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Four people died from electrocution in a couple of days in Dhaka when they came in contact with live electric wires, which have grown rundown over years for no maintenance, becoming death traps for city residents.
   Majida Huda Joly 38, wife of lawyer Nasrul Huda Dollar, a resident of Gabtala at Moghbazar, and her domestic help Rini, 10, died from electrocution at Moghbazar on Thursday.
   The accident took place 15 hours inside another woman, Marium Begum, and her four-year-old son, Shaon, died after being electrocuted on Nazimuddin Road in Old Town of Dhaka when it was raining Wednesday afternoon.
   Many residents complained that electric wires had become death traps for them as torn live wires were frequently found lying on the roads, exposing people to the risk of electrocution.
   The project director of the burn and plastic surgery unit at Dhaka Medical College Hospital, Samanta Lal Sen, on Thursday told New Age they received two to three patients of electrocution at the unit on an average a day.
   Eighty per cent of such patients, however, have so far survived, he said.
   The Dhaka Power Distribution Company Limited managing director, Ataul Masud, also said power distribution lines in the capital had become risky as they were maintained with age-old wires that had not been rehabilitated in years.
   He told New Age on Thursday the electric supply lines in many city areas had become rundown and the distribution lines had not been rehabilitated in seven to eight years during the days of the Dhaka Electric Supply Authority.
   The Dhaka Power Distribution Company took over the charge only a year ago, in July 2008, and ‘we are rehabilitating the supply lines in phases. We will soon begin rehabilitation of the Moghbazar–Nayatola line,’ he said.
   The company on Thursday formed a three-member committee to investigate Thursday’s incident of electrocution, he said.
   The committee, headed by an executive engineer, will look into whether there was any negligence on part of the company staff or lack of maintenance, he said.
   ‘The line tripped in the morning and we thought it was a normal incident of tripping. But the line might have torn and fallen on the road. When we restarted the line after a few minutes, the women might have come in contact with the torn, live electric wire which caused the electrocution,’ he said.
   He also said another committee was investigating Wednesday’s incident in which the two died from electrocution in Old Town.
   ‘We primarily suspect that in the case of the Nazimuddin Road incident, the wire of a subscriber’s power line was torn.’
   Asked whether the company was responsible for a torn live wire of a power supply line of a subscriber, the managing director said, ‘We have several lakhs of subscribers. It is the duty of the subscribers to inform us if any wire is torn. We can then take steps for its repairs.’
   According to spot accounts, after dropping her son, Riat, a Class III student, at the BIAM Laboratory School at New Eskaton, Majida first came in contact with a snapped electric wire as she entered the Moghbazar kitchen market at about 7:30am Thursday.
   The wire was connected to a transformer, which had burst a while ago, local residents said. As she cried out, Rini, who was accompanying Majida, tried to save her, but the both sustained severe injuries and fell unconscious after being electrocuted.
   The two were taken to Dhaka Medical College Hospital where they were pronounced dead. The bodies were sent for post-mortem examinations.
   It has become a regular phenomenon that transformers in the area go burst very often, posing a threat to the people, the people said.
   They alleged the authorities were informed of the matter several times, but no action was yet to be taken.

LGRD and cooperatives minister Syed Ashraful Islam on Thursday came to the defence of Indian high commissioner Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty contradicting the views of foreign minister Dipu Moni that the envoy might have stepped out of line in his remarks on Bangladeshi water experts.
   ‘I don’t think so,’ Ashraf said in reply to a media question whether the remarks of the Indian high commissioner were beyond diplomatic norms.
   Foreign minister Dipu Moni on Wednesday said that Pinak Ranjan might have departed from ‘diplomatic norms’ while making comments recently on the views of Bangladeshi water experts and environmentalists on the Tipaimukh dam.
   Pinak Ranjan on June 3 dubbed Bangladeshi experts’ concern over the Tipaimukh dam ‘politically motivated’ saying that the dam was not a ‘water diversion’ project, but a ‘hydroelectric project’ claiming that both Bangladesh and India would be benefited by it.
   ‘The Indian high commissioner, as the representative of a friendly neighbouring country, has expressed his opinion and views frankly,’ Ashraf, also the ruling Awami League’s spokesperson, told reporters after attending a memorial meeting for Awami Swechchhasebak League leader Golam Mostafa Milon at its central office on Bangabandhu Avenue.
   Ashraf said envoys of different countries, including the US and China, at different times had talked openly about internal issues of the country.
   About Bangladesh Nationalist Party’s demand for withdrawal of the Indian envoy, the AL spokesperson said Pinak Ranjan was the representative of a neighbouring country and the BNP should not kick up a fuss about such matters.
   Ashraf termed Tipaimukh dam a national issue and urged the opposition to join the parliament to discuss the issue instead of trying to confuse and mislead the countrymen. ‘We should not be divided on a national issue and at this crucial hour we should work together.’
   Referring to party leader Syeda Sajeda Chowdhury’s allegation that the party chief Sheikh Hasina was given poisoned food when she was in prison in 2007-08, he said investigation was going on in this regard. ‘Steps will be taken after the investigation is completed.’
   About withdrawal of the ‘politically motivated cases’, Ashraf said the government wanted withdrawal of all such cases and a committee had already been constituted which would take a decision in this regard.
   Replying to a question on the long-awaited national council of the Awami League, the party spokesperson said a meeting of the party presidium had been convened at 6:00pm Saturday when many political decisions would be adopted.
   Chaired by Dhaka city (north) unit president of the ASL, Mobassher Chowdhury, the memorial meeting was also addressed by its leaders Pankaj Debnath, Motiur Rahman Moti, Mollah Abu Kawser and Prabal Roy.

