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The government is set to violate the set principles and also two High Court verdicts by ratifying the ordinances promulgated by the military-controlled interim government.
   The 44 ordinances recommended by the parliamentary special committee on Tuesday for approval include some ordinances which do not conform to the ratification principles.
   The expert committee formed to scrutinise the ordinances promulgated in the past two years submitted its report on January 25, recommending that 30 ordinances should be approved, 39 should be scrapped and 53 others should be left for the parliament to decide.
   The expert committee made the recommendations according to the principles that only the ordinances promulgated in accordance with Article 58D of the constitution should be enacted as laws.
   According to the article, the president of a caretaker government cannot promulgate any ordinance that is not directly related to elections or is not essential to run the day-to-day affairs of the government
   The High Court has so far delivered two verdicts and ruled that the interim government had no powers to promulgate any ordinance that does not fulfil the conditions.
   The High Court bench of Justice ABM Khairul Haque and Justice M Abu Tariq, in accordance with this principle, cancelled the Muslim Marriage and Divorce Ordinance on July 13, 2008 and the Contempt of Court Ordinance on July 24, 2008.
   The parliamentary special committee at a meeting on Tuesday recommended 44 ordinances, out of the 122 promulgated by the military-controlled interim government for passage into laws.
   The meeting, where five members on the expert committee were also present, adopted the principle of ordinance ratification set by the expert committee.
   The 44 ordinances recommended for passage into laws include a number of ordinances which had provisions related neither to elections nor routine functions of the government.
   The Bangladesh University of Professionals Ordinance 2008 which made provisions for the establishment of a university for the defence service officials, two ordinances which increased remunerations and other financial benefits of the president and the Supreme Court judges, the Prevention of Terrorism Ordnance which was promulgated amid protests from almost all quarters, the National Human Rights Commission Ordinance and the Right to Information Ordinance, in which changes have been demanded by various quarters including the media and rights groups, are also on the list of the 44 ordinances recommended for enactment.
   When asked about the justification of ratifying the ordinances, the law minister, Shafique Ahmed, said, ‘We will also pass the ordinances which are meant to ensure the people’s welfare.’
   The president and the Supreme Court judges have already been enjoying the remunerations and financial benefits increased by the ordinances, and privileges once given cannot be curtailed, he said to justify the ratification of the two ordinances.
   He also said ‘saving clauses’ would be included in the ordinances which would not be passed as laws in order to validate the actions or measures taken under the ordinances as ‘past and closed transactions,’ according to the General Clauses Act.
   Former BNP law minister Moudud Ahmed told New Age the government could not pass into
   laws the ordinances which were not directly related
   to elections or routine functions of the government.
   The ratification of several of the 44 ordinances recommended by the parliamentary special committee will be a complete violation of the constitution and the High Court’s verdicts, he said.
   The parliamentary special committee recommended ratification of the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance, National Human Rights Commission Ordinance and Right to Information Ordinance, which were not recommended by the expert committee, committee sources said.
   The parliamentary special committee, however, recommended disapproval of a number of ordinances considered by different quarters to be beneficial for the national interest and meant for people’s welfare.
   Although the committee recommended the University of Professionals Ordinance for the defence officials for passage into law, it did not recommend ratification of the Private Universities Ordinance promulgated to ensure quality education in
   private universities by making them subject to specific rules and regulations.
   The committee also did not recommend ratification of the Supreme Judicial Commission Ordinance promulgated in response to the demand raised by the Supreme Court Bar Association, which is dominated by the pro-Awami League lawyers. The ordinance made provisions for the establishment of a commission to recommend the appointments of Supreme Court judges.
   The 78 ordinances, which were not recommended for passage into laws, also include the Consumers’ Rights Protection Ordinance, the Attorney Services Ordinance which made provisions for a permanent attorney service for lower courts, the Real Estate Development and Management Ordinance which made provisions for ensuring accountability of real estate companies, and the Local Government Commission Ordinance which made the local government institutions accountable to a commission instead of the local government ministry.
   When he was asked about the justification of non-approval of the ordinances which are necessary for the welfare of the public, the law minister said the parliament would decide the fate of the Consumers’ Rights Protection Ordinance.
   The Supreme Judicial Commission Ordinance was declared illegal by the senior judge of a three-member High Court bench although the two other judges declared it valid, said Shafique, adding the appeal against the High Court verdict was still pending with the Appellate Division.
   According to a member on the parliamentary committee, the Local Government (Upazila Parishads) Ordinance would be scrapped, but the January 22 elections held under the ordinance would be given validity.

