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The Chittagong Medical College was on Saturday closed for an indefinite period after 20 people, including students and policemen, had been injured in clashes between Chhatra League and Islami Chhatra Shibir.
   Activists of both the organisations vandalised and set on fire at least 20 rooms in the main hostel and more than 20 shops in the adjacent Chawk Bazar during the clash.
   The authorities closed the college for an indefinite period to stave off further untoward incidents and asked the male students to vacate their hostels by night and the girl students by this morning.
   Campus sources said the clash began in the morning between the leaders and activists of the ruling Awami League’s associate body of students Chhatra League and Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami’s associate body of students Islami Chhatra Shibir centring on welcoming newcomers.
   Sources also said Chhatra Shibir activists held a rally in Mozammel Square and brought out a procession about 11:30am when Chhatra League activists chased the Shibir men alleging that they were outsiders. The police controlled the situation immediately.
   The authorities suspended academic activities about 2:00pm to stave off further trouble. Both the groups brought out processions on the campus about 4:00pm when they chased each other.
   A group of Chhatra Shibir activists, equipped with sticks and iron rods, came out of the Sabur Hostel and clashed with Chhatra League activists in front of the main hostel. Both the groups then vandalised and set fire to at least 10 rooms in the hostel.
   The police fired several gunshots and charged at the activists of both the groups with truncheons in which a number of activists of the groups were injured, the sources said.
   The sources said Shibir activists later attacked a rally of Juba League in the Gulzar Cinema crossing at Chawk Bazar being held in protest at the attack on lawmaker Fazle Noor Taposh in which fire Juba League men, including the organisation’s city unit president Mohammad Ekram Hossain, were injured.
   Chhatra League activists, accompanied by Juba League leaders and activists, clashed again with Chhatra Shibir activists for which traffic remained suspended on the roads in the area.
   Both the groups vandalised at least 20 shops at Chawk Bazar during the incident, the sources said. A huge contingent of policemen controlled the situation about 7:00pm.
   Eleven, including Chhatra League activists Fuad, Mamun, Asif, Rajib, Parvez and Tanmoy and Shibir activists Rajiv, Joynal, Tohfa, Ashraf and Ripon were being treated in Chittagong Medical College Hospital. Nine others were discharged from hospital.

Mehnaz Rashid Khandaker, the eldest daughter of retired lieutenant colonel Khandaker Abdur Rashid, a fugitive condemned convict in the Sheikh Mujibur Rahman murder case, was arrested on Saturday morning and remanded in custody for five days in connection with Wednesday’s bomb attack on ruling Awami League lawmaker Fazle Noor Taposh.
   The detective police picked Mehnaz up from her Gulshan house at about 6:00am and took her to the chief metropolitan magistrate’s court at about 5:30pm.
   With the arrest of Mehnaz, 39, the detective police arrested three persons since unknown assailants hurled a bomb at Taposh, also a prosecution lawyer in the appeals in the Sheikh Mujibur Rahman murder case, in the city on Wednesday. Taposh escaped the attack unhurt.
   Abdur Rashid, who is in hiding, had been sentenced to death for killing Mujib, the country’s founding president.
   After hearing a prayer of the detective police, metropolitan magistrate Tania Kamal ordered Mehnaz to be remanded in custody for five days for interrogation in the bomb attack case. The court also permitted Mehnaz to keep her four-month-old daughter with her in the police custody.
   Detective branch assistant commissioner Akbar Hossain, also investigation officer of the case, told the court that after the interrogation of Kamrul Haque Swapan, now in police custody, it became evident that Mehnaz, along with several persons, was linked to the bomb attack.
   Five teams comprising two additional deputy commissioners and 12 assistant commissioners have been formed to deal with the case.
   ‘Primary investigation by the detective branch of police found that Mehnaz was involved in the incident,’ said the investigation officer and sought a ten-day remand for her to find out the motive for the bomb attack.
   Mehnaz had no lawyer to represent her and she did not say anything in the court.
   Mehnaz had contested the last two elections on the ticket of the Freedom Party, founded by retired colonel Syed Faruque Rahman, another condemned convict in the Mujib murder case.
   Earlier on Thursday, police detained Kamrul Haque Swapan, younger brother of Shariful Haque Dalim, another fugitive condemned convict in the case, and Freedom Party leader Abdur Rahim, and brought them to an eight-day remand in connection with the bomb attack on Taposh.
   Swapan’s lawyer Masud Ahmed Talukder on Friday told the court that Swapan was a freedom fighter.
