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Leading News
BDR, BSF exchange fire on
Jaintapur, Tamabil borders
BSF troops trespass into
Bangladesh, shoot and abduct wounded BDR man, return him
later with regret at flag meeting
UNB, Sylhet
Indian border security force (BSF) showing aggressive
posture started unprovoked fire across the Jaintapur
border at 4 pm which were continuing with interruptions
till 7pm Thursday.
Earlier in the morning, a group of BSF troops trespassed
more than 50 yards into Bibir Haor in Jaintapur upazila at
10 am, shot and abducted a wounded BDR personnel.
Lt Col Zahirul Alam, 21 BDR battalion commander, told UNB
"BSF opened unprovoked fire wounding a BDR jawan on patrol
and abducted him. We wanted to resolve the matter
peacefully in a flag meeting. But BSF in aggressive
posture started firing across the border an hour before
the flag meeting scheduled for 5pm."
BDR retaliated and the exchange of intermittent firing
continued till 7pm, he added.
Residents of Bibir Haor, Gilatail, Phulbari, Kamlabari,
Guabari and Kendri Haor fled homes for safety as the
firing continued.
BDR and local sources said BSF troops trespassed into
Bibir Haor at 10. They shot and wounded Nayek Mujibur
Rahman of Jaaintapur outpost who was on patrol along with
three other jawans, who were detached at that time. The
intruders abducted the wounded Nayek at gunpoint.
On information, deputy commander of 21 BDR battalion Major
Abdullah Al Mamoon rushed to the spot. He invited the BSF
for a flag meeting, which was scheduled at 5pm.
But an hour before the meeting, BSF started unprovoked
firing across the border. BDR retaliated. Tension
escalated to adjacent Tamabil border where the border
forces of the two countries also exchanged gunfire.
The intermittent firing was continuing in Bibir Haor and
Tamabil borders when the last report came in at about 7pm.
Friendly sports competition and cultural function of
BDR-BSF scheduled at Biael border of Jakiganj on Thursday
were cancelled because of the gunfight.
PM
orders stopping waste dumping in rivers
She asks authorities to
start dredging in the Padma, the Jamuna
UNB, Dhaka
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Thursday vented serious
discontent as dropping industrial and domestic wastes into
the rivers in and around the capital still continued while
the government is cleaning up riverbeds of the Buriganga
and the Turag.
She directed the authorities concerned to do whatever
necessary to stop the unabated waste dumping in the
rivers, which all are reportedly rotting and their
pollution with garbage throwing still continuing.
"Huge money is being spent on the cleansing of the
riverbeds. If the dumping of wastes continues at the same
time, all attempts to protect the rivers will go in vain.
Such activities must be stopped," the Prime Minister said
while addressing the 3rd meeting of Water Sector and
Dredging Affairs National Committee at the PMO.
The premier also urged the owners of mills and factories
as well as the city-dwellers to be caring to the rivers,
canals and other water bodies in the city to protect the
environment. Regarding healthy urban life, she reiterated
her government's thinking about expanding the jerrybuilt
overcrowded capital city in a modern and planned way.
Sheikh Hasina further called for all concerned to change
their mindset for building a corruption-free clean
society, as the vice robs the commoners of their share of
the cake.
"Corruption has to be eradicated from society for mass
people's development," she said, apparently stressing the
need for gearing up the anti-graft drive that had recently
caged many bigwigs even. As the urgency of dredging the
silted-up Jamuna and Padma rivers came up for discussion
at the meeting, the Prime Minister asked the authorities
concerned to conduct dredging in the two once-mighty
rivers in a full swing on the basis of study conducted
prior to construction of the Bangabandhu Bridge over the
Jamuna River. "Do not waste time-start dredging in the two
major rivers on the basis of data and statistics available
on hand," she asked the officials concerned present at the
meeting. Reports say huge sandbars have formed on the
mainstreams of the two rivers, and many parts of the Padma
riverbeds have turned into farmlands particularly in
Rajshahi region.
The Prime Minister said the vast tracts of land that will
be reclaimed through dredging the rivers would have to be
utilized by constructing houses, industries and farms.
BNP
to join JS Wednesday
It protests BSF
atrocities on the border
Opposition BNP will join the current session of parliament
next Wednesday, breaking a prolonged standoff, to discuss
"crucial national issues" and the Prime Minister's India
tour.
The parliament session resumes next Wednesday after a
five-day adjournment for the weekend and Prime Minister
Sheikh Hasina's three-day Kuwait tour from Sunday.
The BNP parliamentary party (BNPPP) sat in a crucial
meeting Thursday with its chairperson and Leader of the
Opposition Khaleda Zia in the chair and took the decision,
now that many major developments have taken place on the
politico-diplomatic front.
"Definitely, we will go," the opposition leader, Khaleda,
told UNB after the meeting held in Sangsad Bhaban.
As planned, the BNP lawmakers will discuss in parliament
their demands on which they have boycotted parliament
sessions as well as the agreements and joint communiqué
that were singed with India against 'Bangladesh's
interests' during Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's visit to
New Delhi on January 10.
A lawmaker of BNP who was present at the meeting told UNB
that they will join the parliament session on the next
working day.
Briefing newsmen at the Sangsad Bhababn Media Centre at
6pm about the outcome of the BNPPP meeting, opposition
chief whip Zainul Abdin Farooque said, "We'll go to
parliament".
He repeated the same words in reply to the reporters'
questions about specific date for their joining and
whether they would join the current parliament session.
"You will know the date," he told the reporters, saying
that the countrymen will be informed which day they will
join.
Zainul said the parliamentary party meeting of the BNP-led
four-party alliance chaired by the BNP chairperson decided
to join parliament for the interest of the country and its
people.
Out of 40 MPs of the 'jote', 36 attended the meeting that
lasted about an hour from 4:05 pm in the Leader of the
Opposition's conference room at her Sangsad Bhaban office.
He said they would discuss the imperative of increasing
security of the opposition leader, withdrawal of "false"
cases filed against Khaleda Zia by the past
military-backed 'Fakhruddin-Moeenuddin caretaker
government', withdrawal of the lease-cancellation order on
Khaleda Zia's Dhaka cantonment residence and "repression"
on BNP leaders and workers across the country.
"We'll also demand expunging indecent and vituperative
remarks against the late President Ziaur Rahman by Prime
Minister Sheikh Hasina and her brother Sheikh Selim in
parliament," said the opposition chief whip. The other
matters to be raised in parliament include "unequal
agreements" signed with India, corridor, Tipaimukh dam,
price hike of essentials, deteriorating law-and-order
situation.
Meanwhile, BNP strongly protested Thursday's shooting of
BDR member Mojibur Rahman by trespassing Indian Border
Security Force (BSF) troops inside Bangladesh and taking
away the injured across the frontier.
In a statement BNP senior joint secretary-general Mirza
Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said a group of BSF men this
(Thursday) morning entered about 50 meters inside
Bangladesh territory through Jointapur border in Sylhet
district. They opened fire which injured the BDR Nayek.
"They also took away Mojibur Rahman into India," he said
in the statement on Thursday night.
Fakhrul condemned such "alarming and shocking incident
even after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina signed deals with
India going to that country".
Charmonai Pir vows to resist secular principle of
1972 constitution
UNB, Barisal
Maulana Syed Muhammad Rezaul Karim, Pir Saheb of Charmonai
and Amir of Islami Andolon, today vowed to resist any
anti-Islamic, secular, undemocratic move in the name of
restoring the 1972 constitution.
He was addressing a conference of the party's Barisal city
unit at Aswani Kumar Hall Thursday morning.
The conference was held under tight police guard and the
authority limited the extension of microphone outside the
hall.
The pir saheb told the party workers amid cheers that they
will not tolerate any attempt to revive the 1972
constitution that enshrined secularism as a state
principle. The religious minded people of the country will
resist any move to curb Islamic politics, he cautioned.
Maulana Ruhul Amin, Hafez Mohammad Yusuf, Prof.
AKMHemayetuddin, Nurul Huda Fayezi, Abdul Majid Sikdar and
Nurul Islam are among those addressed the conference.
Govt signs agreements to install three rental
power plants
BSS, Dhaka
National grid will get more 265 mega watt electricity by
this year as the government on Thursday signed agreements
with two private companies for installing three rental
power plants.
Quantum Power System Ltd. will install furnace oil based
105 MW plant in Noapara and diesel based 110 MW plant in
Bherama while R Z Power System Ltd. will install diesel
based 50 MW power plant in Thakurgaon.
Power Development Board Secretary M Azizul Islam, Animesh
Kunda of Quantum Power System Ltd. and Munwar Misbha Munim
of R Z Power System Ltd. inked the agreements on behalf of
their respective sides.
As per the agreements, the diesel-based power plants will
start power generation within 120 days while the furnace
oil plant within 270 days. Per unit electricity will be
brought at Taka 12.58 from Bheramara power plant, Taka
13.74 from Thakurgaon and Taka 7.29 from Noapara plants.
Adviser to the Prime Minister Dr Toufiq-E-Elahi Chowdhury,
State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources
Brig Gen (retd) M Enamul Huq and power division secretary
M Abul Kalam Azad an PDB chairman ASM Alamgir Kabir were
also spoke on the signing ceremony.
Dr Toufiq said the government has adopted short, medium
and long term plan for the power sector.
Urging the two private companies for installing the plant
within stipulated timeframe, the adviser said the
government would provide all-out support to the companies.
Brig Gen (retd) Enamul said the government wants to
provide electricity to all because development not to be
possible without adequate power.
PDB chairman Kabir said another agreement would be signed
to private companies for installing two more power plants
on February 8.
Besides, the government has sought tender for installing
two power plants with 150 MW capacities each in Sylhet and
Chandpur, he added.
RAJUK
halts breaking Jamuna Future Park facing legal notice
UNB, Dhaka
Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha (Rajuk) Thursday began
bulldozing the unauthorized top four floors of the
imposing multistoried Jamuna Future Park Shopping Complex
in the city hot on the heels of Wednesday's High Court
order, but suddenly stopped on receiving a prohibitive
legal notice.
The High Court summarily rejected the writ petition filed
by Jamuna Group of industries against the demolition
notice served by the Rajuk. Executive magistrate
Rokon-Ud-Doula led a joint demolition team of Rajuk along
with police this morning to pull down the peak of the
just-built biggest supermarket of the country.
The demolition squad suspended its operation at 1pm after
partially breaking the building as a legal notice of
warning fast traveled to Rajuk from the counsel for the
shopping-complex management. The legal notice requested
the Rajuk to stop demolition work as a petition is pending
with the SC chamber court for staying the operation of
Wednesday's High Court order.
"If the Rajuk does not pay heed to the legal notice, it
will have to face contempt-of-court charge," it was warned
in the legal notice. The chamber court did not sit today
(Thursday).
In a statement, Jamuna Group authorities said the Rajuk
demolition team damaged their property worth hundreds of
crores of taka. "The demolition was started without giving
any time and disobeying High Court order and our appeal
application against demolition of the shopping-complex,"
the Group said.
Earlier, the shopping-complex authorities filed a writ
petition on January 17 this year challenging a Rajuk
notice that asked the Jamuna Future Park Shopping Complex
authorities to demolish the unauthorised top four floors
of the 10-storey building.
On January 13, Rajuk served the notice to the JFP
authorities having asked them to pull down the
unauthorized top four floors of the magnificent shopping
complex within seven days, as it had got approval for
constructing a six-story building but built it higher in
breach of the rules. Shortly after receiving the Rajuk
summons, the JFP authorities moved to the High Court with
a writ petition challenging the validity of the notice.
Finally, the big business group lost the legal battle.
Back Page
Kayani
spells out threat posed by Indian doctrine
Dawn Online, Rawalpindi
While the Pakistan Army is alert to and fighting the
threat posed by militancy, it remains an "India-centric"
institution and that reality will not change in any
significant way until the Kashmir issue and water disputes
are resolved, according to army chief Gen Kayani.
In a presentation to Pakistani media, Gen Kayani
reiterated his widely reported comments on the Pakistan
Army's view of the situation in Afghanistan and the way
forward there. But the army chief also made it clear that
his institution's "frame of reference" for addressing the
problems in that country included certain concerns that
are India specific.
History, unresolved issues, India's military capability
and its 'Cold Start' doctrine meant that Pakistan could
not afford to let its guard down. Repeating a well-known
formulation, Gen Kayani said: "We plan on adversaries'
capabilities, not intentions."
The tough, matter-of-fact line on India was in stark
contrast to that of Gen Kayani's predecessor, Gen (retd)
Musharraf, who tried hard to push for peace with India in
his latter years in power. Gen Kayani, though, does not
carry the dual burden of being president and the army
chief, which perhaps explains the narrower, militaristic
formulation of Pakistan's posture towards India.
The general was particularly keen to highlight the threat
posed by India's 'Cold Start' doctrine. Turing the
traditional theory of war on its head, 'Cold Start' would
permit the Indian Army to attack before mobilising,
increasing the possibility of a "sudden spiral
escalation", according to Gen Kayani.
The Pakistan Army's concerns about 'Cold Start' are well
known, but Gen Kayani went as far as to put a timeline on
its implementation: two years for India to achieve partial
implementation and five years for full.
If true, the strategic impact could be of the highest
order: defence analysts have speculated that 'Cold Start'
may lead the Pakistan Army to lower its nuclear threshold
as a way of deterring any punitive strikes or rapid
capture of territory by the Indian armed forces. Yet, Gen
Kayani was also keen to point out that he did not have a
one-dimensional view of security. Despite the fact that
India's defence budget is "seven times" that of Pakistan's
"there has to be a balance between development and
military spending," the general said.
He also pleaded that "peace and stability in South Asia
should not be made hostage to a single terrorist act of a
non-state actor", a reference to the November 2008 Mumbai
attacks.
Refusing to talk to Pakistan would send a bad signal on
two counts: one, the non-state actors would know that they
have the power to nudge India and Pakistan towards war;
and two, within India it would become clear that relations
with Pakistan could be suspended indefinitely.
The comments on India, though, came only later in an
extended Power Point Presentation that covered everything
from the operations in Swat and South Waziristan to the
"way forward" in Afghanistan. Gen Kayani seemed relatively
pleased with the reaction his presentation received when
first unveiled at a meeting of chiefs of defence staff of
Nato and its allied countries in Brussels late last month.
Emphasising what he termed the "fundamentals", he claimed
that until the Afghan government improved its credibility
and governance record and until the Afghan population
began to change its perception that Isaf is not winning,
the Afghan government would not be able to establish its
writ and the local Taliban would not be "weaned off".
