saturday, JANUARY 30, 2010 magh 17, 1416, SAFAR 13, 1431 Hijri

   Leading news  Back Page  Editorial   Analysis  Viewpoints   International   Business/Economy   National   Sports    Back

Leading News

11th SA Games opens
PM formally inaugurates the 12-day meet

UNB, Dhaka

The curtain on the eight-nation 11th South Asian Games, known as Olympics of South Asia, was raised on Friday at Bangabandhu National Stadium through a grand opening ceremony.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina formally opened the 12-day meet at 4:35 pm, the biggest sports extravaganza of the region, amid huge enthusiasm among the crowd in the packed stadium, saying: "I declare the XI SA Games-2010 open."
Finance Minister and Chairman of the Organizing Committee AHM Muhith also spoke on the occasion and thanked all. State Minister for Youth and Sports Ahad Ali Sarkar and Bangladesh Olympic Association (BOA) Pre-sident General M Abdul Mubeen were also present.
A total of 1793 athletes and 718 officials, including 332 athletes and officials from the host country, will take part in 23 disciplines of sports for 156 gold medals at stake at 19 venues across the country.
Participating countries: Afghanistan, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and host Bangladesh.
Bangladesh is elding the largest contingent of 332 members -- 231 athletes and 101 officials, while Bhutanese contingent is the smallest with 49 members.
Sporting disciplines: Ar-chery, Athletics, Badminton, Basketball, Boxing, Cycling, Football, Golf, Handball, Hockey, Judo, Kabaddi, Karate, Shooting, Squash, Swimming, Cricket, Table Tennis, Taekwondo, Volley-ball, Weightlifting, Wrestling and Wushu. Apart from 14 venues in the capital and adjoining areas, some sports will also be held in four other divisional headquarters of the country till February 9, the closing ceremony of the meet.
Bangladesh, which is hosting the South Asian Games for the third time after successful staging of the 2nd SAF Games in 1985 and the 6th SAF Games in 1993, constructed five new venues-Kabaddi Stadium, Handball Stadium, Boxing Stadium, Wooden Floor Gymnasium and Gulshan Shooting Complex-to stage the 11th version of the games in a benefiting manner.
Around 11,800 school students, 1300 Ansars, 1000 Army men took part in various colourful and memorable displays at the opening ceremony that began at 4:00 pm. Chinese and French choreographers groomed the local school students, defense personnel and the artistes to present a splendid show.
The three-and-half-hour opening ceremony began on arrival of the country's sports-loving Prime Minister at the venue scouted by two children and VIPs with fanfare playing at the roof of the stadium.
The gala opening ceremony featured the rich tradition, heritage and culture of Bangladesh as well as the latest innovation of exhibit art - the aquatic show.
The aquatic show took the opening ceremony to a new height as it is a new concept in the subcontinent.
The mandatory part of the games began with the march past of the participating countries header by Afghanistan, carrying national flags and play cards of the team.
Bangladesh, which fielded the largest contingent in the meet, entered the stadium last with SAF and Commonwealth Games gold-winning shooter Asif Hossain Khan carrying the Bangladesh national flag.
Country's famed singer Sabina Yasmin, Shuvro Dev and Andrew Kishore jointly presented the 'welcome song' from a mobile stage before the start of the cultural show.
After the meet was declared opened by the Prime Minister, BFF and SAFF President Kazi M Salauddin paraded the ground with games torch and lighted the flame at the torch tower atop the stadium after the change of hands by 13 celebrated local sportsmen.
Bangladesh for the first time introduced the torch relay race in the 11th SA Games following the style of Olympics.

 BNP MPs likely to join Parliament session
Opposition Chief Whip Zainul says

UNB, Dhaka

Opposition BNP is likely to join the current session of parliament to discuss "present critical issues" facing the country, opposition chief whip Zainul Abdin Farooque said on Friday.
Farooque gave the hint at a press briefing at his Gulshan house. He said BNP chairperson and leader of the opposition Khaleda Zia is persistently consulting with her party lawmakers regarding the joining to the parliament session.
Replying to a question, he said the BNP Parliamentary Party (BNPPP) meeting will be held very soon may be within a day or two and hoped a positive decision might emerge in favour of joining the parliament session.
Farooque said the BNP chairperson thinks the country's interest is above the party interest. After reviewing the prevailing situation, they might go to parliament to discus crucial issues of the country particularly 'anti-nation' deals signed with India during Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina visit to New Delhi.
On the demands for which BNP has been abstaining from parliament session for long time after joining the first session for few days, Farooque said when BNP is thinking to return to parliament; the government resorted to new tactics one after another to block their way to return.
He said the government sent police with summon to Khaleda Zia's Dhaka cantonment residence at 3:20 am on Tuesday. BNP protests such 'indecent and undignified' gesture of the government towards the Leader of the Opposition.
Farooque questioned the government intention of sending police to Begum Zia's house when the President, the Prime Minister and the Speaker are urging the opposition to return to parliament.
In one hand, he said the government is giving lisp service to democracy and effective parliament and on the other; it has been taking recourse to repression on opposition and anti-democratic attitude and activities.
BNP joint secretary general Barrister Mahbubuddin Khokon MP, Social Welfare Secretary Abul Khair Bhuiyan MP and Asst. Office Secretary Shamimur Rahman Shamim were present at the press briefing.

 AL member-collection drive begins after today’s extended meeting

BSS, Dhaka

The campaign for member collection of Bangladesh Awami League will begin after the extended meeting of the party central committee scheduled for today (Saturday) .
AL General Secretary and LGRD and Cooperatives Minister Syed Ashraful Islam said this at a press briefing at Gono Bhaban on Friday.
"Priority will be given to new generation voters as well as women in collecting members as AL thinks that dynamism will have to be infused into the party to materialize Vision-2021," he said. Besides, he said, the matter of inclusion of 33 percent women members at all levels of the party is being considered with importance.
Terming AL as a party of the grassroots people, Ashraf said Saturdays extended meeting will be a get-together of grassroots leaders where they will address and give suggestions on various issues.He described the meeting as very important for the party as well as the nation, saying that important discussion will be held side by side with taking vital decisions following the address of the grassroots leaders.
The AL general secretary also said the council of the party at ward and union levels will start after ending of the member collection campaign.
Later, a decision will be taken on holding the central council after the conferences of all units including district and upazila units, he said adding that at least three years will be needed to complete this process.
He said members of the AL Advisory Committee, Central Working Commi-ttee, National Committee, parliament members elected from the party, president and general secretary of district units and first class pourasabha committees have been invited at the extended meeting.
Besides, he said, leaders of executive committee of Dhaka city AL, former assistant secretaries as well as leaders of associate organizations and AL allies will be present at the meeting on special invitation.
Ashraf said the extended meeting has been divided into two sessions. At the first session, the meeting of ALCWC will be held at 10 am at Dhanmondi office of the party chief with Presidium Member and Deputy Leader of the House Syeda Sajeda Chowdhury in the chair. The formal extended meeting of the ALCWC will be held at the second session at 11 am at Gono Bhaban with party President Sheikh Hasina in the chair, he said.
Ashraf also said that seven to 10,000 leaders and workers are expected to attend the conference. He requested all concerned to enter Gono Bhaban by 9 am without bags and mobile phones.

  President should go to court despite immunity, insists Nawaz Sharif

Dawn Online, Peshawar

PML-N leader Mian Nawaz Sharif said on Friday that despite the immunity under article 248 of the constitution, the president should go to the court and clear his position.
'Rule of law should be respected and justice should prevail,' said Sharif, while briefing journalists at Jhagra house in Peshawar.
He said that the NRO was a 'gift' by the former dictators, but it is now the responsibility of the incumbent government to implement the Supreme Court verdict in its true spirit.
Raising a revolutionary team is the need of hour that can save the country, he said. Mian Nawaz Sharif ruled out the formation of a national government and said that the constitution has no such provision. In response to a question, he criticised the government for delaying matters like abolishing the 17th amendment and implementation of the Charter of Democracy inordinately.
Furthermore, he said that the present rulers have been issuing statements against drone attacks, but at the same time they allow the US to target the territory of Pakistan.
Sharif said that the US has been talking about having a dialogue with the Taliban, while this step should have been taken by Pakistan much before.
Earlier, he presided over a meeting of the 40-member organising committee of his party and said that he would visit all the divisional headquarters to reorganise his party in the NWFP.

   20 students including teacher injured in RUET clashes
BSS, Rajshahi

At least 20 students, including a teacher, were injured in clashes between students and policemen on the Rajshahi University of Engineering and Techno-logy (RUET) campus Friday noon.
Police said the clash erupted at around 12.30 pm at Rajshahi Bus Terminal when a bus belongs to Shyamoli Paribahan hit a horse cart that was carrying some students of the Department of Electrical and Electronics Engi-neering. The students were celebrating the rag day.
Following the incident, the students were locked into an argument with transport workers over the accident. Later, they sat with leaders of the workers union at the terminal to settle the matter.
The students alleged that all on a sudden the leaders and workers of the workers union attacked and chased them.
The students escaped and went back to their campus. But the bus workers dragged away six students, including Sweet, Rokon, Reja and Ratan, and beat them.
Police, however, rescued the students after half-an- hour. Then the students took out processions protesting the incident and laid siege to the Dhaka-Rajshahi highway in front of the university campus.
Meanwhile, the students tried to demolish a Shymoli Paribahan counter at Kazla, but Salim Hossain, a teacher of the Electrical and Electronic Engineering Department, calmed down them. To tackle to situation, the police charged batons on the mob injuring Salim along with several students.
After the police actions, the students took positions inside the campus and hurled brickbats at the policemen.
The police then forced their way into the campus and again charged batons on the students leaving nearly 20 students injured.
After this, the students brought out a procession demanding resignation of the vice chancellor and damaged a pick-up van, a card phone booth and a number of notice boards. Later, they threw brickbats at the vice-chancellor's residence.

  Bangladesh ‘road show’ to attract FDI for 4,000 MW power
BSS, Dhaka

A two-day 'road show' of Bangladesh for attracting the foreign direct investment (FDI) to the power and energy sector started at Marriott Marquise Hotel in New York on Thursday .
Bangladesh organized the show titled "Bangladesh Investment Conference and Road Show on Power and Energy Projects" for encouraging the participation of the private sector in the power and energy sector. A total of 160 representatives from 78 organizations, including Morgan Stanley, Olstat, ARC, Caterpillar, Konco Philips, GoaldStar Energy and HSBC, are participating in the show, according to an official handout.
One-to-one meetings have been organized after the main presentation. This road show has been organized for attracting the FDI for setting up new power plants with the capacity of 4,000 megawatts (MWs) of electricity and constructing an LNG terminal.
Adviser to the Prime Minister on Power Dr Toufiq-e-Elahi, Bir Bikram, was present at the function as the chief guest. He said there are enormous investment potentials in Bangladesh.
State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Mohammad Enamul Haque said Bangladesh has been maintaining economic stability for a last few years and it will be more dynamic in future.
Bangladesh Ambassador to the US Akramul Kader delivered the welcome address, while Chairman of the Board of Investment Dr SA Samad presented a paper titled "Macro Economic Stability and Investment Prospects".
Energy Secretary Md Abul Kalam Azad presented a paper on "Power Sector of Bangladesh: Policy issues," PDB Chairman ASM Alamgir Kabir presented "Power Sector of Bangladesh: General Expansion Plan, Private Participation and New BOO Projects" and Petrobangla Chairman Dr Hossain Mansur presented "LNG Terminal at Port City Chittagong in Bangladesh."
Chairman of Parlia-mentary Standing Committee on Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry Abdullah al Islam Jacob, Deputy Governor of Bangladesh Bank Ziaul Hasan Siddiqui, BPC's Chairman Anwarul Karim, member of New York State Senate MalCom Smith, US- Bangladesh Partners President Aziz Ahmed, US-Pan Pacific Chamber of Commerce President Sevio Chan, World Bank's Lead Energy Specialist Mac Cosgrov Davis and US State Department Repre-sentative Elena spoke.