   Unknown assailants hurled a bomb at Taposh’s car in front of his law chamber at Motijheel Wednesday night leaving at least 12 people injured. Taposh, nephew of the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, escaped the attack unhurt.
   Family members of the convicted killers of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman were being arrested after the ruling Awami League on Thursday said that the killers, their patrons, anti-liberation elements and militant groups were linked to the bomb attack.
   Taposh filed a case with the Motijheel police station on Thursday without naming anyone as accused but alleging that the relatives and associates of the convicts in the Sheikh Mujib murder case were involved in the attack.
   The case said the attack was premeditated with an aim to kill Taposh in order to disrupt the final outcome of the trial of the killers of Sheikh Mujib.
   Taposh is the son of Juba League’s founding chairman, Sheikh Fazlul Haque Moni and Arzoo Moni, who were killed on the night of 15 August, 1975, a few hours before troops entered the Dhanmondi house of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and killed him along with most of his family members.
   Following the attack on Taposh and ban on the operation of Islamist outfit Hizb ut-Tahrir Bangladesh, the government on Thursday beefed up security measures for all VIPs, including judges of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court and prosecution lawyers of the Sheikh Mujib murder case, and at key-point installations.

The cooperative sector, despite all limitations and lack of policy supports, has some success stories that have been silently contributing to rural and urban economies and improving living standard of the people in respective areas.
   There are cooperative societies which have formed capital with small subscriptions of members and are viably running small and big businesses ranging from nursery or boutique shops to real estate firms.
   Apart from raising incomes of the members, those cooperatives are creating jobs for hundreds of others in the societies and communities.
   ‘We started cooperative activities in 1996 buying each share for Tk 5 and depositing Tk 5 as savings every week. Now each of our 36 members has shares and savings equivalent to Tk 20,000 and all of us got Tk 5,000 as dividend last December,’ M Fazlul Haq, manager of Anarkoli Krishak Samabay Samity in Bhurungamari upazila of Kurigram, a poverty-stricken northern district, told New Age.
   The organisation distributes dividend at the end of each year, he said.
   Members of the organisation have opted to keep their investment limited only in procuring and selling paddy. ‘We love to remain small,’ said Fazlul Haq, who is also chairman of Bhurungamari Upazila Central Cooperative Association in Kurigram, a body representing 218 cooperatives of the upazila.
   Seven likeminded people formed Kingshuk Multipurpose Cooperative Society at Mirpur in Dhaka in 1987 with each of the members contributing Tk 50 every month to its fund.
   ‘Local people made fun of us and took it as a whim of vagabonds as we initially started social work taking about 120 persons as members of the organisation,’ M Golam Faruq, chairman of Kingshuk, said. ‘It is now an organisation of 86 members and 50,000 shareholders who collectively own assets worth about Tk 1000 million.’
   The organisation has investment in businesses including nursery, bakery, boutique shop, gas station for vehicles and several housing complexes.
   Faruq said they are in negotiations with a South Korean company to set up a factory to manufacture energy saving lamps. ‘Initially we imported energy saving lamps from China and marketed those locally. Now we want to own a manufacturing plant,’ he said.
   The organisation also runs micro-credit projects for about 12,500 members in their project areas in different districts including Dhaka, Khulna, Moulvibazar, Laxmipur, Mymensingh and Gazipur districts.
    ‘We have 800 full-time paid staff members and at least 2,000 temporary employees,’ he said. ‘We want to make cooperative a respectable profession.’
   Asked who make policies for the organisation, he said the 86-member general assembly makes policies and elects a nine-member governing body by secret ballots to run the organisation for three years.
   About the benefit of shareholders, who do not have voting rights, he said the organisation gave 12 to 16 per cent dividend so far on the investment of the individual shareholders.
    Each member of the governing body is given Tk 500 as allowance for monthly meeting in addition to their incomes from shares and business profits.
   ‘Members of the governing body who discharge specific responsibility at the office get monthly honorarium approved by the general body,’ he said. ‘I personally receive about Tk 22,000 for my services here to run my family.’
   Asked about the secret of success of the organisation when most of the cooperatives are either sick or non-functional, he said there is no magic stick or short-cut to make a cooperative successful. ‘We learnt everything by doing.’
   Faruq said democratising the decision making process and implementing the decision in corporate ways can make a cooperative successful.
   ‘People begin with emotion which fizzles out as reality bites,’ the cooperative organiser said, explaining why most of the community business initiatives fail.
   He said the government’s policy support is a must for a sustainable development of the cooperative sector, although there are stray incidents of success of community initiatives because of serious efforts of some individuals for years.