The Election Commission is going to disqualify and unseat an elected chairman and vice-chairman of sadar upazila in Kurigram, said officials at the EC’s secretariat.
   The EC is going to take such a punitive step as it was proved that chairman Paniruddin Ahmed and vice-chairman Nurunnabi Sarkar gave wrong personal information including educational qualifications, and omitted to mention their outstanding loans and the criminal cases lodged against them in their affidavits and nomination papers.
   Both Paniruddin and Sarkar, after being voted to victory in the January 22 upazila elections, replaced the original affidavits that had wrong information, which were kept in the vault of the returning officers, with fresh ones with the help of two employees of election officials.
   They replaced the affidavits as defeated candidates filed cases with the upazila election tribunal, accusing them of providing false information to the EC.
   Paniruddin and Sarkar, in their first affidavits, said that they had passed HSC and provided false certificates, but later in the new affidavits they claimed themselves to be self-educated. They also hid information of criminal cases against them and defaulted bank loans.

The National Board of Revenue will suffer a revenue loss of Tk 200 crore from the corporate and financial entities owing to change in corporate tax structure in the new fiscal budget, said NBR officials.
   The corporate tax has been cut to 42.0-42.5 per cent from the previous 45 per cent in the new budget, which was passed on Tuesday.
   This is the most significant change in the new fiscal measure apart from reducing the time frame for legalising the undisclosed money and import duty on mobile phone sets and low capacity cylinder cars.
   Experts, however, observed that the move for corporate tax cut would put pressure on the revenue generation as the NBR would face challenges to make up the loss. The move has been taken to appease the business community in the backdrop of the global financial meltdown, they noted.
   Under the new fiscal measure, the NBR will be given the responsibility to collect more than Tk 6,500 crore in the current fiscal year from 300 financial entities, including banks, insurance companies and corporate houses.
   Zaid Bakth, senior research director of the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies, said the NBR would have to find out alternative measures to make up the losses owing to the corporate tax cut.
   Bakth, however, pointed out that the success of the alternative measures were depending on how the government ran the anti-corruption drives.
   Meanwhile, he noted that the measures like plugging of loopholes in tax evasion and expansion of the income tax base were the most suitable options.
   Ali Ahmed, a former member of NBR, told New Age that the loss could easily be made up by enhancing efficiency of the tax administration.
   The tax evasion that goes rampant across the country can be curbed through an efficient tax administration, he added.
   He said the cut in corporate tax may increase the overall business and production of the financial and corporate entities, which could bring good news for the economy, slowed down by the delayed impact of global financial downturn.

