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A half-day hartal by a citizens’ pressure group was observed partially in the capital on Monday in protest against the government’s decision to lease out three gas blocks to international oil giants.
   Local units of the group also staged demonstrations in different districts as a part of the programme.
   The National Committee to Protect Oil, Gas, Mineral Resources, Power and Port, backed by a section of left-leaning political parties, enforced the 6:00am-12:00 noon hartal – the first since the Awami League-led alliance government assumed office in January. The committee gave the government a fresh one-month ultimatum to fulfil its five-point charter of demands, including punishment of the persons responsible for the police attack on its activists on September 2.
   The government on August 24 approved oil and gas exploration deals with US ConocoPhillips and Ireland’s Tullow Oil Ltd in three offshore blocks.
   The police beat up protesters, including the committee’s member-secretary professor Anu Muhammad, on September 2 when they were marching towards the headquarters of the state-owned Petrobangla.
   Pro-hartal pickets started assembling at Purana Paltan, Shahbagh, Mirpur section 10, Asad Gate, Science Laboratory crossing, Plassey crossing, Malibagh, Shanir Akhra, Jatrabari, Bahadur Shah Park and Sadarghat from early in the morning. They held rallies and brought out processions asking the city dwellers to observe the hartal.
   Police set up barricades at all approaches to Purana Paltan and Shahbagh intersections and the Dhaka University area and diverted traffic elsewhere.
   Attendance at government and private offices, including the secretariat, was thin in the morning and the number of visitors to the administrative headquarters was remarkably low.
   Most of the educational institutions remained closed. Banks operated covertly keeping only their back doors open and the city malls started business late.
   Tarffic was thin during the hartal hours as s few public and private buses plied the city roads while the number of cars was very low. Rickshaws plied the roads without major disruptions.
   Inter-district buses delayed their journey from Gabtoli, Mahakhali and Sayedabad terminals due to shortage of passengers. Trains, however, left the city on time.
   Protesters picketed Purana Paltan area till noon. Mujahidul Islam Selim, MM Akash, Morshed Ali and Ruhin Hossain Prince of the Communist Party of Bangladesh, Khalequzzaman, Bazlur Rashid Firoj and Razequzzaman Ratan of Bangladesher Samajtantrik Dal, Tipu Biswas of Jatiya Gana Front, Abdus Salam of Ganatantrik Majdur Party, Saiful Huq of Revolutionary Workers Party, Mushrefa Mishu of Democratic Revolutionary Party, Haider Akbar Khan Rano and Azizur Rahman of Workers Party (reconstituted), and Zonayed Saki of Ganasanghati Andolan led processions of respective organisations in the Paltan area.
   The national committee convener Sheikh Muhammad Shaheedullah led a separate procession.
   Cultural organisation Udichi Shilpi Gosthi entertained crowds at the intersection in the midst of rallies and processions.
   Pickets damaged two buses in front of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University and beside the National Museum at around 7:00am prompting police to divert traffic from Sheraton, Matsya Bhaban and Kantaban crossings.
   Progressive Student Alliance held a rally in front of Aparajeya Bangla at Dhaka University expressing solidarity with the movement of the national committee.
   The protesters also burned copies of Bengali dailies Prothom Alo and Amader Samay at different places denouncing what they called their editorial stance against the movement to protect national resources.
   Deputy commissioner of Ramna zone, Atiqul Islam termed peaceful the situation during the hartal hours. ‘Law and order was totally under control… No violent incidents took place in the capital,’ he said.
   After the end of the hartal, the national committee held a rally at Muktangan and asked the government to fulfil its five-point charter of demands by October 15.
   ‘We give the government until October 15 to meet our five-point charter of demands, or on October 16, the committee will call a national conference to decide tougher action programmes, including hartals and siege,’ Sheikh Muhammad Shaheedullah told the rally.
   The five-point charter of demands includes cancellation of the model oil-gas distribution contract 2008, cancellation of the proposed lease of three offshore blocks to foreign firms, formulation of a new model production-sharing contract ensuring 100 percent public ownership, full implementation of the Phulbari agreement 2006 and punishment of those responsible for the attack on Anu Muhammad and others on September 2.
   The committee will continue its campaign till October 15 to garner support for the demands.
   The national committee also staged demonstrations in divisional and district headquarters, including Khulna, Rajshahi, Barisal, Sylhet and Rangpur.
   Some 50 people under the banner of the national committee brought out a procession and staged protest in front of the DC office in Barisal.
   In Khulna, the national committee brought out a procession from Shaheed Hadis park and paraded the city roads.