A severe power crisis has hit the Chittagong region, reeling under more than 150MW of load shedding, sources in the Power Development Board said.
   The Secondary School Certificate examinees scheduled to take for the exams beginning February 15 have become the worst suffers because of the power crisis.
   A drastic fall in power generation at the local power plants and the Kaptai hydroelectric project, coupled with increased consumption of power just before the advent of summer have fuelled the frequent power outage in the region, covering the Chittagong Cox’s Bazar and three hill districts, the sources said.
   The Chittagong region needs 400MW of power at daytime and 510MW after the evening, the sources said.
   Power plants in Chittagong mostly remain closed because of gas shortage. Besides, four out of the five Kaptai units are out of order as water level in Kaptai Lake dropped to 83 mean sea level against the normal requirement of 109msl, they said, explaining the reasons behind the power crisis.
   The local gas-run power plants include two units at the Raujan thermal plant with a capacity to generate more than 400MW of power, 60MW Shikalbaha unit and the 10MW Shikalbaha barge-mounted unit, they said.
   ‘We are forced to shed load of 150MW to 170MW regularly because of poor generation,’ said the power board chief engineer in Chittagong, Tulashi Das.
   ‘Out of two, only one Raujan unit could be run somehow to generate 90MW of power and other plants remain shut. Only one out of the five Kaptai units operates to generate 40MW. So we find it difficult to cope with the growing demand with such a poor supply of 130MW,’ he said.
   ‘But we are managing it somehow with additional supply from the national grid, which is also insufficient. As a result, we need to go for routine load shedding,’ Tulashi said. ‘The national grid now gives top priority to irrigation in the northern parts of the country. So it cannot provide power to our requirement and expectation.’
   ‘With the summer setting in, the demand for power will increase more. But it cannot be tackled if generation could be increased,’ he said.
   ‘Our main problem is the poor supply of gas. If we get adequate gas to run the plants, we can easily generate 400MW from the two units of the Raujan plant and 70MW from two Shikalbaha units. In that case, we could have reduced our dependence on the national,’ he said.
   ‘Against the demand for 100 million cubic feet of gas to run the power plants, only 20 million cubic feet are supplied regularly,’ the power board official said.

The main opposition party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, on Friday said it preferred, for the greater interest of the country, multilateral regional transit facilities rather than giving ‘corridor to India in the name of transit for passage of goods’.
   ‘We are against the signing of a deal allowing India a corridor in the guise of transit,’ said BNP secretary general Khandaker Delwar Hossain while explaining the party’s position on transit deal with India and a possible renewal of the goods transportation treaty. ‘Signing an agreement that will give India a blank cheque for transit through our territory will be suicidal for us.’
   ‘Instead, Bangladesh can weigh the idea of a multinational regional transit network covering all South Asian countries and China, Myanmar, Iran and Central Asia. It will benefit the economies of all [regional] countries,’ he said. ‘A regional network would help Bangladesh enhance its trade, commerce, investment and international communications by safeguarding its national interest in the changing global scenario.’
   Delwar said the Indian side was insisting that transit was ‘a commercial, not a political, issue’, that the current trade gap would be reduced and Bangladesh would earn huge revenue if corridor was given to them. ‘But, the reality is that our weak communication infrastructure cannot sustain the Indian heavy vehicles,’ he said. ‘Besides, we cannot make large investment in the development of infrastructure or bear the maintenance cost.’
   In addition, trade deficit will widen further as Bangladesh will lose India, especially its north-eastern states, as a market, he pointed out.
   Delwar said, ‘Above all, the proposed transit treaty will jeopardise our sovereignty, national security and economic backbone. It will also invite many socio-political problems.’
   The rebel groups in the north-east Indian states may target highways and railway tracks in Bangladesh territories, to be used by Indian goods carriages transporting arms and ammunition to contain insurgencies in the states concerned, he said.
   He noted that under the pretext of its national security concern, India had restricted the movement of the people of Dahagram and Angorpota enclaves to the mainland after sunset. ‘How can a country, which is still unwilling to allow 16 kilometres transit between Bangladesh and Nepal citing the same security reasons, expect to be allowed 250 kilometres transit over Bangladesh territory,’ he wondered.
   Delwar accused the Awami League-led government of keeping the people in general and the opposition political parties in particular in the dark about the draft transit treaty it was allegedly planning to sign with India.
   ‘We are very apprehensive as they [government] have kept the people and the opposition parties in the dark about the documents to be signed with India.’
   The BNP brushed aside commerce minister Faruk Khan’s claims that the first trade agreement with India was signed during former president Ziaur Rahman’s regime.
   ‘No new trade deal was signed during Zia’s rule,’ BNP standing committee member Khandakar Mosharraf Hossain said.
   ‘The first trade treaty between India and Bangladesh was signed by the then Bangladesh commerce minister MR Siddiqui and his Indian counterpart LN Mishra on March 28, 1972, during Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s regime,’ he said, adding, that successive governments had renewed the agreement as required keeping article 5 concerning “transit” non-functional.’
   Article 5 of the 1972 agreement says: The two governments agree to make mutually beneficial arrangements for the use of their waterways, railways and roadways for commerce between the two countries and for passage of goods between the two places in one country through the territory of other.
   He criticised the government for allegations that the then BNP government had given India transit facilities under SAPTA in 1993. ‘SAPTA is a multidimensional cooperation treaty, a component of the SAARC structure,’ he said, adding, ‘On the other hand, the proposed India-Bangladesh corridor is clearly a bilateral issue.’

