing of the JSS.
   The ethnic minority leaders alleged at least 15 main provisions of the treaty were not addressed by the past governments – the Awami League between 1996 and 2001, the Latifur Rahman-led caretaker government in 2001, the BNP-led alliance government between 2001 and 2006, Iajuddin Ahmed-led caretaker government in 2006-07, and the military-backed government of Fakhruddin Ahmed.
   Assuming the office, the present AL regime reconstituted the land commission and taskforce on rehabilitation of refugees and internally displaced persons, lifted 35 out of over 500 temporary army camps and formed a high-powered committee to see implementation of the peace treaty.
   The signing of the peace accord between the government and the JSS ended two decades of armed conflicts in the CHT.
   As per the treaty, the Shanti Bahini, the armed guerrilla wing of the JSS, was dissolved and its combatants returned to normal life when the government pledged implementation of the clauses of the treaty to improve the life of the hill people.
   A total of 1,947 combatants retuned to normal life after formally surrendering their arms at a function at Khagrachari Stadium in early 1998. Some seventy-eight combatants were given job in the police forces, but 66 of them quit the force without giving any reasons, according to available statistics.

After primary investigation the local administration concluded that the main reason for the capsizing of Koko-4 on Friday, that caused the death of at least 76 persons, was gross overloading.
   The flagrantly over-crowded Bhola-bound launch from Dhaka capsized partially in Tentulia near Nazirpur launch station in Lalmohon upazila, some 40 kilometres from Bhola district.
   The report also mentioned that the launch was carrying over 2,000 passengers though it has the capacity to accommodate only 446 passengers in the day and 307 at night.
   The report, prepared by Bhola’s superintendent of police SN Mohammad Nazrul Islam, said that it was the v-shaped design of the hull which had caused the accident. But some persons who are in the shipping business dismissed his conclusion and pointed out that the launch’s design was top-heavy, which had caused it to tilt and capsize. The hull should have been broader or the launch should have had only one or two decks in order to keep the centre of gravity as low as possible, they said. They also said that a v-shaped hull is held to be one of the most stable designs by naval architects.
   Most of the passengers moved to one side of the decks when the launch was anchored 100 yards away from the bank to collect fares from the passengers who did not have tickets, so at one stage the vessel lost its balance and capsized, according to the primary findings.
   The death toll might rise as many passengers are still missing, said the report.
   Shipping minister Shahjahan Khan opined that the death toll was so high because the passengers were pent up in the cabins to make it easier for the crew to collect fares from all of them. ‘The launch operators’ greed for maximum profit is the main reason for the launch disasters,’ he told New Age.
   A murder case was filed against nine crewmen of Koko-4 and 15-20 others who were not named with the Lalmohon thana on Monday night.
   Kamal Hossain, a resident of Kazirabad of Lalmohan, filed the case. He mentioned that the accused persons had stopped the passengers from getting down from the launch. He also pointed out that they, for profit maximisation in a pre-planned manner, had created the conditions which caused the accident, which is tantamount to homicide.
   The Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority (BIWTA) on Tuesday suspended three of its officials due to inordinate delay in the arrival of rescue vessel Hamza at the scene of the accident.
   The suspended officials are Abdur Razzak, acting director (River Conservancy), Md Shahjahan Khan, senior deputy director and commander of rescue vessel Hamza, Rafiqul Islam, Barisal’s port officer and a deputy director of the BIWTA. They were also served show-cause notices.
   Hamza took more than 24 hours to reach the scene at 11:00am on Sunday after setting off from Barisal the previous morning.
   Sources said the suspended officials had been out of station to enjoy Eid vacation without informing the concerned authorities, and the director of river conservancy and pilotage had gone to perform Hajj and his official mobile phone had not been handed over to acting director, which caused the inordinate delay and lack of coordination in the rescue and salvage operations.
   Besides Hamza another rescue vessel, the MV Rustam, will start salvage operation on Tuesday evening. Rustam has already sailed from Narayanganj and is expected to join Hamza in the evening.
   The committee for probing the Lalmohon launch disaster at Bhola has been reconstituted with Jayanta Kumar Nandi, joint secretary of the shipping, heading the seven-member body.
   The ministry had formed a five-member committee headed by Baitul Amin Bhuiyan, deputy secretary of the shipping ministry, on Saturday.
   The reconstituted probe body was asked to submit its report on the causes of the accident and losses within seven working days.
   The shipping minister said he expected to get the report before next Sunday and action would be taken after receiving it. ‘If the report finds of faults in the design of launch and fitness problems, then we will go for stern action against the launch owners,’ Shahjahan Khan told New Age.
   The Koko-4 is owned by Arafat Rahman Koko, the younger son of BNP chairperson and former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia.
   The authorities concerned have provided Tk 3,000 for the burial of each body and the food and disaster ministry has allocated Tk 15,00,000 for compensation to the family members of the victims.
   Apart this, the BIWTA has promised to allocate Tk 2,000 for each burial and Tk 20,000 for compensation for each of the family members of the victims, and the shipping minister has assured the persons concerned that his ministry would donate Tk 3,00,000 as compensation.
   Shahjahan said his ministry could provide a maximum amount of Tk 20,000 as compensation for each family member of the victims, but an inter-ministry meeting scheduled on Wednesday is likely to increase the amount of compensation. ‘At the meeting, I will recommend compensation of Tk 50,000 for each family member of the victim,’ he added.