   The Rangpur district unit of the national committee held a rally and brought out a procession from the local press club vowing to continue the movement until demands were fulfilled.

Finance minister AMA Muhith has admitted that economy is not in good shape as reflected in huge idle money lying in bank vaults, but said investment activities have been stymied by global recession, not because of local policy.
   ‘We have to admit that the investment becomes stagnant due to the global recession. I hope the situation will improve when the activities of the PPP [public-private partnership] will get momentum at the yearend,’ he said in parliament Monday, claiming that there are immense opportunities to invest money in Bangladesh.
   He, however, cited energy crisis as a major deterrent to investors.
   The amount of surplus liquidity almost tripled to Tk 34,762 crore in June 2009 from Tk 12,989 crore in June 2008, the finance minister said replying to questions from lawmakers from ruling party and alliance as the opposition has been staying off the Jatiya Sangsad session.
   He said the number of transactions in private banks was more compared to the state-run banks although the private banks charge higher interest rates and service fees.
   Money deposited in the state-run banks was Tk 83,992.01 crore till June 2009 while the amount of their loan was Tk 49,501.58 crore. But deposit in the private banks was Tk 160,015.84 crore and their loans totalled Tk 138,776.39 core.
   Muhith informed the house that the government has taken initiatives to establish Expatriate Welfare Bank and has a plan to establish Non-resident Bangladeshi-sponsored Bank.
   These will join a total of 48 commercial banks operating in the country, including four state-run and five specialized banks, 30 private and nine foreign banks.
   ‘Uncertainty in the investment atmosphere due to fallouts of the global recession has brought stagnation in investment. It is not because of the monetary policy,’ the minister said.
   He mentioned that the government had no plan to reduce bank interest rates for sick industries as they could be viable by cutting management cost.
   ‘The government has also no plan at present to reduce interest rates on farm loans,’ Muhith said in response to another query.
   He pointed out that investment was also being hampered by the crisis of power and gas. ‘I still believe there are opportunities for making investment in Bangladesh,’ he told another questioner.
   The finance minister referred to the stimulus package earlier announced by the government for various industrial sectors to help them overcome the adverse impacts of the global financial crisis.
   He expressed the hope that the negative trends in the country’s export earnings would reverse from October.
   Muhith said the government might announce ‘shortly’ the pay scale for pubic servants commensurate with the basic needs for lifestyle.
   The government has decided to issue new currency notes and coins inscribed with portrait of the country’s founding president Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
   The finance minister said the government received Tk 37.72 crore as value added tax from the shipbreaking industry at Sitakunda in Chittagong between July 2008 and June 2009.
   About 23 lakh people have tax identification numbers, but only seven lakh of them submitted tax returns last tax year, he told the House, adding that the government has no plan to introduce mobile court to increase the number of taxpayers.
   Instead, the government is trying its best to change the image of tax officials for getting better response from the eligible taxpayers, he said.

Members of parliament will have no role in pourasabhas as the Jatiya Sangsad Monday passed Local Government (Municipality) Bill 2009 rejecting a parliamentary body’s recommendation for making lawmakers advisers to the local government body.
   Another bill, making the Pesticide Ordinance 1971 more stringent, was also passed in the House.
   The government introduced a bill to parliament to tighten its control over Union Parishad, the lowest tier of the local government system.
   Local government, rural development and cooperatives minister Syed Ashraful Islam proposed passage of the Local Government (Municipality) Bill 2009 as determined by the House with a number of amendments put forward by ruling party lawmaker AKM Mozammel Haq.
   The House approved the bill by voice vote incorporating 40 amendment proposals, including scrapping of the lawmakers’ advisory role in the elected municipalities.
   The parliamentary standing committee on the LGRD ministry had earlier recommended that lawmakers should be made advisers to these bodies in their respective constituencies.
   The lawmakers earlier got advisory role in another local body, Upazila Parisahd, sparking off anguish among elected upazila chairmen and widespread debate in civic forums.
   Mozammel’s proposal for replacing the post of the deputy mayor with a three-member panel comprising elected councillors, including one from women’s reserved seats, at the municipalities was also accepted.
   The minister in-charge welcomed the amendment proposals.
   Some amendment proposals also came from Bangladesh Nationalist Party lawmakers, but those were not discussed as the main opposition party had been boycotting parliament session.
   The past military-backed interim government of Fakhruddin Ahmed promulgated an ordinance styled Local Government (Pourasava) Ordinance 2008. But the present elected government did not ratify it within the constitutionally mandated 30-day timeframe, leaving it with no effect since February 25.