The government is planning to float tenders online to make the public procurement system transparent, accountable and functional and keep it free from undue influence, officials said.
   As part of the Public Procurement Reform Project-II, it has taken up a plan to introduce, in phases, e-government procurement (e-GP) to modernise the outdated procurement process and rid it of unjustified influence or physical obstruction.
   The finance minister, Abul Maal Abdul Muhith, has already iterated the government’s plan to go for government purchases online in accordance with its vision of a ‘digital Bangladesh’ by 2121.
   According to a study of the World Bank carried out in 2002, the total value of the country’s public procurement amounts to more than $3.0 billion a year.
   Both the volume and the value of such expenditures are expected to increase manifold in the coming years as the country is undertaking more development projects, said sources.
   More than 80 per cent of the annual development expenditures are spent on government purchase of goods, works and services, according to official statistics.
   With the financial assistance of the World Bank, the central procurement technical unit of the Implementation, Monitoring and Evaluation Division under the planning ministry has already started the primary work to launch the online tender process.
   The unit’s director general Amulya Kumar Debnath told New Age on Thursday four government departments were the targeted agencies under the project. The e-GP will be introduced in 12 to 16 procuring entities under the four agencies on a pilot basis at first.
   The four government departments are the Local Government Engineering Department, Roads and Highways Department, Bangladesh Water Development Board and Rural Electrification Board.
   ‘The single end-to-end e-GP solution is one of the four components of the project, and after the launch of the e-GP, all procurement-related information will be delivered via a comprehensive integrated platform and e-GP portal,’ he said. ‘All stakeholders can have equal access to information, opportunities and participation in the procurement processes in e-GP.’
   The other components of the reforms programme include furthering policy reforms and institutionalising capacity development; strengthening procurement management at the sectorial level, and communication, behavioural change and social accountability.
   As a part of capacity building and institutionalising the procurement system in compliance with the Public Procurement Act 2006 and the Public Procurement Rules 2008, four training courses, each spanning three weeks, have already been completed. About 108 such courses will be held for over 10 thousand officials, said Debnath.
   A comprehensive social awareness campaign and communication programme on public procurement reforms, law and rules, and social accountability is also under way.
   Debnath said the PPA and the PPR have paved the way for making the public procurement system accountable and transparent.
   He said there should not be any misconception about the laws and rules concerned. They will not cause any delay or inconvenience in the process of procurement, rather they are safeguards for ensuring fair competition and purchase of quality goods and services with government funds.
   ‘All government procuring entities, the bidding community, suppliers, consultants and others concerned are expected to comply with the PPA and PPR,’ he noted.
   ‘As government purchases are made with public money, its proper and full utilisation as per the laws and rules will help us to accelerate the pace of the ADP by implementing the development projects in time,’ said Debnath, adding the CPTU is going to launch an integrated and comprehensive campaign to generate support of all those concerned in favour of the laws, rules and reforms in public procurement.
   The abbreviation ‘PPR’ no longer stands for Public Procurement Regulations, which was replaced by the Public Procurement Rules 2008. The Public Procurement Regulations 2003 was declared void as soon as the Public Procurement Act 2006 was made a law. Under the law, rules have been framed and put into force since January 31, 2008.
   Besides, the e-GP will also provide comprehensive management information and reporting system as prescribed in the PPR 2008.
   Debnath said under the IT Act, the use of e-signature has been accepted.
   Many countries’ experience of the e-GP shows these factors, when combined, can yield savings up to 15 per cent or even more, said an expert working at the CPTU.
   More than 50 governments around the world are already using the e-GP in one way or another.