The Dhaka Metropolitan Police will divide major city thoroughfares into three lanes for different types of vehicles from today (Wednesday) in a desperate bid to reduce traffic congestion, which has become intolerable nowadays.
   Private cars, jeeps and vehicles carrying VIPs will use the first lane, buses, mini-buses, covered vans and pick-ups will ply the second lane while motorbikes, CNG-run auto-rickshaws, human haulers and tempos will use the third lane.
   Sonargaon, Sheraton Hotel, Shahbagh, Mohakhali, Kakoli, Kakrail, Farm Gate, Manik Mia Avenue, Gulshan-1, Gulshan-2, Baridhara, Gulistan House Building, Science Laboratory, Russel Square, Asad Gate and Technical intersections and Jatrabari will come under the latest plan of the DMP, which re-introduced the automated traffic system last week but failed to ease the city’s severe gridlock.
   ‘Traffic police will be deployed at the major points of these roads to monitor and stop the vehicles going from one lane to another in violation of the rules,’ DMP’s commissioner AKM Shahidul Hoque told newsmen at a press briefing on Tuesday.
   He also said that the DMP has already started an awareness-building campaign for drivers as well as pedestrians on Tuesday, which would continue till December 7.
   The law enforcers from December 8 will start fining drivers for violation of rules and disregarding the automated traffic signals.
   The DMP chief said that 12 teams, headed by a deputy commissioner and senior officials, would monitor traffic with video cameras at important intersections.
   ‘Traffic will be strictly controlled by the new automated traffic signals from Sunday and the authorities will launch a big publicity campaign to persuade people to conform to the system,’ Hoque added.
   The law enforcers will also launch a drive against fake licence holders immediately after the experimental period ends on December 8.
   A fine of Tk 1,000 has been fixed for those violating traffic signals, or suspension of driving licence for three months of the driver violating the rules.

The prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, has said the present government is determined to implement the CHT Peace Treaty.
   Directives have been given to the ministry concerned and committee for speedily resolving the existing problems in this regard, she said in a message Tuesday on the eve of the 12th anniversary of the deal.
   The prime minister said this historic treaty was signed between the then Awami League government and Parbatya Chattagram Jana Sanghati Samity on December 2, 1997 for resolving conflicts in the CHT region for a long time.
   ‘With signing of the treaty, protracted clashes in the CHT region ended and a path of peace and development was established in the area,’ she added.
   Winning UNESCO Peace Award for CHT Peace Treaty is the international appreciation and recognition to the treaty, the prime minister mentioned.
   ‘Instead of establishing peace and security and social stability in the CHT region, the post-1975 governments fuelled clashes between tribal and Bengali communities there for their own interests,’ Hasina said.
   She also said killings, anarchy and looting others assets under government patronisation and misappropriation of state resources further deteriorated the stability of the region.
   At this stage, Hasina said, signing of the treaty on December 2, 1997 had been praised by all quarters as strong and sincere efforts of the government in maintaining unity of the state and the national sovereignty.
   Later, she added, the BNP-Jamaat government again tried to destabilise the region by opposing this historic treaty but the people of CHT, the people of the country as a whole, foiled their ill motive.
   She wished good for all citizens of the country, especially the people at CHT, and sought cooperation of all for ensuring full implementation of this treaty.

