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The government on Wednesday signed a memorandum of understanding with a foreign company for development and commercial operation of the much-neglected Mongla Port in the country’s south-western region on public-private partnership with a foreign direct investment worth $ three billion.
   ‘We have decided to develop and run Mongla Port on a public-private partnership basis. The management of the port will be handed over to a foreign operator to improve its services and infrastructural facilities after one year,’ shipping minister Shajahan Khan said at the MoU signing ceremony at the ministry.
   The management and infrastructure of the port would be developed in keeping with the international standards under a 20-year project with an estimated cost of Tk 21,000 crore, he said adding that the port, now a losing concern for the government, had been neglected for years.
   Mongla Port Authority chairman commodore M Farooque and Singapore-based David Wignall Associates’ managing director David Wignall singed the MoU to conduct a study within a year on the sea port located in south-western Bagerhat district.
   The David Wignall Associates, a specialist consultancy that serves the maritime industry by advising owners, operators and investors of shipyards, ports and terminals worldwide, will submit a detailed report and proposal to the authority for developing the port into a major regional hub within 20 years.
   David Wignall said the company would look forward to further development of the port which, he believed, would help create more scope for the country’s economic growth.
   Chairman of the parliamentary standing committee on shipping ministry Nur-e-Alam Chowdhury, Khulna mayor Talukdar Abdul Khaleque, among others, spoke at the singing ceremony.
   ‘We will sign an agreement with the company after completion of the study for commercial operation of the port… Power plants, industrial parks, container terminals and water treatment plants would be established under the project to be implemented in three phases. It will also ensure channel dredging during the project period,’ the minister said.
   Replying to a query, Shajahan Khan said the Awami League-led government would protect the interest of the country in all respects while singing the deal with any foreign company.
   He said the project would bring in a foreign direct investment to the tune of Tk 21,000 crore, one of the biggest investments, and create job opportunities for tens of thousands of people in the south-western part of the country.
   ‘This will also increase government revenue by expanding port usage, economic development and transit trade to and from India, China, Nepal and Bhutan,’ the shipping minister hoped.
   Mongla Port is the country’s second seaport situated in south-western Bangladesh, at the confluence of the River Passur and Mongla, about 131 kms upstream from the Bay of Bengal.

The government has sued Tarique Rahman and Arafat Rahman, the two sons of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party chairperson, Khaleda Zia, and Tarique’s close aide Giasuddin Al Mamun, the owners of MV Koko-4 that capsized in Bhola early Friday, for the accident the death toll from which rose to 84 till Wednesday.
   ‘Bangladesh Shipping Corporation on Monday filed the case with the marine court against M/S Rahman Brothers Ltd and its managing director Tarique Rahman and two other directors Arafat Rahman and Giasuddin Al Mamun, among others, were made accused in the case,’ shipping minister Shajahan Khan told reporters on Wednesday.
   He said the launch owners, workers or officials whoever were responsible for the launch accident, would not be spared.
   Tarique and Arafat, facing scores of cases, are staying abroad on bail for medical treatment while Giasuddin is in prison.
   A murder case was also filed against nine crewmen of Koko-4 and 15-20 others, who were not named, with the Lalmohon police on Monday night. Kamal Hossain, a resident of Kazirabad of Lalmohan, filed the case.
   After primary investigation the local administration concluded that the main reason for the capsizing of Koko-4 was gross overloading.
   New Age correspondent in Barisal reports: six more bodies, three males, a female and two children, were recovered from the hull of Koko-4 midday Wednesday raising the death toll from Friday’s launch capsize to 84.
   The over-crowded Bhola-bound launch from Dhaka capsized partially in Tentulia near Nazirpur launch station in Lalmohon upazila, some 40 kilometres from Bhola district.
   Five of them were identified as Ripon,22, Mohsin,30, Tayeb,22, Manzura,18, Jhumur,8, and a 7-year old unidentified girl – all from Charfasson upazila, said Fazlul Huq, Lalmohon coordinator of Coast Trust.
   Rescue vessels MV Rustam and Hamza jointly started salvage work 10:00am and suspended the operation at noon because of strong current. The salvage operation will resume at the time of low tide, sources said.
   Local BNP held a press conference at the party office in Lamohon upazila on Wednesday and criticised the government for trying to politicise the tragedy.