But on Afghanistan, too, India featured in Gen Kayani's
comments. Rejecting India's reported interest in training
the Afghan National Army and the country's police force,
Gen Kayani argued that Pakistan had a more legitimate
expectation to do so.
Taken together, Gen Kayani's comments suggest that the
possibility of a thaw in relations between India and
Pakistan any time soon is low. Both India and Pakistan
appear to have firmly lapsed into the old pattern of
highlighting the differences between them and the threats
they face from each other, while nominally leaving the
door open to an improvement in relations if one side
addresses the other's concerns. Unlike the past, though,
the stakes appear to be higher because of the uncertain
future of Afghanistan and a 'nuclear overhang' that may be
affected by 'Cold Start'.
Power, energy sector
Govt seeks $ 7 b investment in New York, S’pore road-shows
UNB, Dhaka
Bangladesh has sought 7 billion dollar investment in
energy and power sector at the road-shows held recently in
New York and Singapore where a large number of promising
investors evinced keen interest.
The road-shows organized by the government where an
official delegation led by Dr. Tawfiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury,
adviser to Prime Minister, was present. On return home Dr
Elahi told a press briefing Thursday that promising
investors have shown keen interest for investment in
Bangladesh, particularly because of their growing
confidence in the administration.
He is hopeful of huge foreign investment in power and
energy sector in the coming years. But there was no
specific commitment as yet, he told a correspondent.Road-shows
were held in New York and Singapore last week in a bid to
attract foreign investment in power and energy sector. The
delegation attended the road-shows to showcase the
investment potentials in the country. State Minister for
Power and Energy Brigadier Gen (retd) Enamul Haque, Power
Secretary Abul Kalam Azad, Board of Investment Chairman
Dr. SA Samad, PDB Chairman ASM Alamgir Kabir, Petrobangla
Chairman Dr. Hossain Mansur and Bangladesh Petroleum
Corporation chief Anwarul Karim were among those in the
delegation.
Dr Elahi placed a US$ 7 billion investment requirement for
the power and energy sector. A number of power plants with
a total generation capacity of 5,000 MW and setting up an
LNG terminal in the Bay were proposed in the road shows.
He said about 110 representatives of 70 US companies
attended the New York road-show while 126 officials from
88 international companies were present in the Singapore
road-show. "We had one-to-one meeting with top executives
of different companies to clarify our position on various
issues," Azad said.
Warrant of precedence
HC asks govt to elevate status of district judges above
armed forces chiefs
BSS, Dhaka
The High Court on Thursday declared illegal the existing
warrant of precedence asking the government to elevate the
status of district judges above the three armed forces
chiefs.
A High Court bench comprising Justice Syed Refat Ahmed and
Justice M Mainul Islam Chowdhury on Thursday pronounced a
verdict also asking the government to amend the current
warrant of precedence in next 60 days keeping all
constitutional posts atop the warrant of precedence.
The judgment issued eight directives including placement
of district judges just after the positions of the
"constitutional posts" while the army, navy and air force
chiefs would follow the in terms of official status.
Under the existing Warrant of Precedence or description of
positions in terms of their status, the cabinet secretary,
chiefs of three services and the principal secretary
occupy the 13th position while the district judges are
placed in 24th serial.
The court order came on a writ petition filed by former
secretary general of Bangladesh Judicial Service
Association M Ataur Rahman in 2006 seeking a court order
declaring illegal the placement of district judges below
the secretaries to the government. The court also asked
the authorities concerned to submit the new Warrant of
Precedence before the bench on May 13 while it set May 20
for further hearing on the matter.
Ekushey book fair
starts gaining momentum
BSS, Dhaka
Amar Ekushey book fair started gaining momentum on its 4th
day on Thursday with a large number of book-lovers
visiting the fair at the Bangla Academy.
Visitors, who were just looking at the new arrivals, also
started buying books, publishers said, adding that novel
was on the top of selling list, followed by volumes of
poems.
Books of short-stories, meant for children, are also on
high demand.
Publishers are also happy with the day's sales' position
and salesmen at a number stalls were found busy managing
the buyers. Tally of new arrivals increased sharply
comparing to last three days as some 123 new titles hit
the fair on Thursday while the information centre reported
arrival of 101 new books.
Collection of poems led the tally of new arrivals on the
day with 40 titles followed by 23 novels, 10 collections
of stories, six collections of politics and child
literature respectively.
Salespersons in most of the renowned publishing houses
were found busy with selling books. A salesperson of Samay
Praka-shani said, 'From now on, every day you will see
this scale of sales in the fair.'
Almost all the salespersons at renowned publishing houses
like Anya Prakash, Anneshwa, Agami Prakashan, Oitijjhya,
Pathsutro were seen very busy with selling books.
Salespersons of comparatively small stalls such as Rodela,
Anupam, Suchip-atra, Academic Press and publishers were
also satisfied with their sales. "After drawing this
month's salary, I came straight to the book fair to buy
some of my favourite titles,' Abul Kalam, a bank employee,
said.
Sales in the bookshops beside the book fair venue also get
momentum. Visitors were purchasing new and old books, toys
and bangles from these footpath shops at a cheaper rate.
Visitors at the fair complained about toilet facilities at
the fair. The academy organised a discussion as a part its
series seminars on the Language Movement.
Militants may
be rehabilitated if they seek pardon: Sahara
UNB, Dhaka
Home Minister Advocate Sahara Khatun held out the olive
branch for militants as she Thursday said the government
could consider rehabilitating the misguided Islamist
operatives if they wanted to return to normal life seeking
pardon.
"They (militants) are yet to seek pardon..," the Home
Minister told reporters after inaugurating the city's 41st
police station at Gendaria when she was asked whet-her the
government would give amnesty to the militants if they
wanted.
With the launch of the new police station, the number of
police stations of Dhaka Metropolitan Police rose to 41 in
the capital.
Earlier addressing the function, Advocate Sahara Khatun
said it is not possible for the government and the law
enforcers alone to eliminate militancy, terrorism,
extortion and tender manipulation.
She seeks cooperation from leaders and activists of the
ruling grand alliance, including ruling Awami Lea-gue, as
well as from the mass people in keeping law and order
under control.
SSC
examination
Centre will be cancelled for copying: Nahid
UNB, Dhaka
The government has taken all-out preparations for holding
the upcoming SSC and equivalent examinations in a
copying-free environment, Education Minister Nurul Islam
Nahid said Thursday.
He said this at a preparatory meeting on the February 11
Secondary School Certificate (SSC) examinations at his
office.
The minister had a forewarning: "If any teacher, official
or any other person is found guilty of helping in copying
during the examination, tough action would be taken
against them immediately."
And if copying in seen at any examination center, the
centre would be cancelled in the next year. A total of
12,06,019 examinees will sit for this year's examination
under ten education boards, including one technical and
one Madrasah boards.
Of the total examinees, 916,180 will take part in the SSC
examination under the eight education boards while 211,860
under Madrasah Education Board and 77,979 under Technical
Education Board.
Editorial
More than tragic
Every
death is tragic, every death is unbearable. But a death is
more than tragic and more unbearable when it is caused to a
seven years old child by a killer bus in front of his school.
The death is also unbearable when a brilliant university
student has to depart from the world falling victim to
perverted student politics.
Two such deaths came on Wednesday as bolts from the blue
sending a wave of shock across the country. Seven years old
Hamim Sheikh, a student of Willis Little Flower School at
Kakrail was waiting in front of his school with his mother for
a transport after his classes. But he never knew that what
would come soon is not a transport to take him home, but a
killer bus to remove him from this world. A speedy Modhumati
city service bus ran over Hamim killing him instantaneously
and injuring her mother seriously. The driver of the bus has
been arrested. But even if he is awarded severe punishment,
which he deserves, the boy will never come back and this
stigma of killing will never go. We are so cruel and heartless
that we do not even feel the necessity of saving the live of a
child. This is a crime and this offence is unpardonable.
On the same Wednesday another death occurred in the city. Abu
Bakar Siddique, a Dhaka University student who was injured
during the factional clash between activists of pro-government
Bangladesh Chhatra League at F Rahman Hall of Dhaka University
on Tuesday night died in hospital on Wednesday. He was an
innocent student not involved in any student politics. But he
became the fourth victim of Chhatra League factional clashes
in over last one year. Two groups of Chhatra League activists
clashed with each other to establish supremacy, but Abu Bakar
had to pay with his life the price of this perverted student
politics. This is the tragedy of his life as well as that of
the nation.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has repeatedly sounded strong
warnings against violence on the campus. Disgusted with the
factionalism and clashes in Chhatra League she also quit the
post of the organisational head of it. But that too failed to
bring the Chhatra League activists to right path and sections
of them continue to clash over supremacy, tender grabbing and
extortion. Abu Bakar is the latest victim of this polluted
politics.
The situation is almost out of control, yet people expect that
the Prime Minister will make a last ditch effort to control
the Chhatra League activists and also establish discipline in
the roads to stop loss of more lives.
We find no words strong enough to express our shock and
condemnation over the more than tragic deaths of Hamim and Abu
Bakar and urge the government to punish those responsible for
these deaths. We mourn the deaths, pray for the eternal peace
of the departed souls and convey our sympathy to the bereaved
families.
The city we leave
in
The
people living in the capital city Dhaka is really worried over
their present and future as there is no serious attempt to
retrieve it from the dilapidated condition. The city is
terribly problem-ridden and the city dwellers are suffering
immensely. People from all over the country stream to this
city in thousands every day. According to a report: With the
increase of population by one million every three years, the
capital Dhaka will become the fourth populous city of the
world by the year 2015. At present with nearly 15 million city
dwellers, Dhaka ranks as the eleventh populous city in the
world, said a survey report of the UNFPA. With a population
growth of 5.5 per cent annually, Dhaka's inhabitants will
reach 21.3 million by the year 2015.
The population of Dhaka was 2 lakh in 1931, 3.61 lakh in 1951,
5 lakh in 1958, 5.57 lakh in 1961, 78 lakh in 1995 and 91 lakh
in 1991. The population here increases at a rate over three
times higher than national population increase rate. In view
of the existing alarming situation here it can be presumed
that Dhaka is going to become a jungle of men, women and
children with manifold problems including acute shortage of
space to live and move.
The government will find it very difficult to arrange
educational facilities, health care, sewerage system, water,
and power for them. Most of the big cities of the world are
plunged in manifold problems. But no where perhaps the
problems are so acute as in Dhaka. The main problem of Dhaka
city is its huge population. The other problems are related to
transport, housing, health, education, law and order and
obstacle to the smooth supply of essential commodities.
In these Circumstances, the government should draw up a
comprehensive plan and implement it with utmost sincerity to
make Dhaka a modern city with all facilities and amenities of
the 21st century. To reduce the burden of huge population on
Dhaka city, a number of satellite townships should be built
around the main city. Alongside, under a plan of massive
decentralization, offices of different government departments
and business establishments should be shifted to other places.
For example, Chittagong may be the head office of Railway,
Barisal of BIWTA, Sylhet of Tea Board etc.
Analysis
India rethinks policy to keep Afghan influence
India seeks to retain influence in Afghanistan
to deter any anti-India militant training camps there - which
it accuses rival Pakistan of backing.
Krittivas Mukherjee
An
initiative by Western powers seeking peace with the Taleban in
Afghanistan is forcing India to modify its policy toward the
group to avoid being marginalized in a country Delhi sees as
key to Indian security.
Indian officials fear an Afghan plan endorsed by global powers
to win over Taleban foot soldiers will give rival Pakistan a
greater say in the peace process and may ultimately lead to a
Taleban takeover once Western forces leave Afghanistan.
The six-decade India and Pakistan rivalry since their
independence from Britain in 1947 has turned Afghanistan into
a proxy battleground, whose control both countries see as
vital to their interests.
Their rivalry complicates Western efforts to stabilize
Afghanistan.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai's call on Saudi Arabia and
Pakistan to help reach out to the Taleban is threatening to
undo eight years of financial and diplomatic investment that
gave New Delhi great influence over Kabul.
"Delhi's failure to respond to the changing situation in
Afghanistan might cause huge setbacks for India," C. Raja
Mohan, a foreign policy expert at the US Library of Congress,
wrote in the Indian Express newspaper on Monday.
"India had a great run in Afghanistan in Phase One (since 2001
until recently) ... However, the stasis that had gripped
India's security policy in recent months and some fine
maneuvering by the Pakistani Army threaten to marginalize
Delhi in Phase Two." The urgency to acquire a role in
Afghanistan, even if limited, may have already prompted India
to soften its stand on the Taleban so as not to be seen as
blocking the peace process.
Indian Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna said at the weekend New
Delhi was willing to back efforts to seek peace with the
Taleban to stabilize neighboring Afghanistan.
"We are willing to give it a try," Krishna said, provided the
Taleban accepted the Afghan constitution and severed
connections with Al-Qaeda and other militant groups.
India seeks to retain influence in Afghanistan to deter any
anti-India militant training camps there - which it accuses
rival Pakistan of backing - and to more generally try to
counter a militant surge threatening regional security.
The Karzai administration, for its part, has deep suspicions
about Pakistan, which considers Afghanistan as a strategic
fallback position in the event of another war with India, and
because of Islamabad's ties to the Taleban.
"If the outcome of the London meeting is to be assessed, the
world is trying to cut a deal with the Taleban and India has
to accept that," said Uday Bhaskar, head of New Delhi-based
strategic affairs think tank National Maritime Foundation.
"India has to shape its policy in the light of this reality
... otherwise it runs the danger of being on a standalone
mode."
But India's traditional ties with Afghanistan and its
popularity with Afghans from Bollywood films to aid projects -
it is spending $1.2 billion to build roads and power lines in
Afghanistan - puts New Delhi on firm ground in the war-torn
country.
It is this aspect of their relationship that India could be
strengthening in the coming years as a counterpoint to any
Pakistan-backed move to marginalize New Delhi.
"India's presence in Afghanistan is tremendous and it is that
goodwill that clearly gives India its strength," said Savita
Pande, professor of South Asian studies at New Delhi's
Jawaharlal Nehru University.
Last week, India announced hundreds of fellowships to support
Afghan students pursuing higher education in the field of
agriculture, a sector seen as crucial for improving Afghan
lives.
"India has always been Afghanistan's development partner and
this is a strong aspect of the relationship that will be
developed further," said an Indian government official.
Moreover, a quick breakthrough with the Taleban is no
certainty, given that the militants may be in no mood to
compromise at a time when they are tightening their hold over
much of Afghanistan.
"So we have to see how realistic this peace offer is," said a
Western diplomat, who asked not to be named.