India for the first time directly accused Pakistan’s military intelligence agency of involvement in the Mumbai attacks, amid reports Islamabad’s own probe will suggest the assault was planned in Bangladesh.
   In a speech in Paris reported by the Indian media Friday, the foreign secretary, Shivshankar Menon, said the perpetrators ‘planned, trained and launched their attacks from Pakistan, and the organisers were and remain clients and creations of the ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence).’
   The stunning November assault on India’s financial capital, when 10 gunmen killed 165 people during a 60-hour siege, has led to a furious blame game that has sharply escalated tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbours.
   In January, India handed Islamabad a dossier of what it said was evidence linking ‘elements’ in Pakistan to the attack.
   India has blamed the assault on the banned militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, which is active in Indian-ruled Kashmir, but the Pakistan-based organisation has denied responsibility.
   Pakistan has confirmed that the lone surviving Mumbai gunman, who is now in Indian custody, is one of its citizens, but it insists that the attackers were ‘non-state actors.’
   India had previously blamed the ISI for a suicide attack on its embassy in Kabul last July, in which 60 people, including India’s military attache and a diplomat, were killed.
   Menon said India had long suffered from ‘terrorist organisations, their support structures, official sponsors and funding mechanisms, which transcend national borders but operate within them.’
   He also criticised foreign arms sales to Pakistan in the name of fighting terrorism, saying it was like selling ‘whisky to an alcoholic.’
   The United States has been one of Pakistan’s key military backers, including providing F-16 fighter jets in return for political support for its operations in Afghanistan.
   Meanwhile Pakistan’s oldest English-language newspaper, Dawn, reported that investigators probing the Mumbai attacks for the government in Islamabad had uncovered evidence implicating a banned Bangladesh-based militant organisation, Harkat-ul-Jihad-al Islmani.
   The report, based on unidentified sources, also mentioned the possibility that one of the gunmen was of Bangladeshi origin.
   The probe ‘is likely to indicate that the Mumbai attack was the handiwork of an ‘international network of Muslim fundamentalists’ present in South Asia and spread all the way to Middle East,’ Dawn said.
   ‘Although the Bangladesh connection has emerged quite prominently in the investigations, there are also clear indications that some of the planning for the attacks was done in Dubai and there is also an element of local Indian support,’ it added.
   There was no immediate official Pakistani confirmation of the Dawn report.
   Harkat has been blamed for a series of attacks in Bangladesh, including the 2004 grenade blasts at a rally in Dhaka at which the current premier Sheikh Hasina was speaking.
   It was also accused of responsibility over a series of synchronised bomb blasts across the northeast Indian state of Assam in November in which nearly 80 people were killed.
   The group’s chief Mufti Abdul Hannan was sentenced to death late last year after he was found guilty of masterminding an attack on British ambassador to Bangladesh in 2003.
   Bangladesh said Friday it was unaware of any evidence implicating Harkat in the Mumbai assault.
   ‘First of all we don’t have any information. If anyone has any information, share with us. We are ready to cooperate,’ foreign secretary Touhid Hossain told AFP.

About 250,000 people in the embattled north-eastern Vanni region of Sri Lanka are facing a food crisis and surviving on fraught aid deliveries, the UN’s food relief agency said Friday.
   ‘At present the entire population of the Vanni is facing a food crisis due to the continuous displacement, crop failure and recent floods,’ said World Food programme spokeswoman Emilia Casella.
   ‘We would estimate now that the Vanni caseload would be about 250,000 people,’ she added.
    ‘There is complete dependence on humanitarian food assistance for survival.’
   The Vanni region is at the heart of bitter fighting between government forces and Tamil Tiger rebels in recent weeks.
   There has been growing concern for the safety of civilians amid reports from the international Red Cross that ‘hundreds’ have already been killed, while relief agencies have said tens of thousands are cut off behind the frontline.
   Casella said the last convoy, with a week’s supply of food for 230,000 displaced people, went into the conflict zone on January 16.
   But the WFP has not been able to send any food in since then.
   ‘The authorities had said there would be a humanitarian window on Thursdays that would permit some supplies to get in but unfortunately Thursday the convoy that we had planned to send in was unable to go,’ Casella added.
   The convoy was ‘unable to get clearance’ but Casella was not able to say if that was due to the Sri Lankan authorities, the Tamil Tigers, or general security concerns.
   International aid donors say they have failed to secure agreement with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam to allow civilians out of the rapidly shrinking territory under rebel control.
   Both sides have blamed each other for civilian casualties.

The main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party will chair four parliamentary standing committees, chief whip Abdus Shahid said on Friday.
   No opposition party chaired a standing committee — parliamentary watchdog on ministries — in the previous eight parliaments.
   ‘Proportionately, the main opposition BNP will get four chairs of the standing committees. We’ve already asked for names from them for the positions,’ Shahid told Bdnews24.com.
   ‘Awami League-led alliance government’s key ally Jatiya Party will get chairs of three standing committees,’ he added.
   In its election manifesto, the Awami League had promised to allow the opposition, if voted to power, to chair standing committees.
   The ongoing parliament session will form standing committees for 37 ministries and 11 parliament-related standing committees, two of which have already been constituted.
   During the previous parliament, the then opposition AL demanded chairmanship of standing committees proportionately, but was refused by the BNP-led alliance government.
   A separate 10-member standing committee is formed in each ministry to ensure transparency and accountability.