Back Page

Mosques to be made focal point of prayers, welfare activities: PM

BSS, Dhaka

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Friday said her government wants to turn the country's mosques as the central point of offering prayers as well as all welfare activities.
She said like her previous 1996-2001 government the present government has also been implementing elaborate mosque-based programs, which will be expanded across the country in future.The Prime Minister said this while inaugurating the newly constructed Minar, extended prayer room for women and other installations of the Baitul Mokkarram National Mosque in the capital this morning.
Referring to the country's about three lakh mosques, Sheikh Hasina said the Imams and the Muazzins of these mosques can play more effective role for the welfare of the people and the society.About the expansion of pre-primary education in the country utilizing the infrastructure of the mosques, she said that her government has already approved Taka 643.55 crore to mosque-based mass education projects to this end. Under the projects, job opportunities for 38,000 Imams and Ulemas have been created while lakhs of students got chances to pursue their studies, Sheikh Hasina added.
Expressing satisfaction over the renovation of Baitul Mokkarram Mosque, she said that her government is working relentlessly for spreading Islamic education for moral development of the students. The Prime Minister said Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman established Islamic Foundation on March 22, 1975 by merging Baitul Mokkarram Society and Islamic Academy with an aim to spreading history, culture, values and knowledge of Islam.
She said Bangabandhu for the first time took steps to celebrate Eid-e- Miladunnabi in the country for upholding lifestyle of the Greatest Prophet Hazrat Muhammad (SM) and introduced public holidays on Eid-e-Miladunnabi, Shab-e- Qadr and Shab-e-Barat.
Describing Islam as the religion of peace and harmony, she said there is no room for chaos, anarchy, hostility and extremism in Islam. But, she regretted that a vested group, by their misdeeds, is identifying Islam as a supporter of fanaticism which ultimately tarnishing the image of Islam before the global community. The Prime Minister called upon the Islamic scholars and the Musallis to be vigil against those evil forces who are trying to mislead the innocent religious people by misinterpreting Islam. Saudi government provided financial assistance for the Baitul Mokkarram Mosque beautification, renovation and extension project that cost over Taka 27 crore.
Under the project, a new 170 feet high Minar and new prayer spaces were constructed at the southern plaza of the mosque. Over 20,000 Musallis will now be able to offer prayers together at the new space while over 5,600 female can also offer prayers at the ground floor.
State Minister for Religious Affairs Mohammad Shahjahan Miah presided over the inaugural function when Deputy Finance Minister of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) Muhammad Bin Saleh Al-Gifaili was present as special guest.Islamic scholars, religious leaders, officials of Saudi Embassy, musallis and high officials were present on the occasion.

   Section 144 around Ctg New Market area remains in force
UNB, Chittagong

The section 144 imposed Thursday around the New Market here Thursday to quell a street rioting by rival traders remained in force till Friday.
M Maniruzzaman, Comm-issioner of Chittagong Metro-politan Police, said the ban would remain in force until the rival groups reach an understanding.
He said the traders in all markets of the area were also asked to keep their business establishments closed until further notice.
Meanwhile, Mohanagar Sammilita Hawkers' Federation at a news conference Friday morning demanded Tk 5 crore in compensation and punishment of those responsible for setting ablaze their several hundred shops.
Masud Rana, general secretary of the federation, claimed that the traders burnt down 500 shops Thursday, leaving at least 100 hawkers out of jobs and causing a loss of Tk 5 crore.
At least 50 people, including 10 policemen, were injured and 300 shops burnt in the street rioting by rival traders in the port city Thursday which erupted in a backlash to a previous clash. The area turned into a battleground, as the businesspeople fought a pitched battle, prompting police to lob teargas shells and rubber bullets to bring the situation under control.
Police and RAB used some 300 teargas canisters and rubber bullets during the widespread clashes Wednesday night and Thursday.
As the melee continued till late afternoon, local administration clamped down on the troublemakers with the ban on gathering under section 144 about 5:45pm Thursday. Additional police have been deployed in the area to fend off further trouble.

   Canada may reject call to deport convict Nur
UNB, Dhaka

Execution of five ex-army officers convicted of killing Bangabandhu may force Canada to reject Bangl-adesh's calls to deport Toronto resident Lt Col (retd) Nur Chowdhury, also found guilty - and sentenced to be hanged - for his role in the 1975 assassination plot.
Canwest News Service said Bangladeshi officials have been pressuring Canada to hand over Nur Chowdhury, accused of firing the fatal shots in the August 1975 coup that left founding father and then President Sheikh Mujibur Rahman dead, along with members of his family.
Now living in Toronto, the 59-year-old Chowdhury has been challenging a Canadian deportation order on the grounds that he will be put to death if returned to Bangladesh.
Canada, which abolished capital punishment in 1976, requires foreign nations to guarantee that any suspect extradited or deported from this country will not be subject to the death penalty for alleged crimes committed abroad. Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) told Canwest News Service last month that Chowdhury's fate would be determined in part by whether his deportation would result in certain death or only the "mere possibility" of a hanging.
However, Thursday's executions of Chowdhury's alleged co-conspirators send a clear signal about the fate that could await him if he's sent back to his home country. Canwest News Service said Law Minister Shafique Ahmed visited Canada in November to push for Chowdhury's deportation. He vowed after Thursday's executions that all of those convicted of killing Rahman will be brought to justice eventually.
The Law Minister also told reporters that the Canadian government supports Chowdhury's deportation and that "only the legal formalities are pending now" before his return to Bangladesh. But, Barrister Shafique added that Chowdhury and the others found guilty in the assassination case will have the opportunity to appeal their convictions. Canwest News Service said the death penalty has been a contentious issue for Prime Minister Stephen Harper, whose government lost a Federal Court lawsuit last year over its refusal to seek clemency for Canadian-born killer Ronald Smith, now on death row in the US.
"In cases where the death penalty is a possibility, the government will seek assurances from the country to which the person is being returned that, if found guilty and convicted, the death penalty will not be imposed," a Citizenship and Immigration spokesperson told Canwest News Service in December.

   India to court martial top general
AFP, New Delhi

India's army has ordered the court martial of one of its top generals over his alleged involvement in an illegal land deal, officials said Friday.
Lieutenant General Ava-desh Prakash is the highest ranking officer to face court martial in the history of India's million-plus military. Army chief general Deepak Kapoor ordered the proceedings after Defence Minister A.K. Antony sought stern action against Pra-kash, who is slated to retire on Sunday, the officials said.
General Prakash holds the rank of military secretary and is one of the country's eight key military advisers.
If convicted, he could face imprisonment as well as lose his rank and his pension. "The trial will begin after the army names the judges for the general court martial of General Prakash," a senior defence ministry official said on condition that he not be named.
General Prakash is among four senior officers facing investigation over charges that they gave the go-ahead for a builder to acquire a 70-acre (30-hectare) plot of army land at a throwaway price in the Himalayan resort of Darjeeling. A string of other eye-popping fraud cases has damaged the military-the world's fourth-largest-in recent years.

    Target to double the number of tigers in the world by 2022
BSS, Dhaka

The first Asia Ministerial Conference (AMC) on Tiger Conservation has decided to make efforts for doubling the number of tigers in the world by the year 2022.
A joint declaration of the conference held at Hua Hin, Thailand said Friday, a message received here said.
Ministers from 13 Tiger Range Countries (TRC) as well as 16 international donor agencies attended the conference. The countries are- Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cam-bodia, China, India, Laos, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mya-nmar, Nepal, Russia, Thail-and and Vietnam. State minister for Envir-onment and Forests Dr Hasan Mahmud led a five-member Bangladesh team in the conference.
The conference was followed by a two-day meeting of the senior officials of TRCs which discussed various matters related to the conservation of tigers and plans for doubling the number of tigers by the year 2022.
The ministers presented their country position on tiger conservation during the Conference.
Addressing the meeting Dr Hasan Mahmud said Bang-ladesh has around 450 Royal Bengal Tigers living in Sundarbans which is the highest density in a single landscape of the world.
He highlighted the initiatives taken by the Gover-nment of Bangladesh for tiger conservation and need for financial and technical support from the international agencies.

    Shafique asks officials for digital land registration system
BSS, Dhaka

Law, Justice and Parliam-entary Affairs Minister Barrister Shafique Ahmed Friday directed concerned officials to bring land registration activities and its preservation un-der digital method.
The present government has taken plans to bring various activities under digital method for building a digital Bangladesh, he told the inaugural function of annual general meeting of Ban-gladesh Registration Ser-vice Associ-ation at LGED auditorium at Agar-gaon in the city.
State Minister for Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Advocate Md. Kamrul Islam and Additional Sec-retary of the Ministry of Law Md Shahidul Haque, among others, addressed the function, an official release said.
Shafique urged officials of Department of Registration to carry our their duties with honesty and sincerity so that common people of the country get services without any harassment.
He also asked the officials to work for making service activities time-befitting.
Dignity of registration services has been decreased, Kamrul Islam said adding it is needed to increase quality of service side by side with introduction of modern registration method to restore its dignity.

Editorial

Textbook syndicate

While the government has attained a tremendous success in reaching textbooks to most of the students at the outset of the academic year, a section of dishonest officials and greedy book sellers and printers are allegedly still conspiring to thwart the efforts for streamlining the text book distribution process. According to a report published in a national daily on Friday, a Bangla Bazar based syndicate of printers and binders, with the help of a section of unscrupulous education officials, is illegally marketing and selling school textbooks meant for free distribution. Amid an artificial book crisis created by those officials, the syndicate is selling a set of these books to students for prices ranging between Tk 270 and Tk 450.
The report further said, while monitoring the book market, the National Curriculum and Textbook Board (NCTB) identified a number of officials of the District Primary Education Officer's Office and the District Education Officer's Office involved in creating the crisis in collaboration with some printers who are official suppliers of the free books. These officials were found to be deliberately receiving fewer books than they were supposed to be supplied with. In each bundle of 100 books, they were actually receiving 97-98 books. In a total supply lot of around two lakh books per printer there was a shortage of 2000 to 3000 books. These books were channelled directly to the market for sale, said the NCTB officials.
This malpractice is part of the widespread corruption rampant in the country and also that of chronic education business prevailing at all levels of our education system. It is unfortunate that the conspiracy to distrust the process of textbook distribution started with the pre-planned fire incident at NCTB book depot which destroyed huge books late last year and the conspiracy is still continuing in a different form. The artificial textbook crisis created with ulterior motive and the illegal marketing of textbooks meant for free distribution are unwarranted and must be stopped. Those involved in these unlawful activities must be brought to book and punished. It is hoped that the government will take appropriate steps in this regard immediately.
It should be acknowledged that the education ministry has acted resolutely and effectively in dealing with the book distribution issue. At the same time it should also be admitted that the country's education sector is deeply plunged in irregularities, anomalies and corruption and the government is yet to be able to eradicate those. However, in the light of the success achieved otherwise by the education ministry it may be expected that it will leave no stone unturned to free the entire education sector from all kinds of malpractice and corruption. To this end the reported syndicate of printers, binders and sellers of text books must be broken and the nexus between the syndicate and a section of dishonest officials must also be destroyed in the interest of the students. Education is the backbone of a nation and to make it stronger all necessary measures should be taken.