"The other aspect is whether Pakistan still retains the same
influence over all sections of Pashtuns, because their
leverage has largely been over the hard-line faction, which in
any case is unlikely to be part of the peace process."
The working
of the reset policy
Notwithstanding the "reset" of the U.S.-Russia ties, the
Obama administration is still committed to the policy of
containment of Russia.
Vladimir Radyuhin
A
year after the new United States administration promised
to "press the reset button" on ties with Russia, the two
nations have reversed the dangerous slide towards
confrontation, but are yet to bring about a real
turnaround in bilateral relations that are plagued by a
gruesome lack of trust.
Cooperation on Afghanistan is the most tangible product of
the "reset." Last year, Russia opened transit corridors
for the U.S. and other NATO supplies to their forces in
Afghanistan across its territory and airspace. It agreed
last month to expand cooperation, offering to service
Soviet-built helicopters, train more Afghan security
personnel and restore scores of Soviet-built industrial
and infrastructure facilities in Afghanistan.
However, Russia, prime victim of "narco-aggression" from
Afghanistan, deeply resents U.S. reluctance to combat
drugs production, which has grown more than 40 times since
the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) entered
the country.
In another sign of the "reset" working, Russia and the
U.S. - the two most powerful nuclear states - are close to
signing a new nuclear arms reduction treaty to replace the
1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START). Here, again,
the differences over drafting the new pact may hamper
further improvement in bilateral ties.
Moscow and Washington missed the December 5 deadline to
seal the arms pact before the START expired, as the talks
stumbled over the U.S. plans to build global missile
defences. President Barack Obama's decision to scrap his
predecessor, George W. Bush's plans to deploy missile
interceptors in Eastern Europe has not allayed Russia's
concern that a global missile shield the U.S. is still
committed to will upset the strategic weapons balance by
undermining Russia's capability to retaliate against a
U.S. first strike.
Under Mr. Obama's modified plan, the Pentagon would
initially deploy sea-based light interceptors in the
Mediterranean targeting Iran's short and medium-range
ballistic missiles. However, the new plan calls for the
system to evolve for defence against intercontinental
ballistic missiles by the end of the decade. Moreover,
U.S. missile defences may be deployed in the Baltic Sea
and in Eastern Europe. Thus, instead of the 10 missile
interceptors Mr. Bush planned to set up in Poland by 2012,
Russia may have dozens of more sophisticated and dangerous
anti-missiles on its doorstep by 2020.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said the U.S. could dispel
Russian fears by making a commitment in the post-START
treaty to share information on missile defence. This would
be in line with a memorandum of understanding signed
during Mr. Obama's visit to Russia in June 2009 when the
U.S. agreed to establish a relationship between missile
offence and defence in the new pact.
Washington has, however, refused. State Department
spokesman Ian Kelly said "the START follow-on agreement is
not the appropriate vehicle" for addressing missile
defences. The Americans are essentially saying: let's
first cut offensive nuclear arsenals and then discuss
missile defences. The Russians have few reasons to trust
the U.S. word given a history of broken promises not to
expand NATO eastward or to get the new NATO members in
Eastern Europe sign the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE)
treaty, and - more recently - false assurances that U.S.
weapons delivered to Georgia would not be used
offensively.
Notwithstanding the problems, both sides have vowed to
sign the post-START treaty in coming weeks. But the
Republican Senate election victory in Massachusetts last
month has clouded the prospects of its ratification.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has stipulated that both
sides must ratify the new pact simultaneously.
Even assuming that the ratification process goes through
smoothly, the new nuclear arms reduction treaty will not
be enough to reload Russian-American relations.
"START is not a big achievement. It will regulate
adversarial relations but on its own it will not bring
U.S.-Russia relations to a new level," said Dmitry Trenin,
leading Russian expert on strategic affairs. He feels that
to jump-start their partnership, Russia and the U.S.
should jointly build a global missile defence.
Moscow has repeatedly made such proposals to Washington
since the early 2000s - and updated them last year.
However, according to Russian General Staff chief Nikolai
Makarov, "the Americans at this stage do not agree to
build a joint global missile defence."
There has been little progress in other areas of bilateral
relations outlined in the road map the Presidents adopted
during their summit in Moscow last July. The Obama
administration is yet to resubmit to Congress a 123
civilian nuclear cooperation agreement the Bush
administration signed with Russia in May 2008 but was put
on the back burner after the Russian-Georgian war.
Despite Mr. Obama's promise, the White House has made no
move to get Congress to repeal the 1974 Jackson-Vanik
amendment that denied normal trade benefits to the Soviet
Union until it allowed its Jews to freely immigrate to
Israel.
The U.S. continues to stall Russia's bid to join the World
Trade Organisation. Russia's First Deputy Prime Minister
Igor Shuvalov last week reported to Mr. Putin that the
U.S. was the main obstacle to Russian accession and that
it showed no interest in settling the differences.
The past year showed that notwithstanding the "reset," the
Obama administration is still committed to the policy of
containment of Russia. Four months after U.S.
Vice-President Joe Biden announced the "reset" policy at a
security conference in Munich, he visited Ukraine and
Georgia to demonstrate support for the leaders of the "colour
revolutions" and their NATO aspirations.
During a high-profile tour of Eastern Europe in October,
Mr. Biden announced "not negotiable" principles in
relations with Russia: the U.S. "will not tolerate" any
"spheres of influence," and Russia's "veto power" on the
eastward expansion of NATO.
He reiterated Washington's commitment to the policy of
regime change on the Russian periphery, asking East Europe
to help the U.S. "guide" former Soviet states to
democracy. The U.S. has moved to re-arm and train the
Georgian army in the face of explicit Russian concerns
that Georgia may be planning a new war to avenge its
defeat in 2008.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last week asserted
the same principles in a keynote address at Ecole
Militaire in France. She went a step further, rejecting
Mr. Medvedev's proposal to negotiate a new security pact
for Europe, which Moscow sees as a litmus test of the
West's readiness to accept the principle of equal and
indivisible security on the continent.
A few days earlier, Poland announced that the U.S. would
deploy Patriot missile on its territory, less than 70 km
from the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea.
Warsaw and Washington agreed on the deployment after
Russia threatened to station Iskander ballistic missiles
in Kaliningrad in response to the stationing of U.S.
interceptor missiles in Poland. Now that Mr. Obama has
scrapped the missile deployment in Poland and Russia
withdrew its Iskander threat, the U.S. decision to go
ahead with the Patriot is seen in Moscow as a patently
hostile move. The Russian military promised to beef up its
defences in the region.
It is of little surprise, therefore, that Russian analysts
take an increasingly pessimistic view of the prospects for
the "reset." Sergey Rogov, director of Russia's top
think-tank, the Institute of the United States and Canada,
describes the "reset" as merely "political rhetoric" and
"more of a slogan that changed the atmosphere in Russian-U.S.
relations" but "has not yet become a well thought-out
strategy."
Other experts suggest that the Obama team invented the
"reset" concept to win Russia's cooperation on two top
foreign policy priorities - Afghanistan and Iran. On
Afghanistan, Russia has gone along with the U.S. because
it has a vital stake in countering the threat of terrorism
and narcotics from that country. However, Moscow has
refused to subscribe to Washington's bully policy on Iran,
casting itself in the role of an intermediary between Iran
and the West and declining to fold up nuclear energy and
defence cooperation with Tehran.
"There is a view that the American 'reset' is mostly a PR
smokescreen," and "part of a wider PR process to improve
U.S. influence in the world," says analyst Vladimir
Belaeff of the U.S. Global Society Institute.
When Ms Clinton presented Russian Foreign Minister Sergei
Lavrov with a red reset button last year, she goofed up on
the Russian translation for "reset." The symbolic gift had
the word peregruzka (overcharge) printed on it instead of
perezagruzka (reset). The next day, Russian daily
Kommersant ran a front-page headline: "Sergei Lavrov and
Hillary Clinton push the wrong button."
Viewpoints
Wake up to reality
The hawks
among the policymakers think that militancy in Kashmir has
left the Indians in hot waters as militants are causing great
damage to the Indian forces in Kashmir.
Saleem Safi
Sometimes
prudence can't be the attitude of even the most highly
educated people, who fall prey to emotions, historical biases,
and religious and political prejudices.
It is unfortunate that over one and a half billion people of
India and Pakistan have never pondered over their respective
confrontational postures. Therefore, the warlike attitude that
exists on both sides of the border further damages the
catastrophic situation resulting in one disaster after another
for the two nations.
Had India spent more on the welfare and wellbeing of its
people than on war-preparedness, those billions of dollars
which are spent on the acquisition of weapons, rockets and
missiles, its people would have been in a far better
condition. The people of India would have been enjoying a
better life.
The same is the case in our country, where we have no other
option but to cut our development budget so that we can spend
more on defence to keep pace with our eastern neighbour. Had
India not started the arms race to ensure its hegemony in
South Asia, the Pakistani governments could have spent its
limited resources on health, education, food, housing,
environment and other public services.
Fundamentalism is a state of mind and can be found on both
sides of the border. Hindu extremists want to obliterate
Pakistan from the world map while fanatics here in Pakistan
have been dreaming to hoist the green flag on the Red Fort for
a long time. However, in its madness to remove Pakistan from
the world map, India is fast losing its grip over its own
territories and Assam, Orissa, Bihar, Jharkand, and eastern
Utter Pradesh are fast turning into yet more Kashmirs. On the
other hand, it is unfortunate that the fanatics in Pakistan,
in their lunatic ambitions to liberate Indian Occupied
Kashmir, are fast turning all the areas of the country -- from
Waziristan to Swat and from Karachi to Peshawar -- into war
zones. What these uncompromising groups need to learn from
history is that neither can India eradicate Pakistan nor can
the Pakistani green flag be flown at the Red Fort.
It is a fact that India is not only the biggest democracy of
the world but also an emerging economy of the region. However,
despite these achievements, the majority of Indians are
leading horrible lives -- a shame for such a nation. The same
is the case with Pakistan which, the only atomic power of the
Muslim world, is not able to properly feed its 170 million
people.
Whether it is the conflict over Kashmir, the Siachen Glacier
or Sir Creek, or the dispute over distribution of water, the
leaderships of both countries badly lack boldness and wisdom
to review their old stances, make a clean breast of it
regarding the mistakes they made in past.
The Hindu establishment is only telling half the truth to all
the Indians. If any Jaswant Singh dares to show the Hindu
junta the other side of the picture, he is either sacked or
killed. Across the border, Pakistanis are being fed with only
the blunders of Indians being talked about. If anyone has the
guts to show a balanced picture to his countrymen, he is
either labelled a turncoat or his loyalty to the country
becomes questionable. There were mullahs and generals who used
to denounce such individuals. Now some intellectuals have
joined the band.
The remedy to all these issues lies in reviewing the old
course of action, confession of past blunders, and a change in
the mindsets and behaviours of people. This would lead both
the countries towards a positive development in finding
solutions to all the conflicts. "Aman ki aasha" is a very good
initiative jointly launched by Jang Group and Times of India.
If the focus under this campaign remains on making confessions
to past wrongs, the remedy would not be too far.
If Indian media educates its people, informing them about the
past blunders committed by the Hindu establishment, it would
help greatly in resolving the historic wrongs. Likewise, if
Pakistani media could confront its own policymakers on their
flaws, this would remove all stumbling blocks between both the
neighbours.
In my humble view, Pakistan's Kashmir policy has been carved
out in the depths of despair and is based on historic wrongs.
Though some fanatics have lauded this policy with flowery
slogans, yet it is against our national interests. Had there
ever been a prudent politician of the stature of Abul Kalam
Azad, or Jaswant Singh, he would have informed his countrymen
that the leadership of Muslim League was as much responsible
for the Kashmir conflict as the British or the Congress
leadership. It is a historic fact that prior to the partition
of India, All India Congress pleaded that the people of each
state should have the final say on whether or not they wanted
to join Pakistan or India. This proposition was turned down by
the Muslim League leadership which wanted the decision to be
taken by the ruler of each state.
Moreover, Pakistan had two prime opportunities to get Kashmir.
First when India had offered Pakistan a bargain on Hyderabad
and Kashmir. Pakistan rejected the offer and eventually lost
both the states. Likewise, we could not benefit from the
opportunity when Indian forces were involved in a war with
China in 1962.
The hawks among the policymakers think that militancy in
Kashmir has left the Indians in hot waters as militants are
causing great damage to the Indian forces in Kashmir.
Moreover, they say that Kashmir issue has been highlighted due
to the militant freedom movement. However, they overlook the
harsh reality that militancy has also damaged the Kashmir
cause, Kashmiris and Pakistan badly. Kashmir was one of the
most developed areas and its people were mostly educated,
however, militancy has badly damaged the area and its people.
Thousands of Kashmiri youth lost their lives, thousands more
were disabled while thousands of young girls were raped,
killed or burnt alive.
Pakistan also suffered the blowback of this policy. Today
suicide bombers are running amok in the country. After failing
to find their targets in Kashmir and Afghanistan, these insane
human bombs are blowing themselves up across Pakistan,
aimlessly and ignorantly. This also led to the division in the
Kashmiri leadership who has also lost the international
support over their cause.
Now, in the post 9/11 scenario, every militant is regarded as
an outlaw and the international community supports the Indian
stance over Kashmir because we made yet another blunder by
handing over the control of Kashmir struggle to the religious
fanatics. Had it been an issue of humanity and self
determination, the international community, especially the
powerful and non-Muslim west would have supported it. But why
non-Muslim west would support a Muslim militant movement?
Another gaffe of our policymakers is that they are still
optimistic about the UN resolutions on Kashmir irrespective of
the fact that more than sixty years have passed since these
resolutions were passed. Truth is that the resolutions passed
by UNSC in 1947 and 1957 are not binding in nature and only
have the force of recommendations.
It's true that India cannot conquer Pakistan, but it is
equally true that no war can help Pakistan get Kashmir. It is
diplomacy which can help countries achieve their targets. One
has to understand that the international community is with
India who has defeated Pakistan in the field of statesmanship,
all thanks to the myopic policies of our hawks.
Are these harsh facts not enough to make us rethink our
strategy and go for a possible solution of the Kashmir dispute
and buy peace for hundreds of millions of people living in
Pakistan, India and Kashmir?
The writer works for Geo TV.
Email: saleem .safi@geo.tv
Israel should
face international justice
Believe it or
not, only one Israeli soldier who took part in the Gaza
operation is facing criminal charges for allegedly
stealing a credit card from a Palestinian family.