Dhaka and Washington will focus on security, especially combating terrorism, and trade, during the US senior assistant secretary of state Richard Boucher’s scheduled meeting with the officials here today and tomorrow.
   Boucher was scheduled to arrive in the capital early Saturday on a two-day visit to Bangladesh to meet officials, including the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina.
   Diplomatic sources in Dhaka said Boucher would focus mainly on issues related to anti-terrorism from a broad South Asian perspective as the Awami League has proposed a regional task force to combat terrorism and extremism.
   This is the first high-level visit by an American dignitary after the installation of the governments in Dhaka and Washington in January.
   Foreign ministry officials said the issues of cooperation between Bangladesh and the United States in counter-terrorism as well as striking a deal on the proposed Trade and Investment Framework Agreement would feature prominently in the talks during Boucher’s visit.
   ‘Dhaka will also press for duty- and quota-free access of Bangladeshi products to the US market,’ said an official.
   According to the tentative schedule, the senior official of the US state department will meet the home minister, Sahara Khatun, and the BNP chairperson, Khaleda Zia, also the leader of the opposition in parliament, on Saturday.
   Boucher will meet the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, parliament speaker Abdul Hamid, foreign affairs minister Dipu Moni, state minister for foreign affairs Hasan Mahmud and foreign secretary Touhid Hosain on Sunday.
   He is scheduled to leave for Kolkata Sunday evening.

In the most dramatic bidding for players in the Indian Primer League to date, Bangladesh vice-captain Mashrafee bin Murtaza was purchased by Kolkata Knight Riders at a whopping $600,000 in Goa on Friday.
   Bidding on Mashrafee had started with a base price of $50,000 but his figures kept climbing steadily with the Kings XI Punjab hot on the heels of the Knight Riders before the Kolkata side roped him for 12 times his starting price.
   Bangladesh skipper Mohammad Ashraful rode on his luck to win a contract at a time when it seemed the auction was well over. Mumbai Indians snapped him up at his base price $75,000.
   Sakib al Hasan, the world’s top ranked all-rounder in ODIs, however, did not get a buyer surprisingly. Also unsold was opening batsman Tamim Iqbal, the other Bangladeshi player on the auction.
   Initially there were no bids for Mashrafee either. But just before the hammer went down, Kolkata made a bid for $50,000. It was the start of the most dramatic sale at the auction that lasted nearly half an hour.
   Kings XI Punjab entered the race almost immediately and the price started climbing up by $10,000 with every call. The raises were slow and the bidding went on and on and on. Kolkata touched the $500,000 mark first and Punjab went further to $550,000.
   To the utter disbelief of everyone present, Kolkata, raised their call to $600,000 and at this point the tug of war between two best-looking film actresses of India Juhi Chawla and Preity Zinta for the Bangladesh pacer ended.
   Juhi, the co-owner of Knight Riders, was calling for her team accompanied by coach Buchanan while Preity was calling for her King XI side alongside partner Ness Wadia. Preity was clearly frustrated, and later revealed that she was desperate to have Mashrafee on her side.
   ‘(Masharfee) Murtaza is a great player, an all-rounder and we wanted him. But you win some, you lose some,’ Preity later told reporters.
   Mashrafee’s price was a record in the IPL. His price increased by 1100 per cent than his base price. Indian pacer Ishant Sharma held the record previously with $950,000 -575 per cent higher than his base price, also from Knight Riders last year.
   The prices are for each year for a two-year contract. Last season the teams had to sign contracts for three years. The cricketers will get paid on a prorate basis depending on their availability for the duration of the six-week tournament.
   Bangladesh’s Abdur Razzak won a contract from Bangalore Royal Challengers last year worth of $50,000. His presence this season will however depend on his successful return to cricket rectifying his flawed action.
   When it seemed that Mashrafee would be the only one to be added with Razzak from Bangladesh, Ashraful came to the scene dramatically. No team had shown any interest when his name was called, but after the formal auctioneering came to an end, he got a surprise bidder.
   After teams had roped in 15 players, the IPL authority gave them a chance to fill the remaining quotas from unsold players. Mumbai Indians came forward and roped in Ashraful while Punjab, which missed Mashrafee, opted for West Indian Jerome Taylor.
   Teams are free to fill the vacancies created by the Pakistanis from the pool of players at a later date. Knight Riders alone had four Pakistani players with Shoaib Akther, Umar Gul, Salman Butt and Mohammad Hafiz while Rajstahan Royals had Sohail Tanvir and Kamran Akmal.
   Replacement will be needed for Misbah-ul-Huq of Bangalore Royal Challengers and Shahid Afridi of Deccan Chargers, so the unsold players can still try their luck in the cash-rich Twenty20 League.
   The 2009 IPL season will be held from April 10 to May 29.