Amnesty International said on Thursday Israel inflicted ‘wanton destruction’ in the Gaza Strip in attacks that often targeted Palestinian civilians during an offensive in December and January in the Hamas-run enclave.
   The London-based rights group, in a 117-page report on the 22 days of fighting, also criticised the Islamist movement Hamas for rocket attacks on Israel, which it called ‘war crimes’.
   Among other conclusions, Amnesty said it found no evidence to support Israeli claims that Gaza guerrillas deliberately used civilians as ‘human shields’, but it did, however, cite evidence that Israeli troops put children and other civilians in harm’s way by forcing them to remain in homes taken over by soldiers.
   Amnesty International said some 1,400 Palestinians were killed in Israel’s Operation Cast Lead, including 300 children and hundreds of innocent civilians, a figure broadly in line with those from the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza and the independent Palestinian Centre for Human Rights.
   The Israeli military put the Palestinian death toll at 1,166 of whom 295 were civilians. Thirteen Israelis were killed, including three civilians, during the offensive Israel launched with the declared aim of curtailing cross-border rocket attacks.
   Accusing Israel of ‘breaching laws of war’, Amnesty said: ‘Much of the destruction was wanton and deliberate, and was carried out in a manner and circumstances which indicated that it could not be justified on grounds of military necessity.’ Commenting on Amnesty’s allegations, the Israeli military said it operated in accordance with international law. It said the report ignored ‘efforts made by the Israel Defence Forces to minimise, as much as possible, harm to non-combatants’.
   ‘In many cases, the Israel Defence Forces exercised measures of caution, including warning the civilian population before an attack,’ the military said. ‘The Israel Defence Forces directed its attack only against military targets.’
   There was no immediate comment on the report from Hamas.
   Israel and Hamas have both rejected accusations of war crimes during the Gaza fighting. Israel has refused to cooperate with a United Nations inquiry that is now gathering evidence, accusing the investigators of prejudice against it.
   Amnesty said although rockets fired by Palestinian militants from the Gaza Strip rarely cause casualties but often sow fear and panic, their use was ‘indiscriminate and hence unlawful under international law’.
   It also accused Hamas and other armed groups of endangering the lives of the Palestinian civilian population in Gaza by firing rockets and locating military equipment near homes.
   The report however dismissed Israeli claims that Hamas had used Palestinian civilians as ‘human shields’.
   Amnesty said it found no evidence that ‘Hamas or other armed groups forced residents to stay in or around buildings used by fighters, or that fighters prevented residents from leaving buildings or areas which had been commandeered by militants’.
   But the report said in several cases Israeli soldiers used Palestinian civilians, including children, as ‘human shields, endangering their lives by forcing them to remain in or near houses which they took over and used as military positions’.

The BNP secretary general, Khandaker Delwar Hossain, on Thursday accused the government of applying double standards in withdrawal of cases filed against activists on political ground.
   ‘As many as 147 cases filed against Awami League leaders have been withdrawn but not a single case filed against BNP leaders has yet been withdrawn. It is sheer double standard,’ he told newsmen at the party’s central office at Naya Paltan.
   Delwar also questioned the legality of the parliamentary committee formed to probe allegations of corruption against former speaker Jamiruddin Sircar, deputy speaker Akhtar Hamid Siddique, and himself. ‘No such committee exists as per the rules of procedure. They are doing so to belittle me and my family,’ he said.
   ‘As I was ill at that time, I applied to the speaker [Jamiruddin] as per rules and he sanctioned the amount. Since I am not financially well-off, I had taken the money from the parliament,’ he said.
   On the statement of foreign minister Dipu Moni regarding the remarks of Indian high commissioner Pinak Ranjan Chakravarti, the BNP secretary general said her statements had made it plain that the government was on the horns of a dilemma.

The Special Branch arrested four people, suspected of being members of a new group formed by a breakaway Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh faction in possession of firearms and ammunition in Dhaka, Gazipur and Chapainawab-ganj in a few days.
   The arrested were Abdur Rahim also known as Shahadat, chief of the new outfit, Islam O Muslim, his associate Sajedur Rahman also known as Hanif, Mostafizur Rahman also known as Montu and Jalal Uddin.
   All of them, who were former Jamaatul Mujahideen leaders, are members of the majlis-e-shura of Islam O Muslim.
   Special Branch officials at a briefing Thursday afternoon said based on information gathered and with the help of the local police, the SB team conducted a raid on a hideout at Barobari of Joydevpur in Gazipur early Wednesday and arrested Abdur Rahim and Sajedur Rahman.
   Based on their statements, another team instantly conducted a drive at Bagmara in Rajshahi and arrested Jalal Uddin in possession of a single-shooter gun and five bullets.
   The Special Branch on June 28 arrested Mostafizur Rahman at Fakirapul in the capital.
   The team earlier raided areas of Shibganj, Gomastapur and Bholahat in Chapainawabganj and arrested Abdul Mumin, Abdur Raqib, Rabiul Islam and Abdul Munib in possession of four single-shooter guns and three bullets.
   The police said Abdur Rahim was a close associate of the executed JMB second-in-command Siddiqul Islam also known as Bangla Bhai and was in charge of Bagmara.
   He fled to India after the arrest of Bangla Bhai and Shaikh Abdur Rahman. After staying in India for more than two yeas and a half, he recently returned to Bangladesh to establish an independent land (Muktanchal) at Shibganj, Gomastapur and Bholahat in Chapainawabganj.
   As he had differences of opinion with some top JMB leaders, he formed Islam O Muslim and trained his followers.
   Mustafizur Rahman Montu was also a close associate of Bangla Bhai. He was also sentenced to life imprisonment and was accused in several murder cases.
   Jalal Uddin, another associate of Bangla Bhai, is one of the majlis-e-shura members of Islam O Muslim.
   The New Age correspondent in Jaipurhat said the Rapid Action Battalion had, meanwhile, arrested a Jamaatul Mujahideen operative, Anamul, 28, at Panchgram of Kalai in the district on Thursday.