Rights activists on Wednesday demanded immediate resignation of the shipping minister, Shahjahan Khan, and the director general of Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority, accusing them of negligence in duties in the rescue operation after Friday’s launch capsize.
   ‘Had the minister reached the scene in time, rescue operation would get a momentum and the death toll could have been less,’ national coordinator of Nirapad Naupath Bastobayan Jote, Atiqul Islam Chowdhury, told a press conference at the National Press Club.
   He alleged that as soon as the minister left the scene of accident, all concerned officials followed him, some to serve protocol duties, abandoning the rescue operation.
   ‘His presence was most important to speed up the rescue activities, but the minister did not do that,’ Atiqul Islam alleged.
   Coastal Association for Social Transformation Trust and Nirapad Naupath Bastobayan Jote jointly organized the press conference to evaluate the government steps in the rescue operation and to listen to experiences of the survivors.
   Executive director of COAST Trust, Rezaul Karim Chowdhury, COAST Trust deputy director, Sanak Kumar Bhoumik, and the chief of rescue team of COAST Trust for COCO-4 accident, Sahabuddin, among others, spoke at the press conference.
   A syndicate has developed in launch transport business through owning, sheltering and promoting the launch owners by political leaders, Rezaul Karim alleged.
   The COAST Trust executive director suggested for privatization of the certification and monitoring system to ensure passenger safety on the inland water routes.
   He also called for amending the Inland Water Transport Ordinance 1976 and establishing vigilance teams led by magistrates for ensuring the rights of the passengers.
   Three survivors of the accident —Zakir Hossain, one of the survivors who lost his son Zahid Hossain, Rabeya Akhtar Ankhi and Sohag described their harrowing experiences.
   Zakir Hossain blamed the mismanagement of government for Coco-4 tragedy.
   He said most of the passengers moved to one side of the deck 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.
   Sohag narrated how some passengers tried to get off the launch, but the staffs of the launch company forced them to stay on board and travel on the overcrowded vessel.
   When asked, he said that none of the concern government officials were found at Sadarghat launch terminal in Dhaka to monitor the loading of extra passengers onto the launch.
   After primary investigation, the local administration concluded that the main reason for capsizing of Coco-4 on Friday, that caused the deaths, 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.
   According to a government report, the launch was carrying over 2,000 passengers though it had the capacity to accommodate only 446 passengers in daytime and 307 at night.

The government has decided to construct 176 monuments throughout the country to the martyrs of the 1971 Liberation War.
   The minister for liberation war affairs, ABM Tazul Islam, on Wednesday said the ministry had already selected sites in 64 districts to raise the monuments aiming at preserving the glorious history of the country’s independence.
   The monuments will also be a source of knowledge for the new generation about the true history of the country’s independence, he told New Age.
   The Tk 57.95 crore project called ‘Construction of Monuments’ will be implemented by the Public Works Department.
   Sankar Kumar Malo, a sub-divisional engineer of PWD, said Tk 21 lakh would be spent for construction of each monument. The designs of the monuments have been finalised by the architecture department, he said.
   The project is expected to start in the current fiscal year and will be completed by 2013.
   The government has undertaken two other projects – expansion of the Martyred Intellectuals Monument at Rayer Bazar and development of a new graveyard adjacent to the Martyred Intellectuals Monument.
   The project would cost Tk 397 crore on 102 acres where some 50,000 people could be buried. The expansion work of Martyred Intellectuals Monument, which includes a library, a hall room with audio-visual facilities, an art gallery, car park and boundary wall, would cost Tk 3,29,82000, a ministry official said.