Bangladesh demanded a quick resolution of duty- and quota-free market access for least developed countries on the second day of the 7th ministerial summit of the World Trade Organisation.
   Although fully preferential market access for all least developed countries had been pledged at the beginning of the ongoing Doha Round negotiations in 2001, it has not been resolved and it remains one of the major concerns for the poorest group of countries in the 153-member global trade forum.
   Bangladesh’s commerce minister Faruk Khan, also the head of delegation in Geneva, also demanded during his plenary speech that when addressing the issue of disproportionately affected countries, least developed countries should be granted more preferences than developing countries.
   He also demanded a quick resolution of services waiver leading to facilitation of smoother labour migration.
   Similar demands and expectations were also reflected in the plenary speeches of Tanzania, the coordinator for least developed countries at the trade forum, and Cambodia, another least developed country in a similar predicament as Bangladesh over apparels export to the United States.
   When asked if these demands would be reflected in the chair’s summary expected at the conclusion of the summit, Faruk Khan told New Age he was very hopeful about it.
   ‘We managed to arrive at a consensus regarding them within the group of least developed countries, the South Asian countries and a grand coalition of developing countries.’
   Faruk said the director general of the trade forum, Pascal Lamy, had himself agreed if these demands would come up from the floor, they would naturally be reflected in the chair’s text.
   ‘And so far we have had some countries, including Cambodia and Tanzania, make those demands, which is important.’
   He said, ‘Besides, we are not demanding anything unfair, nor are we asking for alms.’ Faruk pointed out Bangladesh was only demanding rightful trade preferences through which it could attain prosperity and develop.
   ‘And we are in a way iterating the core principles of the trade forum that pledges the poorest countries the most benefits. That is all we ask.’
   But Keith Rockwell, the trade forum’s spokesperson, said he had not heard any of the countries mention anything related to the provisions of disproportionately affected countries, which has become a major concern for Bangladesh.
   ‘I know this is a very important issue for Bangladesh and is raised at different negotiating forums within the WTO regularly. But I have not heard this mentioned here yet.’
   According to delegate members, this issue would be taken up at the second working session of the second day which would be looking into the review of the Doha Round negotiations.
   The commerce minister said Tanzania, as the coordinator of the poorest group of countries, would now have to take up the issue forcefully to actually get it into the summary.

Khaleda Zia, chairperson of the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party chairperson, is expected to contest for the top party post for the third time in the December 8 election at the party’s fifth national council session.
   A total of 2512 councillors and about 12,000 delegates are expected to participate in the council session scheduled to be held at Bangabandhu Conference Centre in the city.
   The grassroots level leaders of the party so far formed 48 of the 72 district committees through elections by the November 30 deadline set by the party high command.
   The party’s office secretary, Ruhul Kabir Rizvi Ahmed, has collected nomination papers on Khaleda’s behalf from the party’s central office at Naya Paltan as the election commission announced the schedule of the election.
   Retired justice TH Khan, a vice chairman of the party and head of the election commission, announced the schedule at a press conference at the Naya Paltan office of BNP.
   The aspirants for the post of the party chairperson will be able to collect and submit the nomination papers from 11:00 am to 6:00pm today (Wednesday), according to the schedule.
   The scrutiny of nomination papers will be held on Thursday, and Friday has been set as the last day for withdrawal of nominations.
   The minimum age of the aspirant for the post of chairperson is 30 years.
   The commission appointed standing committee member RA Gani as returning officer and central leader Abdul Mannan as assistant returning officer to conduct the election.
   TH Khan said there are proposals for amending the constitution, which include creation of a provision for polls in various posts like secretary general. ‘If the proposals are given final approval at the national council then they would be included in the constitution afterwards,’ he said.
   Rizvi Ahmed said at a separate briefing that the party has so far formed 48 of the 72 district committees within the deadline that ended on November 30.
   He said 70 percent of the Upazila, municipal and thana council meetings have been conducted and the party prepared a list of 2,512 councillors to join the party’s national council session.
   The convenors and the primary co-convenors will join from those districts and thanas where council meetings could not be held.
   No representative from the dissolved Dhaka metropolitan committee will be attending the coming national council.
   However, the presidents and general secretaries of the city’s thana committees would attend the national council by virtue of their position.
   He said other than the councillors, 40 delegates from each parliamentary constituency would join the council session, with the total number of the delegates being 12,000.
   The party high command formed new convening committees in 72 of the 75 organisational district committees in February. It however did not form the convening committees for Dhaka and Manikganj districts and Dhaka city units.
   Former president Ziaur Rahman was the founding chairperson of the BNP. Retired Justice Abdus Satter had succeeded Zia after his death in an aborted military coup in 1981.
   Zia’s widow Khaleda was elected chairperson in 1983. She was re-elected as party chief in BNP’s fourth council session held on September 1, 1993.