George S. Hishmeh
Much
as the world has responded generously to assist Haitians
after their devastating earthquake last month, the
opposite has been true about the impoverished Palestinians
in the Gaza Strip, who have been under an increasingly
debilitating siege since the Israeli blitz a little over a
year ago.
The Obama administration has committed $300 million (Dh1.1
billion) to help rebuild Gaza, now home to more than 1.5
million Palestinians, many of them refugees from nearby
towns in what is now Israel. The United Nations has also
raised $4.5 billion (Dh16.5 billion) for this cause but,
to date, neither the American nor the UN funds have been
put to use because of the tight Israeli blockade, which is
also enforced by the Egyptians on their border with the
once Israeli-occupied Strip.
The international silence and inaction and the "unabated
suffering of the Gaza civilians" has unexpectedly prompted
54 US Congressmen, led by Representative Keith Ellison,
the first American Muslim to win election to the House of
Representatives, and Representative Jim McDermott to write
to US President Barack Obama urging him to lift the
blockade. Their recent appeal has been supported by
various groups, including the American Task Force on
Palestine, J Street and Americans for Peace Now, both
liberal Jewish organisations, the American Near East
Refugee Association, the Methodist Church and the Holy
Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation.
Punishment
After noting that "the current [Israeli] blockade has
severely impeded the ability of aid agencies to do their
work to relieve suffering" Palestinians, the Congressmen
urged Obama "to press for [their] immediate relief ... as
an urgent component of your broader Middle East peace
efforts." Although they voiced support for Israel's
"legitimate and keenly felt fear of continued terrorist
action," the Congressmen stressed that "this concern must
be addressed without resulting in the de facto collective
punishment of the Palestinian[s]."
More to the point, the Congressmen underlined that this
situation "highlights the urgency of reaching a resolution
to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict." They stressed: "This
[Gaza] crisis has devastated livelihoods, entrenched a
poverty rate of over 70 per cent, increased dependence on
erratic international aid, allowed the deterioration of
public infrastructure, and led to the marked decline of
the accessibility of essential services."
The Congressmen's damaging indictment of Israeli actions
hardly received any attention in the US media, which is
par for the course. Nevertheless, Andrew Phillips, a
member of the British House of Lords, observed after a
recent visit to Gaza as part of a pan-European
parliamentary delegation that "Israel, effectively
unhindered by the US or ourselves, is deluded by the
'triumph' of its Machiavellian diplomacy into believing
that the tactics of divide and rule, obfuscation and
procrastination, will forever enable it to frustrate
justice for the Palestinians." In an article in London's
The Independent, he said: "Yet for Israel to defy the UN
steadily undermines its own legitimacy, given the UN was
its only begetter and may yet be needed as its main
guarantor."
This point was clearly illustrated by another Israeli
attempt to whitewash the truth and undermine the
incriminating findings of a UN report by Justice Richard
Goldstone, a South African Jew, on the war crimes
committed during its invasion of Gaza last year. Rather
than comply with the UN report, which called on Israel and
Hamas to establish independent commissions of inquiry to
examine their actions, Israel reported last week that it
had reprimanded two high-ranking army officers for
authorising an artillery attack against a UN compound in
Gaza, where about 800 Palestinians took refuge.
The two officers, a brigadier general who was a commander
of the Gaza division, and a colonel who led the Givati
brigade, were charged with "exceeding their authority"
when "several artillery shells were fired in violation of
the rules of engagement prohibiting use of such artillery
near populated areas," setting them ablaze because of the
use of prohibited white phosphorous munitions.
Astonishingly, the two officers will not face any criminal
charges and they will retain their ranks..
For the record, 1,400 Palestinians, including more than
900 civilians, were killed during the 23-day conflict.
Thanks to the media, the world witnessed incendiary shells
raining down on the UN compound. Israel lost 13 soldiers
and only recently paid the UN $10.5 million (Dh38.6
million) in compensation for the damages inflicted on its
compound.
Believe it or not, only one Israeli soldier who took part
in the Gaza operation is facing criminal charges for
allegedly stealing a credit card from a Palestinian
family. He reportedly stole hundreds of dollars.
Let's hope that Israel, often described as a democracy and
a "strategic ally" by Obama, will now face the
International Criminal Court in The Hague for a more
definitive ruling in compliance with the findings of the
UN probe.
George S. Hishmeh is a Washington-based columnist. He
can be contacted at ghishmeh@gulfnews.com
Falsehoods and obfuscations
Saddam had nothing to do with Al Qaeda and degradation of
his armed forces during the 1991 war and the punitive
sanctions regime left Iraq severely crippled and a danger
to no one.
Michael Jansen
Near
total ignorance of Iraq was the most striking aspect of
last Friday's five-hour testimony by former British prime
minister Tony Blair to the British commission charged with
investigating the 2003 Iraq war and its aftermath.
Unfortunately, the former civil servants and historians on
the panel were as ignorant as Blair. Consequently, they
failed to ask the right questions and call out Blair when
he engaged in obvious falsehoods and obfuscations.
Commission members might do this when Blair appears in a
closed session in coming weeks or in an expected second
round of public testimony.
The chief falsehoods used by Blair and his partner in war
crime, George W. Bush, were that ousted President Saddam
Hussein possessed "weapons of mass destruction, (WMD)" had
ties to Al Qaeda, the group which attacked the US in
September 2001, and posed a threat to global security. But
during the first moments of his testimony, Blair admitted
that the WMD claim was false when he stated: "This
[inquiry] isn't about a lie or a conspiracy or a deceit or
a deception. It's [about] a decision. And the decision I
had to take was … could we take the risk of this man
reconstituting his weapons programme..?"
The key word here is "reconstituting". The word makes it
clear that in the run-up to the war, Blair knew that
Saddam did not have WMD. In fact, he never had such
weapons. Iraq never built a nuclear bomb, its scientists
managed to enrich to bomb grade level only a few ounces of
uranium and did not succeed in weaponising biological
agents.
Iraq possessed tactical battlefield chemical weapons and
spray which cannot, strictly, be classified as WMD. Saddam
reassigned Iraq's nuclear scientists to reconstruction
work after the 1991 war and during that summer ordered the
destruction of Iraq's stocks of chemical bombs and
biological agents.
Saddam had nothing to do with Al Qaeda and degradation of
his armed forces during the 1991 war and the punitive
sanctions regime left Iraq severely crippled and a danger
to no one. This was almost certainly why Bush and Blair
thought a war on Iraq could be won quickly and with few US
and British casualties.
The most egregious long-lasting misconception put forward
by Blair was that the Saddam regime was "Sunni". It was
not. It was secular. His inner circle consisted largely of
members of his own family who happened to be Sunnis. He
was often criticised for elevating fellow "Tikritis" to
key posts. But he also appointed Shiites, Christians and
Kurds to high-ranking positions in the government and
civil service. More than half of the 1.5 million members
of the ruling Baath party were Shiites.
Thanks to his lack of understanding of the regime and his
limited contacts in London with certain figures in the
Shiite exiled opposition, Blair came to the false
conclusion that Iraq should be ruled by these elements
because they claimed to represent the majority community.
After all, to simple minds, majority rule equals
democracy.
However, the opposition represented only a certain section
of the Shiite community. Ahmed Chalabi, who personified
the anti-Saddamists, headed a group of opportunistic
exiles supported by the US Central Intelligence Agency
while Dawa and the Supreme Council for the Islamic
Revolution in Iraq (now the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council)
were rooted in religion and tied to Iran. The religious
opposition, now dominant, sought to overthrow the Baath
because it was secular, nationalist, and pan-Arab.
Unfortunately, the panel did not press Blair on his
ignorant adherence to the theory of the Sunni/Shiite
divide. Indeed, it is incredible that Iraqis did not
figure in Blair's testimony until one interrogator took up
Iraqi casualties in the war and its vicious aftermath.
Claire Short, international development minister at the
time, was one of the few figures called to testify who
expressed concern over the impact of the war on the people
of Iraq. She stated on Tuesday: "Not only did we cause
enormous suffering and loss of life, we made Iraq more
dangerous" for Iraqis, the region and the international
community.
She accused Blair of failing to provide for post-war
security and the humanitarian needs of Iraqis. She charged
him with keeping war plans secret from the Cabinet. She
castigated Lord Goldsmith, the attorney general, for
shifting from a March 7, 2003, ruling that war was illegal
unless mandated by a second Security Council resolution to
giving an opinion ten days later that there was an
unequivocal authority to go to war.
She revealed that Blair did not share the first ruling
with the Cabinet and did not give ministers the chance to
discuss the legality of war on March 17, three days ahead
of the US/British invasion. When she called for discussion
in Cabinet, she was "jeered" at and told by Blair to keep
quiet, she stated. Her testimony showed that Blair was
absolutely determined to wage war on Iraq, whatever the
consequences for its citizens, Britain, the US and the
international order.
Writing in The Guardian last week, George Monbiot quoted
an independent Dutch investigation which ruled that the
invasion and occupation had "no sound mandate in
international law". Monbiot also cited, Lord Bingham, a
second UN Security Council resolution the Iraq war was "a
serious violation of international law and the rule of
law".
According to the UN Charter, the parties involved must
"seek a solution by negotiation" and can defend themselves
with arms only if attacked. The US and the UK ignored
these strictures. Blair was told by Lord Goldsmith in July
2002 that a war on Iraq would be illegal unless it
involved self-defence or humanitarian intervention, or had
Security Council authorisation - which it did not have.
Since none applied, Monbiot concluded: "Without legal
justification, the war with Iraq was an act of mass
murder: those who died were unlawfully killed by the
people who commissioned it."
Monbiot proposed posting a reward for a citizen's arrest
of Blair on charges of war crimes. Since he launched his
appeal on www.arrestblair.org, more than £10,000 have been
donated.
Monbiot is motivated, partly, by the need to "discourage
other people from repeating [Blair's] crime". This is a
very important consideration because during his testimony,
Blair claimed that Iran today poses as serious a threat as
Saddam. Since he posed no threat at all, this claim is as
dangerous as it is false.
Today, the US, the UK and its Western allies claim that
Iran must be stopped from making nuclear weapons although
Tehran says it has no intention of building the "bomb".
Beating the drums of war, Blair also held that Iran
supports Al Qaeda, although that group is Sunni and Salafi
and regards Shiite Iran as an archenemy. Blair even argued
that Iran and Al Qaeda have joined forces to destabilise
post-war Iraq. This is nonsense since the politicians and
parties the US/UK installed in power in Iraq are either
Iranian creations or allies. If there is now a serious it
stems from its political influence in Iraq.
International
India offers
secretary-level talks with Pakistan
Dawn Online, New Delhi
India has offered to hold foreign-secretary level talks
with Pakistan, two Indian television stations said on
Thursday, resuming a bilateral dialogue suspended after
the 2008 Mumbai attacks. New Delhi blames the attacks,
which killed 166 people, on Pakistan-based militants and
wants Islamabad to act against them.
The TV stations, quoting unnamed official sources, said
the talks would be held at foreign-secretary level. They
did not say when the meetings might to be held. Pakistan
welcomed the offer. "There are now signals emanating from
India that they are willing to talk bilaterally," Foreign
Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi told Reuters. "We welcome
this...if it leads to resumption of the composite
dialogue."The foreign ministry also confirmed Thursday
that India had proposed foreign secretary-level talks with
Islamabad but said it was seeking clarification of the
content of the talks. "They have proposed foreign
secretary level talks and we have sought clarification on
the contents of the proposed talks. We are awaiting
response from India," foreign ministry spokesman Abdul
Basit told AFP.
Pakistan has been pushing for the resumption of
five-year-long peace talks on a range of issues, including
the disputed Kashmir region, broken off by India after the
attacks.
The NDTV station quoted government sources saying that
India would go into the talks with "an open mind" and
discuss "all issues on the table without judging the
outcome of the discussions".
The offer to resume talks comes ahead of a visit to
Pakistan by India's minister of internal security for a
regional meeting this month.
Palaniappan Chidambaram's Feb. 26-27 trip is the first
high-level visit since the attacks.
Indian foreign ministry officials said Chidambaram would
meet his Pakistani counterpart, Rehman Malik, and other
officials for talks that may have a narrow focus on what
action Islamabad has taken in regard to the Mumbai
attacks. "Any dialogue now will focus on what progress
Pakistan has made in dismantling the terrorist network on
its soil that was used to attack Mumbai," a senior
government official said on condition of anonymity because
of the sensitivity of the issue.
"It could be a beginning that could help move things
forward."
Pakistan arrests 30
suspects in U.S. forces attack
Reuters, Islamabad
Pakistani police have arrested 30 suspects in connection
with a bombing that killed three American soldiers, three
children and a Pakistani paramilitary soldier outside a
girls' school, an officer said.
Naeem Khan, duty officer in the police station in the town
of Timergara in the northwest where the attack took place,
said police suspect the Wednesday bombing was a suicide
attack.
"We have recovered the engine of the car we suspect was
used in the bombing," Khan told Reuters.
Pakistan's Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack
and threatened more attacks on Americans.
Forty-five people were wounded in the blast near the Swat
Valley, where the government mounted a crackdown nearly a
year ago it said had largely cleared out Taliban
militants.
"We have also found some limbs which we suspect are of the
bomber. We have sent these limbs for DNA tests," Khan
said.
Pakistan's Taliban have bombed markets, schools and
military and police facilities despite major government
security offensives that have destroyed some of their
bases and U.S. drone aircraft strikes that have killed
their leaders.
The three U.S. soldiers were part of a small unit that
trains Pakistani Frontier Corps responsible for security
in northwestern areas near the Afghan border seen as part
of a global militant hub.
They were on their way to attend the opening of a girls'
school that had recently been renovated with U.S.
humanitarian assistance when the bomb exploded, leaving a
crater a few feet away from the school.
NATO chief: No plan to
‘bribe’ Taliban
AP, Istanbul
NATO does not intend to bribe Taliban guerrillas to defect
to the Afghan government side as a way to end the war,
NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said
Thursday, dismissing concerns over the latest plan to end
the country's growing insurgency.
Fogh Rasmussen's comments came amid a renewed push to make
peace with moderate Taliban insurgents and draw them into
the political process. The North Atlantic alliance has
strongly backed an Afghan plan to bring the insurgents
over to the government's side.
On Wednesday, Afghan President Hamid Karzai visited Saudi
Arabia, hoping the kingdom would help persuade Taliban
militants to take part in a negotiated settlement to the
war. Saudi Arabia has a unique relationship with the
Taliban since it was one of the few countries to recognize
its regime in Afghanistan before it was ousted in 2001.
In a post on the alliance's Web site ahead of a two-day
meeting of NATO defense ministers in Istanbul to open
Thursday evening, Fogh Rasmussen said a new $140 million
trust fund would offer insurgents an alternative to
remaining with the Taliban.