   ‘A section of government officials try to control the functioning of the cooperatives instead of correcting their managerial faults and providing necessary support.’
   The government’s role should be to promote cooperatives as a social movement as well as take proper care of new cooperatives and also those which are in trouble, he said.
   Kingshuk now gives advocacy support to other cooperative organisations to help them survive and flourish.

The national committee to protect oil, gas, mineral resources, power and ports at its national convention in Dhaka on Saturday vowed to save the country’s national wealth.
   Politicians and academics at the opening of the convention in the Institution of Engineers in Dhaka called on the government to exclude the provision for 80 per cent of the gas extracted from the model production sharing contract 2008.
   The national committee also announced programmes for three months. It will hold mass contact programmes, a rally in Dhaka and a human chain from Teknaf to Tetulia.
   The committee will hold long marches towards Dhaka (Chalo, Chalo, Dhaka Chalo) from five areas of the country during January 25–30 and hold a rally in the capital on January 30. The committee will form a human chain from Teknaf to Tetulia on January 12.
   The committee will hold a signature campaign for a month in November, central leaders of the committee will hold rallies in divisional headquarters, tour districts and upazilas in November and December and form units of the committee in unions and villages.
   It will hold rallies and go out on demonstrations across the country on November 22 and take vow to save the national wealth on Victory Day on December 16.
   The committee will announce agitation programmes such as general strike, siege, and blockade if the government does not refrain from leasing three offshore gas blocks out to two international oil companies.
   The convention in its declaration put out a call for the Awami League-led government to scrap the model production sharing contract 2008 for offshore gas exploration, to make a law banning energy wealth export, implementation of the six-point Phulbari agreement 2006 and cancellation of unequal PSCs for offshore gas blocks with international oil companies.
   Speakers at the convention said the government was trying to continue looting national resources in the name of gas exploration in the Bay and destroy the ecological system with open-pit coal mining.
   ‘Multinational companies are plundering our energy resources as we have failed to ensure our ownership of them,’ Professor Serajul Islam Choudhury said.
   He urged people to stand united for a national movement to protect the country’s resources from the hands of imperialist forces and multinational companies.
   Sector commander Qazi Nuruzzaman said the second phase of the independence war had begun. ‘If we can proceed with the revolution, there will no be no crisis for the nation.’
   The Workers Party president, Rashed Khan Menon, said there should be no export provision in the model production sharing contract if the country would not want to export gas.
   Menon said he would put forth a demand in the parliament for discussion on making a law banning gas export.
   The Communist Party of Bangladesh president, Monzurul Ahsan Khan, said ‘Although the prime minister is talking about conspiracy, she is not naming the conspirators.’
   The national resources will be protected if we lead the nation towards a mass movement, he said.
   The national committee convener, Sheikh Mumammad Shaheedullah, who chaired the session, said the government was going to export gas ignoring national interest.
   He called on the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, not to sign any deals with IOCs in accordance with the model PSC 2008 to keep her words and the pledges in the Awami League’s election manifesto.
   Professor Anu Muhammad said the country was facing energy crisis because of deals with multinational companies although the country is capable of extracting such resources on its own.
   He said multinational companies had extracted about 47 per cent of the gas from 12 blocks. The country has received only 10 per cent of gas and the remaining amount is being bought for prices more than 30 times.
   ‘The government is willing to have surveys conducted on three more gas blocks in the Bay by multinational companies in five years at a cost of Tk 11 billion,’ he said.
   Citing the example of Nigeria, Anu Muhammad said, ‘Its resources have become a curse for the country as it caused anarchy.’
   He urged the government to implement the Phulbari agreement negotiated between the government and the people after an unwarranted incident during a movement against open-pit coal mining there.
   More than 2,000 delegates of the national committee from outside Dhaka and 500 from Dhaka took part in the second session of the convention.
   Justice Golam Rabbani, Dhaka University teachers Abu Ahmed and MM Akash, M Enamul Hoque, Nur Mohammad, politicians Khalequzzaman, Haider Akbar Khan Rano, Tipu Biswas, Saiful Huq, Mahmudur Rahman Babu, Abdus Salam, Abu Hamed Shahabuddin, Enamul Haque, Musherfa Mishu, Abdul Main Talukder and Zonayed Saki also spoke.
   Former student leaders Ruhin Hossain Prince, Bazlur Rashid Firoj and Ragib Ahsan Munna conducted the sessions.

The prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, has called for establishing a realistic fund for Bangladesh and other least developed and developing countries for their climate change requirements.
   Addressing the European Development Days’ 2009 events, she also said the financing to the climate victim nations should not be loans, and the scale of finance should be revised with changes in the adaptation needs.