The High Court on Thursday termed former communications minister Nazmul Huda and Jamaat-e-Islami assistant secretary general Muhammad Kamaruzzaman ‘wrong-headed’ and ‘worthless’ persons and binned their criticism of its June 21 verdict that Sheikh Mujibur Rahman had proclaimed Bangladesh’s independence.
   Shrugging off the statements of the two politicians, the High Court bench of Justice ABM Khairul Haque and Justice M Mamtaz Uddin Ahmed disposed of a petition seeking contempt charges against them.
   ‘We don’t think it’s necessary to issue a ruling against such wrong-headed and worthless persons,’ said the presiding judge of the bench, ABM Khairul Haque.
   The judge observed that what such persons [Huda and Kamaruzzaman] said about the verdict had no importance to the court. ‘Thousands of people, even rickshaw-pullers, know how to respect the court.’
   The court also asked the counsels for former Dhaka University vice-chancellor Emajuddin Ahmed, who was also sued on charge of contempt of court on the same issue, to file a petition in two weeks to have him cleared of the charges as his counsels did not want to contest the ruling issued against him.
   It also exempted Emajuddin from appearance in person in the court during hearing as he appeared in the court along with his counsels Moudud Ahmed and Abdullah Al Mamun and prayed for exemption from personal appearance.
   On June 24, Emajuddin was asked to appear in the court on Thursday to explain why he should not be prosecuted on charge of contempt of court brought against him by freedom fighter MA Salam of Mirpur for making a statement carried by the daily Sangram on June 23.
   Emajuddin said, ‘Is it the duty of judges to malign the members on the attestation committee on Documents of the War of Independence by not giving them opportunity in the hearing over the proclamation of independence case?’
   On Wednesday, Nazmul Huda and Kamaruzzaman were sued by Supreme Court lawyer Zafar Sadik for making statements, as published in different newspapers on June 30, on the High Court judgement. The two politicians reportedly termed the High Court verdict ‘personal judgement of the judges concerned’ saying that they had delivered it as ‘political persons.’
   When the matter came up for hearing on Thursday, Zafar’s counsel, Abdul Baset Majumder argued, ‘The statements of the two politicians have undermined the dignity of the judges as well as the Supreme Court.’
   As the court declined to pass an order on the contempt petition, Baset Majumder said, ‘It’s not for you but for the … dignity of the Supreme Court that ... the petition should be disposed of with an observation.’
   Former adviser to the Fakhruddin Ahmed-led interim government, Mainul Hosein, and Supreme Court Bar Association president, AFM Mesbahuddin joined Baset Majumder and demanded that Huda and Kamaruzzaman should be prosecuted for contempt of court.

The Awami League’s general secretary, Abdul Jalil, on Thursday observed that the caretaker government system has lost its credibility and should be scrapped.
   ‘But its needs the consensus of all political parties to shed the system because if we by ourselves take such a decision, the election will not be credible to others,’ he said while talking to reporters at his Dilkusha office.
   ‘We want assumption of office by a political government through a free, fair and neutral election. We also want election under the parliamentary democratic system. I believe there is a need for abolition of the caretaker government system,’ said Jalil.
   The provision for the caretaker government was incorporated in the constitution in 1996 to oversee and ensure the holding of a free and fair general election, which experience had proved was not possible if the incumbent government was wielding the levers of power.
   Referring to Sajeda’s allegation on June 27 that Sheikh Hasina was given poisoned food when she was in prison in 2007-08, Jalil demanded proper investigation into the matter and exemplary punishment of the perpetrators.
   ‘The evil force which was then in power wanted to evict the two major leaders, including our leader Sheikh Hasina, from politics and tried to establish a new trend and kind of leadership in politics. As part of that design, they wanted to kill my leader by poisoning her food while she was in jail,’ he said.
   Jalil said those who were involved in the conspiracy should be traced out through investigation and should be awarded exemplary punishment so that no evil force would again dare to remove political leaders in such a way in the future.
   Responding to a query on India’s Tipaimukh dam project on the river Barak, he opined that the issue must be resolved through bilateral talks between the two countries.
   About Bangladesh Nationalist Party chairperson Khaleda Zia’s letter to the prime minister on the Tipaimukh issue, Jalil said it was pure eyewash meant to mislead the people. ‘If the opposition wants a solution to the problem in the real sense of the term, then they should join hands with the government. They should cooperate with the government and work together for the sake of the country.’