The National Liberation Front of Tripura chairman, Biswamohan Debbarma, has been arrested in Bangladesh.
   A high Detective Branch official told New Age on Tuesday they had arrested Biswamohan Debbarma along the border at Kamalganj in Moulvibazar early November 29.
   The inspector general of police, Nur Mohammad, however, claimed he was unaware of the arrest of Biswamohan Debbarma.
   The top leader of the liberation movement in the Indian state of Tripura was arrested just before the visit of the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, to India.
   Biswamohan is another big catch by the Bangladesh authorities just a month after they had handed over the United Liberation Front of Asom’s foreign secretary Sasha Choudhury and finance secretary Chitrabon Hazarika to India.
   Sasha Choudhury and Chitrabon Hazarika were picked up by some plainclothes men who claimed they were sent by higher authorities, from a house at Uttara in the capital at midnight past November 1. The two were later handed over to India.
   An Indian national daily, the Telegraph, on November 8 reported the security agencies of the Tripura state government were hopeful of major surrenders of banned militants from Tripura in the wake of the pushback of ULFA leaders Chitrabon Hazarika and Sasha Chowdhury by the Bangladesh government.
   Bangladesh has kept a strict watch on the movement of top leaders Biswamohan of the NLFT and Ranjit Debbarma of the All Tripura Tiger Force and signalled they should restrain themselves, the report said.
   Indian online news service CNN-IBN on November 30 revealed the arrest of Biswamohan and said, ‘Bangladesh authorities have assured cooperation in finishing off most of the anti-India insurgent groups based in their country.’

The guns are gradually falling silent in Iraq as a fragile stability takes hold, turning the spotlight on a stealthier killer likely to stalk Iraqis for years to come.
   Incidences of cancer, deformed babies and other health problems have risen sharply, Iraqi officials say, and many suspect contamination from weapons used in years of war and accompanying unchecked pollution as a cause.
   ‘We have seen new kinds of cancer that were not recorded in Iraq before war in 2003, types of fibrous (soft tissue) cancer and bone cancer. These refer clearly to radiation as a cause,’ said Jawad al-Ali, an oncologist in Iraq’s second city of Basra.
   In the city of Falluja in western Iraq, scene of two of the fiercest battles between US troops and insurgents after the 2003 US invasion, a spike in the number of births of stillborn, deformed and paralysed babies has alarmed doctors.
   The use of depleted uranium in US and coalition weaponry in the 1991 war to liberate Kuwait and the 2003 Iraq invasion is well documented, but establishing a link between the radioactive metal and health problems among Iraqis is hard, officials say.
   Iraqi medical facilities are limited, and keeping accurate health statistics during years of sectarian slaughter unleashed by the invasion was impossible.
   In Basra in particular, pummelled by years of war and swamped with industrial and agricultural pollution, it is difficult for doctors to isolate specific causes for cancer.
   Its people have for years lived among mounds of scrap metal that include war debris, the brown rust flaking off into the wind and carried into peoples homes, food, and lungs.
   ‘Our information indicates there are more than 200 square kilometres of land south of Basra containing war debris, some of which is contaminated with depleted uranium,’ said Bushra Ali, of the environment ministry’s radiation prevention department.
   A 2007 Basra University medical journal report found ‘no major rise’ in cancer death rates, but that the proportion of children dying of cancer in Basra had jumped 65 per cent in 1997 and 60 per cent in 2005, compared to 1989.
   Depleted uranium, a dense metal, is used in weaponry to pierce heavy armour such as on tanks. Linking it to ill health is controversial — the british ministry of defence says there is ‘no reliable scientific or medical’ evidence.
   Large quantities of depleted uranium were used in the first Gulf War, some of it near Basra.
   It is not clear how much, if any, was used in Falluja by US troops fighting mostly house-to-house battles in two assaults on the city in 2004.
   The US military did, however, use white phosphorous, which can cause serious burns if it comes in contact with skin, to mark targets or to flush enemy gunmen out of their hideouts.
   Five years later, doctors in Falluja are recording an unusual number of babies with congenital heart disease and neural tube defects, the latter involving abnormal spinal cord or brain development, which can cause paralysis and death.
   ‘The marked increase of congenital malformations of newborns in this hospital pushed the hospital’s board of directors to form a special committee to investigate and record these cases,’ said Abdulsatar Kadim, manager of Falluja’s main hospital.
   Doctors say they have not been able to isolate a specific cause. Several factors can trigger the condition, including a lack of folic acid during pregnancy.
   A neural paediatric specialist, who declined to be named, said he was seeing on average three or four newborns with neural tube defects a week in Falluja and its surrounding areas, a region with a population of about 675,000 people.
   In Britain, the incidence of the condition is less than 1 birth in every 1,000. Most births in and around Falluja are at its main hospital, where up to 30 are recorded daily, roughly equating to a neural tube defect rate of 14 in every 1,000.
   ‘Some families decide to end the matter from the beginning. They choose to end the life of child, by refusing surgery for them — 90 per cent of the children whom we don’t treat die in the first year,’ said a Falluja doctor.