  Halving poverty by 2015

The second ministerial meeting of CIRDAP on Thursday adopted the Dhaka Declaration 2010 with a vow to ensure a pro-poor policy and resources to contribute towards achieving the goal of reducing hunger and poverty at least by half by 2015. The three-day ministerial meeting of the Centre on Integrated Rural Development for Asia and the Pacific (CIRDAP) concluded Thursday adopting the decla-ration. Ministers, and high-profile representatives from the 14-member countries and 45 donor agencies took part in the meeting. The meeting agreed on eight policy issues for contribution of the regional grouping towards promoting an integrated rural development policy in its member countries.
The policy and target set for itself by the CIRDAP are well intended and pro-people undoubtedly, but may not be easy to achieve. However, these are very much in line with the avowed policies of Bangladesh which is in an all out war on hunger and poverty.
According to World Bank (WB) the number of the poor in Bangladesh was 47 per cent in 2000 and is 40 per cent now, but despite a fall in the overall number of the poor the number of people in abject poverty has increased. At present 5.6 crore people of the total population live below the poverty line. Of them the number of hardcore poor is 3.50 crore as against 3.25 crore in 2000. Earlier, a UN report said hunger in South Asia has reached its highest level in 40 years because of food and fuel price rises and the global economic downturn. The report by the UN children's fund, UNICEF named Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan as the worst affected areas. According to the World Bank, three quarters of the population in South Asia - almost 1.2 billion people - live on less than $2 (£1.2) a day. And more than 400m people in the region are now chronically hungry.
This alarming situation has arisen due to our failure in achieving desired progress in the drive for poverty alleviation. So, halving poverty by 2015 may remain only a distant and pious goal unless we can attain miraculous progress in making substantial employment generation and effective plans for poverty alleviation.

Analysis

The Afghan conundrum

Meanwhile, India is being dressed up and courted as a countervailing force to China. American-supplied enriched uranium will enable India to augment its cache of nuclear weapons.

Zafar Hilaly

Two years before his death Wendell Lewis Willkie (1892-1944), a well known US lawyer and businessman, remarked: "There exists in the world today a gigantic reservoir of goodwill towards us, the American people." Scarcely a decade and a half later, William Lederer wrote his seminal tract on how Asians viewed Americans and appropriately called it The Ugly American.
Goodwill for the US in Asia has been haemorrhaging ever since. Iran, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and counting, are testaments to American folly. Even the odd success such as the China connection is souring. Not that the US seems to care. Beijing has replaced Moscow as the latest adversary. And because China's economy is growing exponentially and its military prowess only a mite slower, it is considered potentially a more formidable adversary than the economically decrepit Russia.
A string of US military bases located on China's periphery are meant to hem it in. Choke points are being manned to deny China access to major trade routes if the need arises and, even if it does not, to flag the US's determination to remain the sole superpower.
Meanwhile, India is being dressed up and courted as a countervailing force to China. American-supplied enriched uranium will enable India to augment its cache of nuclear weapons. Modern American fighter aircraft and sophisticated surveillance systems from US armouries will help offset the Chinese superiority in numbers. In a decade or so, and umpteen billion dollars hence, India expects to be on a par with China militarily.
India is being assigned the role of a western sentinel in the region, a role that its leaders have gleefully accepted. Hence, the Indian intrusion in Afghanistan at the invitation of the US, India's stance against Iran in the IAEA, the result of crude American pressure, and so too Delhi's last minute refusal to participate in the Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) pipeline venture. And though India's refusal to countenance a sensible and doable border arrangement with China in the North East Frontier Agency (NEFA) has more to do with Indian intransigence than American prodding, it melds with the American architecture of the new cold war.
Some nations are positioning themselves to cope. Japan, for example, is ever so slowly extracting itself from what was a cosy but is now viewed as a suffocating American embrace. Europe too is increasingly wary of the strategic perceptions of the US and prefers its own take of a situation. Pakistan also backs its own perspective but remains distracted by its own problems and dissensions and, as always, its economic compulsions.
Here a sliver of fanatics has a moderate and tolerant Muslim population in their thrall, with the result that instead of being courted for its strategic location at the crossroads of Central Asia and the Middle East, and a nuclear power, Pakistan is shunned. Branded by the US and India as an "epicentre" of terror, Pakistan is threatened with invasion, intervention and disintegration. Its territories have on occasions been traversed by friends and foes alike; its laws trampled upon and its people abused, kidnapped and rendered as much by their own rulers as those who pose as their mentors. Its citizens are on every watch list.
Stripped, questioned, harassed and insulted, they are paraded, stared at and shunned at airport queues. The financial assistance it receives from the US or other 'friends' is a morsel compared to what is required. Moreover, it is policed, supervised, audited, counted and recounted, withheld and then doled out sometimes with a sneer that conveys, more than words ever can, the condescension with which Pakistan is viewed.
The fact is that today while foes view us with contempt, friends view us with a pity that alas seems all too closely allied with contempt.
Ours is a sad predicament but we should not lose heart. We have a great cause to fight for. Besides, the moment of greatest humiliation often is the moment when the spirit is the proudest. Steadying the home front must take precedence over tackling foes abroad. Justice, good governance and autonomy are buzzwords in Pakistan only because they do not exist. But before we can even hope to tackle our problems successfully, peace within is the foremost priority; and specifically an end to the fratricidal conflict that now engulfs Pakistan.
It is sad, therefore, that the progressive, tolerant and liberal lobby within the country is divided. Remarkably, those liberals who would have the Afghan government negotiate with the Afghan Taliban; Pakistan recognise Israel; conclude peace deals with India; assent in the plans of erstwhile dictators to arm the junta in Burma, turn apoplectic with rage at the prospect of engaging with the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) on the grounds that only a military solution is the answer to the challenge the TTP poses. Since when has engaging the enemy in negotiations amounted to conceding to his demands? Or fighting and talking become mutually exclusive activities for warring parties? And especially when history has shown that there is no enemy who can never make a friend or vice versa. Besides, if we can offer our services to try and placate the Afghan Taliban and endeavour to bring them within the ambit of civilised nations through negotiations, why not the TTP with whom the Afghan Taliban are organically linked?
In any case, an attempt to do so, even as we war, cannot do harm. Peace, though never surrender, is worth great sacrifices.
Many in the establishment are fearful of a precipitate American withdrawal, i.e. before some sort of an arrangement of what a future government in Afghanistan would look like. They fear that the past era of refugees, strife and turmoil would return and that Pakistan will, as before, be left to deal with it alone. Indeed that is a possibility; however, it is one that can scarcely be avoided because ironically the Americans and the Taliban are, for once, in perfect accord: both want to control Afghanistan.
In the circumstances no document or understanding reached between them will be respected. The North Vietnamese did not do so and, like them, the Taliban mean to have unfettered control of Afghanistan. What concerns us far more and what is less certain is whether they also want to control Pakistan. If so, Pakistan's resilience will be tested as never before.
Moreover, we will be on our own which, frankly, is just as well because only when we fight alone and win will we know true freedom. Of course, the Americans do count but only as a possible source of funds and war materials. In no other respect could they be a source of strength. Those who came to chase away the
Taliban and are now beseeching them to return have, frankly, lost all credibility.
Where Pakistan stands in the new scheme of things that is emerging in Asia will be determined by the skill and determination with which we handle what follows the inevitable American departure rather than what is happening now. There is no such thing as a great nation without great will power. There are no gains without pain.


The writer is a former ambassador of Pakistan He can be reached at charles123it@hotmail.com
 

  Communism in India

No one epitomised communist rule more than its long-time former leader, Jyoti Basu, who died last week at the age of 96.

Jonathan Power

Why is the most densely populated state in India, which also suffered the greatest famine in the country's history in 1943, now the third largest economy in the country, with a very rapid growth rate that is the third fastest among all the states, a power infrastructure that is the best in the country, soaring agricultural yields and a crime rate that is half the national average?
It is mainly down to its governing communist-led front that is the world's longest running democratically elected government - since 1977. In next year's state elections, however, it is likely to be ousted, partly out of the electorate's boredom with it and partly because of its corruption (although its opposition, an offshoot of India's ruling Congress Party, is also corrupt).
No one epitomised communist rule more than its long-time former leader, Jyoti Basu, who died last week at the age of 96. Television and newspapers were full of not much else for five days. The crowds at his funeral filled the centre of the city. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, despite having been in Kolkata the week before to say goodbye, and Sonia Gandhi, the head of the Congress Party, were in attendance.
Not only was Basu in power for decades, he nearly became prime minister in 1996 and would have been if his Communist Party had not been so factionalised and couldn't be relied on to support him in parliament.
But at home he towered over everybody else. Although he had to face splits aplenty on his home ground, he knew how to get things done with a firm but nonantagonistic hand. He failed on some key issues, but overall his rule was a triumph.
In his book, British writer Geoffrey Morehouse wrote that he and the poet Tagore were the two people who made Bengal "what it is today".
No one changed the face of communism more than Basu, leading the party to give up its line on "armed struggle" and accept parliamentary democracy. Basu's first government inherited a situation where in the rural areas the so-called naxalites were leading an armed struggle to reorder land holdings. Landlords were often decapitated and a harsh rule was enforced. The newly installed ruling communists were swift to deploy their own armed cadres to defeat the naxalites. (The same thing is happening today with the Maoists who, over the last 10 years, have played on the shortfalls of recent development in the rural areas. Almost every day they clash with the police and the communist cadres.)
The new government pushed through a democratic land reform that totally changed the face of West Bengal. Landlords were generously compensated and unlike a number of failed land reforms elsewhere, the government managed to do the follow up work of settling peasants on their own land and bringing in agricultural advice. Schools and health clinics were introduced into every village.
On a visit to a rural area I was amazed to find peasants with sewerage systems, television and electric fans. It was also a bit mind boggling to see lonely villages with the hammer and sickle on a red background fluttering from many of the houses.
Meanwhile, the urban industrial areas atrophied. The heavy hand of state control augmented by out of control unions that would strike at the drop of a hat made for stagnation. It is to Basu's credit that he took these forces head on.
In 1985, he pushed through the new economic agenda for the party. Inspired by Deng Xiaoping's capitalist reforms in China, he created state and private sector partnerships. In fact, Basu was ahead of practices in the rest of India where in the same year, prime minister Rajiv Gandhi took the first steps to open the country to the free market, multinationals and the latest imported technology.
After economic liberalisation was introduced into India in 1991, Basu was among the first to create a new industrial policy. But the party itself was often his main antagonist and over time the gap between him and his party widened. He could not overcome the backward, primitive attitude of his party in education that patronised mediocrity, destroying standards of excellence. The teachers' union called the shots. Learning in English was regarded as elitism (although Basu sent his own children to upper crust English speaking schools).
During Basu's tenure, some of the best educated Bengalis left Kolkata for greener pastures elsewhere. Not until he retired in 2000 was his successor, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, able to start to make the deep transformation that West Bengal and Kolkata desperately needed in order to succeed in the modern age. And partly succeeded it has, even as communist rule shows up the serious defects that will probably push it into the political wilderness next year.