Delegations awaited the conclusion of the final day’s working session after which a chairman’s summary is expected to be issued at the concluding session of the seventh ministerial of the World Trade Organisation.
   The one overwhelming consensus that appears to have come out of the summit in Geneva is that the Doha Round negotiations must be concluded within 2010.
   A large majority of developing countries made this call in order to dampen the impact of the global economic crisis and infuse dynamism in the global economy.
   There is a possibility of a ‘stock-taking’ exercise, gauging the progress of negotiations on different issues, early next year.
   The Doha Round, rubberstamped as the development round, was launched at the Qatari capital in 2001 and scheduled to conclude by the end of 2004.
   Although this ministerial summit was originally billed as merely a housekeeping exercise featuring plenary statements and working sessions but no negotiations, the chair’s summary of the conference, which is also not a binding text, is expected to indicate the direction of future negotiations.
   With no legal texts expected out of this summit of the 153-member trade forum, the general mood around the conference centre remains rather relaxed on the last day.
   Delegation members said there was still a sticking point before the chair’s summary could be readied.
   Mustafa Abid Khan, member of the Tariff Commission, also an experienced negotiator, confirmed that the United States was pressuring several advanced developing countries to engage in sectoral negotiations.
   ‘There is a tacit indication in their statement of the first day.’
   Ron Kirk, the United States Trade Representative, during his plenary statement on November 30 said although developed countries would continue to retain a strong role in the global economy, ‘advanced developing countries are playing an ever-increasing role as well.’
   He cited a projection of the International Monetary Fund, which said, ‘58 per cent of global economic growth between now and 2014 will be provided by China, India, Brazil, Argentina, South Africa and the ASEAN countries.’
   ‘The creation of new trade flows and meaningful market opening, particularly in key emerging markets, is required to fulfil the development promise of Doha.’
   According to Abid, the United States was pressuring those five advanced developing countries to engage in sector-specific negotiations as regards industrial tariffs while the large developing countries refused to do so.
   ‘The thing is that in sectoral negotiations, it will be easier for the United States to open up markets of the developing countries because of the nature of the game.’
   Although developing countries have not admitted to such pressure publicly and stress that their discussions remain positive, those following the discussions have said the developing countries are opposed to US pressure and point out that that sector-specific negotiations should strictly be on a voluntary basis.

A suicide bomber attacked Pakistan’s navy headquarters in the capital Islamabad on Wednesday, killing a naval policeman and injuring 11 others in the latest blast in the insurgency-hit nation.
   A young man walked up to a checkpoint at the entrance to the complex and detonated his explosives when challenged by security forces. The blast scattered human flesh across the busy city centre road, the police and witnesses said.
   Islamist insurgents frequently target military installations and attacks have intensified as Islamabad pursues a fierce military offensive, under Western pressure to do more to eliminate Taliban and al-Qaeda sanctuaries.
   Wednesday’s blast came after the US president, Barack Obama, announced he was sending 30,000 more troops to battle the Taliban in Afghanistan, and said that success in the war there depended on Pakistan’s own fight against extremism.
   Fazeel Asghar, the city authorities’ top administrative official, told reporters that a man aged around 17 or 18 and wearing a suicide jacket approached the heavily-guarded naval complex on foot.
   ‘Security officials checked him and one navy police constable, Mohammad Ashraf, asked him to take off his coat. The bomber then blew himself up and the navy constable died in the blast,’ he said.
   Navy spokesman Captain Mubeen Bajwa said security guards stopped the bomber after a taxi driver complained about his suspicious behaviour.
   ‘A total of 11 people were injured, including five soldiers of the Pakistan navy and six civilians. One of them is critically injured,’ he said.
   The president, Asif Ali Zardari, strongly condemned the suicide attack, saying that ‘such incidents would not deter the government’s resolve to fight terrorism and extremism from the country’, a government statement said.
   The attack came a day after a Pakistani provincial lawmaker was killed in a suicide attack in the northwestern valley of Swat, and as Taliban insurgents have intensified attacks to avenge the military’s multi-pronged offensive.
   The military are a frequent target: a brazen raid and hostage siege at the army headquarters in the garrison city of Rawalpindi in October hit the heart of the country’s most powerful establishment.
   Islamabad itself was last hit in late October, when twin suicide blasts tore through the International Islamic University, killing up to five people.
   Security has drastically deteriorated in Pakistan since Islamabad joined the US-led ‘war on terror’ and hundreds of Taliban and al-Qaeda-linked militants fled into the tribal belt after the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan.
   More than 2,570 people have been killed in suicide blasts and attacks here since July 2007, when the insurgency intensified.