The government is reviewing its decision to purchase cars for lawmakers with public money after the parliament secretariat forwarded alternative proposals to prevent wastage of fund and time in providing cars for the legislators.
   ‘The prime minister is now giving a second thought to her announcement that the government will provide a car for every lawmaker,’ an official at the Prime Minister’s Office said after a recent meeting between the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, and speaker of Jatiya Sangsad, Abdul Hamid.
   The meeting held at the PMO ended inconclusive with the prime minister assuring the speaker that she would 'look into the matter,' the official told New Age.
   The speaker is learnt to have advised the prime minister to rethink her decision to provide a car for every member of parliament from the transport pool.
   He proposed for allowing conditional import of duty-free cars by the lawmakers to save public money and time as well because the government could not come to a decision over the matter since the ninth parliament came into being eleven months ago.
   The speaker argued that purchase of over 300 cars would take a lot of time if the government went for international tenders. Their delivery would not be possible before middle of 2011 even though the government would have to spend huge sums of money from the exchequer, including tax payments to the National Board of Revenue.
   Besides, the tender process would encourage vested quarters to indulge in corruption, he said adding that maintenance of the cars at the government pool would add pressure on the exchequer.
   'Allowing duty-free car import as per existing law under strong monitoring would help save time and money,' Hamid told New Age adding that he had requested the prime minister to think over her decision.
   'All we need to do is to ban import of luxury cars under the duty-free facilities by the MPs,' he said referring to misuse of the privilege during the previous regimes.
   Earlier, Hamid had written to Hasina with certain proposals, pointing out that the government's plan might cost more and encourage corruption.
   The parliamentary proposal said there must be ceilings on the price and engine capacity of the cars in case the government opted for duty-free cars for the lawmakers.
   The prime minister had announced in the house that the government would provide cars for all lawmakers of the 345-strong parliament.
   An inter-ministry meeting at the finance ministry had also proposed that the government could provide the cars from the state-owned Progati Industries Ltd.
   Earlier this year the government initiated the move to purchase cars for all lawmakers, apparently to abolish their privilege of importing duty-free vehicles.
   The finance ministry's move, if implemented, will need appointment of 345 drivers, and entail high fuel cost and additional manpower for their maintenance.
   The elected MPs are entitled to duty-free import of cars only once in a five-year tenure.
   The facility was cancelled by the military-backed interim administration following disclosures that most MPs had sold the costly luxury cars that they had imported to car dealers and private parties at a hefty profit.
   But the present ninth parliament did not ratify the ordinance.