Jonathan Power is a foreign affairs commentator and analyst based
in London Courtesy : www.arabnews.com

Viewpoints

Obama’s Middle East adventure

There is absolutely no chance of a breakthrough in the “peace process” at the present time. In fact, it is probably dead for a generation.

Gwynne Dyer

Barack Obama had worse failures to address in his State of the Union message on Wednesday, but a few days before he owned up to the most foolish miscalculation that his administration had made in its first year in power. In an interview with Joe Klein of Time magazine, he confessed that he had not understood the obstacles to an Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement.
"The Middle East peace process has not moved forward....For all our efforts at early engagement, (it) is not where I want it to be," Obama said. "If we had anticipated some of these political problems on both sides earlier, we might not have raised expectations as high."
But why didn't he anticipate them? Is there really nobody in Washington who could have told Obama the truth about the Middle East? Every non-American commentator who knows anything about the region has been saying for the past year that there is absolutely no chance of a breakthrough in the "peace process" at the present time. In fact, it is probably dead for a generation.
The answer, I fear, is that there really is nobody in Washington who can tell Obama the truth about the region. Nobody, that is, who would be allowed through the cordon of academic "experts", think-tank pundits and State Department and Pentagon officials who devoutly believe in an orthodoxy that sounds quite reasonable on the Potomac, even if it makes no sense whatever in terms of Middle Eastern reality.
For example, Obama wanted Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to enter direct peace talks with the Israeli government, even though he knew that Abbas only ruled around 60 percent of the Arab population of the occupied territories. The other 40 percent, in the Gaza Strip, have for the past several years been under the control of the Islamist movement Hamas.
So what was Abbas going to do? Sign a peace treaty with Israel, and get the Israeli Army to impose it on the Gaza Strip? He certainly hasn't the military forces to do it himself. And why would he sign a "separate peace" with Israel - and turn himself into an eternally reviled traitor to the Palestinian cause - just to serve Obama's agenda? No wonder he has been saying he wants to resign for the past year.
SIMILARLY, why would even the most pro-peace Israeli government make a deal with Abbas, who cannot deliver the assent of all, or at least most, of the Palestinians? Yitzhak Rabin himself would not have signed a peace treaty with Abbas under current circumstances, because he would have understood that it could not last.
Benjamin Netanyahu, the current Israeli prime minister, does not bear even a passing resemblance to the martyred Rabin, and the coalition he leads is not particularly "pro-peace." It depends on the hard right and the settler parties for its majority in the Knesset (Parliament), and it is not going to sacrifice its vision of a greater Israel to the whim of some passing American president.
NETANYAHU spent his last term as prime minister in 1996-99 sabotaging the Oslo accords that promised Israeli recognition of an independent Palestinian state. He is an adroit politician who knows how to modify his rhetoric in English to mollify Washington, but he has not changed his basic position. Why should he? Washington cannot compel Israel to do anything it doesn't want to.
It is Israel, not the White House, that controls US policy on Arab-Israeli issues, due to its huge influence in Congress. Only one US president in the past generation, George Bush Sr., has successfully defied Israel. His threat of sanctions brought the Israelis to the negotiating table after the Gulf War of 1990-91 - but he is convinced that that is why he lost the 1992 election.
Obama has had to relearn that lesson over the past year. He began by backing the Palestinian demand that Israel halt new settlement building in the occupied territories before the start of peace talks. After all, the peace talks would be about granting Palestinians sovereignty over those territories, among other things. For 40 years they have watched more and more of their land disappear under Israeli settlements, and they are a bit sensitive on the subject.
Netanyahu simply said no. Then, after six months had passed, he made a tiny concession. Israel would not start any new building projects in the more rural parts of the West Bank for ten months, although it would continue work on all current projects to expand the settlements. It would not accept any limitations on its freedom to build new Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem.
It was virtually meaningless: I promise not to steal from you on Thursday afternoons. But Obama had learned his lesson by then. It gave him an excuse to switch his position and demand that Abbas drop his preconditions for entering peace talks too, as if Netanyahu had dropped his. Blame the Arabs for intransigence, and move on.
The question is: What deluded adviser told Obama that there was any point in embarking on this foredoomed enterprise? The answer, unfortunately, is that it could be almost any of the recognized "experts" on the Middle East in Washington. They have been spouting nonsense for so long that it sounds like sense to them.

  Behind the Burqa

If fewer than 2,000 Muslim women are capable of mounting a challenge to the republic, France must be built on weak foundations.

Sandeep Gopalan 

Why the French obsession with the burqa? After all, as the French government itself has conceded, only about 1,900 women wear the full-body covering. So why are over half of the respondents in recent public opinion polls in favour of a ban on it?
The answer is simple. This is not about a fashion faux pas or women's rights, but about sending a message to Muslims. Concerned with increasingly visible numbers of Muslims openly practising their way of life while enjoying the privileges of life in the West, French citizens and politicians alike feel that they need to restore "Frenchness" to their streets.
What exactly they mean by this is unclear, but there is apparently agreement that it means a largely homogenous society or, at the least, a multicultural one with well-integrated foreigners. Whether such a society is desirable or not, the burqa ban is not the way to get there.
This confusion is at the root of the French parliamentary commission's decision to recommend a partial ban on burqas. It would ban burqas in hospitals, schools, government offices and on public transport. Women defying the ban would be denied public services.
The commission's report said "the wearing of the full veil is a challenge to our republic. This is unacceptable. We must condemn this excess."
If fewer than 2,000 Muslim women are capable of mounting a challenge to the republic, France must be built on weak foundations.
The ban's proponents claim to be acting in the cause of equality, that the burqa is a symbol of the repression of women. President Sarkozy, who has publicly declared that the attire is not "welcome in France," said in 2007 that "France will not abandon the women who are condemned to the burqa."
The irony of fighting repression with a ban seems to have escaped notice.
What is proposed is a serious invasion of personal liberty without reasonable justification. To be sure, individual freedoms can be legally curtailed when circumstances such as security, crime prevention or violence justify it. But the justifications given for the restriction of the religious freedoms by the burqa ban - equality, repression of women, protection of French cultural values - do not seem to be on the same footing.
To begin with, judgments about cultural values are very subjective. Who decides if particular items of clothing fit with French values? Can we trust politicians and bureaucrats to make these decisions for us?
Secondly, where do you draw the line? Are turbans, yarmulkes, saris, salwars and long skirts next? Many groups, including some feminists, assert that crucifixes and crosses are examples of patriarchal oppression. Would a government ban on jewelry containing crucifixes be justified? This is a slippery slope. If we support a burqa ban on the basis that we dislike the clothing, or that it offends our notion of freedom, or that it makes us uncomfortable, we would then be opening ourselves to all manner of compromises on the many unpopular personal choices that we make in daily life. The freedom to do that which is unpopular or ugly, but is harmless or legal, is precisely what a civilized society is about. We should not toss this aside lightly.
Burqa bans have been considered by other jurisdictions. In Egypt, the High Administrative Court recently overturned a ban on female students wearing the niqab - a full face veil - at university examinations. The court held that the "a girl's right to dress the way she sees fit in accordance with her beliefs and her social environment is a firm right that cannot be violated."
The court did carve out a security exception, saying that a student wearing the niqab must show her face when asked for security reasons. Similarly, many Islamic states require women to unveil for photo identity cards, professional exams and certain medical procedures. Religious preferences must yield when there is a compelling government interest and where accommodation is not reasonably possible.
The proposed French restrictions on the burqa do not satisfy either of these requirements. What compelling interest does the government have in banning burqas in hospitals or government offices? Or on buses and trains?
To the extent that there are any reasonable security concerns, it should be permissible to require burqa-clad women to be screened by police officers. Similarly, banning burqas from some government jobs would also be acceptable.
In any case, how would the partial ban be enforced? Enforcement would be costly and would only drive burqa-clad women out of the public space and into more darkness. If the purpose of the ban is women's empowerment, this would be counterproductive.
In the end, the law would only serve to expose the Muslim community to scorn and ridicule and to further heighten the serious ethnic and religious differences in French society.
Instead, France should invest in persuading the Muslim community to discard the veil voluntarily. A combination of compulsory education, incentives and access to equal opportunities is a better way forward. Bans only breed resentment and discord.

Sandeep Gopalan is head of the law department at the National University of Ireland

  Haiti Hypocrisy Hides War Crimes in Gaza

The tragedies of Haiti and Gaza are compounded by mainstream media’s exploitation of millions of innocent people in order to promote the US and Israel's masquerade as benevolent societies.

Tammy Obeidallah

The human catastrophe gripping Haiti since a 7.0-magnitude earthquake devastated that nation on January 12 rightfully dominated nearly every newscast for a week.
With devastation of such unimaginable proportions, there are the riveting stories of despair and courage, along with a relatively new and hideous phenomenon: politicisation of the disaster and its aftermath.
Media opportunists have reached new depths of hypocrisy and ineptitude in covering the tragedy. Mainstream television networks and newspapers touted the overwhelming US military response, as well as other countries that were among the first to reach the victims in Haiti, including Israel.
Conspicuously absent from the kudos list were two of the first responders, Cuba and Venezuela. On January 13, one day after the quake, a C-130 transport plane was dispatched to Port-au Prince loaded with supplies, food and doctors. To date, six massive shipments from Venezuela have reached Haiti, totaling 5,000 metric tons of foodstuffs, as well as humanitarian aid teams and heavy machinery for reconstruction. Additionally, President Hugo Chavez pledged that his country will provide Haiti with free gasoline and diesel.
Cuba has maintained approximately 400 doctors who provide free medical services throughout Haitian communities for the last several years. Therefore, Cuban medical teams were first on the scene to set up two emergency hospitals. A group of 38 Haitians currently completing medical internships in Cuba returned to their homeland to assist in the relief efforts, along with an additional three Cuban surgical teams. The Associated Press reported on January 20 that Ena Zizi, a 69 year-old pulled from the rubble after a week, was taken to the Cuban hospital for treatment. Reportedly, Cuban teams are working 18-hour shifts in order to save as many of the injured as possible.
Meanwhile, in the most poignant outpouring of compassion for the Haitian people, Palestinians-themselves no strangers to widespread death and destruction-lined up at the Red Cross headquarters in Gaza to donate toiletries, toys, sweets and blankets. Unfortunately, none of the goods will be shipped to Haiti due to the Israeli siege. Some Gazans were able to donate money, apparently the only commodity allowed to leave the Strip.
While ignoring the contributions of political and ideological rivals, the US media gave Israel special recognition at every turn. The field hospital set up by the Israeli army warranted an entire segment of NBC's nightly newscast on January 19. One senior Israeli officer stated "If we save one life, it's as if we save the whole world."
So let us get this straight: it is imperative to give Israelis singular credit in saving Haitian children, while ignoring the fact that last year's assault on Gaza killed hundreds of children and maimed thousands more, not to mention the 360 Lebanese children slaughtered during Israel's 2006 offensive.
With the American media locked in fierce competition as to who could lavish the most praise on the Israeli military for saving Haiti, another disaster was brewing in Gaza. Israeli officials opened the Al-Wadi dam east of Gaza in the wake of torrential rainfall in the region, flooding the refugee camp of Al-Nusseirat, Johr al-Deek village and al-Mughraqa, a suburb of Gaza City. Villagers provided eyewitness accounts that Israeli forces stationed in the area opened the dam without warning and without coordination with Palestinian civil agencies. Media outlets from Brunei to China to Iran reported the disaster.
According to China's Xinhua news agency, Israel had constructed the dam to hoard rain water, depriving Gazan farms and villages of this precious resource for years. As the dam was opened, houses that had been built along the dried-up ditch were inundated with flood waters, displacing approximately 100 Gazan families and drowning cattle and poultry. Palestinian Civil Defence Chief Yousef al-Zahar stated "…what happened was a deliberate act by Israel."
Israeli officials were quick to deny opening any dams, or that a dam even existed in the area. Israel's Eshkol regional council bordering Gaza dismissed the claims as "silly," maintaining they knew nothing of such a dam.
Pro-Israeli bloggers took up the cries of "water libel," adding that there were no coordinates on any map indicating the presence of a dam and that Palestinians had made up the whole story. Of course, the Israelis would do well not to acknowledge the presence of such a dam, else admit to years of denying water to Gazan farmers.
However, pictures show that the deluge in Gaza could not have resulted merely from flash flooding. According to the Israeli Meteorological Service, up to five inches of rain fell in the area. The Gaza valley where the floods occurred runs nearly five miles from its eastern border with the Jewish state, descending to the Mediterranean Sea. The downgrade would allow for more severe flooding, but not to the levels seen in Gaza. Therefore, some other factor had to contribute to such massive amounts of water rushing into the area, i.e. Israel's opening of the Al-Wadi dam.
Another instance of Israel's disregard for environmental consequences-even more sinister given what happened in Haiti-took place in August 2009. Israel National News reported that tremors were created in the southern Negev in a joint project with the University of Hawaii and funded by the US Department of Defence. In the experiment, Israelis detonated 80 tons of explosive material to simulate the intensity of a magnitude 3.0 earthquake. Supposedly, this will help scientists improve seismological and acoustic readings to predict future earthquakes. It was not explained why the US Department of Defence was involved.
The tragedies of Haiti and Gaza are compounded by mainstream media's exploitation of millions of innocent people in order to promote the US and Israel's masquerade as benevolent societies. Good works done by governments at odds with the US-Israeli agenda are ignored, maintaining contempt for the very people who should be praised. And once again, while the world's attention is elsewhere, Israel takes the opportunity to attack Palestinian lives and livelihoods, making a bleak existence even more unbearable.