India imposes curfew in
Kashmir capital Srinagar
BBC Online
A curfew has been imposed in Srinagar, summer capital of
Indian-administered Kashmir, following violent protests
over the killing of a 15-year-old boy.
Wamiq Farooq was hit in the head by a tear gas shell as
police dispersed a protest in the city against Indian rule
on Sunday. Police are on alert as people are expected to
attend a public ceremony to mourn the death of the boy on
Thursday
Dawn Online adds: Indian authorities deployed thousands of
police and detained top separatists in Indian-administered
Kashmir's capital Srinagar on Thursday to halt protests
over the death of a Muslim boy.
The 14-year-old child was struck by a teargas shell fired
by police on Sunday during a separatist demonstration, and
his death sparked days of angry protests against New
Delhi's rule over the region. About 100 protesters and
policemen have been injured in clashes.
Security forces on Thursday enforced restrictions in most
parts of Srinagar, to prevent further rallies. The
government has banned the assembly of more than four
people in Srinagar "This has been done to maintain law and
order," police officer Pervez Ahmed said. Residents said
they were ordered to stay in their homes, though there was
no formal curfew. Senior separatist leaders were either
detained in police stations or confined to their homes.
"I have been placed under house arrest," leading
separatist Mirwaiz Umar Farooq told AFP over telephone.
Farooq said if New Delhi continued to "kill people in
Kashmir, then violent rebellion would return to the
state."
Sri Lanka leader says
Tamils should work with govt
AP, Kandy, Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka's president called Thursday for minority ethnic
Tamils to work with the government to settle their
differences but said there would be no self-rule for them,
as the country celebrated its first Independence Day since
the end of a 25-year civil war.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who was re-elected last month
by a wide margin, largely because of support from the
country's Sinhalese majority, said Tamil leaders should
not "misguide" people or harbor political ambitions based
on ethnicity or region.
"Let's solve our problems ourselves through discussions,"
he said in the Tamil language. Sri Lanka received
independence in 1948 - emerging from more than four
centuries of colonial rule by the Portuguese, Dutch and
then British - and ethnic Tamils have since complained of
systematic marginalization in governance, jobs and
education.
Those grievances led to the birth of the Liberation Tigers
of Tamil Eelam, known as the Tamil Tigers, a rebel group
that fought for decades for an independent state for
Tamils in the north and east. The war, which ended in May
with the defeat of the rebels, left some 80,000 to 100,000
people dead and many Tamil areas in ruins. There have
since been calls for the government to reconcile with
Tamils by offering them a degree of self-rule in provinces
where they constitute a majority, but Rajapaksa rejected
that Thursday.
"Hereafter, we will not entertain narrow divisions based
on race, religion, language and political ideology in
terms of regions," he said. "There is no one called a
minority in this country, all those who love the country
are children of mother Lanka."
He said he intends to give some power to all villages in
the country to enable people to look after their own
affairs.
"Certainly everyone will get equal facilities. This is
what you call equality, this is what you call equal
rights," he said.
The main celebration for Sri Lanka's 62nd independence
anniversary was held in central Kandy town, near the
sacred Temple of the Tooth. The town was also the seat of
the country's last kingdom before it fell to the British
in 1815.
Thai “red shirts” rally to
warn against coup
Reuters, Bangkok
Supporters of toppled Thai premier Thaksin Shinawatra held
small, symbolic rallies at military bases nationwide on
Thursday in what analysts see as a prelude to a bigger
showdown with Thailand's fragile ruling coalition.
Hundreds of the fugitive billionaire's red-shirted
supporters gathered outside army barracks in at least 10
provinces and in Bangkok, calling on soldiers to join
their movement and saying they wanted to pre-empt another
military coup.
While small, the protests illustrate the widening scope of
Thailand's anti-government protest movement and the
resilience of Thaksin, who was ousted in a 2006 coup and
now lives in self-imposed exile to avoid jail on a
corruption conviction.
They are also a reminder of Prime Minister Abhisit
Vejjajiva's failure to overcome Thailand's deep political
divisions -- and of the potential for further instability
ahead of a Feb. 26 Supreme Court verdict on whether to
confiscate $2.3 billion of Thaksin's family's assets. That
verdict is widely seen as a potential catalyst for mass
street demonstrations this month, keeping investors in
Southeast Asia's second-biggest economy on edge in fear of
a reprise of violent street riots last April.
As a sign of the unease, the cost of insuring Thailand's
sovereign debt has risen in recent days with 5-year
sovereign credit default swaps approaching a three-month
high, trading at a spread of 114.00 basis points compared
with 111.50 basis points on Tuesday.
Xinhua, adds: The leader of Thailand's major opposition
party Thursday denied he would head the so-called people's
army after it was reported the leading anti-government
group "red-shirts" are setting up such an army.
Chavalit Yongchaiyudh, chairman of Pheu Thai Party, was
quoted by the Nation online as saying that it is
impossible for him to lead such an army because his
brother, Gen Songkitti Jakkrabatra, who is the Supreme
Commander of Thailand, will feel uneasy.
Nepal ‘should suspend’
adoptions
BBC Online
The adoption of children from Nepal should be suspended,
the international body that governs adoption between
countries has recommended.
An investigation found children from remote areas were
falsely declared to be orphans and put up for adoption
without their parents knowledge. The report by The Hague
Conference on Private International Law urges Nepal to
take steps to prevent such abuses. Nepal temporarily
suspended international adoptions in 2007. It introduced
new rules in 2008 and international adoptions were
resumed.
Documents faked
But the report from the Hague Conference says that that
abuses are still rife. Its investigation found that
documents which declared children as orphans were often
faked.
Children who were put up for overseas adoption had been
taken from their families to care homes in the capital,
Kathmandu, under the pretext of receiving education.
The probe found evidence of "false statements" about the
child's origin, age and status; lack of transparency and
accountability for the money coming into Nepal from
international adoptions; and an absence of a policy on
such adoptions.
It said Nepal had failed to prevent the abduction, sale
and traffic of children and recommended the government
suspend international adoptions to allow new laws and
procedures to be implemented.
The report follows a probe by Unicef, and other NGOs. The
Swiss-funded charity, Terre des hommes, said it found that
more than 60% of children in orphanages had parents who
could take care of them.
US
fighting ‘psychological war’ in Gulf: Iran
Reuters, Tehran
Iran accused the United States on Thursday of launching a
"psychological war" in the Gulf region by presenting
Tehran as a threat to Gulf Arab states to convince them
they needed U.S. protection.
U.S. officials said on Sunday the United States had
expanded land-and sea-based missile defence systems in and
around the Gulf-a waterway crucial for global oil
supplies-to counter what it sees as Iran's growing missile
threat. The U.S. deployments include expanded land-based
Patriot defensive missile installations in Kuwait, Qatar,
the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.
"They don't want to see good and growing relations between
Iran and its neighbours in the Persian Gulf and thus
started a psychological war," Major General Hassan
Firouzabadi, the chief of staff of Iran's armed forces,
was quoted as saying on semi-official news agency ILNA.
Iran's top military official also played down the threat
to the Islamic republic from Patriot missiles.
"It is not new for us ... we were informed when they were
installed, including about their exact locations ...
Patriot missile could be easily deactivated by using
simple tactics."
A foreign ministry official said earlier this week
Washington was trying to stoke "Iran phobia" in the Middle
East and said Tehran enjoyed friendly ties with
neighbouring states.
The United States is making the deployments at a time of
tension in a long-running international row over Iran's
nuclear energy programme, with Western powers calling for
a fourth round of U.N. sanctions against Tehran for
refusing to halt uranium enrichment.
‘Al Qaeda attack on US in
three to six months’
Dawn Online, Washington
Al Qaeda is poised to atte-mpt an attack on the United
States within three to six months, America's top
intelligence officials have warned Congress.
The intelligence chiefs also warned that militant groups
in Pakistan were coordinating their attacks with Al Qaeda,
which had led to an increase in terrorist attacks inside
Pakistan as well as rising concerns the groups might
expand their ambitions to attack outside Pakistan.
Director of US National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair told
the Senate Intelligence Committee that Al Qaeda and its
affiliates had made it a high priority to attempt a
large-scale attack on American soil. Mr Blair said that Al
Qaeda would remain intent on attacking in the US at least
until Osama bin Laden and his second in command, Ayman al
Zawahiri, were killed or captured.
Mr Blair, flanked by the directors of the CIA and FBI and
the chief intelligence officers of the State and Defence
departments, put Al Qaeda at the top of a threat list that
included the Iranian and North Korean nuclear programmes,
criminal cartels and the potential for economic collapse
in developing countries hard-hit by recession. CIA
Director Leon Panetta told the congressional panel that
the terrorist organisation was deploying operatives to the
US, including so-called clean recruits with minimal
terrorist ties and training, to carry out attacks.
Mr Panetta said Al Qaeda was also working to inspire
home-grown extremists to trigger violence on their own.
The annual terror assessment highlights the growing
concern that Al Qaeda is increasingly relying on these
harder-to-detect militants who can use simple devices to
carry out hastily planned attacks.
The intelligence officials and FBI Director Robert S.
Mueller said US counter-terrorism agencies had absorbed
the lessons of the Dec 25 attempted bombing of Northwest
Airlines Flight 253 over Detroit, but all said future
attempts were inevitable and could happen soon.
Foreign food aid trickles
into Haiti’s black market
Reuters, Port-Au-Prince
Blocks from where U.S. and U.N. soldiers distribute sac-ks
of rice to Haitian wo-men in earthquake-shattered
Port-au-Prince, street vendors are openly selling rice by
the cup from bags stamped with U.S. flags.
In the early days after the Jan. 12 earthquake that killed
up to 200,000 people and left more than a million
homeless, food handouts were often chaotic in the capital.
On a couple of occasions, U.N. soldiers fired tear gas
into hungry crowds jostling for a limited amount of goods.
To ensure a more orderly distribution where food gets to
families who need it, international donors last weekend
began a system where soldiers hand out 55-pound (25-kg)
bags of rice to women only in exchange for ration cards.
Food handouts have become calmer, but the new policy has
not stopped badly needed food aid from falling into the
hands of black-market sellers. In one Port-au-Prince
neighborhood where 12,000 people live in tents made of
bedsheets in a valley below their collapsed hillside slum,
vendors at makeshift stands sell cups of rice from
food-aid bags for about 22 gourdes (55 cents) each.
Marcus Prior, a spokesman for the World Food Program, said
it was inevitable some of the aid would end up being sold.
"It is too early to say how much ends up on the black
market. We never like to see it happen. The object of this
scale-up is far-reaching to help stabilize the food
situation in the city," Prior told Reuters.
SELLING RATION CARDS
But some seeking food from the new distribution system do
not know how to get it.
"No food has come here. We know they are using the cards
but we don't know how to find the cards," said Losin
Fritz, a community leader for about 4,500 people living in
threadbare tents made from sticks and ripped, clear
plastic.
Iraq election panel seeks
ruling on candidate ban
AP, Baghdad
Iraq's ballot process was thrown back into uncertainty
Thursday after election officials asked the nation's
highest judicial authority for a final ruling on whether
to open next month's balloting to hundreds of candidates
banned because of suspected ties to Saddam Hussein's
regime.
The request by the election commission could re-ignite
feuds between Shiite-led authorities and Sunnis who claim
they are being politically undermined before March 7
parliamentary elections - which U.S. officials hope could
be a milestone in reconciliation among Iraq's rival
groups.
Just a day earlier, Sunni leaders were celebrating an
appeals court decision to temporarily set aside the
election blacklist - with more than 450 names - and allow
the candidates on the ballot. The ruling called for
authorities to wait until after the voting to resume
probes into possible ties to Saddam's Sunni-dominated
regime.
Shiite officials, including Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's
political bloc, denounced the court ruling as a violation
of Iraq's drive to purge all high-level posts of any ties
to Saddam's Baath party.
The election commission chief, Faraj al-Haidari, said
Thursday the Supreme Judicial Council is being asked
whether the appeals court ruling is binding. There was no
deadline for a decision, but there is pressure for a quick
reply.
The official campaign period was scheduled to open Sunday,
but it's now been pushed back until Feb. 12, said Hamdiya
al-Husseini, a member of the election commission.
Companies feel threatened
by climate fight: UN chief
Reuters, New Delhi
Certain countries and companies feel threatened by growing
efforts against climate change, the U.N. climate chief
said on Thursday, after other officials spoke of a
campaign to undermine a consensus on global warming.
Yvo de Boer spoke amid a controversy over an incorrect
projection on glacial melting by the United Nations
climate panel, which drew into focus the panel's
credibility and led to personal attacks on its chief,
Rajendra Pachauri.
Pachauri has said he will not resign over a forecast that
Himalayan glaciers would disappear by 2035.
"I wish I knew if there is a concerted attack on the
scientific community and where it's coming from," de Boer
told reporters.
"I don't know if there is a campaign. I know that there
are companies and countries that are very seriously
concerned that ambitious action to address climate change
will harm them economically," he added.
Pachauri told the Financial Times newspaper on Wednesday
that attacks on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) and on him were "carefully orchestrated" by
climate sceptics and corporate interests.
De Boer said the erroneous projection made in a 2007
report could be used as ammunition by climate sceptics.
But he defended Pachauri's record and said the mistake did
not undermine the broad international consensus on climate
change.
"Tall trees collect a lot of wind. Dr. Pachauri is a tall
tree," he said, when asked about the attacks on Pachauri.
Flaws in reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) can be damaging since the findings are a
guide for government policy.
Israel envisages indirect
talks with Palestinians
Reuters, Jerusalem
Israel and the Palestinians may resume indirect peace
deliberations soon, with a U.S. mediator shuttling bet-ween
negotiating teams, an Israeli cabinet minister said on
Thursday.
Echoing comments made by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu a day earlier, cabinet minister Gilad Erdan
said: "Sometimes it takes more than two to tango. And
sometimes you need a third party to bring the positions
closer."
Asked on Israel Radio if the resumption of negotiations,
stalled for more than a year, would be in the format of
proximity talks through U.S. mediation, Erdan said: "Yes,
indeed." Palestinian officials did not confirm Erdan's
remarks, but pointed out that U.S. Middle East envoy
George Mitchell has made more than a dozen visits to the
region to try to revive peace negotiations leading to the
creation of a Palestinian state.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has said he would
return to the negotiating table only after Israel stopped
settlement building in the occupied West Bank. He termed
insufficient a limited construction freeze announced by
Netanyahu in November.