Shia mobs staged violent protests in a central Pakistan town, police said Friday, as community leaders demanded action to stem sectarian violence after a bomb near a mosque killed 33 people.
   A suspected suicide bomber ripped through a crowd of Shias near a mosque in the town of Dera Ghazi Khan in the central Punjab province late Thursday.
   The death toll Friday rose to 33 with 52 people wounded, a senior police official said, with 26 bodies identified by relatives.
   It was one of the deadliest attacks targeting Shias in the Sunni-majority country, where Muslims usually coexist peacefully but outbreaks of sectarian violence have claimed more than 4,000 lives since the late 1980s.
   The attack was also the deadliest bombing since October in Pakistan, where extremists opposed to the government’s support for the US-led ‘war on terror’ have killed more than 1,500 people in just over a year and a half.
   In Dera Ghazi Khan, schools, shops, businesses and offices were closed following a night of violent protests overnight by Shiite students who damaged a police vehicle and broke traffic lights and signs, the police and witnesses said.
   More than a dozen angry youths set fire to a police checkpoint, and smashed windows and damaged furniture on Friday, said a local police official.
   ‘Less than two dozen angry youths, whose relatives died in Thursday’s tragedy were destroying property, but the situation is under control,’ said the officer, Ausaf Ali Rana.
   Police reinforcements were called in from outside the town, where a heavy security presence was patrolling the largely shuttered streets on Friday.
   ‘There are heavy police patrols to avert any eventuality. Most people are staying at home and police have deployed at Sunni mosques,’ Rana said.
   ‘Police were silent spectators. Some youths carrying batons were destroying neon signs, hoardings, shops, a bank and a petrol station,’ local trader Yaquob Mirza told AFP by telephone.
   ‘The city is shuttered down and there are heavy police patrols but youths wearing Shalwar Kameez (traditional Pakistani dress) and carrying sticks or bricks were destroying Sunni or state property,’ said resident Ashraf Buzdar.
   Although there was no immediate claim of responsibility for Thursday’s blast, police were swift to blame sectarian extremists.
   ‘We will continue our protest until the government arrests the culprits responsible for the killings,’ Syed Naubahar Shah, chairman of Pakistan Shia Political Party told AFP urging the authorities to take ‘vigorous action’.
   Recent anti-Shia attacks in the northwest town of Dera Ismail Khan sparked fears among the Shia community that sectarian violence was spreading.
   ‘There is a conspiracy to spread sectarian violence from Dera Ismail Khan into Punjab province,’ he said.
   Provincial lawmaker, Mohsin Khan Leghari, elected in Dera Ghazi Khan blamed the Punjab government for the bombing.
   ‘We will raise this issue in the Punjab assembly. The Punjab government is too busy with politics to pay attention to the security of ordinary people,’ Leghari said.
   Shia faithful, who account for about 20 per cent of Pakistan’s population of 160 million, are observing the last week of a mourning period to commemorate the death of their revered Imam Hussein, who was killed in 680 AD.
   Unrest in Pakistan has fuelled international fears for the stability of the nuclear-armed Islamic republic, where Taliban and al-Qaeda militants are entrenched in the country’s northwest border areas with Afghanistan.

The government is yet to take any steps to form a special cell comprising a pool of experts, headed by an adviser to the prime minister, for monitoring and guiding the activities of power and energy sectors.
   The prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, who is also in-charge of the power and energy ministry, at her first meeting with the officials of the ministry, which was held on January 14, announced that a special cell comprising a pool of experts would be formed for guiding the activities of the crisis-ridden power and energy sectors.
   Earlier, the PM verbally asked her adviser Tawfiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury, who had caused controversy for his role while performing as an energy secretary during the AL’s former tenure, to look into the activities of the power and energy sectors.
   She also appointed Shamsul Haque Tuku, a member of parliament elected for a Pabna constituency, state minister for power and energy, on January 24 last.
   Bur the PM has not given any executive power to Tawfiq, who holds a rank of a minister, to oversee the activities of the power and energy sectors as different quarters outside the government and AL protested at his appointment in the power and energy ministry.
   Tawfiq at present attends office at the power and energy ministry, and gives verbal orders to the officials.
   Though Tuku was appointed state minister two weeks back, he has so far remained busy meeting the visitors from his constituency in Pabna, apart from visiting the Barapukuria coal mine on January 27, sources in the ministry said.
   Every day 15 to 20 visitors from Pabna meet the state minister at his secretariat office, the sources said.
   ‘It makes us surprised how they collect passes to enter the secretariat,’ he added.
   ‘It is obvious people will come to meet a minister, who is a political leader, but I have never seen such an influx of visitors to a minister in 15 years of my service,’ he said.
   The sources in the energy division said that the minister had so far held an introductory meeting with the officials of energy division, but did not hold any significant meetings with the officials of power division, which was set to face one of the worst power crises in the coming summer.
   The crisis in power supply has already began as electricity generation has fallen by around 200-300MW on an average daily in the last one month because of the relaxed monitoring of the activities by the power division.
   When asked about formation of the special cell, Tuku told New Age on Thursday that the PM was looking into the matter and the cell would be formed in time.
   Replying to a query on influx of so many visitors at his office daily, he said that the number of visitors was declining everyday, adding, ‘You can see a few number of visitors today [Thursday].’
   The visitors are not allowed at the secretariat on Thursday.
   Regarding the activities in power sector, the state minister said that he would soon hold one-to-one meetings with the experts at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology to take their suggestions for immediate boosting of power generation.
   ‘At present I am trying to know the details of power sector. I will soon meet the experts to find alternatives to increase power generation,’ he said, adding that he would soon unveil the initiatives to increase power generation.