   Hasina on Saturday morning (local time) addressed the plenary session of the 4th European Development Days, titled ‘Climate change: The road to Copenhagen and beyond’, at the Victoria Hall in the Swedish capital.
   State minister for forest and environment Hasan Mahmud, ambassador Ziauddin and press secretary to the prime minister Abul Kalam Azad, among others, were in the Bangladesh delegation.
   Hasina, as the third speaker of the session in presence of government representatives, Nobel laureates, international experts, economists and environmentalists, said the fund should start operating from 2010 onwards to 2020 in the first phase, and then beyond.
   She said the climate change adaptation financing must be additional to and distinct from ODA targets of 0.7 per cent of gross national income meant for the developing countries and 0.2 per cent for LDCs by 2010, as reaffirmed in the Brussels Programme of Action.
   Besides, the prime minister said out of this fund, every year a substantial amount should be kept aside for adaptation needs of developing countries with maximum share going to low-lying coastal countries, LDCs and the small-island developing countries.
   She said though Bangladesh established a $45 million Climate Change Fund with own resources, and there was also a Multi-Donor Trust Fund of $150 million with support of the United Kingdom, the amounts were meagre in comparison to the needs.
   Hasina observed that re-budgeting and readjusting of existing development assistance to developing countries, particularly LDCs, would jeopardise their ongoing projects and programmes.
   In Bangladesh, she said, much of the present ODA received was invested in alleviating poverty, healthcare, gender parity till graduation level in education, women empowerment through micro-credit, eliminating militancy and terrorism, energy, infrastructure, and social safety programmes.
   She further called for adopting a new legal regime under the UNFCCC Protocol ensuring social, cultural and economic rehabilitation of climate refugees from COP 15 in Copenhagen.
   Bangladesh and other most vulnerable countries to climate change are anxiously looking forward to Copenhagen, Hasina said.
   ‘The outcome in the Copenhagen meet must uphold the core principle of common but differentiated share of responsibility; assured, adequate, and easily accessible funding for adaptation; access to scientific information to climate change in sectors like risk reduction, water resources, agriculture, energy, urban planning and health disorders.’
   She also said the Copenhagen meet must also ensure affordable, eco-friendly technology transfer to developing countries, particularly to LDCs; make maximum possible specific commitments for deeper cuts in greenhouse gas emissions for atmospheric stabilisation.
   The post 2012 agreement must, however, incorporate predictable and legally binding commitments for addressing adaptation needs of low-lying, coastal, and small-island developing states, and LDCs.
   Hasina amid serious concern apprised the EU event participants that with no fault of its own, 40 million people in Bangladesh would lose their livelihood, and 20 million would be displaced by 2050 because of the natural calamities to be created by the climate change impacts.
   The International Strategy for Disaster Reduction has thus placed Bangladesh as most vulnerable to floods, third most to tsunamis, and sixth most to cyclones, in terms of human exposure, she told the international audience.
   Hasina said scientific findings indicated that a meter rise of sea level due to global warming would inundate one-fourth of Bangladesh, including the world’s largest mangrove forest, the Sundarban, also an UNESCO World heritage site.
   The MDG gains on food, health, education and poverty alleviation would be lost, she said, adding that already, climate change conditions are costing Bangladesh’s economy’s 0.5 per cent to 1 per cent of GDP.
   Hasina in her address mentioned that to face the threats of the global warming, her government had chalked up various plans and projects, including capital and maintenance dredging, reclaim inundated lands and maintain navigability.
   Meanwhile, 14,000 cyclone shelters have been constructed with more in the offing, she said.
   Hasina further called for establishing an International Adaptation Centre under UNFCCC.
   ‘Bangladesh also feels the need of a Himalayan Council in the model of the Artic Council to assist similarly affected countries in facing the challenges of glacial melting in the Himalayas.’
   She said though the prime responsibility of mitigation rested on the developed countries, Bangladesh was preparing a strategic energy plan for following a low carbon path to development where the measures included social forestry, clean coal technology, nuclear power, and renewable energy.
   She mentioned that already 600,000 solar home systems have been installed; vehicles converted to using compressed natural gas as fuel; industries producing toxic waste relocated equipped with effluent treatment facilities; and biodegradable material used as alternate to synthetics.
   She called upon the international community to reject all myopic, self-cantered discords, reject the culture of excess and waste, to embrace one another’s responsibility, burden, prosperity, and live in harmony within the planet’s capacity.

The Bangladesh Nationalist Party chairperson, Khaleda Zia, on Saturday said the present government should be dislodged before it served out its term.