But Abbas told Britain's Guardian newspaper earlier this
week that proximity talks could be a way to restart the
negotiating process. Such shuttle diplomacy could allow
Abbas to pursue a peace deal without dropping his
settlement freeze demand.
DIPLOMATIC DANCE
Netanyahu said in a speech on Wednesday he had reason to
hope the negotiations could resume within weeks and
reiterated Israel was ready to renew without preconditions
the talks that have not convened since a Gaza war erupted
in December 2008.
"In the Middle East, sometimes it takes three to even
start to tango-but I hope that after this we will be able
to dance as a couple," he said, in apparent reference to
U.S.-mediated negotiations as a prelude to a resumption of
direct talks.
Genes in mother, baby raise
risk of preterm birth
Reuters, Chicago
Genes in the mother and the fetus play a role in the risk
of preterm labor, a leading cause of infant death and
disability, U.S. government researchers said on Thursday.
They said gene variants in the mother and fetus can make
them susceptible to an inflammatory response to infections
inside the uterus, raising the risk that a baby will be
born early -- before 37 weeks of gestation.
A preterm baby has a 120 times greater risk of death than
a baby born full term, and survivors are at risk of
breathing difficulties, bleeding into the brain, and
having a significant neurological handicap such as
cerebral palsy.
"Preterm birth costs the United States $26 billion per
year. It is one of the most serious and significant
challenges to medicine and society and one whose
importance is not fully recognized," said Dr. Roberto
Romero of the National Institutes of Health, who presented
his findings at a meeting of the Society for
Material-Fetal Medicine in Chicago. Romero said the
findings support the notion that preterm delivery is an
evolutionary mechanism intended to protect baby and mother
from infection.
"We have established that one of every three premature
babies is born to a mother who has an intra-amniotic
infection," an infection in the normally sterile amniotic
fluid that surrounds the developing fetus, Romero said.
Because the response to infections is controlled by genes,
Romero and colleagues set out to identify which are most
likely to play a role in response to infections in the
amniotic fluid.
Business/Economy
Japan keen to provide
support for BD power sector
BSS, Dhaka
The government of Japan is keen to provide support to the
Bangladesh government after completion of formulating
ongoing comprehensive power development master plan for
attaining stable power supply up to year 2030.
The formulation of the master plan on the basis of
diversification of fuel resources is being conducted by
Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) which was
started in October last year and is expected to complete
by the end of this year.
Representative of JICA Tatsuhiko Sunouchi on Thursday told
BSS that necessary technology transfer from Japan would be
carried out during the formulation of the master plan.
"Even after completion the plan, the Japan government will
be keen to provide assistance as per the request of
Bangladesh government," he added.
Earlier, the government had requested Japan government to
formulate the master plan on the basis of fuel
diversification promotion policy in the power sector for
reducing excessive pressure on gas as a source of power
production in future.
Power structure in Bangladesh is heavily dependent on the
gas fired power plants by using domestic gas resources and
even the plan for new power plant also mainly relies on
gas resources which is not practical to place too much
dependence on gas resources on a long term, he said.
"Under the master plan, we will make recommendations and
guideline for the government up to 2030 based on the fuel
diversification study," he said.
The plan will also incorporate forecasting of demand,
procurement of primary energy resources including coal,
optimum power supply development plan, future optimum
power supply structure including the positioning of gas
fired power plants and renewable energy, he said.
As per the recommendations of the master plan, the
government will take decisions whether it will go for gas
or coal as raw materials of power production. The study
will also assess the potential of renewable energy of the
country as well as power import from the neighboring
countries.
Presently, the study team is collecting data and reviewing
necessary policies such as existing power system data,
latest power supply development plan, energy policy, coal
policy and renewable energy policies.
JICA is formulating the master plan with the help of Tokyo
Electric Power Company commonly known as TEPCO, the
largest electric power compnay in Japan and the fourth
largest electric company in the world.
Taka
475cr earned in Tourism sector in 2009: Quader
BSS, Sangsad Bhaban
Minister for Civil Aviation and Tourism Ghulam Mohammad
Quader told the House on Thursday that Taka 475.90 crore
was earned nationally from the tourism sector till October
last year.
"The income from the sector in 2007 and 2008 was Taka
526.51 crore and Taka 612.45 crore respectively," he said
while replying to a scripted question from treasury bench
member Waresat Hossain Belal.
The minister also said that the hotels, motels and
restaurants under the Bangladesh Parjatan Corporation(BPC)
earned a net profit of Taka 410.56 lakh in the 2008-09
fiscal year from the tourism sector which was Taka 257.70
lakh in the previous fiscal year.
"The income and expenditure of those hotels, motels and
restaurants in the 2008-09 fiscal year were Taka 2103.11
lakh and Taka 1692.55 lakh respectively," he added.
Responding to a query from ruling party lawmaker Advocate
Rahmat Ali, the minister said the present government has
taken various measurers including setting up exclusive
tourist zones and appointment of tourist police to attract
more tourists in the country.
"The cabinet in principle approved the draft of Bangladesh
Tourism Protected Area and Special Tourist Zone Act, 2009.
Through the act, a legal framework for raising a planned
and coordinated tourist facilities is being prepared under
public and private initiatives," he said.
He said steps have also been taken to take integrated
programmes involving all stakeholders for expansion and
development of the country's tourism sector.
"A mega plan has been taken for the development of
different tourist spots across the country including Cox's
Bazar and Kuakata sea beaches to attract increased number
of tourists," he said.
The minister said that the government has formulated
Tourist Vision 2021 and taken initiatives to raise public
awareness to include the Sundarbans, the world heritage
site, in the new 7 wonders list by casting votes.
Apart from this, he said, the government has taken various
programmes in attracting foreign investment to the
country's tourism sector. Besides, formation of Tourism
Board Act-2009 is under process, he added.
The minister informed the House that the government has a
plan to celebrate a month of 2010 as a "Tourism Month"
while "Tourism Year" would be observed in 2011 on the
occasion of the World Cup Cricket to uphold the positive
image of the country's tourism industry.
He said a new legal framework is under process to ensure
total security of the local and foreign tourists and
provide them with better services.
Square Toiletries annual sales
confce held in Pabna
TBT Economy Desk
Annual Sales Conference 2010 of Square Toiletries Limited
was held at Ambagan of Babur Bagan of Tingacha in Pabna on
Thursday, says a press release.
Samson H. Chowdhury, Chairman of Square Group, inaugurated
the event. Golam Robbani, Director of Square
Pharmaceuticals Limited, Pabna Plant, delivered the
welcome speech. Md. Mahmudul Hoque, Director Operations,
Square Toiletries Limited discussed about the achievement
& failure of 2009. Mohammed Tareq, DGM, Sales, Syed Iqbal
Karim, National Sales Manager and Malik Mohammed Sayeed,
Head of Marketing, Square Toiletries Limited, also
discussed about different aspects of business. More than
four hundred Sales Representatives, Super-visors, Sales
Coordinators, Area Managers and other officials of the
company were present in the conference.
Anjan Chowdhury, Managing Director of Square Toiletries
Limited handed over the awards to the Salesman of the
Year- 2009, Supervisor of the Year - 2009 and other
winners. The conference was concluded with dinner and
cultural program where the prominent people of Pabna were
present.
GDP growth unlikely to reach
6pc
Speakers at a roundtable say
UNB, Dhaka
The target of 6 percent GDP growth is unlikely during the
current fiscal year due to lack of investment and
infrastructure problems, power and gas crisis. This was
viewed by experts at a roundtable on 'Prospects of
Bangladesh's Economic Growth in 2010' organized by the
daily Independent in the city Thursday.
Former Finance Minister M Sayeduzzaman, former Commerce
Minister and BNP leader Amir Khosru Mahmud Chowdhury,
former Finance Adviser Dr. AB Mirza Azizul Islam, former
Bangladesh Bank Governor Dr. Salehuddin Ahmed, Nitol-Niloy
Group Chairman Abdul Matlub Ahmad, Dhaka University Prof
Dr. Barkat-e-Khuda and Association of Bankers Bangladesh (ABB)
chairman K Mahmood Sattar are among those took part in the
roundtable.
Ambassador Faruk Sobhan moderated while economist Forrest
E Cookson presented the key note paper. "The economy is
giving out mixed signals. I am not optimistic about 6
percent growth in 2010," said Mirza Azizul Islam.
Viewing that the growth of a country's economy mostly
depends on investment, he said investment scenario does
not look bright. "The growth will not reach 6 percent, if
it reaches 5.5, I will be quite pleased," added the former
Finance Adviser. The GDP growth was 5.9 percent in last
fiscal (2008-09). He observed that investment has to be
increased to accelerate growth.
Lack of energy is the daunting problem towards investment.
"Many of the industrial areas are being subjected to gas
rationing. Even there are load shedding. These issues have
to be addressed," he added. M Sayeduzzaman said that the
government is facing some challenges like implementation
of the pay hike, initiative for the
Public-Private-Partnership (PPP), fiscal stimulus package
and safety net schemes. Despite that, he thought, 6
percent GDP is not very ambitious compared to the past
three years. It is achievable. Revenue earning looks very
achievable.
He viewed that the gap between national savings and
national investment is increasing in the last three years.
Mentioning that low investment, excess liquidity, bubbling
housing sector, share market as it doesn't have the depth
are the challenges before the government to achieve the
growth, said former Bangladesh Bank Governor Dr.
Salehuddin Ahmed.
BD- German trade volume surpassed
Euro 2.1b
UNB, Dhaka
The trade volume between Bangladesh and Germany surpassed
Euro 2.1 billion (equivalent to US$ 3.15 billion) in the
first eleven months of 2009.
The trade volume between the two countries increased by 16
percent during this period, according to the German
Federal Bureau of Statistics.
Welcoming the development German Ambassador Holger Michael
said, "German and Bangladesh relations grow from strength
to strength. Germany is already the second largest export
market for Bangladesh and an important partner in its
trade based development strategy. We firmly believe that
Bangladesh is a growth trajectory. German business and
industry has a lot to offer also to support this
development and to promote the diversification of BGD
export industries."
More than 90% of the exports from Bangladesh to Germany
are readymade garments. With about 30 ships worth Euro 250
million on order by German ship-owners, the ship building
sector is expected to prominently figure in the export
statistics of Bangladesh in the years to come, said a
press release of German embassy.
German exports to Bangladesh increased by 8% from January
to November, 2009 over the corresponding period of the
previous year. German companies mainly sell machinery,
chemicals and electric equipment to Bangladesh market, the
release added.
Md Saiful Islam, President of Bangladesh-German Chamber of
Commerce and Industry (BGCCI) said,"
With a view to positive perspectives for the expansion of
trade and investment relations between Germany and
Bangladesh BGCCI is planning to organize the 'German Trade
Show II' in 2011."
India outsourcers see sharp export
rise
AFP, New Delhi
India's software and services sector will see double-digit
revenue growth in the next financial year as they get back
on their feet after shaking off the effects of the global
downturn. The industry, which saw business shrink during
the slump, is now set for an upswing, the National
Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom)
said.
"We have come through a very tough year for the world with
flying colours," chairman Pramod Bhasin told a news
conference in New Delhi.
"We look forward to a terrific future with (export) growth
estimates of 13 to 15 percent" in the next fiscal year to
March 2011 as more companies seek to cut costs by
outsourcing work to low-cost locations, he said. The
forecast marked a sharp improvement on the current year to
March in which revenues from exports of software and
back-office outsourcing services are estimated to have
grown 5.5 percent to 49.7 billion dollars.
Indian software companies were hit hard by the global
slump as customers put many projects on hold and
negotiated for cheaper billing rates. The Nasscom forecast
comes after India's top software companies-TCS, Infosys
and Wipro-announced forecast-beating quarterly earnings.
The sector, accounting for 5.9 percent of India's gross
domestic product, has played a key role in fuelling the
country's new middle-class affluence, employing nearly 2.3
million people directly and eight million indirectly.
Private industry in space a risky,
slow business
AFP, Washington
NASA's plan for the private sector to build spacecraft to
fly astronauts to the International Space Station is a
high-risk undertaking that won't show results for years,
experts said.
The abrupt shift "harnesses our nation's entrepreneurial
energies, and will create thousands of new jobs," the
White House Office of Science and Technology Policy said
in a statement issued as the budget for the fiscal year
that begins October 1 was unveiled Monday. It also
reflects a key recommendation made by the high-level
Augustine Commission, which President Barack Obama set up
last year to review US human space flight plans and come
up with a successor to the space shuttle, which winds down
in late 2010 after nearly 30 years of service.
The US space agency's plan to turn manned space flight
over to private enterprise was met with a
less-than-enthusiastic reception in some quarters.
Debt-laden Dubai says new off-shore oil field found
AFP, Dubai
The government of Dubai, facing dwindling oil resources
and a mountain of debt, announced Thursday the discovery
of a new off-shore oil field which it hoped would rescue
its limping economy.
The ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashed al-Maktoum,
"heralds the good news to the people of the United Arab
Emirates that a new off-shore oil field has been
discovered in Dubai," a government statement said.
The UAE sits on the world's fifth largest proven oil
reserves, amounting to 97.8 billion barrels of crude oil.
But 95 percent of those reserves are controlled by the
leading partner in the federation, Abu Dhabi. The UAE also
has 214.4 trillion cubic feet (six trillion cubic metres)
of gas reserves, ranking it sixth in the world after
Russia, Iran, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United States.
Dubai's poor oil reserves, mostly off-shore, are expected
to be exhausted within 20 years, while it controls only
two percent of the country's gas wealth, according to UAE
government website.
The statement did not provide information about the size
of the new field, saying that Sheikh Mohammed instructed
the emirate's oil department to "begin exploration work
and conduct needed research to specify the size of the
reserve, and its production capacity in the short and long
term."
It said that the new field lies east of the small field of
Rashid, which is located some 70 kilometres (44 miles) off
Dubai's Gulf coast.
Sheikh Mohammed, who is also the UAE vice president and
Prime Minister, hoped the discovery would "give a strong
boost to all sectors of the local economy and provide a
new source of revenue that could strengthen the drive for
comprehensive development in Dubai," the statement said.
Dubai's economy had boomed over the past years on non-oil
sectors, particularly real estate and construction, which
attracted huge investments, in addition to its prospering
tourism sector.
But its rapid economic growth came to a grinding halt
after the global financial crisis hit Dubai in autumn
2008, drying out foreign financing that was vital for the
overheated real estate sector.
National
Govt mulls integrated guidelines
for nutrition intervention
UNB, Dhaka
With a view to bringing in all ongoing nutrition
activities on a single track, the government will soon
formulate integrated guidelines for nutrition intervention
in the country.