British MP George Galloway on Wednesday demanded of the British government to pursue for an international moratorium against the construction of a proposed dam on the river Barak at Tipaimukh in the Indian state of Manipur.
   He also demanded an international inquiry into whether the dam would inflict damage to the rivers in the downstream, and environment and livelihood in the region, including Bangladesh.
   ‘The British government should initiate an international inquiry and international experts need to measure whether the river flows and the livelihood [in the region] will be damaged,’ George Galloway said at a press briefing in Dhaka.
   ‘Let there be a moratorium against construction of the dam until the inquiry report is published,’ he said.
   He also demanded of the Indian government to stop construction of the dam. ‘Halt the dam and let hold an international inquiry into the matter,’ he said.
   India planned the dam at Tipaimukh in its north-eastern Manipur state on the river Barak that feeds Bangladesh’s Surma and Kushiyara rivers in the Sylhet region, eventually flowing into the Meghna, one of the three main rivers in Bangladesh.
   Galloway, a member of the House of Commons for Respect Party, said the British government should internationalise the issue of Tipaimukh and work for ensuring an international guarantee so that the possible construction of a dam would not harm the rivers and livelihood at the downstream in Bangladesh.
   He however expressed doubt whether any guarantee would stop harming the environment. ‘Assurance was given before commissioning of the Farakka dam. But the impacts of Farakka on nature and livelihood in Bangladesh is evident,’ he said.
   Galloway also stressed the need for involving the international environmental movement against construction of the dam as ‘it is a question for the environment of the world’.
   He observed that even if the least the river system and the way of living would be affected by the proposed dam, the entire region—an earthquake-prone area—would still remain vulnerable.
   When asked whether he can interfere in an internal and bilateral matter, he said, ‘I’m not a third party as I’m representing several thousands Sylheti people… Moreover, it’s not an internal matter, neither is it a bilateral issue. It’s an international matter. So as an international citizen, I can raise protests against any measure that can damage the environment.’
   ‘We should not dub this (Tipaimukh) a pro-Indian or anti-Indian issue as people in India are also against construction of the dam,’ he concluded.
   Galloway also took the opportunity to urge Bangladesh to send a big team to the Olympics games slated to take place in London in 2012. ‘Bangladesh team will be one of the most supported teams in the London Olympics. Grab this opportunity (Olympics) to draw international attention to Bangladesh for trade and development,’ he said.
   Respect Party leaders Bangladesh-born Abjol Miah, M Mamunur Rashid and Mir Ezaz Ali were present at the briefing.

Some Islamist terrorists have again issued death threats to attorney general Mahbubey Alam, chief state counsel for Sheikh Mujibur Rahman murder case Anisul Huq and Dhaka special court judge AK Roy through a letter dispatched by post on Wednesday.
   Admitting of having received the letter sent by one M Shafiqul Islam of Chandpur court, Mahbubey Alam told reporters at his office that he was not afraid of such threats as he was a freedom fighter during the independence war of 1971.
   The writers identified themselves as the members of al-Qaeda, Kashmir-based Lashkar-e-Taiba of Pakistan, and two banned organizations, Harkatul Jihad-al Islami and Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh.
   Another letter containing the same text addressed to president of Dhaka Court Reporters’ Association also reached at its office on the Dhaka judges’ court premises in the old town at about in 11:00 am.
   The letters in English language read, ‘Our special killing squad is chasing them [Mahbubey Alam, Anisul Huq and AK Roy] ………no body can save them].’
   The letters sought to know who had conducted trial of the Bangabandhu murder case and posted the trial court verdict and the hearing at the Appellate Division on website in Bangla version, who prepared the letters at the law ministry over bringing back the killers of Bangabandhu murder case and who gave the verdict for execution of top JMB leaders, and who sent Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh ameer Matiur Rahman and its secretary-general Ali Ahsan Mohamamd Mujahid to jail. The letter itself, however, replied that AK Roy had done those.
   Mahbubey Alam and Anisul Huq on November 19 received a letter which said both would be killed by November 22 if the condemned convicts of the Mujib murder case are hanged.
   The threat came at a time when the Supreme Court rejected the appeals filed by the five death row convicts and upheld the High Court’s death sentences against 12 former army men.
   ‘Tell Anisul Huq that the same thing will happen to him,’ said the letter issued in the name of Jamia Islamia Al Hulhulia Bangladesh, an organisation which is still unknown to the public and might not exist at all, police sources said.
   During the appeal hearing in the case on October 26, Mahbubey Alam had received the first death threat from unknown persons through mail, threatening to kill him and his family members if the condemned prisoners in Bangabandhu murder case were not freed in 15 days.