Tammy Obeidallah is an Arab writer. For comments, write to opinion@khaleejtimes.com

International

Pakistan to take its own decision: FM
Dawn Online, Islamabad

Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi has said that Pakistan itself will take a decision in regards to expanding the military operation to the North Waziristan Agency in accordance with its timeframe, reports DawnNews.
Responding to a query on drone attacks, he said drone attacks helped expel the extremists from the area.
He also said that there is no harm in resolving the Afghanistan issue through negotiations with the Taliban and Pakistan is raring to play a role in this connection.
"Afghan President Hamid Karzai has requested Pakistan for help in this connection, for which Pakistan is ready to play its role," the Foreign Minister said.
Qureshi said that if the Taliban are prepared to quit weapons to work under the Afghan constitution, then there is no wrong in talking to them.
Qureshi also ruled out the likelihood of meeting with his Indian counterpart Krishna during the London Conference, as India is not displaying seriousness for the Composite Dialogue.
Meanwhile, Islamabad's ambassador in Washington in an interview on Thursday said "Pakistan would rather have the technical expertise with which it can combat militants on its border with Afghanistan than have the US fire missiles into Pakistani territory."
"The government of Pakistan has repeatedly said that it would like to have the capability to identify the targets on ground," Ambassador Hussain Haqqani told the National Public Radio (NPR).
Pakistan, he stressed, prefers to do everything on the Pakistani side of the border itself.
"And the reason is very simple: Our military is capable in certain areas, but we lack the technical expertise to fight in some areas and would like to be capable enough so we can fight for ourselves."
Pakistanis are committed to fighting militants on the Afghan border but it is unfair to characterise Pakistan as a base for Al-Qaeda-linked elements, since militants straddle both sides of the porous and challenging border, he clarified.
The radio noted that the Pakistani public opinion against US missile strikes by unmanned drones is high. Although the strikes have killed several top militant leaders, civilian casualties have also been claimed.
Haqqani said that the governments of US and Pakistan understand the need to deal with those who pose a threat to global peace and security, but called for understanding Islamabad's concerns on the sensitive issue of drone strikes.

  London conference to yield little result in disarming Taliban
Xinhua, Kabul

As the much-awaited international conference on Afghanistan opened in London Thursday, Afghans see little chance in achieving the goals set for at the forum attended by representatives of 70 nations and international organizations.
Security, good governance and development are the priorities that the war-weary Afghans need to move towards a prosperous state, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said in his remarks at the conference.
Karzai also said that the Afghan government is ready to negotiate with those Taliban fighters who have no link with the al- Qaida and other terrorist networks.
However, Afghans see little chance in bringing militants into mainstream of community and convincing them to lay down arms.
"Taliban would not accept any peace plan presented in London as the militants term the international troops deployed in Afghanistan as the occupying force," an Afghan analyst and former Taliban official Waheed Mughda told Xinhua.
Mughda also is of the view that the London conference would have little impact on regional cooperation in counter-insurgency as Iran, an immediate Afghanistan's neighbor, did not attend the forum. Hosted by Britain with an objective to muster international community's support to help Afghan government in fighting militancy, corruption and ensuring good governance, the participants at the conference are expected to establish a fund for encouraging Taliban to hand over their weapons.
To bolster the peace process with the Taliban, the United Nations a day earlier on Wednesday removed the names of five former Taliban leaders from the black list, including the ousted regime's foreign minister Wakil Ahmad Mutawakil who lives in Kabul.

  Indian home minister to visit Islamabad next month
Xinhua, Islamabad

Indian Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram will travel to Pakistan next month to attend a meeting of interior ministers of regional countries, Pakistani state TV channel reported on Friday.
It will be the first visit of any Indian minister to Pakistan since the Nov. 2008 Mumbai attacks, which had at least killed 173 people and wounding 308 others.
India had suspended talks after the Mumbai attacks, which was blamed on Pakistan-based militants group Lashkar-e-Taiba. The outfit had denied any involvement.
Chidambaram will represent his country in the meeting of ministers from the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). The forum groups Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
Analysts do not believe that Chidambaram's visit is likely to resume dialogue process but it may provide opportunity for bilateral exchange after the interaction of prime ministers of two countries at Egyptian city of Sharm el-Sheikh last year.
The ministerial meeting is scheduled from Feb. 20 for three days in Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan.
The last ministerial visit from India to Pakistan had taken place in May 2008 when then Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee had gone for talks as part of composite dialogue between the two countries. Things, however, worsened after the Mumbai terror attacks.
The third SAARC interior ministers' conference was postponed from Nov. 24-27, 2009 at the request of Bangladesh because of parliamentary polls in that country.

  Japanese PM says to deepen ties with US in policy address
Xinhua, Tokyo

Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama said on Friday that Japan will deepen its ties with the United States, despite an ongoing row over the future location of U.S. troops based in Okinawa.
In a policy address on behalf of the coalition government of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), Social Democratic Party (SDP) and People's New Party (PNP), Hatoyama reiterated his stance that ties with the United States were essential for Japan, and the entire of East Asia.
"The importance of the unwavering Japan-U.S. alliance will not only remain unchanged, but will also be an indispensable prerequisite for creating an East Asian community," Hatoyama said, adding that there would be no regional protectionism that left Washington out in the future.
Ties between the United States and Japan have cooled since the DPJ came to power because of the issue of what to do about a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) signed by the two nations in 2006. Japan has said it wants to reconsider the pact, and on Thursday said that U.S. forces would not be moved to the location agreed upon in 2006.
In his speech, Hatoyama also apologized for failing to correctly declare funds he received between 2005 and 2008. He did not mentioned an ongoing case involving an undeclared land purchase by DPJ Secretary-General Ichiro Ozawa.
The prime minister also used the speech to focus on a budget for fiscal 2010 of 92.3 trillion yen (about 1 trillion U.S. dollars) that he has claimed "will protect people's lives."
He promised that the budget for fiscal 2010 would include more spending on social welfare programs rather than public-works projects.

  DPRK fires artillery again near disputed sea border
Xinhua, Seoul

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) appears Friday to have fired about 20 artillery shells, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said.
South Korean military detected sounds of artillery fire around the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong near the disputed sea border called Northern Limit Line (NLL) off the west coast of the Korean peninsula, starting about 7:50 a.m. (2250 GMT) through 11:50 a.m. (0450 GMT), the JCS told Xinhua.
Friday's alleged shooting comes after the DPRK for the last two days fired artillery shells into waters north of the NLL, within the range of no-sail zones the country recently designated until Friday. The move is also defiant of South Korean military's warning Wednesday to stop "provocative" acts and cancel its designation of no-sail areas which South Korea said includes its waters.
Seoul's military has thus far shown muted response by firing warning shots into the air in response to the first round of shooting from the DPRK on Wednesday, but it is considering deploying artillery-locating radars and additional self-propelled howitzers in Baekryeong and Yeonpyeong Islands in the Yellow Sea, near the disputed maritime border, according to local media. The contentious sea border, a constant source of tension between the two Koreas where the latest naval skirmish took place in November last year, was fixed unilaterally by the U.S.-led United Nations Command after the 1950-1953 Korean War.
S Korea to deploy artillery-locating radars following DPRK's artillery firing(add)
Meanwhile, South Korea is considering deploying artillery-locating radars in South Korean islands in the wake of a series of artillery firings from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) into waters near the islands, local media reported Friday.
The military is pushing ahead with the plan to deploy artillery- locating radars in Baekryeong and Yeonpyeong Islands, near the disputed maritime border called Northern Limit Line (NLL), Yonhap News Agency said citing a meeting between Seoul's Defense Minister Kim Tae-young and members of defense committee at parliament.

  Sri Lankan police raid defeated candidate’s office
AP, Colombo, Sri Lanka

Police raided the office of Sri Lanka's defeated presidential candidate Sarath Fonseka and arrested 15 of its workers Friday, his lawyer said, after he disputed this week's election result and the government alleged he was planning a coup.
The government has also claimed that Fonseka, a former army chief and the opposition's main candidate in the vote, was planning to assassinate President Mahinda Rajapaksa.
Police commandos raided Fonseka's office in the capital Colombo, saying they were looking for army deserters, said Mano Ganeshan, an opposition lawmaker.
A government spokes-man confirmed the report, but did not give details. An Associated Press photographer saw members of the police Special Task Force deployed near the office. Fonseka was at his house elsewhere in Colombo at the time of the raid, Ganeshan said.
Fifteen ex-military personnel who worked at the office were detained, said Shiral Laktilaka, Fonseka's lawyer. Fonseka led the government's military offensive that defeated the Tamil Tigers in May, ending a 25-year separatist rebellion, but then resigned as army chief and joined the political opposition.
He was beaten in Tuesday's bitterly contested presidential poll by Rajapaksa, but has disputed the official result and plans to challenge it in court. On Thursday, he alleged the government stole more than 1 million of his votes during the tallying process.