The Institute of Public Health Nutrition (IPHN) has
undertaken the initiative to formulate the guidelines
considering the people's nutritional requirements.
Talking to UNB at her office Thursday, IPHN director Prof
Dr Fatima Parveen Chowdhury said presently, apart from the
government many non-government organizations (NGOs) and
international agencies are working with nutrition
activities in the country, which should be brought on a
single track.
She said: "We're on the way to formulate integrated
guidelines to ensure a single-track nutrition activity for
all in the country." The IPHN director mentioned that the
guidelines will include various contents including the
government's effort to reduce blood-deficiency and address
the obesity problem among the people as well as on infant
foods.
To address the blood-deficiency, the people will be
advised to take anti-worm tablets along with other
nutrition-rich food and vegetables, said Prof Fatima.
When her attention was drawn to treatment of malnutrition
by 'micro-nutrient powder' and RUFT - Ready to Use
Therapeutic Food - brought into the country by many
international organizations, she admitted the presence of
the two items in the market.
"We'll sit in a meeting soon with the ministries concerned
to discuss what to do about the two items."
Describing obesity as an emerging health problem, the IPHN
said the country's young generation, who are found taking
fast food and junk foods, face obesity problem.
She underscored providing nutrition-education to the
people with a view to protecting them from malnutrition
and other diseases like diabetes and hypertension caused
by over-nutrition.
"Just a nutrition education can solve half of the
malnutrition problem," Prof. Fatima said, adding that half
of the country's children and women are victims of
malnutrition for lack of adequate knowledge on nutrition.
She mentioned that to preserve nutrition in food,
nutrition-related education like washing hands before
taking food, washing vegetables before cutting those for
cooking, giving exclusive breastfeeding to babies until
six months are very important for the people.
EU gives 10 m Euros to help land reform
UNB, Dhaka
The European Union and the government of Bangladesh signed
an agreement for a fund worth 10 million Euros or
approximately Tk 95 crore for strengthening ordinary
citizens' property rights to land by way of stalling
land-grabbing menace and other measures that benefit them.
A release of the EU Thursday said the 'Strengthening
Access to Land and Property Rights for all Citizens of
Bangladesh' project will help modernize land
administration in the country.
Such modernization should make the system more transparent
and usable for every citizen and especially poor and
disadvantaged people, and should also help fight the
illegal practice of land-grabbing, it said.
"If this reform and our new project are successful, poor
people will get much easier access to land and property.
We consider this an important contribution to the fight
against poverty in Bangladesh and efforts to ensure equal
rights for all people to own land," said Ambassador Dr
Stefan Frowein, Head of the EU Delegation to Bangladesh.
The EU funding will be used to finance the pilot phase of
a computerized land-ownership system in three districts of
Bangladesh.
The release said if this phase is successful, the system
can then be extended to the whole of the country. The
project will also support complementary legal and policy
reforms and help raise public awareness.
Expected outcomes of successful land reform would include
more effective and equitable distribution of
government-owned ("khas") land, more efficient land
markets, and more widespread use of land as collateral for
loans.
The project will be co-managed by the Land Ministry and
the EU Delegation, and is planned to last 6 years till
December 2015.
US Under Secretary Judith McHale visits
Bangladesh Feb 6-8
UNB, Dhaka
US Under-Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and
Public Affairs Judith A. McHale arrives here Saturday on a
three-day visit seen as significant in bolstering the
bilateral ties and cooperation between Dhaka and
Washington.
Ms. McHale is the highest-ranking Obama administration's
official to visit Bangladesh after Prime Minister Sheikh
Hasina assumed office in January last year, the American
Center announced Thursday.
During her visit, she will meet with Bangladesh government
officials, academics, and business-and civil-society
leaders.
Ms McHale's portfolio includes all State Department-funded
educational and cultural exchange programs, including the
Fulbright program.
Prior to joining the State Department, McHale was the
former President and Chief Executive Officer of Discovery
Communications. While at Discovery, she launched
innovative education and development initiatives in the
United States and around the world, including the
Discovery Channel Global Education Partnership, which
provides free educational programming and technological
support to more than half a million students at 200
schools and community centers throughout rural Africa,
Latin America, and Eastern Europe.
Appointed by President Obama, she was confirmed by the
U.S. Senate on May 21, 2009 and sworn in on May 26.
Hearing
of BDR mutiny trial in Panchagarh, Thakurgaon adjourned
UNB, Dhaka
The Special Court-2 of Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) Thursday
adjourned the hearing of BDR mutiny trial of 25 Battalion
in Panchagarh and 20 Battalion in Thakurgaon till April 8
and April 4 respectively.
In Thakurgaon, 51 BDR members were produced before the
makeshift court in the battalion office presided over by
BDR chief Maj Gen Mainul Islam Thursday morning.
Prosecutor Lt Col Mahfuzur Rahman, Major Didar Al Latif
and representative of Attorney General Major Biswajit Roy
were present in the court that started at about 11:55 am.
Prosecutor and commanding officer of 20 Rifles Battalion
Lt Col Lt Col Mahfuz Alam then placed his submission
against the accused BDR jawans. After hearing, the court
adjourned and fixed the date on April 8 for the next
hearing to frame charges. The court also gave 27 days'
time to the accused for defending themselves against their
allegations through their own prosecutor or by the help of
divisional prosecutor. In Panchagarh, the same court
started trial at about 9:21 am at 25 Battalion
headquarters in Panchagarh.
Twenty-nine BDR men were produced before the court.
Divisional Prosecutor and Commanding officer of 25 Rifles
Battalion Lt col Md Sirajul Haq placed his submission
against the accused persons. Supreme Court Lawyers
Mosharraf Hossain Kajal and Sheikh Baharul Islam assisted
him in the special court.
After hearing, the court adjourned at about 10:05 am and
fixed the date for April 5 for hearing to frame charges.
Govt. gives priority to
pre-preparedness for minimizing disaster risks: Razzak
BSS, Dhaka
Food and Disaster Management Minister Dr Abdur Razzak on
Thursday said the government is giving priority to take
pre-preparations for minimizing disaster risks in the
country.
"We have taken steps after natural calamities since long.
Now we are changing our strategy to reduce losses of lives
and properties due to natural disasters," he added.
The minister said this while inaugurating of first meeting
of National Disaster Management Advisory Committee at the
conference room of Comprehensive Disaster Management
Programme (CDMP) at Disaster Management and Relief Bhaban
at Mohakhali here. Chairman of the advisory committee Dr
MA Kashem and other members of the committee, among
others, attended the meeting.
Razzak said the present government under the leadership of
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, is committed to reduce the
losses of lives and properties to an acceptable level.
Bangladesh due to its geo-morphological realities will
have to live with disasters and have been doing so for
ages, but the frequency and severity of these are
increasing manifold due to climate change.
Taking into considerations the issue of global climate
change, he directed the committee to provide suggestion to
the government about the issue. The country experiences
many natural disasters including flood and cyclone in
almost every year, he said adding, "Now we are fearing
earthquake as a number of minor quake so far have occurred
in the country in the recent times." The advisory
committee could play a very important role in providing
good suggestions about natural disasters, he said adding
the committee should be function properly to give good
advises to the government.
Describing poverty as a big problem, Razzak said, "If we
can remove poverty, we can solve many problems related to
natural disasters."
Monash University to hold Alumni
in city on Feb 7
UNB, Dhaka
Monash University, one of Australia's prestigious public
universities, will organize a Alumni and Student
Reunion-2010 at Le Saigon at city's Gulshan Sunday (Feb
7).
All former and current students of the university have
been invited to attend the dinner at 8pm. All former and
current students of the university have also been
requested to register their names and contact details at
monashbangladesh@yahoo.com.
Monash University is the largest and one of the
Australia's most reputed international universities with
more than 56,000 students, 7000 staff and six campuses in
Australia and one campus in Malaysia.
Reunion of AUST today
UNB, Dhaka
Reunion of the former students of Ahsanullah University of
Science and Technology (AUST) will be held at its own
campus in the city's Tejgaon today (Friday).
Rashed Khan Menon MP, Chairman of the Parliamentary
Standing Committee on Education Ministry, will attend the
function as chief guest while AUST Vice Chancellor Prof Dr
Anwar Hossain and former Vice Chancellor Prof Dr MH Khan
as special guests. AUST Students' Welfare Director Prof Dr
Md Anwarul Mostafa and former student Diben Dutta will
deliver welcome speech.
On the occasion, a day-long programme, including general
meeting, sports and games, meet and raffle draw was
chalked out o observe the day. Attractive feature of the
programme will be a musical function to be participated by
popular singers of the country.
Former students of the university who could not yet
register their names can enlist themselves by 9am on
Friday.
Sports
Bangladesh seeks victory against India
today
TBT report
Bangla-desh faces an uphill task when it takes on India in its
last group match in the 11th South Asian Games hockey
competition today.
Bangladesh started out the competition with a 3-1 win against
Sri Lanka and then suffered a 3-0 defeat to Pakistan before
scoring a record 24-0 victory against Nepal.
With six points from three matches, Bangladesh needs to defeat
India if it desires to reach the final. India is the only team
which maintains its all-win record in the competition so far,
winning over Nepal (21-0), Sri Lanka (7-2) and the old foe
Pakistan (5-1).
Bangladesh earlier expre-ssed its hope of making a top-two
finish and Bangladesh's German coach Gerhard Peter Rach still
believes that his charges have the ability to feature in the
February 7 final showdown beating India in the last crucial
group match.
"I am satisfied with the players' performances. They played
well but failed to score goal against Pakistan. They failed to
take the benefit of seven penalty corners. But, I am hopeful
to win over India," Rach said on Thursday.
Bangladesh side has no injury problem now. Skipper Moshiur
Rahman Biplob has recovered his thigh injury and fully fit to
play against India, Bangladesh Team Manager Anvir Adil Khan
said.
"Bangladesh players are keeping high morale and craving to go
for kill to book a place in the final defeating the
higher-ranked Indians. Bangladesh's 24-0 victory against Nepal
boosted the players' confidence," Khan added.
Indian coach Clarence Lobo said they are not taking the
Bangladesh's match lightly. "Every match is different. We
played well against Pakistan but Bangladesh can put up strong
fight against us. We have to play well to win over the
Bangladesh team."
However, Indian coach admitted that they might go through
experiments to give their reserve players a chance.
The match starts at 3:00pm at Moulana Bhasani National Hockey
Stadium, Dhaka after Pakistan and Sri Lanka facing each other
in the first match of the day, beginning at 1:00pm.
The teams
Bangladesh: Mehrab Hossain Kiron, Zahid Hossain (Goalkeeper),
Mohammad Kamruzzaman, Aasaduzzaman Chandan, Mohammad
Ashiqu-zzaman, Moshiur Rahman Biplob (Captain), Mamunur Rahman
Chayan, Irfan Haque, Russell Mahmud Jimmy, Abdus Sajjad John,
Sheikh Nannu, Zahidul Islam, Moshiur Rahman Feroze, Golam
Mustafa, Mosharraf Hossain Kuti, Imran Hasan Pintu, Pushkar
Khisha, Taposh Barman.
India: Mrinal, Harjit (Goalkeeper), Birendra, Belsajar,
Innocent, Varin-der, Prabhedep, Hamza, Vikash, Yuvraj,
Dhara-maveer Singh, Mohammad, Raghunath, Ajitesh (Cap-tain),
Amit Kumar, Roshan, Promod and Bikash.
Brandao’s
double fires Marseille into final
AFP, Paris
A double by Brazilian striker Brandao saw Marseille come from
behind to beat Toulouse 2-1 after extra-time and move to
within sight of its first silverware since 1993 as it reached
the League Cup final on Wednesday.
Brandao - a six million euro signing from Ukraine's UEFA Cup
winners Shakh-tar Donetsk in the 2009 transfer window - struck
with a header in the 85th minute. He then delivered the killer
blow in the 104th minute to cancel out France international
Andre-Pierre Gignac's opener for the hosts. Marseille coach
Didier Deschamps - who captained the Marseille side that won
their last trophy the 1993 Champions League - was pleased for
the players, who also still entertain hopes for winning the
French Cup but are well off the pace even for a Champions
League place in the league.
"The most important thing is that we qualified," said the
41-year-old World Cup and Euro winning captain, who is also
the youngest captain (24) to lift the Champions League trophy.
"We came here to achieve that. We needed to show character and
the determination to come from behind and we displayed those
characteristics. "I don't know if we deserved to win. Our
route to the final has not been a simple one but the fact of
the matter is that we are going to the Stade de France. That
gives me enormous satisfaction. A lot of the players have not
played in a major final and I am happy for them."
Both sides had played out a relatively cagey first-half with
Brandao going down in the ninth minute with a head wound,
which required him to go off and return some six minutes later
with the cut bandaged.
The hosts' most effective player going forward in the first 45
minutes was their recent signing, England-born Turkish
international Kazim Kazim, who had scored at the weekend after
coming on as a substitute.
He made several incisive forays down the flank but his efforts
were wasted on Gignac.
However, Gignac was to make no mistake in the second-half when
he got free of his marker to head home Albin Ebondo's
inch-perfect cross from the right.
Deschamps reacted immediately by replacing Mathieu Valbuena
with Hatem Ben Arfa to give them more attacking edge in
midfield.
This paid off handsomely five minutes from time as Ben Arfa
knocked in a great cross to the back post where Brandao was
waiting gleefully to head home.
Brandao's joy went into overdrive in the 104th minute when the
ball fell to him on the edge of the box and he deftly touched
the ball onto his left foot and shot home into the far corner.
On Tuesday Bordeaux booked their place in the last four with a
1-0 win over second division strugglers Sedan, who had knocked
out the French champions of the competition at the same stage
in 2008.
A second-half goal from Yoann Gouffran was enough to see
Bordeaux - who showed 11 changes to their starting line-up
from last Saturday's 0-0 draw in the league with
Boulogne-sur-mer - book a last four meeting with Lorient, a
repeat of the 2002 final.
Bangladesh beats Maldives by eight
wickets
TBT report
Bangladesh defeated Mal-dives by eight wickets in the 11th
South Asian Games cricket match at Sher-e-Bangla National
Cricket Stadium, Dhaka on Thursday.
Winning the toss, Bangladesh invited Mal-dives in to bat
and bowled out the islanders for 26 runs. No Maldivian top
order batsman could reach double digits and crumbled
against the Bangladesh bowling attacks.
Needing 27 runs to win, Bangladesh batsmen took only 2.2
overs to reach the target, losing two wickets only. Mithun
topscored with 16 runs for Bangladesh, hammering two
sixes.