The Bangladesh Nationalist Party chairperson, Khaleda Zia, is set to be re-elected to the top party post unopposed for the second time at the party’s fifth national council session scheduled for December 8 as none other than her collected nomination papers on Wednesday, the last day for distribution of nominations.
   ‘No one has yet collected the nomination papers other than Khaleda Zia for the position of chairperson,’ said RA Gani, returning officer for the election and a member of the party’s national standing committee. ‘Just a single nomination has been collected and no one else has come yet,’ he said.
   ‘If nomination papers are submitted for a single person by the deadline and if it is found valid in scrutiny, the candidate will be declared elected unofficially,’ he said.
   The elected chairperson will be named officially in the council session on December 8, said Sanaullah Miah, a member of the BNP’s election committee.
   Khaleda’s chief polling agent, Rizvi Ahmed, also the party’s office secretary, submitted the nomination papers on her behalf just before the deadline ended at 4:00pm. Rizvi had collected the nomination papers for Khaleda on Tuesday.
   Aminur Rahman Talukder, convener of Gabtali upazila unit BNP, signed the nomination papers as the mover and Rangamati district BNP convener Dipen Dewan signed it as the seconder.
   RA Gani said the submitted nomination papers would be scrutinised by midday today. The last day of withdrawal is Friday. He expected that the unofficial announcement would be made on the day.
   The conveners of sub-committees for discipline, publicity, and management have visited the council venue – Bangabandhu International Convention Centre – to oversee the preparations.
   After their visit, the party chairperson’s adviser and discipline sub-committee convener, ASM Hannan Shah told reporters that there would be a two-layer security measure at and around the council venue. The councillors, delegates and guests would be frisked with metal detectors.
   Although preparations for the BNP’s national council session are on the final stage, the party failed to hold conferences in one-third of its district units.
   Forty-eight out of 75 organisational district units of the party have completed their council sessions and the party put off conferences in 27 district units as they failed hold council session by the deadline.
   For accommodating representations from the districts, the party chief Khaleda Zia on her authority brought an amendment to the criteria for a councillor. As per the amendment, conveners and joint-conveners of the convening committees would be councillors.
   According to the BNP constitution [amended till August 16, 2009], president and general secretary of each upazila/thana unit, municipality unit, district unit and city unit will be councillors, and each district and city unit will nominate two female members as councillors.
   Members of the party’s parliamentary party, national executive committee, national standing committee, and another 10 per cent nominated by the chairperson will be treated as councillors.
   Around 15,000 councillors and delegates are expected to attend the national council session which is being held after 16 years.
   The last council session of the BNP was held in 1993.

Amid signs of growing tacit cooperation against terrorists, insurgents and criminals; Bangladesh and India have finalised the drafts of three major agreements to enhance formal bilateral collaboration against law-breakers of either country.
   The Bangladesh home secretary, Abdus Sobhan Sikder, and his Indian counterpart GK Pillai finalised the drafts of agreements on mutual legal assistance on criminal matters, transfer of sentenced persons and combating international terrorism, organised crime and illicit drug trafficking.
   The three agreements are now ready to be signed during the visit of the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, to New Delhi later this month.
   The drafts of the agreements have been finalised during the 10th home secretary-level talks between Bangladesh and India in New Delhi. The four-day-talks concluded on Wednesday.
   Sikder and Pillai at a briefing on Wednesday said both the sides had agreed to develop mechanism to further hasten the process of verification of nationality status of prisoners lodged in the jails of the two countries to particularly of those who had already completed their sentences so that they could be repatriated early.
   Dhaka and Delhi also agreed to redouble efforts to locate criminals under Interpol Red Corner Notices in either country.
   The home secretaries also agreed to take immediate action on the basis of real-time and actionable information
   The talks took place at a time when Dhaka and Delhi apparently stepped up tacit cooperation in the fight against criminals and terrorists.
   Pillai confirmed the Border Security Force early Wednesday morning detained suspected terrorists Thadiyantavide Nazeer and Shafaz from near the country’s border with Bangladesh in the northeastern state of Meghalaya.
   Nazeer is originally from southern Indian city of Kerala. He is suspected to be linked with terrorist organisations like Indian Mujahideen and Lashkar-e-Taiba. He is also believed to be the mastermind of the 2005 terrorist attack at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore.
   Sources said Nazeer and Shafaz had been detained in Bangladesh and handed over to India a few days ago. They had already been intensively grilled by the officials of India’s intelligence bureau.
   The detention and handover of Nazeer and Shafaz followed a new formula of covert cooperation that Bangladesh and India have been following since early November.
   Two top leaders of the United Liberation Front of Asom were detained by the BSF near the India-Bangladesh border in northeastern Indian state of Tripura in the first week of November after they had allegedly been picked up by some ‘unidentified persons’ from a residential area in Dhaka.
   Sources said Dhaka had positively responded to Delhi’s request not to formally arrest the ULFA leaders as well as terrorists like Nazeer and Shafaz, but to informally pick them up and hand them over to the BSF on the India-Bangladesh border.
   The two countries apparently agreed to follow this formula of informal cooperation as India and Bangladesh do not have an extradition treaty and persons once arrested in one country cannot be easily handed over to other country’s government.
   The ULFA general secretary Anup Chetia was arrested in Bangladesh for illegally entering and staying in the country, but he could not be handed over to India. Chetia had completed his sentence in Bangladesh, but continued to be behind bars.
   The home secretaries on Wednesday stressed the need for expediting the settlement of land boundary-related issues, which would be discussed in the next meeting of the Joint Border Working Group.
   Asked to react to the reports in Indian media over detention of ULFA chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa in Bangladesh, Sikdar said he could not confirm or deny the reports as he had been away from the country since Sunday.
   Pillai too said he had no knowledge of arrest of Rajkhowa in Bangladesh or anywhere else.
   India has been alleging that several ULFA leaders were based in Dhaka and other Bangladeshi cities. New Delhi has also been alleging that the outfit also had a number of training facilities in Bangladesh.
   Pillai said the Indian government was thankful to Bangladesh government as the latter had recently foiled the terrorists’ plan to attack the Indian High Commission in Dhaka.
   Several suspected Lashkar-e-Taiba operatives were recently detained in Bangladesh after the US Federal Bureau of Investigation alerted Dhaka following interrogation of David Headley and Tawahhur Rana, arrested by the American agency in Chicago in October.
   Interrogation of Headley and Rana revealed that the Lashkar-e-Taiba had plans to attack the US and Indian missions in Dhaka.