   ‘This government cannot bring about changes…It was put in power to implement conspiracies. They do not want to bring about changes in the country rather they want to change its map. This government should be asked to quit before they serve out their term,’ Khaleda said while addressing representatives of different bar associations of the country at her office in Gulshan in the night.
   She warned the government against signing any ‘secret deals’ that would go against the interests of the country. ‘People are well aware of your motives and we will be by their side and thwart any such moves…,’ she said.
   ‘People across the country are passing days in extreme insecurity. Professionals are also being made targets… Journalists are not being spared. The government has failed to ensure minimum security for the people… They are busy ensuring security for themselves,’ she said.
   Khaleda said the Awami League activists were out to grab lands, houses and shops and were manipulating tender across the country.
   ‘No development activities have been carried out. No foreign investments came in and even the local entrepreneurs are not interested in investment because of deteriorating law and order,’ she said.
   ‘They are politicising every sector. More than 300 competent officers in the administration have been made officers on special duty by branding them BNP loyalists. They are meddling in the judiciary and even the attorney general threatens the judges,’ she said.
   She urged the lawyers to stand by the repressed people.
   Khaleda said the process for restructuring her party was going on and the national council session would be held on December 8. ‘After the council, we will go for movement…,’ she said.
   Former Jatiya Sangsad speaker Jamiruddin Sircar, former state minister for law Shahjahan Omar, leaders of Jatiyatabadi Ainjibi Forum Sanaullah Mia, Naris Uddin Asim, Masud Ahmed Talukder, Khurshid Alam and Ferdaus Akhtar Wahida were present.

Two international rights groups have said the Rapid Action Battalion’s torture on New Age correspondent FM Masum is an attempt to suppress freedom of expression and opinion.
   A Rapid Action Battalion team on October 22 had tortured New Age correspondent FM Masum in his house and in the RAB 10 headquarters for more than 10 hours and a half.
   The groups have demanded the Bangladesh government should make security forces accountable for their abuses. They also demanded prosecution of the RAB officials involved in the incident.
   The Washington-based organisation Human Rights Watch on Saturday said that the government had promised to put an end to extrajudicial executions and abuses by the security forces. ‘But the government has taken no action.’
   ‘The Bangladesh government should move from promises to action and finally hold the security forces accountable for their abuses,’ said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch.
   The Human Rights Watch quoted Masum as saying the officers who arrested him became particularly agitated when they realised who he was and that he worked for the newspaper, read the statement.
   It said since RAB’s creation in 2004, it had killed several hundred people in what it refers to as ‘crossfire’ killings which in reality are extrajudicial killings. The victim’s bodies have typically had wounds suggesting that they had been tortured.
   Sheikh Hasina repeatedly said their commitment to put an end to extrajudicial executions by the security forces and said the people responsible for such killings would be held to account, it said. ‘However, in recent months there has been a dramatic increase in alleged “crossfire” killings and there are no indications that the government is moving toward holding anyone to account for them,’ said the Human Rights Watch.
   ’If this government is committed to the rule of law, human rights, and fundamental democratic principles, it has to realise that it cannot have a law enforcement agency that bases its operations on torture and extrajudicial executions,’ Adams said.
   The Hong Kong-based Asian Human Rights Commission in a statement on Friday said, ‘The Asian Human Rights Commission is of the opinion that in this case torture appears to have been used as a tool to suppress freedom of expression and opinion.’
   The commission said it was aware that torture in the hands of the law enforcement agencies of Bangladesh continued unabated as an endemic.
   ‘The home minister’s intervention to release a professional journalist, who was reportedly forced to appear in a fabricated movie-making programme by the RAB officers, represents the depth of the prevalence of torture and abuse of power by the law-enforcement agencies,’ it said.
   The competent authorities should immediately and independently investigate the allegations of torture, detention and the making of a fabricated video. ‘Such an investigation should be undertaken independent of officers of the RAB or the police who lack credibility in Bangladesh,’ it said.

Maoists are acquiring weapons through Bangladesh, Myanmar and possibly Nepal, according to the home minister, P Chidambaram, who nonetheless has expressed government’s willingness for a dialogue with them provide they abjure violence.
   Naxalism remains the biggest internal security threat to India, he said and hit out at intellectuals who still try to ‘romanticise’ the naxalities.
   In a wide-ranging interview to PTI Saturday, Chidambaram said the government is practical enough to understand that the Naxals would not lay down arms.
   He said the West Bengal government has ‘learnt a lesson very late’ after the Lalgarh operation but he would not comment much on the West Bengal government’s decision to secure the release of an abducted police official by not opposing the bail application of about 20 pro-Maoist trials.