India bags volleyball gold
TBT report
India defeated Pakistan in the volleyball final in the
11th South Asian Games to claim gold at Shaheed
Suhra-wardy Indoor Stadium in Mirpur, Dhaka on Thursday.
India lost the first set 23-25 but bounced back from the
first-set defeat to emerge winner beating the Pakistanis
in the next three sets 25-23, 25-16 and
25-16.
Bangladesh handball team loses in semifinal
TBT report
Bangladesh men's handball team downed to India 41-29 in
the semifinal of the event in the 11th South Asian Games
at Dhaka Handball Stadium on Thursday.
Bangladesh players toiled hard but were unable to cope
with the strength of the Indians.
India clinches golds in kabaddi
TBT report
India won golds in both men and women's kabaddi
competitions in the 11th South Asian Games.
India defeated Bangla-desh 34-20 in the women's final at
Dhaka Kabaddi Stadium on Thursday.
India led the first half 23-8 against Bangladesh, which
was content with silver.
India's defeated Pakistan 29-11 in the men's final at the
same venue.
Yousuf vows to stay as skipper
AFP, Karachi
Pakistan's Mohammad Yousuf vowed Thursday to fight on as
skipper despite a hint from the country's cricket chief
that a new captain would be appointed after Test and
one-day drubbings in Australia.
Pakistan's 3-0 whitewash in the Test series and 5-0
routing in the one-day series forced chief selector Iqbal
Qasim to resign and put pressure on Pakistan Cricket Board
chairman Ijaz Butt to quit. Butt last week hinted at a
change in the captaincy.
"Ideally, a younger player could have been chosen to lead
Pakistan, but Australia is not the place to experiment. So
the choice fell on the senior-most player Yousuf," Butt
said in a television report.
"Now we would like to hand over the reins to a younger
captain," he added.
But Yousuf, who was handed the captaincy only after Younus
Khan withdrew from the tour of New Zealand and the
Australia Tests due to lack of form, said he would not
step down. "If the chief selector has resigned it's his
thinking," Yousuf told reporters on his return from
Australia Thursday. "I didn't do badly as captain, not as
badly that I should resign or quit."
"I accepted captaincy when no one was willing to take
captaincy for the tours. I took it (captaincy) only
because of the country and will continue for the country
in future," he added.
Yousuf said Butt's statement had not been good for team
morale as it had raised uncertainty about who would be the
next captain. The 35-year-old master batsman, who has not
been selected for the one-off Twenty20 match in Melbourne
on Friday, defended the team's showing after they slumped
to their fourth successive 3-0 series defeat against
Australia, saying they had fought well in the first two
Tests but were short of experience.
Yousuf said Shahid Afridi's ball-tampering in the fifth
and final one-day international in Perth, for which he was
handed a ban of two Twenty20 matches, was not good for the
image of Pakistan cricket.
India earns third win in women’s football
UNB, Dhaka
India notched its third successive win in the South Asian
Games women's football crushing Nepal by 5-0 goals in its
third league match at Bir Shreshtha Shaheed Mostafa Kamal
Stadium in Kamalapur, Dhaka on Thursday.
Tababi Malik struck twice-in the 11th and 55th
minutes-while Susmita Malik and Naoi Chanu netted one goal
each for the winners while the other was an own goal by
Nepali booter Laxmik.
Favorite India, which booked a final berth of the meet,
crushed Sri Lanka 8-1 in the opener and blanked Pakistan
6-0 in the second match.
Earlier, in another match at the same venue, Pakistan was
officially announced the 3-0 winner as per the Games
by-laws when Sri Lanka failed to take the field in time.
Henin receives wild card for Indian Wells
AFP, Indian Wells
Australian Open runner-up Justine Henin has received a
wild card entry to the BNP Paribas Open ATP and WTA
hardcourt tournament here in March.
The former world number one from Belgium, a seven-time
major champion, won the tournament in 2004. She'll be
making her first appearance in Indian Wells since 2006.
Henin retired in May 2008, but has played in two
tournaments since returning to the WTA Tour in January.
She reached the finals in Brisbane, and lost in the final
of the Australian Open to American Serena Williams.
Other former champions in the Indian Wells field include
Switzerland's Roger Federer, defending champion Rafael
Nadal and Novak Djokovic. The women's field includes Maria
Sharapova, Kim Clijsters and defending champion Vera
Zvonareva. The tournament is from March 8-21.
Nadal, who was forced out of the Australian Open with a
knee injury, was to miss the tournament this month in
Rotterdam, but could be fit for Spain's Davis Cup tie
against Switzerland on March 5-7 and for Indian Wells.
Mueller and Badstuber extend Bayern contracts
AFP, Munich
Rising Bayern Munich stars Thomas Mueller and Holger
Badstuber, two of the Bundesliga's brightest prospects,
have extended their contracts until 2014, it was announced
Thursday.
The pair, who are both 20, have earned regular places in
the Bayern team this season under coach Louis van Gaal and
Mueller has been called up to the full Germany squad
having also played for the national Under-21 side.
Their contracts were due to expire in June 2011, but the
pair have been rewarded with three-year extensions after
proving themselves in both the Bunde-sliga and Champions
League this season. "Both have progressed in a
satisfactory way," said Bayern chairman Karl-Heinz
Rummenigge.
Togo files legal complaint after bus attack
AFP, Paris
Togo has filed a legal complaint against the African
Football Confederation (CAF) for failing to protect its
team from a deadly attack as it travelled to last month's
Africa Cup of Nations, legal sources said Thursday.
Togo's national football team was forced to quit the
tournament on January 10 after two members of their
delegation were shot and killed during an ambush as their
bus arrived in Angola's restive enclave of Cabinda.
As Togo grieved the deaths and amid unheeded calls for CAF
to cancel the whole event, Togo government officials
ordered the team back to the country.
That decision not to participate, however, ultimately led
CAF president Issa Hayatou to ban Togo from the 2012 and
2014 editions of the tournament because of "governmental
interference".
The CAF's decision was met with widespread astonishment in
Luanda and elsewhere.
The state of Togo and relatives of the two victims are now
plaintiffs in a suit in a French court targeting the CAF
and one of the two rebel groups which claimed
responsibility for the attack, whose leader is based in
Paris.
Relatives of the two victims hold the CAF responsible for
"failing to assure the safety of the team from injury or
death," a legal source said, although the French court
must still determine whether it has the legal right to act
upon the complaint.
The state of Togo also holds the FLEC-PM (Forces for the
Liberation of the State of Cabinda-Military Position)
responsible for "acts of terrorism", "assassination and
attempts to assassinate".
In January French prosecutors said they may charge Angolan
separatist Rodrigues Mingas, a French citizen who claims
to be the head of the FLEC-PM, with "praising acts of
terror".
"This is going to continue, because the nation is at war,"
Mingas said. "Weapons will continue to talk. This is our
home, and it's time Angola understood that."
The attack occurred as the Togo convoy drove into Cabinda
from Congo-Brazzaville, leaving players cowering under
their seats during a 20-minute gunbattle with security
forces.
A Togo assistant coach and a team spokesman were killed
and goalkeeper, Kodjovi Obilale, was among the injured.
Although the incident cast a pall over the tournament, CAF
declared the show must go on.
Togo were favoured to reach the latter stages of the
competition, and the decision to ban the team from the
next two editions has apparently compounded their feelings
of frustration.
Togo captain Emmanuel Adebayor, who plays club football
for Manchester City, called it an "outrageous decision"
and called for Hayatou, a Cameroonian, to step down.
"Mr Hayatou has served Africa extensively, but now he must
leave," said Adebayor. "They do not care about the voice
of the world... We were obliged to return, and there was
nothing we could do."
South Africa aims to topple India from top spot
AFP, Nagpur
South Africa will draw confidence from its record on the
subcontinent as it seeks to replace India at the top of
the world rankings in their two-Test series starting
tomorrow.
India dislodged South Africa as the number one Test side
in December after beating Sri Lanka 2-0 at home, and a
series victory against the Proteas would consolidate its
position.
An International Cricket Council (ICC) said in a statement
on Thursday that Graeme Smith's tourists will return to
the top if they win the series.
"If South Africa beats India by 1-0, it will go to 123
rating points and India will drop to 122 points," the ICC
said.
"In case of a 2-0 win, the Proteas will rise to 125 rating
points and India will drop to 120 points."
Smith, speaking ahead of the first Test in Nagpur, said:
"India now hold the mantle of number one in the world,
which is a credit to the way they have played.
"But we have come here to hopefully play better than them,
and take it away from them. That's something we are
talking about."
Smith said it was tough to win a series in the
subcontinent and success is "a real feather in your cap".
"But we won in Pakistan on our last tour there, we won in
Bangladesh, we came very close to winning the series here
in India. We were 1-0 going into the last Test, so I think
generally we have played well," he said.
On their last tour of India in 2008, South Africa won on a
greentop in Ahmeda-bad, before the hosts levelled the
series on a turning wicket in Kanpur. The first Test was
drawn.
The task this time appears more daunting for South Africa,
who are going into the series after a week of turmoil at
home that ended in the resignation of long-serving coach
Mickey Arthur. And the entire selection committee, headed
by former Test all-rounder Mike Procter, was sacked
following a 1-1 series draw to England at home. National
high performance coach Corrie van Zyl has taken over from
Arthur for the Indian tour, which also features three
one-day internationals after the Tests.
India are depleted by injuries to key players-sustained
during a 2-0 away victory over Bangladesh-upsetting the
team combination.
Rahul Dravid, a vital cog in the middle order, is
recuperating after undergoing surgery for a fractured jaw
while the aggressive Yuvraj Singh is nursing a sore left
wrist.
Dhoni, India's first-choice wicketkeeper, has also been
suffering from a troublesome back, forcing the national
selectors to pick uncapped Wriddhiman Saha as his cover in
the 15-man Test squad.
The Indian pace attack will be without the mercurial
Shanthakumaran Sreesanth who impressed against Sri Lanka,
before being laid low by a hamstring injury in Bangladesh.
India's chairman of selectors Krish Srikkanth conceded
Dravid's experience will be missed, but he was confident
the hosts would do well in the series. "A player of
Rahul's calibre, experience and expertise will be missed
by any team," the former Test opener told the Mumbai-based
Daily News and Analysis (DNA) newspaper.
"We still have a competent side. We have the most feared
batsman in the world in Viru (Virender Sehwag), the best
opening pair in the world in Viru and Gautam Gambhir, and
then we have a great player like Sachin Tendulkar."
"They are the two best sides in the world. South Africa
have been playing well. Having said that, I can declare
that we are capable of winning the series. I can't say by
what margin, though." The second and final Test will be
played at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata from February 14.
Defoe treble ends Leeds’ FA Cup run
AFP, Leeds
Jermain Defoe spared his own blushes and those of
Tottenham Hotspur with a hat-trick at Elland Road to
overcome brave Leeds and book a place in the FA Cup fifth
round at the second time of asking with a 3-1 win here on
Wednesday.
England striker Defoe missed a host of good chances but
still managed to come up trumps for the Premier League
side with strikes in the 37th and 73rd minutes before
putting the result beyond all doubt in the fourth minute
of stoppage time to take his tally for the season to 22
goals.
Luciano Becchio had equalised for Leeds on the stroke of
half-time as Simon Grayson's League One side threatened to
pull off another shock in front of a partisan home crowd.
But Defoe secured a trip for Tottenham to top-flight
rivals Bolton in the last 16 and ended the Cup dreams of
Leeds, who had knocked Manchester United at Old Trafford
out of the competition in stunning style in the previous
round.
"That was a difficult game," Defoe told ITV Sport. "Away
from home it was a great performance from the lads." David
Bentley, who has struggled to nail down a place in Spurs'
starting line-up, orchestrated the visitors' victory and
Tottenham boss Harry Redknapp said: "He has come back and
taken his opportunity.
"He has shown what a good player he is in the last couple
of games and he needs to keep on doing that."
Meanwhile, Leeds boss Grayson was in upbeat mood despite
the defeat.
"We've just said to the players we've got to take a lot
positives. We have given Tottenham two good games. "Our
main aim is to get promotion and play in front of 30,000
every week."
Tottenham arrived at Elland Road in confident mood as
well, having lost just one of their last 10 games in all
competitions.
But Redknapp's starting line-up proved just how much he
respected Leeds after their 2-2 draw at White Hart Lane
despite 42 league places separating the two clubs.
But it was Tottenham who dominated the first half and they
would have been home and hosed before the interval had it
not been for some woeful finishing from Defoe, who could
have had a first half hat-trick.
Defoe pounced on a weak back header from Andrew Hughes in
the first minute but fluffed his shot badly.
He then seized on a clever chest down from Peter Crouch
only to see his instant strike fly inches wide.
Worse was to follow from Defoe, who found himself clean
through on goal thanks to Jermaine Jenas's hopeful pass in
the 24th minute but with just Casper Ankergren to beat he
was unable to get the better of the Danish goalkeeper.
Mickelson gunning for third title
AFP, Los Angeles
Phil Mickelson, already among an illustrious group of
winners at Riviera Country Club, could become the first to
win three straight US PGA Tour titles here in this week's
Northern Trust Open.
Although Mickelson is a California native, he didn't
experience significant success at Riviera until he
returned after a lengthy absence three years ago.
He lost to Charles Howell in a playoff, then won the next
two years.
"I did not play well at Riviera early in my career,"
Mickelson said of the course nestled in the hills of
Pacific Palisades west of downtown Los Angeles, famed as a
favorite stomping ground of Ben Hogan. "I ended up missing
this event for a number of years because of it, and when I
came back three years ago I started playing great. "I
almost won three years ago, and the last two years I ended
up winning. I don't have any good explanation for it,"
Mickelson said.
The Northern Trust Open is Mickelson's second start of
2010, and comes with controversy simmering in the
background.
Down the coast at Torrey Pines last week, Mickelson made
headlines with his use of a Ping-Eye 2 wedge, a
20-year-old club that doesn't conform to new US Golf
Association rules for this season but which is approved
for play in America because of a legal settlement between
the manufacturer and the USGA. Despite the loophole,
fellow pro Scott McCarron opined that use of the club was
"cheating," Mickelson snapping back that he had been
"publicly slandered."
The two have shaken hands and made up here, and the world
number two said he wouldn't carry the club this week.
Instead, he said, he needs to turn his attention to
building on his strong finish to 2009, a season he capped
with victories in the Tour Championship and the HSBC
Champions in Shanghai. "I'm playing too well to get
sidetracked here," Mickelson said. "I've got a unique
opportunity, and I want to take advantage of it without
other distractions."
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