North Korea on Thursday test-fired four short-range missiles, South Korean military officials said, further fuelling tension sparked by its nuclear standoff with the international community.
   The missiles — apparently surface-to-ship ones — were fired into the East Sea (Sea of Japan) between 5:20pm (0820 GMT) and 9:20pm, defence ministry officials were quoted saying by Yonhap news agency.
   All were fired from a base at Sinsang-ri, near the eastern coastal city of Wonsan, a spokesman was quoted as saying.
   Other officials told the agency they landed about 100 kilometres off the coast, where the North has imposed a maritime ban until July 11 for what it calls a military drill.
   Spokesmen from the defence ministry confirmed the first three firings to AFP but could not be reached for comment on the fourth.
   It was the first military action which the hardline communist state had taken since the United Nations on June 12 imposed tougher sanctions for its May 25 nuclear test. South Korea’s JoongAng Ilbo newspaper, quoting an intelligence source, said the North in the coming days is likely to fire a series of short-range missiles.
   Apart from ground-to-ship weapons, it said these would likely include Scud-B missiles with a range of 340 km.
   The North may also fire Rodongs, whose 1,300-km range would likely be shortened to some 400 km for the current round of testing, the paper predicted.
   In the days after its atomic test — the second since 2006 — Pyongyang had fired a total of six short-range missiles and renounced the truce in force on the Korean peninsula. In response to the UN resolution tightening curbs on its missile and atomic activities, it vowed to build more nuclear bombs.
   US and South Korean officials believe ailing leader Kim Jong-Il, 67, is staging a show of strength to bolster his authority as he tries to put in place a succession plan involving his youngest son.
   Japan’s prime minister Taro Aso condemned Thursday’s launches, telling reporters: ‘We have repeatedly warned that such a provocative act is not beneficial for North Korea’s national interest.’
   In Beijing, a US delegation Thursday met officials for talks on giving the UN sanctions more teeth.
   The support of China, the North’s sole major ally and largest trade partner, is seen as crucial in making the sanctions stick.
   The delegation, led by Philip Goldberg — the State Department’s point man on coordinating implementation of the sanctions — met officials from the foreign ministry.
   His team includes members of the National Security Council and the departments of treasury and defence.

Chief information commissioner M Azizur Rahman on Thursday said that effective and proper implementation of the Right to Information Act would help free the country of corruption and establish people’s democratic right and good governance.
   He said some 77 countries across the world have already adopted laws ensuring people’s access to information.
   ‘Finland, which had introduced the right to information law in 1766, now proudly claims that it is a corruption-free country…Our neighbouring Indian has also introduced the law which helps flourish democracy and establish transparency in various sectors of the government,’ Azizur, a retired bureaucrat, told reporters at the secretariat after his first meeting with information minister Abul Kalam Azad.
   He said human rights have been established where this type of laws have been introduced.
   The government on Wednesday formed the three-member Information Commission, with Azizur Rahman as chief information commissioner, under the Right to Information Act 2009 that came into effect in its entirety on the day.
   The other commissioners are retired secretary Mohammad Abu Taher and Professor Sadeka Halim, a professor of Sociology at Dhaka University.
   The information minister said that the government would extend all cooperation to the commission which is an independent body.
   ‘The commission will soon be equipped with manpower and other logistics necessary for its functioning,’ Abul Kalam Azad said.
   He said the government’s activities had become sluggish due to the February 25-26 bloody rebellion at the Bangladesh Rifles’ headquarters. All measures needed for implementation of the law would now be taken, he added.
   Asked when the commission would embark on its tasks, the minister said the body already started to function soon after its formation.
   He, however, said it would take some time to equip all government offices including ministries and divisions for providing information on demand in keeping with the new law.
   As per the new law, every citizen from now on has the right to get information although the government offices are yet to be equipped with a mechanism to deliver it on demand, said official sources.
   Although the Act, excepting three of its provisions — demand for information, disposal of appeals against refusal to provide information and lodging complaints with the Information Commission against such denials — was enforced with retrospective effect from October 20, 2008, no information delivery unit has yet been set up in any government offices and no set of rules for the effective enforcement of the Act has yet been framed in accordance with its provisions.
   Acting information secretary, Kamal Abdul Naser Chowdhury, said the Information Commission would frame the necessary rules for implementation of the law, which was originally introduced by the interim government of Fakhruddin Ahmed on October 20, 2008.
   He said that the government had allocated Tk 2.2 crore in the 2009-10 budget for the Information Commission. The government machinery will have to build capacity to deliver services to the stakeholders, the acting secretary mentioned.
   The Information Commission, to be located in Dhaka, shall function independently and supervise the general activities related to people’s right to information, and will have the powers of a civil court under the Code of Civil Procedure 1908. It will receive complaints against any authority for refusing to impart information.
   It is mandatory for the authorities concerned to appoint an officer responsible for the ‘information delivery unit’ in each government office within 60 days of the enactment of the Act, according to the new law enacted on April 6.