   It means that nine municipalities, which had elections under the ordinance during the military-backed regime, were being run without any law since February 25.
   To fill in the legal vacuum, the government piloted the bill in the second session of the ninth parliament with a number of amendment proposals.
   The House also approved a few amendments to the Pesticide Ordinance 1971 to increase penalty for violation of the law.
   Agriculture minister Matia Chowdhury moved the bill in the House seeking more stringent provisions for monitoring production, import and use of pesticides. The bill was approved by voice vote.
   In the Union Parisahd bill, the LGRD minister proposed that the government would have the authority to suspend any elected representative if he or she failed to carry out assigned responsibilities. It will also be empowered to appoint administrators from among the bureaucrats if the position of chairman falls vacant.
   The government can also appoint some members to assist the administrator, according to the proposed law.
   The bill suggests creation of a three-member panel, at least one of them being woman, to act as chairman in absence of an elected chairman of a UP.
   It proposes that the government can also engage the UP in designing development projects, preparing guidelines and in other activities.

The parliamentary standing committee on home ministry has decided to ask the director general of Bangladesh Rifles to appear before it to explain his move to change the name and uniform of the force without the government approval.
   Abdus Salam, chairman of the committee, said this after a meeting at the Jatiya Sangsad building on Monday.
   Home minister Sahara Khatun, who was present at the meeting, informed the committee members that BDR chief Major General Mainul Islam had called on her to say ‘sorry,’ and observed that he would not require to appear before the committee.
   As the meeting felt that action should be taken against the BDR chief for violating discipline of the force, the home minister said she would call the border guards’ chief again and take necessary action.
   It was reported that BDR DG introduced himself as the director general of Border Guard Bangladesh in the Eid greeting cards he reportedly sent to dignitaries.
   Legal experts said it was gross violation of discipline on the part of the chief of the border guards and he should face legal action since the government has not yet changed the name or uniform of the force.

Osama bin Laden has told Americans to rethink their policies, in a new message in which he links their support for Israel to the September 11 attacks in 2001, a US-based monitoring group said.
   Titled ‘Message to the American People,’ the video — released on Sunday by the As-Sahab media production branch of al-Qaeda — features a still image of bin Laden and an audio statement, said IntelCentre, based outside Washington.
   It came two days after the United States marked the eighth anniversary of the attacks by bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network in which hijacked airliners were flown into the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, killing nearly 3,000 people.
   Bin Laden said that among ‘some other injustices,’ US support to Israel motivated al-Qaeda to launch the September 11 attacks, IntelCentre reported.
   He also stated that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were driven by the pro-Israeli lobby in the White House and corporate interests, and not by Islamic militants.
   ‘If you think about your situation well, you will know that the White House is occupied by pressure groups,’ he said, according to IntelCentre.
   ‘Rather than fighting to liberate Iraq — as Bush claimed — it (the White House) should have been liberated.’
   He was referring to former US president George W Bush, who ordered the March 2003 invasion of Iraq that overthrew Saddam Hussein’s regime.
   If Americans want to end their confrontation with al-Qaeda, bin Laden continued, they must reconsider their attitude toward the Jewish state.
   ‘Put the file of your alliance with Israelis on the discussion table,’ he stated, according to IntelCentre’s translation of the address.
   ‘Ask yourselves to determine your position: is your security, your blood, your children, your money, your jobs, your homes, your economy, and your reputation dearer to you than the security of the Israelis, their children and their economy?
   ‘If you choose your security and cessation of war, and this is what the polls have shown, this requires you to work to punish those on your side who play with our security,’ Bin Laden said.
   ‘We are ready to respond to this choice on aforementioned sound and just bases.’
   According to bin Laden, current US president Barack Obama is powerless and unwilling to change the course of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq.
   Obama’s retention of US defence secretary Robert Gates and other individuals from the Bush administration is confirmation of the president’s weakness, the al-Qaeda leader said.
   ‘It will become clear to you in days that all you have changed in the White House are faces,’ he is quoted by IntelCentre as saying.
   ‘The bitter truth is that the neo-conservatives continue to cast their heavy shadows upon you.’
   Bin Laden urged Americans to pressure the White House to cease the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and US support to Israel, rather than succumb to what he called ‘the ideological terrorism’ exercised by neo-conservatives.
   If the wars are not ended, ‘all we will do is to continue the war of attrition against you on all possible axes, like we exhausted the Soviet Union for 10 years until it collapsed with grace from Allah the Almighty and became a memory of the past,’ bin Laden said.
   IntelCentre said bin Laden typically releases such a statement annually around September or October.