The forest department Monday night filed a case accusing 200 people of felling trees in the coastal green belt of Ghoramara of Sonaichhari under Sitakunnda upazila in Chittagong.
   Fourteen of the accused were identified as Jahur Member, Mohammed Mamun, Shafiul Alam, Moniruzzaman, Belal Hossain, Didarul Alam, Mohammed Rumi, Shahedul Islam, Joinal Abedin, Mohammed Alamgir, Hares Mia, Dilip Nath, Lablu and Rubel while the rests remained unidentified.
   Nazrul Islam, officer-in-charge of the Sitakunda police station, said forest official Hasan Mia had filed the case accusing 200 people of destroying government forest to set up a private ship-breaking yard.
   He also said they were conducting drives to nub the culprits adding that additional police had been deployed in the area to avert any such incident.
   A group of local people felled more than 1,500 trees at Ghoramara and removed them from the spot Sunday night to set up a ship-breaking yard.
   Forest Department sources said they had informed the local police station soon after the tree felling began but the police reached the spot too late.
   Earlier, a group of people, led by Abdullah Al Mamun, son of local lawmaker ABM Abul Kashem, felled nearly 10,000 trees in the same area five months back when the law enforcers had also kept silent.
   Mamun and his associates launched an attack on five journalists, who went there to collect information and take photographs of illegal activities.

Thousands of people, who left Dhaka to celebrate Eid-ul-Azha at their village homes, have started returning to the capital city.
   A good number of people reached the Kamalapur railway station on Tuesday after celebrating Eid. Some people said they had not faced any hassle during the journey.
   'Low quality compartments and bad condition of Mohanagar inter-city express make the journey uncomfortable for the Chittagong passengers,' said Mayajuddin Ahmed, a government official.
   He also suggested increasing the duration of eid vacation by at least five days to avert any sort of transportation problem.
   Many of the passengers complained about pick-pocketing.
   'In the crowd, a large number of train passengers were victim of pickpocket,' said Sagor Ahmed, a private bank employee, who returned from Rajshahi by the Silk City train service, alleged.
   Officer-in-charge of Kamlapur Railway police station Ali Hossain Khan said they had taken all necessary steps to avert any unwarranted incident.
   'Additional forces have already been deployed at all platforms and important places of the station,' he added.
   Some city dwellers who returned the city on Tuesday claimed that they had to suffer a lot due to tailback on different routes including Dhaka-Khulna, Dhaka-Rajshahi and Dhaka-Chittagong just before the Eid day.
   'Due to the three-day Eid vacation on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, which coincides with the weekend, we had to suffer while going to our home on Thursday,' said Asadul Haque, who went Pabna, passing 17 hours on the way.
   'Usually, it takes only four to five hours to reach my home,' he added.
   Khairuzzaman, a Dhaka College student, said he went to Savar passing seven hours starting at 10pm on Thursday.
   Gabtoli, Sayedabad and Mohakhali inter-district bus terminals were found packed with people like before the Eid day.
   At Sadarghat launch terminal, a student of Dhaka University, Nurjahan Setu, who returned from Chandpur by launch, said she suffered a lot while going home and the situation remained the same on the return journey.
   A toll collector at Sadarghat launch terminal, Arifur Rahman, said the crowd was lower than previous years on the third day (Tuesday) after Eid vacation.
   'But the rush will increase within one or two days,' he added.
   Bus fares have been increased abnormally on different routes.
   Sakib Hasan Sabuj, who returned from Magura, said that bus fare on the Dhaka-Khulna routes had been increased by Tk 100 to Tk 150.
   'I bought a ticket of a chair coach of Hanif Paribahan at Magura Bus Terminal at Tk 370, which is between Tk 220 to Tk 250 at other time,' he said.