   ‘In terms of the threat to security from Indian sources or internal sources, Naxalism remains the biggest threat. There is, of course, the other threat which is cross border terrorism but that is emanating from across the border,’ he said.
   ‘There is no evidence of any money flowing in from abroad to the Maoists. But there is certainly evidence of weapons being smuggled from abroad through Myanmar or Bangladesh which reaches the Maoists.’
   Asked whether some weapons are coming through Nepal, he said ‘it is possible.’
   To a question whether there is any Pakistan angle to it, Chidambaram said they were not sure where the weapons are originating from.
   ‘We know now that the weapons are coming through Bangladesh and Myanmar and possibly Nepal. The border is very porous. The Indo-Nepal border is a very porous border.’ He said police has not found any weapons with Pakistani marking.
   The Maoists had looted ‘our own armouries’ and they had said that the objective of the attack on the Sankhrail police station in West Bengal was weapons and money.
   ‘Even after this statement, if people romanticise the naxalities, all I can say that only God can help them,’ he said.
   Asked if there are any groups from abroad backing the Maoists, the minister said ‘I don’t know. It is possible that they get some intellectual support. I hear voices of some human rights group from abroad which say that we have unleashed a war on the Maoists. That is the intellectual support I am referring to.’
   Regarding any evidence of external help to Maoists, Chidambaram said it may be at the level of intellectual or ideological level.
   Queried about the Maoist leader Kishenji’s statement that they would not surrender arms and that forces should be withdrawn from the entire naxal-affected areas along with the release of the cadre and their supporters, he said ‘I am not going to respond to Kishenji.’
   Chidambaram said ‘he (Kishenji) is the leader of an organisation declared as unlawful. Therefore, as one representing the government, I have no intention of responding to him.’
   To a question whether the government was working on an out-of-the-box solution to break the logjam with the Maoists to bring them to the negotiating table, Chidambaram said ‘there is no jam. It is only those who romanticise left-wing extremism think that there is a jam.’
   ‘This is the land where Mahatma Gandhi won us freedom through non-violence. Can you have a greater oppressor than a colonial government,’ he said.
   The minister said if the naxalities claim to have the majority of the people behind them what prevented them from contesting elections and implementing policies which they think are the right policies.
   ‘Be that as it may, the elected government today says you halt violence and come and talk to us about your grievances,’ he said.
   Asked if he was inviting them to join the political mainstream, Chidambaram said ‘they should. They should join the political mainstream if they want to work for the people.’

The home ministry has sought Tk 3 crore from the finance ministry to meet the expenses for setting up of special courts in six divisions to hold trial of the accused BDR mutineers, official sources said.
   'In response to the request, we are preparing a proposal for meeting the expenses for establishment of special courts and procurement of required equipment and the proposal would be placed before the finance minister this week for his approval,' said a senior official of the finance ministry.
   The official also said that it was for the first time that the Bangladesh Rifles had requested the finance ministry to create another head for funding the setting up and operation of special and ordinary courts for the trials.
   Article 10A (2) of the Bangladesh Rifles Order stipulates, 'The special court may take cognisance by any officer, and shall follow such procedures as may be prescribed'.
   Sources said that 40 more courts would be set up across the country where cases were filed against the BDR soldiers accused of being involved in the rebellion at the BDR headquarters in Dhaka.
   Earlier, the BDR authorities had requested the home ministry to provide sufficient fund for setting up special courts in the six divisions.
   An inter-ministerial meeting held at the law ministry on Tuesday discussed the mode of trial to be adopted for the BDR mutineers.
   After the meeting law minister Shafique Ahmed said the trial of the BDR mutineers would begin in the first week of November in six special courts to be set up in six divisional headquarters.
   He also said that the BDR personnel and civilians facing charges of other criminal offences such as killing and looting would be tried by a speedy trial tribunal under the Bangladesh Rifles Order 1972.
   The government on September 15 decided that the trial of those accused of killing, looting and other criminal offences during the February 25-26 rebellion, would be held at the speedy trial tribunal under the Penal Code and the trial of the mutineers would be conducted under the BDR's law.
   The government made the decision in line with the Supreme Court's opinion rendered in response to a presidential reference on the trial of the BDR rebels.
   At least 75 people, including 57 army officers deputed to the border guards, were killed in the bloody mutiny at the BDR headquarters.

Pakistan said Saturday it had captured Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud's hometown as the US demonstrated its support for the war on the Islamists with an air strike that killed 14 people.