  Malaysia charges three over Allah row church fires
BBC Online

Prosecutors in Malaysia have charged three Muslim men with firebombing a church in the capital, Kuala Lumpur, earlier this month.
They are the first suspects to appear in court in connection with a series of attacks on Christian places of worship.
The violence began when a High Court judge ruled that a Roman Catholic newspaper had the right to use the word Allah to refer to the Christian God. Up to 11 Christian churches have been attacked in the past three weeks. The men pleaded not guilty and were released on bail.
Fraught over faith
Malaysian police said they had arrested eight people for the first in a series of attacks that have highlighted religious and political divisions. Five were released but three men were charged with starting a fire that partially gutted a Protestant church on 8 January, said government lawyer Anselm Charles Fernandis.
The men, who are in their 20s, face a maximum prison sentence of up to 20 years if convicted of "mischief by fire" with the intention of destroying a place of worship.
The court did not immediately schedule a trial date. The attacks on churches followed a 31 December court ruling allowing non-Muslims to use the word "Allah" for God, which the government is appealing against. Vandalism has since spread spread to other houses of worship, including a Sikh temple and several Muslim prayer halls.
Earlier this week, bloodied pigs' heads were left in the compounds of two mosques.

 Imperialism to fail in seizing control of ME energy resources: Ahmadinejad

Xinhua, Tehran

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that imperialist powers are trying to seize control of the Middle East energy resources but they will fail, the local satellite Press TV reported.
Talking to a group of officials in Tehran, Ahmadinejad said Iran, together with other freedom-loving countries in the region, will never allow imperialism to succeed.
"They (imperialist powers) seek to dominate energy resources of the Middle East but the Iranian nation and other nations (in the region) will not allow them to be successful," he said. Ahmadinejad did not point out examples of the imperialist states but he has previously referred to certain Western countries which are seeking to claim their ever-presence in the region under the cover of fighting terrorism and solving problems of the region.
US Senate passes comprehensive sanction act on Iran
Meanwhile, the US Senate passed a comprehensive sanction act on Iran, in a fresh effort to pressure Tehran to give up its nuclear program.
The Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act, which was passed by voice vote, would expand certain provisions under the Iran Sanctions Act of 1996 and impose new economic sanctions on Iran. "The Iranian regime has engaged in serious human rights abuses against its own citizens, funded terrorist activity throughout the Middle East, and pursued illicit nuclear activities posing a serious threat to the security of the United States and our allies," said Democratic Senator Chris Dodd, who sponsored the act.

  Hamas vows retaliating killing of its leader by Israel
AP, Damascus, Syria

Hamas claimed on Friday that Israeli agents assassinated one of the Palestinian militant group's veteran operatives in a killing alle-gedly carried out last week in Dubai, and vowed to retaliate.
The militant group identified its slain figure as Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, one of the founders of Hamas' military wing that has been responsible for hundreds of deadly attacks and suicide bombings targeting Israelis since the 1980s. It said he was 50 years old.
Hamas blamed Israel for the slaying but gave no details on how al-Mabhouh was killed and no information on alleged Israeli involvement in the man's death. Israel's government had no immediate comment.
Izzat Rashaq, a top member of Hamas' exiled leadership in Damascus, told The Associated Press that details have not been released to avoid compromising an ongoing investigation, and that Hamas' delayed anno-uncement was linked to an attempt to "reach the Israeli agents who implemented this operation."
Al-Mabhouh lived in Syria and was passing through Dubai when he was killed late Jan. 19 or early Jan. 20, Rashaq said. Originally from the Gaza Strip, al-Mabhouh was married and had four children, he said.
Hamas militant buried after Dubai ‘assassination’
AFP adds: Thousands of mourners took part in the funeral in Damascus on Friday of a top militant of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas which accused Israel of having assassinated him.
The body of Mahmud Abdel Rauf al-Mabhuh, wrapped in a Hamas flag, was lowered into a grave at the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmuk on the outskirts of the Syrian capital, where he had been based.

  Blair denies ‘covert’ deal with Bush to invade Iraq
BBC Online

Tony Blair has denied striking a "covert" deal with then US President George Bush to invade Iraq at a private meeting in 2002 at his Crawford ranch.
Mr Blair said he had been "open" about what had been discussed - that Saddam Hussein had to be dealt with and "the method of doing that is open". He said he had told the US president: "We have to deal with his WMD and if that means regime change so be it."
Mr Blair is being questioned by the Iraq inquiry.
Earlier witnesses have suggested that Mr Blair told Mr Bush at their April 2002 meeting that the UK would join the Americans in a war with Iraq.
Mr Blair also denied he would have supported the invasion of Iraq even if he had thought Saddam Hussein did not possess weapons of mass destruction, as he appeared to suggest last year in a BBC interview. Removing Saddam was "always an option", it was only one of several options open to the US and UK, he said. "I did not use the words regime change in that interview," he said.
"The position was a breach of UN resolutions on WMD. That was the case. It was then and it remains."
Inquiry chairman Sir John Chilcot began the six hour question session by stressing that Mr Blair was not "on trial" but said the former prime minister could be recalled to give further evidence if necessary.
The former PM began the session by saying Britain's attitude towards the risk posed by Saddam Hussein "changed dramatically" after 11 September 2001.
The former PM said that the policy up to that point was one of "containment".
Mr Blair is facing questions in public for the first time about taking the UK to war against Iraq.

  Medicine running out at Haiti hospitals, clinics
AP, Port-Au-Prince, Haiti

Doctors and aid workers say treating the tens of thousands of Haitians injured by the earthquake is taxing the country's devastated hospitals - as well as the efforts of physicians from around the world who are providing emergency care.
Basic medical supplies such as antibiotics and painkillers are running dangerously low at some hospitals and clinics in Port-au-Prince, the capital, and in the countryside, alarming doctors who are struggling to keep up with demand.
Dr. Nancy Fleurancois, volunteering at the damaged hospital in the coastal town of Jacmel, told a visiting U.N. official Thursday that her team is treating 500 people a day - many for the first time since the Jan. 12 quake - and desperately needs antibiotics and surgical supplies.
"You see people come here and they are at death's door," said Fleurancois, a Haitian-American from Newark, Delaware. "More help is needed."
The doctor got to air her concerns to Anthony Banbury, deputy head of the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Haiti, during his tour of Jacmel, where more than 20,000 people are homeless.
Banbury said later he would try to resolve her shortages, but noted there is a "grave need" for medicine all over Haiti. Aid workers say the need for medicine generally falls third behind water and tents for shelter from the blistering tropical sun and looming rains.
The reason all three are not reaching people is the same: The need is so great and it's just not possible to get supplies into Haiti fast enough or distributed in a country with ruined infrastructure.

  US pressed to move 9/11 trial from New York
BBC Online

The US administration is considering moving the trial of the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks out of New York City, officials have said. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is due to be tried with four other suspects.
On Thursday Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he had asked the attorney general not to hold the trial in Manhattan, near the site of the attacks.
The mayor had strongly backed the trial but changed his mind this week citing cost and disruption.
Several other senior politicians including Governor David Paterson and both state senators have expressed opposition to or doubts about the proposal.
The suspects are currently being held in Guantanamo Bay, but will be moved as part of President Barack Obama's efforts to close the prison.
Some relatives of 9/11 victims say they oppose a federal court trial, and many Republicans in Congress favour military tribunals over civilian trials.
New York Congressman Peter King has introduced a bill to block Justice Department financing for federal court trials of Guantanamo detainees.
However, White House officials say Mr Obama remains committed to the civilian option.
'Too disruptive'
Last month officials said the trial would be held at a federal court in lower Manhattan, after announcing the move in November.
Mr Bloomberg initially said it would be fitting that the suspects should face trial near the site of the World Trade Center.
But on Thursday he called Attorney General Eric Holder to ask for the trial to be moved. Several lawmakers from around the country have made similar requests.
"There are places that would be less expensive for the taxpayers and less disruptive for New York City," he told journalists.

  Bin Laden blasts US for climate change
AP, Cairo

Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden has called for the world to boycott American goods and the U.S. dollar, blaming the United States and other industrialized countries for global warming, according to a new audiotape released Friday.
In the tape, broadcast in part on Al-Jazeera television, bin Laden warned of the dangers of climate change and says that the way to stop it is to bring "the wheels of the American economy" to a halt.
He blamed Western industrialized nations for hunger, desertification and floods across the globe, and called for "drastic solutions" to global warming, and "not solutions that partially reduce the effect of climate change."
Bin Laden has mentioned climate change and global warning in past messages, but the latest tape was his first dedicated to the topic.
The speech, which included almost no religious rhetoric, could be an attempt by the terror leader to give his message an appeal beyond Islamic militants.
The al-Qaida leader also targeted the U.S. economy in the recording, calling for a boycott of American products and an end to the dollar's domination as a world currency. "We should stop dealings with the dollar and get rid of it as soon as possible," he said. "I know that this has great consequences and grave ramifications, but it is the only means to liberate humanity from slavery and dependence on America."
He argued that such steps would also hamper Washington's war efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The new message, whose authenticity could not immediately be confirmed, comes after a bin Laden tape released last week in which he endorsed a failed attempt to blow up an American airliner on Christmas Day.

  INTERPOL calls for public-private partnerships against IT crime

Xinhua, Paris

Partnerships between public and private sectors are essential for effectively addr-essing evolving IT crimes and cybercrimes, International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) President Khoo Boon Hui has said.
According to an INTERPOL press release on Thursday, President Khoo said at a public safety symposium held in Redmond in America recently that transnational criminal groups and terrorist organizations have realized the potential of information and communication technology for furthering their agendas and some of them have used technology for leading propaganda campaigns, recruiting, fundraising, and even training.
Describing cyber-crime as a growing threat to societies, Khoo said criminals are not only operating in the physical world, but are also active in the virtual world, for example targeting national information infrastructures.
Meanwhile, with one out of every four people in the world having online access which provides a fertile hunting ground for criminals to ply their illegal trade, the president emphasized the importance to engage local law enforcement institutions, international counter-crime organizations and the public in joint efforts to effectively fight high-tech crimes and cybercrimes, saying it will be more effective than to rely on law enforcement departments alone.
Khoo also praised the cooperation between INTERPOL and Microsoft Corporation, in which the latter provided training to police officers against high-tech crimes, computer-facilitated crimes against children and violations.

Business/Economy

BD to export crocodile to Germany next month
BSS, Dhaka

Bangladesh is going to first-ever crocodile export next month as the country's lone croc farm has finally obtained permission from the concerned authorities to this end.
"Yes, we have finally got the permission from the Department of Forest(DoF) on January 21 that paved the way for our croc export as well as our anxiety," Mushtaq Ahmed, Managing Director and CEO of Reptile Farm Ltd (RFL), told BSS on Friday.
He added: "We have sought permission from the DoF to export 67 frozen crocodiles to Germany and import 10 live parent crocs from Malaysia on August 31, but after examining different aspects for about five months, the department at last gave permission." Mushtaq also said that their farm was ready to export crocodiles to Germany in December last, but it could not be possible as the DoF did not give green signal to them.
According to the agreement with the Heidelberg University of Germany, he said, their farm is going to export 67 frozen crocodiles ranging from nine inches to five feet in length to the university next month. "The university is importing the crocs for research purpose," Mushtaq said.He said that the maiden export of crocodiles from Bangladesh would fetch US Dollar one lakh, ushering in a hope of croc business in the country.
Mushtaq said the farm, situated at Hatiber village under Bhaluka upazila in Mymensingh district, has now 825 saltwater crocodiles (scientific name: crocodydylus porosus). Of them, 67 are big size (average length 14 feet) and the rest are small to medium size ( 9 inches to five feet), he added.After the end of the last year's breeding season (July- September), he said, 411 baby crocodiles were born at their farm, which was 240 in 2008 and 140 in 2007.
Narrating his experience in croc business, Mushtaq, a university graduate, said he had tasted different professions, including a job in the UNHCR, but could not settle anywhere. "I had been inquest of a profession something different and at last my choice landed in a commercial crocodile farm at Bhaluka, the first such one in the Southeast Asian region," he said.He along with Mesbahul Huq, a pharmacist, then set up the croc farm at Hatiber village on 15 acres of land.
While the project is Mushtaq's brainchild, it was Huq's investment that helped turn the dream into a reality. The two entrepreneurs were aided in their maiden venture with technical assistance from South Asian Enterprise Development Facility (SEDF) and with financial support from the equity and entrepreneur fund (EEF) unit of Bangladesh Bank. RFL also received assistance from Southeast Bank Ltd. The duo brought 75 reptiles ranging from 7 feet to 12 feet in lengths from Malaysia for commercial breeding of crocs at a cost of Taka 1.25 crore. Of them, eight died on the way to the farm established in October 2004. Mushtaq said they set up the farm with an aim to export over 5,000 pieces of crocodile skin annually and create a base for earning up to US$ 5 million by 2015.Different countries, including France, Germany, Italy and Spain, have shown keen interest in importing croc skins from their farm, he said, expressing hope that their farm would be able to export 500 croc skins by next two or three years.
He said there is a huge demand for croc skins, meat and bones in Europe, America and other developed countries like Australia, Japan, Singapore and China, and charcoal made from crocodile bones is indispensable to the global perfume industry. To meet this demand, he opined, more croc farms could be set up in Bangladesh.