The United Liberation Front of Asom chairman, Arabinda Rajkhowa, has been arrested in Dhaka.
   A high Detective Branch official told New Age on Wednesday they had arrested Arabinda at Ramna in the capital Tuesday morning.
   Arabinda is likely to be handed over to India soon, the official said.
   The top leader of the liberation movement in the Indian state of Asom was arrested marking a major development in catches of the leaders of the liberation movements in eastern Indian states just before the visit of the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, to India.
   The Detective Branch on November 29 arrested the National Liberation Front of Tripura chairman, Biswamohan Debbarma, along the border at Kamalganj in Moulvibazar.
   Arabinda and Biswamohan are the latest big catches 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.
   No official confirmation of any of the arrests and handover to India, however, could be obtained.
   The inspector general of police, Nur Mohammad, however, claimed he was unaware of the arrest of Arabinda and Biswamohan.
   An Asom daily newspaper, the Assam Tribune, on Wednesday reported, ‘Intelligence inputs indicating detainment of United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa in Dhaka has created confusion here and till now no one is sure whether the militant leader has really been arrested or not.’
   Security sources revealed they had received an intelligence input that the ULFA chairman was detained by the security forces of Bangladesh in Dhaka, the report said.
   The newspaper also said in early November, two senior ULFA leaders — finance secretary Chitraban Hazarika and foreign secretary Sasha Choudhury — were nabbed by the security forces of Bangladesh and they were handed over to the Border Security Force in Tripura.
   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 government has planned printing press installation for timely printing of textbooks to end decade-long monopoly of some private printing houses, education ministry officials said.
   A huge quantity of textbooks for the students for Class I to Class X are printed and distributed every year under the supervision of the National Curriculum and Textbook Board. As the textbook board does not own printing presses, a number of private publishing houses are engaged on contract every year in an open tender system.
   The National Curriculum and Textbook Board will provide fund for the printing presses, likely to be set up at Tongi in Dhaka.
   'If the printing presses are set up, the monopoly by some private printing houses will end. For more than a decade, some private printing presses have been playing foul with successive governments, causing sufferings to students and their guardians,' said an official.
   'Some printers are so powerful that the governments hesitate to take punitive measures against them in cases of corruption and irregularities,' he said. 'If the government approves, we will move forward.'
   A former textbook board chairman said in the late 1996, a move was initiated to set up printing presses with the board's fund but the plan was shelved for bureaucratic tangle.
   The government will print about 19 crore copies of textbooks for free distribution among the students from Class I to Class IX in the academic session of 2010.
   The government now runs the Bangladesh Government Press, which prints all government publications, forms, classified materials, ballot papers, budget documents, bills, acts, ordinances, resolutions, leaflets and posters.