Torrential rains and sudden onrush of upstream waters over the north and north-eastern part of the country have triggered flash-floods in some northern and southern districts though all the rivers were flowing well below the danger-level, except the Khowai in Habiganj.
   The flood forecasting and warning centre said the situation was likely to worsen as the meteorology departments of both Bangladesh and India have forecast heavy rainfall over the region.
   Water level in the rivers increased at 47 monitoring stations out of 73, and fell at 13 points, on Thursday. Khowai was flowing two centimetres above the danger-level in Habiganj.
   The New Age correspondent at Lalmonirhat said that after most of the gates of Gajaldoba Barrage in India were opened, the onrush of upstream water of the Teesta caused a flash-flood in the district, inundating 20 villages of Hatibandha and Kaliganj upazilas on early Thursday.
   The water of the Teesta was flowing 12 centimetres above the danger-level at Daliya point in Lalmonirhat on Thursday noon, said Lalmonirhat WDB officials.
   About two feet of water has covered most of the inundated villages, and many people who have taken shelter on the embankments have been passing their days under the open sky since Thursday morning.
   Reports from Nilphamari said several thousand houses on the chars and shoals of Teesta went under water due to the sudden onslaught of upstream water.
   In Netrakona water was rising on Someshwari River, inundating the low-lying areas of the district, and as a result several thousand families have been marooned in Durgapur and Kalmakanda upazilas.
   Erosion of Someshwari’s banks took a serious turn because of the strong current caused by the onrush of upstream water.
   The water-level of the rivers in Khagrachhari was rising. More than 400 families at Merbang and Boalkhali of Dighinala have shifted to shelters. About a hundred installations in Merbang marketplace were inundated. The Chingi river’s water-level was also increasing beside the district headquarters.
   Embankments at Michhakhali and Bhadertek of Bishwambharpur in Sunamganj were breached in several places due to the severe pressure of the trapped water that was the result of a few days’ torrential rain. Low-lying areas in all the four upazilas have been flooded and water-level in the Surma has risen by 20 centimetres. About 105 millimetres of rainfall was recorded on Wednesday.
   The water-level of the Sangu and Matamuhuri were also on the rise in Bandarban. The low-lying areas in the district town and elsewhere have been flooded.
   Reports from Noakhali said the low-lying areas in the island of Hatia were also inundated because of the last few days’ torrential rain.

Human rights defenders across the globe, especially in Asia, suffered acts of repression against them in the year of 2008 due to rise of ‘freedom-killing practices’, said two global human rights watchdogs in their annual report of 2009.
   The World Organisation against Torture (OMCT) and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) in their joint annual report stated that acts of repression against human rights defenders in 2008 by both state and non-state actors were widespread in Asia.
   The joint report, styled ‘Steadfast in Protest’, was recently published simultaneously from Paris and Geneva.
   Dwelling on the situation in Bangladesh, the report said that the plight of rights defenders in Bangladesh, as well as some other countries of Asia that went through political crisis in 2008, was particularly precarious.
   ‘The police, paramilitary and other security forces violated the human rights of those defenders,’ said the report. ‘Furthermore, impunity remained the rule for acts of reprisal against defenders in the entire region, since the perpetrators, state or non-state actors, continued to go unpunished.’
   According to the annual report, ‘The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders’, a restrictive media environment was witnessed in most of the countries in Asia.
   ‘The media were frequently subjected to tight controls and intimidated into self-censorship through various means of repression,’ it said.
   The report stated that the mediamen of Bangladesh frequently received death threats, suffered arbitrary arrest and detention, and had to face fabricated charges and physical attacks.
   For example, those reporting on corruption, human rights violations by state security forces and police malpractice were particularly targeted, it said.
   Criticising the government for attacking indigenous rights activists, it said that in Bangladesh, indigenous activists in the Chittagong Hill Tracts were victims of arrest and re-arrest as well as continuous harassment. At least two activists belonging to the indigenous races on the plains were killed by the government security forces.
   The report was critical of the formation of the ‘independent’ Human Rights Commission recently in Bangladesh as it was solely dependent on government fund and was manned by retired government officials selected by the government.