The home minister, Sahara Khatun, has asked ‘responsible members of the government’ to keep mum for now on the matter of bringing back Mujib’s killers, currently at large in different countries.
   ‘Our initiative to bring back Bangabandhu’s killers has not ceased. A ‘red alert’ has been issued by the Interpol for the fugitive killers,’ Sahara told reporters at the secretariat on Tuesday.
   But, she went on to say: ‘Disclosing information about bringing them back to Bangladesh is not right, as they may get the chance to move from country to country to evade capture.’
   The home minister said the convicts were adopting a technique of ‘fast changing locations’.
   Replying to a query, Sahara said: ‘We must bring them back through mutual agreement with the countries that have no extradition treaties.’
   The law minister, Shafique Ahmed, said Monday Canada had agreed to deport Noor Chowdhury, one of 12 former army officers convicted and sentenced to death for the 1975 assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
   He gave details of the decision, telling reporters that Canadian authorities had seized Noor Chowdhury’s passport for residing illegally in the country, and had rejected his applications for a residency permit and asylum.
   Returning to the country after a 10-day visit to Canada, the law minister said Chowdhury currently had to report to the police there once every week. He also said Chowdhury was trying to appeal against the Canadian decision.
   Answering a question on the whereabouts of Shariful Haque Dalim, another fugitive convict in the case, Shafique said, ‘I have learnt that he was in Canada for a while. But he has reportedly left the country.’
   The minister said the foreign ministry was trying to bring back all the fugitive convicted killers.

India Tuesday rejected a Danish draft proposal on climate change which seeks to cap emissions, widening the gulf between rich and poor nations ahead of next week's Copenhagen talks.
   Media reports say the Danish offer sets 2025 as a deadline for all countries to cap their emissions irrespective of current levels, essentially blurring the line between the developed world and countries that are still industrialising.
   In an interview on the CNN-IBN news channel, the environment minister, Jairam Ramesh, said the draft proposal 'clearly is unacceptable to us'.
   India has said any cap on emissions growth would hamper its rapid economic expansion, which relies on heavily polluting fuels like coal.
   India has yet to announce any figures for limiting its carbon output ahead of Copenhagen, but insists it will never accept legally binding emissions targets.
   Ramesh said Chinese climate change envoy Xie Zhenhua would soon hand over a more acceptable negotiating draft to Denmark, adding that India stood firm with China, South Africa and Brazil 'as far as negotiations are concerned'.
   Climate envoys from the four developing countries met in Beijing over the weekend, reiterating their position that developed countries must shoulder most carbon emissions cuts.
   The prime minister, Manmohan Singh, said last week that India would 'sign on to an ambitious global target for emissions reductions' if rich countries paid more to fund mitigation efforts in the poorer world.
   But his office later clarified the statement to say India's position had not changed.
   The December 7-18 Copenhagen negotiations are aimed at drafting a successor treaty to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

A suicide bomber killed a provincial lawmaker Tuesday as he received guests at his home in Pakistan's northwest Swat valley, where the military says it has quashed a Taliban uprising.
   A man with explosives strapped to his body walked unchallenged into the grounds of provincial assembly member Shamsher Ali Khan's house and blew himself up, killing the lawmaker and wounding 11 others, officials said.
   The attack against a member of the Awami National Party, which dominates the North West Frontier Province assembly, came as Taliban insurgents stage a wave of bombings avenging a multi-pronged military offensive against them.
   'Dr Shamsher Ali Khan was killed in the suicide attack,' the Swat police chief Qazi Ghulam Farooq said. He earlier said that Khan's brother was also killed, but later added that he was in fact badly wounded.
   Senior local police official Ali Khan said the politician had been sitting on the lawn in front of his house receiving guests and local constituents when a man in his early 20s rushed up to him.
   'His brother also rushed to save the lawmaker but the bomber blew himself up before he could be prevented,' the police official said.
   The attacker struck as guests gathered to mark the end of the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha, and the force of the blast damaged parts of the house and grounds. Blood stains could be seen marking the building, witnesses said.
   Spin Zada, a doctor at a local government hospital, confirmed that the bodies of Khan, 59, and the bomber were brought to the hospital.

The government will appoint ombudsman by next January to establish rule of law, the law minister has said.
   Shafique Ahmed spoke to reporters after a meeting with the country director of the Asian Development Bank at his secretariat on Tuesday.
   He said in October nominations were being finalised to appoint an ombudsman in line with the constitution. A scrutiny committee, headed by the speaker, had been asked to finalise the nominations.
   The government will make the appointment after getting the committee's proposal, Shafique has added.
   On the activities of the ombudsman, the minister said if any person was harassed or harmed by any government actions they could place complaints to the ombudsman. The ombudsman will recommend necessary steps after investigation of complaints.