About one-third of all Russian fighter jets should be written off as obsolete because they are unable to fly, the Kommersant business daily reported on Friday, quoting defence ministry and military officials.
   Russia grounded all of its MiG-29 fighter jets last December after two of the aircraft crashed near the same airfield in eastern Siberia in just as many months. One pilot died.
   Flights of MiG-29s have resumed since then, but hundreds are simply too
   old even to take off, Kommersant said.
   ‘Russia’s defence ministry for the first time recognised that around 200 of its MiG-29s are not just unable to cope with their combat tasks, but simply cannot take off,’ the paper said.
   The report could hit Russia’s reputation as a leading arms exporter and undermine Kremlin attempts to project Russia as a revived military power.
   Both of the MiG-29s that crashed in eastern Siberia had been in service since 1985, Kommersant wrote.
   ‘The main cause of the crash of the MiG-29 aircraft was the destruction of the keel in the air due to corrosion,’ the paper quoted Lt Gen Sergei Bainetov, head of the defence ministry’s flight safety department, as saying.

Climate change poses a grave threat to dozens of countries where people depend on fish for food, according to a study published Friday that said catches are imperilled by coastal storms and damage to coral reefs.
   The WorldFish research centre identified 33 countries as ‘highly vulnerable’ to the effects of climate change because of their heavy reliance on fisheries and limited alternative sources of protein.
   Many of the group, which takes in the African nations of Malawi, Guinea, Senegal, Uganda; Bangladesh, Cambodia and Vietnam in Asia; and Peru and Colombia in South America; are among the world’s poorest countries.
   ‘Low-lying highly populated countries like Bangladesh and Cambodia will face major inundations of crop land with rising sea levels and this will cause a loss of productive land and impact their economies badly,’ the study’s lead author Edward Allison told AFP.
   ‘As fish is central to many economies and diets, people in the tropics and subtropics will be affected as they have a limited ability to develop other sources of income and food in the face of such change,’ he added.
   ‘The damage will be greatly compounded unless governments and international institutions like the World Bank act now to include the fish sector in plans for helping the poor cope with climate change.’
   Global fisheries provide more than 2.6 billion people with at least 20 per cent of their average annual protein intake, the study said, citing UN data.
   The report, prepared by the Malaysia-based WorldFish and a number of universities and research groups, said climate change threatened to destroy coral reefs, push salt water into freshwater habitats and produce more coastal storms.
   It said the 33 ‘highly vulnerable’ countries produce 20 per cent of the world’s fish exports and that they should be given priority in efforts to help them adapt to climate change.
   Two-thirds of the most vulnerable nations are in Africa, where fish accounts for more than half of the daily animal protein consumed and where fish production is highly sensitive to climate variations.
   In South Asia, the report said potential problems including bleaching of coral reefs and changes in river flows as a result of reduced snowfalls present a danger to freshwater habitats.
   Allison said the next step would be to investigate the impact climate change will have on these countries and the cost of adapting to the new environment.
   He said a lack of data meant researchers were unable to include 60 nations including the tiny Pacific states of Kiribati and the Solomon Islands, and the military dictatorship of Myanmar, that were likely to be highly vulnerable.

Pakistani helicopter gunships and ground forces killed 52 militants in a massive operation to clear Taliban fighters out of the flashpoint Khyber region on Friday, security officials said.
   The operation, mobilising air power, paramilitary troops and artillery fire, began early Friday in the rugged northwest tribal area, which is a vital supply route for US and NATO forces fighting across the border in Afghanistan, officials said.
   ‘Frontier Corps troops killed 52 militants, targeted five hideouts and destroyed an ammunition dump and eight vehicles in Chapri Feroze Khel in Khyber,’ a senior security official involved in the operation said.
   Another security official said the death toll was ‘at least 52 and could be more.’ Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity.
   The tolls were impossible to verify independently in the remote and dangerous region, where Pakistani troops are battling Taliban militants to secure the Khyber for trucks carrying supplies to NATO forces in Afghanistan.
   US officials say northwest Pakistan has become a safe haven for al-Qaeda and Taliban militants who fled after the 2001 US-led invasion of neighbouring Afghanistan and have since regrouped to launch attacks on foreign troops across the border.
   Pakistan, under massive Western pressure to clamp down on extremists, has stepped up its offensive in an attempt to clear out extremists from the northwest, including semi-autonomous tribal areas such as Khyber.
    ‘It was a very high-profile targeted attack. Helicopter gunships targeted these hideouts and ammunition dump. It was on the border between Khyber and the Kurram tribal belt,’ said the second security official on Friday.
   The majority of those killed died from helicopter gunfire in and around suspected militant hideouts.