A crime suspect was killed and another injured in a ‘gunfight’ with the police at Manikdi in Dhaka early Thursday.
   A tea-seller was also wounded in the firing allegedly by the ‘criminals,’ the police said, claiming they had seized a revolver and five bullets.
   The incident took to three the number of such killing in places in the city after May 1. Twenty-four were injured in such incidents during the period.
   The police said local Juba League leader Abbas Uddin was talking with some workers in the construction workers’ union office at Manikdi when a gang of seven to eight attacked him at about 12:30am.
   The tea-seller, Russel Mahmud Khan, 25, tried to save Abbas Uddin, but sustained a bullet injury in the neck.
   The local people, hearing the gunshots, chased the assailants. They were joined in by a patrol team of the Cantonment police station.
   The assailants fired shots to make their way and the police fired back, in which two of the gang, Al Amin Rana, 30, and Mehedi Hasan alias Masud, 27, sustained injuries. The other suspects managed to get away, the police said.
   The two were taken to Dhaka Medical College Hospital where Rana died from his wounds at about 5:30am. Masud was undergoing treatment in the hospital in police custody.
   The injured tea-seller, Russel, was also taken to the DMCH, but was later shifted to a private clinic.
   Abbas Uddin filed a case with the Cantonment police in this connection, the police said.

People who live on vegetarian diets have slightly weaker bones than their meat-eating counterparts, Australian researchers said Thursday.
   A joint Australian-Vietnamese study of links between the bones and diet of more than 2,700 people found that vegetarians had bones five per cent less dense than meat-eaters, said lead researcher Tuan Nguyen.
   The issue was most pronounced in vegans, who excluded all animal products from their diet and whose bones were six per cent weaker, Nguyen said.
   There was ‘practically no difference’ between the bones of meat-eaters and ovolactovegetarians, who excluded meat and seafood but ate eggs and dairy products, he said.
   ‘The results suggest that vegetarian diets, particularly vegan diets, are associated with lower bone mineral density,’ Nguyen wrote in the study, which was published Thursday in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
   ‘But the magnitude of the association is clinically insignificant,’ he added.
   Nguyen, who is from Sydney’s Garvan Institute for Medical Research and collaborated on the project with the Pham Ngoc Thach University of Medicine in Ho Chi Minh City, said the question of whether the lower density bones translated to increased fracture risk was yet to be answered.
   ‘Given the rising number of vegetarians, roughly five per cent (of people) in western countries, and the widespread incidence of osteoporosis, the issue is worth resolving,’ he said.

Pakistani security forces said Thursday that troops had killed more than 50 militants while ground and air forces battled against Islamist insurgents in parts of the northwest.
   Government troops are locked in battles against armed groups in parts of Pakistan’s northwest and the lawless tribal belt on the Afghan border where US officials have said al-Qaeda and Taliban-linked insurgents enjoy safe havens.
   ‘At least 28 militants of Lashkar-e-Islam were killed in shelling by helicopter gunships,’ Major Fazal Khan, a spokesman for the paramilitary Frontier Corps unit, said.
   He said the operation was conducted overnight in the Tirah valley of Khyber, one of Pakistan’s seven semi-autonomous tribal areas and through which flows the bulk of supplies destined for US-led and NATO troops in Afghanistan.
   Death tolls released by Pakistan are impossible to confirm independently because fighting takes place in closed military zones and the army has faced scepticism that more than 1,600 militants have been killed since late April.
   Lashkar-e-Islam said eight of its members died.
   ‘Eight of our members were killed. We don’t know about the rest, they might be civilians,’ Mistri Gul, a spokesman for the group, said.
   In June 2008, Pakistan poured paramilitary troops into Khyber to counter militants threatening to take over the northwest capital Peshawar and to stop attacks on convoys supplying Western troops based in Afghanistan.
   Pakistani authorities accuse the radical Lashkar-e-Islam of kidnapping for ransom in Peshawar, running torture centres and private jails.
   The group is also accused of attacking convoys ferrying supplies to NATO and US troops in Afghanistan that travel through the historic Khyber Pass.
   In the northwest district of Swat, the military said security forces had killed 23 militants, including 17 around Shah Dheri in clashes, during the last 24 hours.
   On the outskirts of Peshawar, a remote-controlled bomb ripped through a police patrol on Thursday, killing at least two policemen, said the city police chief Safwat Ghayur.
   There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.
   Many of the recent bombings in northwest Pakistan have been seen as Islamist attempts to avenge the two-month military offensive against the Taliban in Swat and nearby districts that has been welcomed by the United States.