Several hundred people on Wednesday formed a human chain on the Chittagong Press Club premises, demanding punishment for the miscreants engaged in tree-felling in the coastal green belt.
   Non-governmental organisations Citizen Alliance for Promoting Transparency and Accountability, Jana Udyog and Peoples' Voice organised the human chain at noon. Later on, a rally was held.
   With the CAPTA convener Professor AQM Sirajul Islam Chowdhury in the chair, the rally was addressed, among others, by Suvash Chandra Barua, Professor Mohammed Iddrish Ali, MA Naser, Rehana Begum Ranu, Professor Younus Hasan, Professor Jahangir Alam, Sharif Chawhan, Nirupam Das Gupta, Chowdhury Farid, Azad Talukder, Abul Basher, Mostofa Kamal Jatra, Jahirul Islam, Shahidul Islam, Kawser Alam, Pratam Das and Rupak Chowdhury.
   The speakers demanded that the people engaged in cutting trees in the green belt should be brought to book immediately and punished.
   They said nearly 25,000 trees were felled at the Sitakunda coast recently and there would be no tree there in near future if the trend continued.
   They also said the real culprits behind the destruction of the green belt remained untouched in the past thanks to an underhand dealing with the authorities concerned.
   Meanwhile, Aslam Chowdhury, a BNP leader who vied for the parliament membership at the constituency in the past general elections, from a press conference held at the press club in the afternoon denied his involvement in the incident.
   'A few media held me responsible for felling trees in the green belt of Sitakunda, which is false and baseless,' he said, adding that it was done only to tarnish his political image.
   A group of local people felled more than 1,500 trees at Ghoramara of Sonaichhari under the upazila and removed them from the spot Sunday night to set up ship-breaking yards.
   The forest department Monday night filed a case with the Sitakunda police station, accusing 200 people of felling trees at the coastal green belt of Ghoramara.
   Earlier, a group of people, led by Abdullah Al Mamun, son of the local lawmaker ABM Abul Kashem, felled nearly 10,000 trees in the same area five months back.
   Mamun and his associates also launched an attack on five journalists, who went there to collect information and take
   photographs of their illegal logging.

In the Sundarbans, surface water temperature has been rising at the rate of 0.5 degree Celsius per decade over the past three decades, eight times the rate of global warming, says a new study, reports Times of India on Tuesday.
   That makes the Sundarbans one of the worst climate change hotspots on the globe.
   The study, carried out over 27 years from 1980 by scientists from India and the US, found a change of 1.5 degrees Celsius, a clear challenge to the survival of flora and fauna in the world's largest mangrove forest.
   A UNESCO World Heritage site, the Sundarbans covers 9,630 sq km in India and Bangladesh. It is home to a number of endangered species.
   'Surface water temperature in the deltaic complex of the Indian Sundarbans experienced a gradual increase of 0.5 degree Celsius per decade in last three decades. This rate is much higher than the global warming rate of 0.06 degree Celsius per decade and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change-documented rate of 0.2 degree Celsius per decade in the Indian Ocean during 1970-99,' Abhijit Mitra, professor in the Department of Marine Sciences, Calcutta University, told IANS.
   The study published in the latest issue of scientific journal Current Science found that faster melting of Himalayan glaciers have decreased the salinity at the western end of the Indian Sundarbans while salinity has increased on the eastern end due to clogging of connections of the estuaries with fresh water on account of heavy siltation and solid waste disposal from Kolkata.
   The scientists also studied variations in dissolved oxygen, pH level (a measure of acidity), transparency and water quality to know the impact of global warming on the ecosystem.
   'The surface water pH over the past 30 years has reduced in the region, thus increasing acidification. The variations in salinity and increased temperature could be reasons for observed variation in pH and dissolved oxygen,' said Mitra.
   The concentration of dissolved oxygen in the western sector of the Sundarbans showed an increasing trend in contrast to the eastern part where it is decreasing significantly.
   'Depletion in dissolved oxygen can cause major shifts in the ecological habitation in the region. Rising temperature could also be one of the reasons for decreasing dissolved oxygen in the Sundarbans,' he said.
   Global warming accelerates the process of erosion in coastal and estuarine zones either through increased summer flow from the glaciers or by increased tidal amplitude due to sea level rise.
   Erosion and sedimentation processes, along with subsequent churning action, increase the saturation of suspended solids, thus decreasing the transparency.
   'The reduced transparency affects the growth and survival of phytoplankton, the small microscopic plants in the oceans that produce three-fourths of the earth's oxygen supply. Damage to this community may adversely affect the food chain in this mangrove-dominated deltaic complex, which is the nursery and breeding ground of 150-250 species of fish and other organisms,' said Mitra.
   The study concluded that although the observed changes could result from a combination of climate change and human interventions and related phenomena, the changes are real and their impact will be felt in the ecosystem in the coming years.