 Financial crisis fuelled power shift to east
AFP, Davos, Switzerland

The global financial crisis has accelerated the shift in the balance of power from west to east, panelists at the Davos forum said Friday.
Hirotaka Takeuchi from Japan's Hitotsubashi University said it was "absolutely" this factor which had fuelled the trend.
"They are dead right. The key ground is Asia," he said, reacting to a poll by British broadcaster BBC which found that some 60 percent of those surveyed said the recent crisis has propelled the shift in power to the east.
"Japan's volume of trade with China has reached 48.5 percent. That's the reality and that's the future. If you include India, that's going to be the main playground for us," added the dean of the university's Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy.
Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch, said: "I do think that the economic trouble has led to the acceleration of the rise of the east, particularly China."
Gerard Lyons, who is chief economist of Standard Chartered bank, noted that the shift in the balance of power was "multifold."
"They are the countries with the financial resources-China, Qatar, they are the countries with resources, like South Africa. They are the countries that can adapt and change," he said.
However, the shift has prompted concerns.
Roth said: "I am worried about the political consequences. Will China be seen as the model of economic development (and) political liberalisation?"
It has also had an impact on the global job market.
"The jobs are in the east, the jobs are unfortunately not in the west, that's where the challenge is," said Lyons.
"The reality is that many people in the west are finding it hard to come to the terms to the fact that they are seeing a shift in power," he added.

  EU vows to keep stimulus measures as unemployment rises
AFP, Barcelona, Spain

EU employment ministers pledged on Friday to maintain economic stimulus measures as long as the jobless rate in the bloc, expected to surpass 10 percent this year, is on the rise.
Spanish Labour Minister Celestino Corbacho, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, said steps such as incentive programmes for new car purchases had helped firms to adjust to the "profound economic crisis" Europe is facing.
"We think they should disappear when the economy is strong enough to no longer need these incentives. There are signs of a recovery but it is still a weak recovery," he said at an informal gathering of EU employment ministers.
"As long as unemployment rises we think these measures should be maintained."
The unemployment rate in the EU was registered at 9.5 percent in November and the European Commission forecasts it will breach the 10 percent mark this year, with best-case projections predicting that 7.5 million jobs will be lost over 2009-2010 across the 27-nation bloc.
"With the degradation of our labour market we cannot allow ourselves to act brutally and too blindly to lift our (stimulus) measures," said Belgian Employment Minister Joelle Milquet.
EU member states have spent billions of euros to pull their economies out of recession, causing annual public deficits in many countries to breach a limit of 3.0 percent of gross domestic product imposed by the bloc.
Some economists warn that without the stimulus programmes, the tentative recovery will collapse, with consumers reluctant to spend due to fears of rising joblessness.
But amid mounting investor concern over the ability of member states such as Greece, Portugal and Spain to plug their ballooning public deficits, national governments are also under pressure to rein in their spending.
Europe's biggest business organisation backed the
continuation of the stimulus measures but said structural reforms
were needed to encourage labour activity and prevent long-term unemployment.
"We believe that if the right measures are taken, European economies can return to creating jobs in a short amount of time," Gerardo Diaz Ferran, vice president of the BusinessEurope employers' association, told the gathering in Barcelona.
Europe had the highest level of labour protection in the world and this must be "modernised" in order to boost job creation, he said.
Reducing labour costs, encouraging greater worker mobility to regions with more jobs and boosting training were among the other measures he recommended.
Speaking ahead of the start of the gathering, a senior official from the EU's main trade union confederation said Europe already had enough labour market flexibility.
"We have seen that the labour market was extremely flexible during the first months of the crisis. Over five million jobs were lost in Europe last year. We can clearly see that an extremely great flexibility exists," Joel Decaillon, secretary of the European Confederation of Unions, told AFP.

  Walton LCD TV sale rises at DITF
TBT Economy Desk

Selling of Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) television at Dhaka International Trade Fair (DITF), taking place at city's Sher-e-Banglanagar area, is on the rise as the fair is getting closer to its end. Hundreds of people are thronging to different pavilions everyday to buy LCD TV.
Walton, an electronic home appliance brand of RB Group, is the top seller of LCD TV at the fair. Three new model LCD Television are the new features of the company for which customer arc thronging to the pavilion.
Director of the RB Group Sirajul Islam said to meet the customer satisfaction, our company has launched three new model of Walton TV in the market to cater to consumers. Islam said the new model Walton TV sets ensure good quality and sound picture that viewers will enjoy.
The new model Walton TV has the sophisticated picture tube that also helps reduce electricity consumption and increase durability.
The price of TV set is most competitive as 42-inch set sells at 1,09,000 compared to 42-inch LCD television set sells at taka 250,000. The electricity consumption is also less compared to the television that uses 'tension mask'.
Earlier, an LCD TV was sold at Tk 32,000, and now it is sold at Tk 24,000. A brand of LCD TV whose previous worth was Tk 65,000 now being sold at Tk 44,900.
An LCD TV with big monitor is being sold at Tk 84,000 in lieu of previous rate of Tk 1,10000.
The eye-catching pavilion near the beautiful tower is also one of the reasons to attract the visitors. Mukta Zenifar, a housewife, who came at the fair from the city's Mohammadpur area opined that this year Walton pavilion had got a beautiful place at the fair ground. From the first day of DITF, people are thronging to Walton pavilion to buy Walton products, especially Walton brand LCD monitor TV. Sales of Walton products have increased significantly, and the company sees record sales this year.
Sales of LCD monitor TV has increased this year compared to the other previous fairs. Besides, under magic offer programme everyday customers are winning from 4 to 5 pieces of LCD TV, says a press release.

  Amid gloom US eyes bumper economic growth report
AFP, Washington

A keenly anticipated report on Friday is expected to show the US economy grew by more than four percent in the final months of 2009, as the world's largest economy struggled to its feet.
The US Commerce Department will publish a snap-shot of US gross domestic product (GDP), with the consensus forecast of a healthy 4.6-percent expansion in the October-December period, up sharply from 2.2 percent in the third quarter of 2009.
Some analysts see the rate at six percent or higher. But because of the way the government measures GDP, the overall figure will be skewed by a sharp growth in firms replenishing inventory that withered during the worst of the recession.
"Much of the strength at the end of 2009 stemmed from an inventory boost, growth that is not sustainable in the coming quarters," said Sara Kline at Moody's Economy.com, who expects a figure of 4.1 percent for the fourth quarter.
Economists say the key to a more sustainable pace of growth will be a rebound in consumer spending, which accounts for around two thirds of economic activity.
Many argue that when stock building is stripped out of GDP, the underlying pace of activity-which economists term real final sales-is closer to a rate of two to three percent. If that pace continues, economists say the expansion will be too weak to help bring down unemployment, currently at 10 percent. And because high unemployment often leads to consumer caution, spending could be weak, further imperiling a recovery.
"The combination of a weak job market and continued high levels of consumer loan delinquencies makes it hard to envision a lot of punch from consumers, without which it's hard to envision a lot of punch to economic growth," said Joseph Balestrino at Federated Investors.
There is also concern that President Barack Obama's efforts to rein in government spending may freeze a major catalyst for growth. Avery Shenfeld at CIBC World Markets said the US economy may struggle as the impact of low rates and heavy government spending fade.
"I think growth will be vigorous in the first half of the year but may surprise to the downside with as little as one percent expansion in the second half," he said.
For one thing, Shenfeld said, the housing market that triggered the economic meltdown is still weak and dependent on liquidity from the Federal Reserve and various other programs.

  Toyota recall highlights reliance on suppliers
AFP, Tokyo

They may have the Toyota badge, but a big chunk of each vehicle made by the Japanese giant-from screws to pedals and sometimes even the engine-are produced by a vast network of suppliers.
A safety recall by Toyota of 2.3 million vehicles due to a problem with accelerator pedals made by US firm CTS Corp. has highlighted the Japanese giant's growing dependency on components that are not made in its factories.
Toyota is famous for its close contacts with suppliers in Japan, where it effectively owns many parts makers, enabling engineers from both sides to be in constant communication over product development. But as it expanded its production aggressively overseas over the past decade, Toyota has turned to foreign suppliers with which it has looser ties. As a result, some experts say, its legendary quality may have suffered.
"Toyota is obsessed with cost-cutting, halving costs here and there. That has put a big burden on suppliers," said Zenjiro Imaoka, visiting professor of risk management at the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology.
"The pressure on suppliers in turn could damage quality control," said Imaoka, who has authored several books on supply management, including Toyota's famous "Just-in-time" inventory strategy.

  Obama export goals may be hard to achieve
AFP, Washington

President Barack Obama's aim of doubling US exports within five years is an ambitious goal that will be hard to achieve without a broad effort to bring down trade barriers, analysts say. Obama's initiative announced in his State of the Union speech would require sustained export growth of some 15 percent, which has not been achieved since the period of 1976-81. The United States is the world's third largest exporter, having lost the number one spot to Germany in the 1990s, with China expected to rank first in 2009.
US exports have been falling during the global economic crisis, although a weaker dollar has helped limit the losses. Overall exports for 2009 are likely to have dropped by at least 15 percent, with full-year data expected in early February. Still, Obama's effort drew praise from many business leaders. "The president's proposal to double US exports over the next five years and in turn create two million jobs will in part hinge on whether the United States can open new markets," said Bill Reinsch, president of the National Foreign Trade Council.
Reinsch said much will depend on "a successful outcome" to the Doha Round of global trade talks, and ratification of free-trade agreements (FTAs) with Colombia, Panama, South Korea and others.
The Doha Round of talks under the World Trade Organization has been stalled for years over differences among key trading blocs, with some blaming Washington for its stance.
Obama said the United States "will strengthen our trade relations in Asia and with key partners like South Korea, Panama, and Colombia" but did not explicitly call for Congress to ratify trade treaties with the three countries. US Trade Representative Ron Kirk said Thursday that the president seeks "to bring a close a seven-year effort to bring a new world trade enhancing model-the Doha Round" and supports "a more forward-looking initiative of ours in shaping and taking advantage of the opportunities that lie ahead with the incredible growth that's going to come in the Asia Pacific region-the Trans-Pacific Partnership." The Business Roundtable, a grouping of chief executives of major US corporations, welcomed what it called Obama's "proposals for increased international engagement." "We believe now is the time for Congress to pass the FTAs pending in Congress as a first step towards the enhanced international trade and investment that is essential to growing the US economy and creating more and better-paying jobs," the group said. But some analysts were skeptical.
"There are different ways you can stimulate exports, but what you cannot do is provide the domestic demand growth in your customer country to achieve that goal," said David Rosenberg, economist at Gluskin Sheff & Associates. "They can do it through tax breaks or subsidies for selected industries, for example, but that is protectionism and there are international trading rules that frown upon that sort of intervention."