The Dutch minister for development cooperation Bert Koenders and vice-minister for transport, public works and water management Tineke Huizinga are scheduled to arrive in Dhaka on a two-day visit on Sunday, the Netherlands embassy said in a release on Thursday.
   Both the ministers will meet the Bangladesh prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, finance minister AMA Muhith, foreign minister Dipu Moni and water resources minister Ramesh Chandra Sen, lawmakers, academics, development experts, NGO representatives and business leaders, the release said.
   Bangladesh has so far received more than $1 billion from the Netherlands, mostly in grants.
   The Dutch government now provides development aid of 60 million euros a year for to Bangladesh through government and NGO channels for the improvement of water management, land reclamation, combating climate change, health, education and good governance.

The government has appointed retired diplomat Ahmad Tariq Karim as high commissioner of Bangladesh to India.
   An establishment ministry order issued Thursday said Karim would occupy the post on a three-year contract with effect from the date of joining.

The High Court on Thursday asked the Prothom Alo editor, Matiur Rahman, and its associate editor, Mizanur Rahman Khan, to appear in court on July 14 in connection with a contempt of court proceeding.
   The High Court bench of Justice ABM Khairul Haque and Justice M Mamtaz Uddin Ahmed also asked the journalists to explain by July 13 why proceedings would not be drawn against them on contempt of court charges.
   The bench passed the order after hearing a petition filed with the High Court on May 21 by Supreme Court lawyer Mamun Chowdhury for drawing contempt of court proceedings against the two for publishing an article headlined ‘Appellate Division’s Verdict : Bliss in heat-wave’ in the April 30 issue of Prothom Alo.
   Ajmalul Hossain, the petitioner’s counsel, argued that the images of the three High Court benches led by Justice Mohammad Muzammel Hossain, Justice Mirza Hussain Haider and Justice Syed AB Mahmudul Huq had been undermined through the article.
   ‘Being involved in “romanticism”, the bench led by Justice Mirza Hussain Haider passed some orders, including on the NBR case against Bashundhara Group chairman Ahmed Akbar Sobhan alias Shah Alam,’ Ajmalul quoted Mizanur Rahman Khan as having said in the article.
   The counsel pleaded, ‘Misconceptions about the judiciary and its judges among people have been disseminated through the article, which is a clear offence under the contempt of court act… The editor can’t avoid responsibility for the offence,’ he added.
   Ajmalul also argued that freedom of expression is limited in accordance with the law.

A robbers’ gang killed a trader and injured two others in Sirajganj early Thursday.
   The identity of the deceased, aged about 40, could not be immediately established.
   The police said the robbers in the guise of passengers got on a truck in the Nukali bridge area on the Nagarbari–Bogra Road at Shahzadpur at about 4:00am.
   After about an hour, they looted a trader by stopping the truck at gunpoint. The robbers then pushed off the trader, the truck driver and his assistant and get away. The trader died on the spot.
   The injured are driver Masud, 46, of Sathia in Pabna and his assistant, Mokbul, 27, of Salgram of Kazipur in Sirajganj.
   The Shahzadpur police officer-in-charge, Motiar Rahman, said the police had rescued the injured and sent them to Sirajganj General Hospital. They also sent the body for a post-mortem examination.

The Islamic University has sacked 11 teachers, who overstayed abroad, for failing to join work after their studies.
   The teachers are information and communication engineering lecturer Nur Ahamed Ruhul Azad, assistant professors ABM Swakat Ali and Nafiza Ferdaous of computer science and engineering, assistant professors Mahmud Ahmed Momin, Delwar Hossain and Mohammad Hossain of accounting and information systems, associate professor Mahbub-ul-Haque Joarder of law and Muslim jurisprudence, assistant professor Sarwar Jahan of management, assistant professors Serajul Islam and Akhtaruzzaman of economics and assistant professor Swapan Kumer Saha of applied chemistry and chemical engineering.
   The teachers owe the university about Tk 1.5 crore, assistant registrar (administration) Nazrul Islam said, adding the university administration had earlier asked them to pay the money by June 30, but they failed to respond by the time.

Major General Ferdous Mia has been appointed new chairman of Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies.
   An order of the establishment ministry said Thursday Ferdous had been appointed chairman of BIISS on deputation.