Newspaper executives and editors gathered in India from around the world Tuesday heard calls to seek more payment for their content on the internet as they decried their industry's sharply falling advertising revenues.
   'This is a critical moment in our industry. ... If we don't dare to take these first steps, no one else will,' said Andreas Wiele, board member and president of BILD Division and Magazines Axel Springer AG Germany.
   He also said newspapers must demand of search engines 'fair share, fair search,' meaning that content providers should be compensated even for very short strings of content and the search results should not be manipulated unfairly against the original content providers.
   The World Newspaper Congress in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad was attended by senior media executives including Les Hinton, the chief executive officer of Dow Jones & Co.; David Drummond, senior vice president and chief legal counsel of Google Inc.; and Antoine Vernholes, the international director of the French sports daily L'Equipe.
   In North America PriceWaterhouse Coopers has predicted that by 2013, combined print and digital revenues will be less than print-only advertising revenues in 2008, said Timothy Balding, the Joint Chief Executive Officer of the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers, which organised the three-day conference that ends (today) Thursday.
   'One thing is sure, unless we protect and commercially exploit our high value content, the journalistic standards so important to our readers and to society will no longer be financially viable,' he added in his world newspaper trends report.
   But Balding said that despite predictions about the death of newspapers, 'they actually continue to grow, at least on the global scale.’

The police on Wednesday arrested two persons in the Chittagong court building area on suspicion of their links to Islamist militancy.
   The arrested were identified as Mobarak Hossain, 23, son of Abdus Sobahan of Babupara in Lalmonirhat and Mohammed Habibur Rahman, 23, son of Ali Hossain of Kachhabalia in Jhalakati.
   Chittagong Metropolitan Police sources said they had arrested Mobarak and Ali in the court area at about 1:00pm when the two suspects were giving sermons to the litigants that went against the law of the land. They were also carrying some religious books, the police said.
   The police produced the two in the metropolitan magistrate court seeking a three-day remand to interrogate them. The court granted a one-day remand.

Two people were arrested while fleeing after shooting a businessman at North Kafrul in Dhaka on Tuesday.
   The arrested are Mohammad Joynal and Mohammad Ripon, both in their 20s. They were found in possession of a revolver and five rounds of ammunition.
   Witnesses said the two shot at a diagnostic center owner on his way to home at about 11:00pm. The police had an exchange of fire with the shooters and arrested them with the help of local people.

The Bangladesh Nationalist Party chairperson, Khaleda Zia, on Wednesday launched a campaign for the party's national council session scheduled for December 8.
   She launched a web site www.bnpcouncil2009.com and other campaign materials, including posters, leaflets and stickers, in a ceremony in her office at Gulshan Wednesday evening.
   The party's standing committee members Khandakar Mosharraf Hossain and M Shamsul Islam, vice-chairman Sarwari Rahman and joint secretary general Gyeshwar Chandra Roy were present.

The post and telecommunications minister, Razi Uddin Ahmad Razu, on Wednesday hoped that the international outgoing call rates would be reduced from December 16. He said it would increase the revenue income.
   The minister express the hope in a meeting held in the conference room of the Bangladesh Telecommuni-cation Regulatory Commi-ssion in Dhaka, said a press release.
   Issues like council membership in the International Telecommunication Union, ITU secretary's visit to Bangladesh and ITU-related minister-level meeting to be held in Dhaka were on the agenda of the meeting.
   The minister told the meeting to form a committee comprising officials of the ministry and the BTRC to get membership of the ITU. He also assured the employees of the completed projects of the BTRC that their jobs would be brought under the revenue budget.
   BTRC chairman Brigadier General (retd) Zia Ahmad, vice-chairman, commissioners, additional secretary of the ministry and other high officials attended the meeting among others.

The first return Hajj flight arrived at 5:10pm Wednes-day at Zia International Airport with 518 Hajis.
   An aircraft of Biman Bangladesh Airline carried the Hajis from Saudi Arabia, said a press release.
   The return Hajj flights will continue for the next one month and the last flight will arrive Dhaka on January 2, 2010.
   This year Biman is operating 68 dedicated and 33 scheduled flights for the Hajis.
   A total of 59,029 people from Bangladesh performed the Hajj this year.