The Commonwealth secretary general, Kamalesh Sharma, said on Thursday there was a ‘startling gap’ between pledges made by donors to help the growing numbers of hungry people and funds received.
   Donors at a summit in Rome last month promised $22 billion in agriculture and food aid after higher food prices left another 40 million people hungry in 2008. That raises the number of undernourished people in the world to 963 million, the United Nations says.
   The head of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, Jacques Diouf, has said only about $2 billion — less than one-tenth of the funds pledged — had been received to date, but more was due in coming years.
   ‘I dare say that this is a very startling gap between what has been promised and what has been forthcoming so far,’ the Commonwealth’s Sharma told reporters in New Delhi.
   He said countries were preoccupied with high energy costs and the effects of the financial crisis, but hoped it was ‘a delay in the pipeline’.
   Sharma, a former Indian diplomat who took over the post last year, said the Commonwealth would address the shortfall in aid at its next summit this year as part of wider discussions on food and energy issues.
   The 53-member Commonwealth is mostly made up of former British colonies.
   Developing countries in South Asia such as India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, and poor African countries make up the bulk of the Commonwealth’s two billion people.
   It also includes industrialised nations such as Britain, Canada and Australia.
   The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-Moon, last week called on rich nations to do more to prevent the global financial slowdown from adding to a massive 1 billion people going hungry in the world.
   Food prices have come down for the time being but the number of hungry people was set to rise again, Ban said. The financial crisis will slash the poor’s purchasing power and cause higher unemployment, according to the World Food Programme.

A Pakistani court on Friday ruled that nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, father of the country’s atomic bomb, was a free man, five years after he was effectively put under house arrest.
   The chief justice of the Islamabad High Court, Sardar Mohammad Aslam, made the decision after hearing lawyers representing government and the nuclear scientist in a closed doors session on Friday.
   ‘The petitioner is declared a free citizen and writ petition is disposed off,’ said a written order issued by the court.
   Khan has been effectively under house arrest in Islamabad since February 2004, when he confessed on television to sending nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea, although he retracted his remarks later.
   Friday’s court decision comes just weeks after the United States unveiled sanctions against Khan, 12 associates and three firms linked to his nuclear proliferation network.
   Speaking to reporters in the grounds of his villa in Islamabad on Friday, the scientist thanked president Asif Ali Zardari and prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani for his freedom.
    ‘This has happened because of the keen interest taken by the president and prime minister, and especially the adviser to the prime minister on the interior, Rehman Malik, who looked into the case and reviewed it,’ said Khan.
   Asked if he would be able to move freely, he replied: ‘As far as I have been told, I will go anywhere in Pakistan without any restrictions and I will get whatever security that I had with me previously.
   ‘If I want to travel abroad I will have to seek permission from the government,’ he said.
   At one point while talking to the bevvy of television cameras, the scientist who had cancer surgery in 2006, sat down in a waiting chair.
   Asked whether he felt there was any threat to his life, Khan said: ‘nobody would want to hurt me.’
   Pointing to the sky, he said: ‘if it (death) comes, it comes there not here.’
   Last July, Aslam ruled that Khan can travel within the country to visit relatives, but barred him from giving interviews on proliferation.
   Khan was pardoned by then Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf in 2004 but had been kept at his residence ever since, guarded by troops and intelligence agents.
   The US sanctions announced on January 12 forbid Kan, 12 associates and three firms from having business dealings with the US government or private US firms in what the state department says is a renewed bid to make sure the network has been shut down entirely.

The prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, on Friday moved on from her private Sudha Sadan residence to the state guest house Jamuna.
   She will stay at Jamuna along with her family members until the Gana Bhaban, the official residence of the prime minister at Sher-e-Bangla Nagar, is refurbished and completely prepared for her living, the prime minister’s press secretary Abul Kalam Azad told New Age.
   Hasina’s husband Dr M Wazed Miah, daughter Saima Wazed Putul and younger sister Sheikh Rehana accompanied her.
   The Gana Bhaban remained unused for the last seven years.
   Fakhruddin Ahmed, chief of the immediate-past interim government, stayed at Jamuna during his two-year tenure. He shifted to Tanmoy, an official residence designated for the former chief adviser on Hare Road, after the elected government assumed office in early January.
   Hasina, also president of the ruling Awami League, used the Gana Bhaban as her official residence during her first term as the head of government in 1996-2001.
   The Public Works Department started cleaning and refurbishing the prime minister’s official residence after the Awami League-led alliance formed the government on January 6.

The police unearthed a fake fertiliser factory near Matidhali highway in Bogra on Thursday.
   Acting on a tip-off, the police along with Upazila Nirbahi Officer Shefina Begum conducted operation in a fertiliser factory and seized 94 sacks fake fertiliser and fertiliser making materials.
   The police arrested factory manager Sabbir Ahmed and employee Abul Kalam. A case was filed.