   Security sources said the army overran Mehsud's town of Kotkai overnight after three days of aerial bombardments which had underlined the huge challenge facing the military in taking on the Taliban in their tribal heartland.
   And in another part of the northwest tribal belt, a missile fired by an unmanned US drone spy plane killed at least 14 people including three foreign militants, local officials said.
   With the militants continuing to carry out attacks nationwide since the army began a major offensive in the South Waziristan tribal region a week ago, the prime minister, Yousuf Raza Gilani, said the unrest had hit every sector of society.
   Although figures are impossible to verify, the army says more than 140 militants and 20 troops have been killed in the week-long South Waziristan offensive.
   While no casualty figures were immediately available from Kotkai, several security officials said the fighting there was over.
   There has been no word on the whereabouts of Mehsud since the operation began.
   'Security forces took control of Kotkai overnight and a clearance operation is in progress,' a security official said, describing the capture as 'a major breakthrough.'
   The army launched the drive last Saturday, pitting 30,000 troops against an estimated 10,000-12,000 Taliban fighters where al-Qaeda-linked militants are believed to have plotted attacks against the West as well as in Pakistan.
   The army had promised to make the Taliban leadership a particular target of their offensive and sealed off the main road into Kotkai last weekend.
   Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal belt has become a stronghold for hundreds of extremists who fled Afghanistan after the US-led invasion toppled the hardline Taliban regime in neighbouring Afghanistan in late 2001.
   While US ground troops are not free to operate in Pakistan, it has carried out a series of air strikes by unmanned planes known as drones.
   The latest killed at least 14 people in the Bajaur district, to the north of Waziristan, and officials said the toll was likely to rise.
   One security official said that a house was targeted in Damadola village, saying those killed included three foreign militants.
   Another security official said that a tunnel linked to a bunker in the house of a relative of local Tehreek-e-Taliban chief Maulvi Faqir Mohammad was targeted.
   Announcing plans for both himself and the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, to visit soon, Richard Holbrooke, president Barack Obama's special envoy to the region, said the US is 'very impressed with the Pakistani resolve.'
   'They know what the stakes are. And having spent a lot of time with army chief General Ashfaq Kayani and his colleagues, I know how determined they are,' Holbrooke told reporters in Washington.
   Although the government has said it will deal a decisive blow to the militants, the rebels have continued to carry out attacks in Pakistani cities since the start of the operation, with the military a major target.

Nepal said on Friday it had no money to pay its ministers because parliament had failed to pass a new budget amid protests by the former Maoist rebels who dominate the legislature.
   Maoists have disrupted parliament since July, preventing it from discussing the impoverished nation's new budget after a dispute over the firing of the army chief.
   The stand-off means the Himalayan nation could see its administration shut down with the government eventually unable to pay even civil servants.
   The finance minister, Surendra Pandey, said government departments could not spend more than one third of total annual expenditure allocated to them before the new budget was passed.
   'That limit for the salary of ministers is already over. They cannot be paid any more unless the budget is passed,' he sad.
   The dispute also underscores the mistrust between the government and the Maoists, who waged a decade-long civil war until joining the mainstream under a 2006 peace deal.
   They scored a surprise victory in last year's election and formed the nascent Himalayan republic's first government after the abolition of the 239-year-old monarchy.
   But in May, Maoist chief Prachanda resigned as prime minister after the president, Ram Baran Yadav, reversed a cabinet decision to sack army chief General Rookmangud Katawal on grounds that he had refused to take orders from the civilian government. Katawal has since retired.
   Separately, ambassadors from UN Security Council member states urged Nepal to start discharging thousands of former Maoist fighters from camps to allow the United Nations mission in Nepal to complete its mandate in January.
   In July, the UN Security Council met Nepal's request to extend the term of its mission called, UNMIN, until January 23, but asked Kathmandu to take measures to allow the mission to finish its job by then.
   A mid-term discussion on the UNMIN mandate is scheduled on November 6 in the Security Council.
   On Friday, envoys from China, France, Japan, Russia, Britain and the United States made their first joint visit to a Maoist camp in east Nepal and the army weapons storage site in Kathmandu to oversee the progress in implementing the peace agreement.

BAPEX, the country's lone gas and oil exploration company, found five more highly prospective areas in onshore.
   To add fresh reserve by 2010, Bapex is now set to start long awaiting exploration work in onshore areas of the country. Analysing the data of 2D seismic survey of different part of the country, the state-run company has completed land acquisition, development work at Srikail, Kapasia and Sundalpur by December and set to start the work in Mobarakpur and Netrakona.
   The Bapex has recently completed the survey in onshore areas.