   The last audiotape by the al-Qaeda leader was released on June 3. In that missive he scorned Obama’s overture to the Islamic world and warned of decades of conflict ahead.
   That audiotape aired on the Al-Jazeera satellite news channel less than an hour after Obama landed in Saudi Arabia, bin Laden’s home country, at the start of a Middle East tour.
   Bin Laden has a 50-million-dollar bounty on his head and has been in hiding for the past eight years.
   Intelligence officials, US military analysts and other experts have long believed he is hiding in either Pakistan or Afghanistan near the remote mountainous border between the two countries.
   In March, an audio attributed to bin Laden accused some Arab leaders of being ‘complicit’ with Israel and the West against Muslims and urged holy war to liberate the Palestinian territories.
   The same month, he urged the overthrow of the Somali president.

The government on Monday filed five petitions with the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, seeking permission to appeal against a High Court verdict acquitting six former army men of the charges in the jail killing case.
   The advocate on record, Mushfiqur Rahman, filed the petitions.
   Attorney general Mahbubey Alam told reporters that his office would take an initiative for bringing about the hearing in the appeal petitions after disposal of the appeals in the Sheikh Mujibur Rahman murder case, which is scheduled to be heard by the Appellate Division on October 5.
   Of the five petitions, one was filed against the acquittal of dismissed dafadars Marfat Ali Shah and Abul Hashem Mridha, who are on the run, and one each against dismissed lieutenant colonel Syed Farook Rahman, retired lieutenant colonel Sultan Shahriar Rashid Khan, retired major Bazlul Huda and retired major AKM Mohiuddin, who are in jail.
   Separate petitions were filed seeking permission to appeal against the acquittal of the four, who are in jail, as the High Court delivered the judgement acquitting them of the charges after hearing separate appeals they had filed against their conviction, the attorney general explained.
   The High Court bench of Justice Nozrul Islam Chowdhury and Justice Ataur Rahman Khan on 28 August, 2009 confirmed the death sentence of retired risaldar Moslemuddin and acquitted two condemned fugitives – dismissed dafadars Marfat Ali Shah and Abul Hashem Mridha of the charges of the jail killings.
   The court also acquitted dismissed lieutenant colonel Syed Farook Rahman, retired lieutenant colonel Sultan Shahriar Rashid Khan, retired major Bazlul Huda and retired major AKM Mohiuddin, who appealed against their conviction after being jailed for life.
   In its verdict on the death reference and appeals against the trial court verdict in the 1975 jail killing case, the court observed that sufficient evidence was not found for the conviction of the eight other sentenced to life imprisonment.
   The court, however, did not pass any order on the eight as they had not appealed against the conviction and had gone into hiding without surrendering in court.
   The jail killings took place 79 days after the murder of Bangladesh’s founding president Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
   Four of Mujib’s close political colleagues — Syed Nazrul Islam, Tajuddin Ahmed, M Monsur Ali and AHM Qamaruzzaman, who led the provisional government of Bangladesh at Mujibnagar in 1971 – were killed inside the Dhaka central jail on 3 November, 1975.
   The investigation and trial of the jail killing case began after the Awami League had assumed office in 1996.
   The Dhaka metropolitan sessions judge’s court on 20 October, 2004 gave the verdict in the case, sentencing three persons to death and 12 to life imprisonment. All of the 15 convicts were former military personnel.
   The trial court sentenced three persons – retired risaldar Muslemuddin and dismissed dafadars Marfat Ali Shah and Abul Hashem Mridha – to death. They all are on the run.
   The people sentenced to life imprisonment were Syed Farook Rahman, Sultan Shahriar Rashid Khan, Bazlul Huda, Khandakar Abdur Rashid, Shariful Haq Dalim, SHMB Noor Chowdhury, AKM Mohiuddin Ahmed, AM Rashed Chowdhury, Ahmed Sharful Hossain, Abdul Majed, Kisman Kismat Hashem and Najmul Hossain Ansar.
   Farook Rahman, Shahriar Rashid, Bazlul Huda and AKM Mohiuddin Ahmed are in jail and the rest are in hiding. They appealed against the trial court’s verdict and were acquitted of the charges.
   The four former army officers, however, cannot be released as they were earlier sentenced to death in the Sheikh Mujib murder case, now pending with the Supreme Court for appeal hearing.

Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha is likely to hold tomorrow the lottery for allotment of plots under Purbachal New Town Project under three categories.
   ‘We are likely to start the process of holding lottery on September 16 through drawing lottery for three categories,’ Rajuk chairman-in-charge AYM Golam Kibria told New Age on Monday.