   'Srikail, Sundalpur, Kapasia, Mobarakpur and Netrakona are the areas in our onshore, which showed huge prospects as per data, obviously Netrakona is a new name in the list, however, we are keen to explore these structure to add fresh reserve,' Hossain Monsur, chairman of Petrobangla told BSS Saturday.
   Aiming to increase gas reserve and supply, the Petrobangla has taken up 'fast-track programme under which a massive exploration, augmentation and reservoir study work would be taken place in next two years.
   A high official of Petrobangla said no exploration work has taken place in last ten years in the country, so the production of gas in the pipeline has failed to match the national demand. According to the National energy policy 1995, at least 36 exploration wells should have been drilled by December 2009.
   By implementing some augmentation work in different gas field and wells, Petrobangla has successfully increased its production by 180 mmcfd (million cubic feet per day) in last six months. It is now producing 1,980 mmcf gas per day, which is 180 mmcf more from February last.
   Petrobangla sources said although the production of gas had increased but it was still struggling to feed the required demand of the country's industrial, power and commercial sector in proper manner as the present demand has raised 1,800 to 2,200 mmcf.
   In the last hundred years of gas exploration history, only 76 exploration wells were drilled both in onshore and offshore Bangladesh.
   'Drilling some new exploration wells in these five structure we want to add more then one TCF gas into the country's gas reserve,' Monsur said.

The Ministry of Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment has asked for hotel fare four times as much as the ceiling fixed by the government for a minister touring abroad.
   It has demanded $800 per day as hotel cost for expatriate welfare and overseas employment minister Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain, who left Dhaka Friday for the Maldives on a four-day visit, finance ministry sources said.
   The existing government rule does not allow a minister to spend more than $211 per day in
   hotel bill from the exchequer during an overseas trip.
   But the rule is commonly flouted as top brass in the government often submit inflated hotel bills creating problems for the finance ministry to keep foreign travel allowances for dignitaries within budgetary limits, finance officials pointed out.
   The expatriates' welfare ministry requested the finance ministry to sanction $3,200 as hotel charge for the minister during his four-day stay in the Maldives. The fund is supposed to be readily taken from the expatriates' welfare ministry's own allocations and later be adjusted by the finance ministry.
   The ministry in a letter informed the finance ministry that the daily fare in a suitable hotel for the minister would be $800 per day in the Indian Ocean atolls, known as expensive tourist destination.
   Mosharraf Hossain is scheduled to meet Maldives labour minister to solve the problems of expatriate Bangladeshis, whose number is growing in the resort islands' booming tourism sector.

Eight more bodies were recovered from the River Padma till Saturday afternoon after a trawler capsized in the river on Friday.
   With this a total of 14 bodies have been recovered with one more body remaining missing.
   Earlier reports by the police said there were 41 people, mostly day labourers, on board the capsized trawler bound for Fatulla of Narayanganj. The labourers were in deep sleep at about 6:00am on Friday when another engine boat hit the trawler.
   A total of 21 people were guessed to be missing but later it was confirmed to be 15.
   Fazal Sarder, chairman of Dieranarkelaria union of Sadarpur upazila, where the accident took place, said the divers ended their operation and confirmed no more body was in the sunken trawler. The recovered bodies were handed over to heir relatives.
   The newly recovered bodies were identified to be of Uzzal, 25, Altaf, 22, Kalu, 25, Azad, 30, Halim, 25, and Bipul, 20, of village Charnabinpur, Atikul, 20, of village Nangmura and Farhad, 21, of village Saikula all under Hamdikhal union under Chatmohar in Pabna.
   Those who were recovered Friday night were Doulat, 22, Liton, 22, Dudu Miah, 45, Siraj, 25, Wasim, 23, and Jony, 20, - all from the same area.

Administration imposed section 144 restraining Abdul Jalil MP from holding public meeting at Nau Jawan ground in Naogaon town called by the district Awami League on Saturday afternoon.
   District officials said the restriction was imposed at 3:30pm following Awami Secchasebok League sought to hold a public meeting at the same venue and same time raising apprehension of disturbance between the two rival groups.
   However, Jalil hold a wayside meeting near the bus stand, about 500 yards away from the Nau Jawan ground in the evening.
   He told the audience that a group in the Awami League had been trying to keep him out of the party by misinterpreting his statements during the recent visit to the UK. But he will remain in politics and dedicated to the AL unto his death, said the former general secretary of the party.
   Jalil said trial of the criminals of the independence war would be held in the soil of Bangladesh and hoped execution of the killers of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman would be implemented at the earliest.