   Another Rajuk official said three categories under which the lottery would be held are artist and intellectuals, justice and wage earners i.e. expatriates.
   Lottery for the Uttara (third phase) and other categories for Purbachal, however, would be held after Eid-ul-Fitr, the official said.
   Earlier, the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology was entrusted with scrutinising around 1.57 lakh applications submitted against some 6,800 plots in Purbachhal and Uttara till April 30.
   Sources said BUET is yet to complete the total task of sorting out the applications and that’s why the lottery under other categories as well as of Uttara will be held later on.
   Rajuk will allot 400 plots of ten kathas, 690 plots of seven and a half kathas, 3,200 plots of five kathas and 1,710 plots of three kathas in Purbachal New Town project while 395 plots of five kathas and 405 plots of three kathas will be allotted in Uttara (third phase) project, Rajuk sources said.
   Some 40,000 expatriates applied from abroad for the plots under two projects.
   On November 25, 2008, Rajuk had sought applications in 12 categories including lawmakers, judges, journalists, government service holders, officials of autonomous bodies, armed forces, artists, sportsmen, businessmen and private sector service holders.
   After the Awami League-led alliance government came to power, Rajuk authorities for the second time extended the deadline for submitting applications from January 15 to April 30, 2009.
   Earlier, the state minister for housing and public works, Abdul Mannan Khan, on different occasions had said that the process of distributing plots would be completed by June, 2009.
   Uncertainty and delay over plot allotment caused frustration among one and a half lakh applicants who deposited substantial amount with their applications. While Rajuk is allegedly earning hefty amounts in bank interest on the deposits, the plot seekers are counting loses which they could earn as interest against their deposited money.
   The plot applicants have deposited around Tk 1,500 crore which is now kept in Rajuk’s banks accounts, said an official. On the other hand, Rajuk earned Tk 20 crore by selling around two lakh application forms, each costing Tk 1,000.

The inter-ministerial meeting, which was to decide the trial process for BDR rebellion cases Monday, has been shifted to tomorrow [Tuesday] as key persons concerned were otherwise occupied.
   The schedule has been changed due to a standing committee meeting on the Mobile Court Bill at the Jatiya Sangsad, a law ministry official said Monday.
   ‘The meeting will now be held tomorrow morning at the law ministry,’ the official told New Age.
   Officials concerned from home ministry, army and Bangladesh Rifles, among others, would attend the meeting to be presided over by the law minister.
   Earlier on Sunday, law minister Shafique Ahmed said an inter-ministry meeting on Monday would take a decision on the law and mode of the trial of the cases in line with the guidelines detailed by the Supreme Court in its reply to a presidential reference.
   The Supreme Court opined against trial of the February 25-26 BDR rebellion cases under the Army Act, but gave some guidelines for the trial process. The law minister indicated that the trial would be conducted under the speedy trial tribunal keeping with the guidelines of the Supreme Court.
   The BDR rebellion left 74 people, including 57 army officers, killed in less than two months since the government took office. Amid debate and confusion over trying a massacre of such scale in a disciplined force, president of the republic Zillur Rahman on August 17 sent a reference to the Appellate Division seeking its opinion whether the provisions of the Army Act 1952 could be applied to the BDR personnel involved in the rebellion.
   The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, after hearing from 10 amici curiae, on September 10 replied to the presidential reference, saying the Army Act could not be applied to the trial of BDR mutiny.

A stampede killed up to 20 women and children when charity workers handed out free flour on Monday to the poor in a crowded neighbourhood of Pakistan’s financial capital Karachi, officials said.
   ‘We have so far received 20 bodies of women and girls while the injured are more than 30,’ Amin Khan, an official in Civil Hospital Karachi, said.
   The Karachi city police chief Wasim Ahmed said at least 18 women and children died in the stampede with dozens of others injured.
   ‘The deaths were caused by suffocation and the stampede in one of the most congested localities of Khori Garden, where a charity was distributing free flour among hundreds of women and children during Ramadan,’ he added.
   Muslim-majority Pakistan is observing the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, when believers fast from dawn to dusk.
   Women clad in black burkas sobbed and wailed as ambulances screeched through the streets, ferrying the bodies and injured to hospital.
   Injured women and children lay on beds in a crowded hospital, where panicked relatives rushed around trying to find their loved ones and dead bodies lay covered in white sheets, television footage showed.
   Witness Fatima Hashim, 55, whose daughter was seriously injured said the stampede happened in a small area where huge crowds converged for handouts.