  Reliance on market forces harmed the world’s poor
PTI, New Delhi

Over-reliance on the market forces to reduce poverty has hurt the world's poor, said the United Nations report on World Social Situation 2010.
"Over-reliance on the market forces and economic liberlisation have led ...to the detriment of the world's poor," said the UN report launched globally here Thursday.
The report titled 'Rethinking Poverty' makes a compelling case for a fresh approach to poverty and poverty-reduction efforts.
"The report basically highlights some of the major problems of poverty measurement... (as to) what has worked, what has not worked, in terms of reducing poverty," said UN assistant secretary-general with its department of economic and social affairs KS Jomo, while releasing the report here.
The governments need to play a developmental role, integrating economic and social policies that support inclusive output and employment growth, the report added. Jomo further said there is no evidence to support the belief that more flexible labour markets generated more jobs and thus reduced poverty. In fact, with more flexible labour markets, the basic wage went down, he said.
"The report states very clearly that you cannot leave poverty reduction for markets. Market forces have failed and will fail. In other words, they cannot deliver these. So, you have to have public intervention," said Jawaharlal Nehru University professor of economics Jayati Ghosh.
The JNU professor also said public intervention has a bad name for the last 20 years and all across there have been demands for downsizing the state. "You cannot downsize it. You have to expand the role of the state, but you have to make it accountable," Ghosh said.

  Global recovery fears hit Asian shares
AFP, Hong Kong

Fresh fears about the strength of the global recovery led Asian markets back to losing ways Friday, as weaker-than-expected US data combined with growing fears over sovereign debt.
The region took its cue from Europe and Wall Street, which fell hard overnight on disappointing technology sector results, US employment and manufacturing data, amid growing fears over Greece's debt problems.
Asian markets returned to the red after rallying Thursday, when markets saw a brief respite from a week of decline by the Federal Reserve's rosier outlook on the US economy and its indication that low interest rates would continue.
The confirmation of Fed chief Ben Bernanke to a second four-year term did little to improve the mood.
"The wobble in risk appetite seems to hint at resurfacing concern about the durability of the global recovery," Morgan Stanley currency analyst Yilin Nie told Dow Jones Newswires.
Australian shares slumped to their lowest level in two months, losing 2.22 percent on weak commodities leads driven by ebbing Chinese demand.
The benchmark S&P/ASX200 index dropped 103.7 points to 4,569.6.
Miner BHP Billiton fell 3.19 percent while Rio Tinto slipped 4.82 percent.
In Japan a 1.3 percent drop in consumer prices stoked deflationary concerns, overshadowing signs of recovery in the economy amid a pickup in factory output and a slight fall in unemployment.
Tokyo's Nikkei dived 2.08 percent, or 216.25 points, to 10,198.04.
Troubled Toyota Motor shed 1.96 percent after plunging 14 percent this week on fears its profits and vaunted safety record will be tarnished by huge recalls due to accelerator problems.
Hong Kong lost 234.48 points, or 1.15 percent, to end at 20,121.99. Banking giant HSBC fell 1.7 percent and China Mobile declined 1.1 percent.
US stocks slumped 1.13 percent overnight as the tech sector was hammered by a profit warning from chipmaker Qualcomm and economic jitters increased after cautious comments from Standard & Poor's on British banks. Weaker-than-expected US reports on weekly jobless insurance claims and orders for big ticket manufactured goods added to the cocktail of disappointment.

  Microsoft net profit hits record $6.66b
AFP, San Francisco

Microsoft said on Thursday that second-quarter net profit hit a record 6.66 billion dollars on unprecedented revenue driven by demand for the new Windows 7 operating system.
Microsoft reported that its revenue surged 14 percent to 19.02 billion dollars in the fiscal quarter that ended December 31. "We saw record revenue and record profit, driven by strong demand for Windows 7 and PCs (personal computers)," Microsoft chief financial officer Peter Klein said during a conference call with analysts.
The net income amounted to 74 cents per share of stock in a 57 percent jump from the same quarter a year earlier.
Microsoft said it has sold or licensed more than 60 million copies of Windows 7, which launched with Windows Server 2008 R2 software in late October.
Microsoft's new-generation Windows 7 operating system hit the ground running on October 22, with US sales in its opening days blasting past those of its Vista predecessor, according to NPD Group.
Pressure was on Microsoft for a Windows 7 success after the disappointment of its previous generation operating system Vista. Technology analysts and users overall praised Windows 7 as a significant improvement on the much-maligned Vista. While computer users may not give much thought to the operating systems that serve as the brains of their machines, they are at the heart of Microsoft's global software empire that runs more than 90 percent of the world's computers. Microsoft apparently learned a lesson from Vista and worked closely with computer makers, users and software developers while crafting Windows 7.
"What we are finding is people want Windows 7 on all devices in all form factors," Klein said.
Off-the-shelf sales of Windows 7 brought in about 500 million dollars in the quarter, trouncing a prediction Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer made when the software was released.

  WTO shares India’s concerns on protectionism
PTI, Davos

Sharing concerns of India and other developing countries, the WTO on Thursdaay said protectionism is major concern and expressed confidence that a deal on opening the world trade further is possible this year.
"We need to remain vigilant. With unemployment remaining high, protectionist pressures remain a worry," WTO Director General Pascal Lamy told PTI here. His comments incidentally coincide with US President Barak Obama's heightening the pitch to protect American jobs in the wake of employment losses due to outsourcing to developing countries such as India. Obama said it was time to end tax breaks to American firms that outsource jobs overseas, while helping those which create employment within the US. Lamy said the international trade body will continue to keep a close watch on protectionist measures that impede international free trade. "We at the WTO secretariat will continue monitoring these developments through 2010," he said.

  British banking system no longer ‘most stable’
AFP, London

Standard & Poor's no longer views Britain's banking system "among the most stable and low-risk" in the world, the international ratings agency said on Friday.
"We no longer classify the United Kingdom among the most stable and low- risk banking systems globally," S&P said in a report entitled 'Banking Industry Country Risk Assessment: United Kingdom.' "This is due to our view of the country's weak economic environment, the reputational damage we believe has been experienced by the banking industry, and what we see as the high dependence on state-support programs of a significant proportion of the industry."
S&P credit analyst Nigel Greenwood said the country's banking sector would be hampered by the weak economic outlook.
"In our opinion, the weak UK economy will continue to hinder the credit profile of the UK banking industry," Greenwood said.
"This reflects the sharp decline in economic output and our expectation that the unwinding of the high level of debt (of the government, households, and certain industrial segments) will weigh heavily on relative economic growth prospects and banks' financial performance."
S&P said such a situation "affects the profile of the UK banking system more than it influences the banking systems of most other major mature market economies in Europe and around the world, notably Canada, France, and Germany."

  Google row threatens China web evelopment
AFP, Beijing

The row between Google and China is damaging for the development of the Internet in the country and it would be a major blow to the world's biggest online market if the US firm were to leave, experts say.
Both sides have much to lose if the dispute over cyberattacks which Google said were launched from China and state censorship is not resolved, they say, while warning that finding the acceptable middle ground will not be easy.
"If Google does decide to withdraw from China, it will have a considerable negative impact on China's search engine market," currently dominated by home-grown provider Baidu, said Li Zhi, an analyst at Analysys International.
"Competition is the main driver for any market's healthy development," Li said.
Baidu's share of the search engine market stood at 58.4 percent in the fourth quarter of 2009, ahead of Google at 35.6 percent, according to figures from Analysys.
Ted Dean, managing director of telecom and technology consultancy firm BDA, agreed, saying "in any market, competition is a good thing."
"If you end up with one dominant player in the industry, the victim will be the Chinese consumer and innovation," he told AFP.
Google has threatened to abandon its Chinese-language search engine google.cn, and perhaps end all operations in the country, following the hack attacks it says targeted the email accounts of Chinese human rights activists.

National

BD must re-strengthen public buildings for tremor preparedness: Japanese experts

BSS, Dhaka, Jan 29

Japanese earthquake expert has said Bangladesh must have taken prompt steps to re-strengthen its all important public buildings including hospitals, fire stations and schools with seismic resistance amid emerging threat of devastating tremor.
"Bangladesh government must make an integrated earthquake preparedness programme giving priority to build seismic resistance establishments along with re-strengthening the old buildings," Senior Researcher of Japan based Asian Disaster Reduction Centre Makoto Fujieda told BSS at an exclusive interview in Kobe, Japan.
The internationally reputed earthquake expert said the Bangladesh government can appeal to the donor agencies as it is a challenge for country like Bangladesh to manage this huge amount of money for re-strengthening the buildings and other infrastructure, he said.Bangladesh government can make a proposal to the Japan government through Japan international Cooperation Agency (JICA) in this regard, he noted.After the Great Hansin earthquake in 1995 which caused 6,434 deaths and marked as one of the worse tremors in the recent years in Japan a holistic change was made in the earthquake preparedness in Japan, he said.
"In Japan, we have introduced an early warning system for earthquake," he said, adding "we have installed many seismic monitoring centres across Japan which can make an earthquake warning about 15 to 20 second before the jolt." The electric trains and oil and power campmates automatically shut down just after receiving the warning before at least 10 second of the jolt, he said.
"We have revised our standard of building construction after the earthquake and re-strengthened the public buildings, rail tracks and power lines," he said, adding "Actually it's a very difficult task as well as expensive to construct building with resistance of earthquake intensity of over seven on Richter scale." It is a must to adopt community approach in taking preparedness of earthquake and make the disaster preparedness drill as a daily routine of common people to reduce the losses, the earthquake researcher said. Earthquake preparedness drill is being conducted in every school in Japan since long and as a result all children in the country know how to act during the tremor, he said
Fujieda said people store emergency foods and water for at least two days in their houses and keep helmets, fire extinguishers and first aid boxes at every public building and other offices which have been made mandatory in Japan. Coordinator of Urban Transformation Directorate of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality Eray TAS, receiving disaster training in JICA Centre in Kobe said after the Marmara earthquake in Turkey in 1999 which claimed 15,000 lives, JICA had conducted a survey in Turkey to identify the vulnerable buildings.
"As per the survey, we have made an earthquake preparedness master plan and re-strengthened all public building with seismic resistance through soft loan of the World Bank and European Investment bank," he said.

  Use of high-quality seeds can raise crops production by 15-20 %

UNB, Dhaka

Use of high-quality seeds could increase the country's crops production by 15-20 percent, according to an agriculturalist.
"But the availability of high-quality seeds, the basic input for producing crops, is a major problem for the farmers across the country," said Md. Rezwanul Islam, a project director of Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE). He is currently in charge of a DAE project that aims to increase production of quality seeds to meet the demand of high-yielding seeds. The DAE took up the four-year project (July 2008-June 2012) to ensure production and distribution of high-quality seeds of aus, aman and boro rice, wheat and jute.
Talking to UNB, Rezwanul Islam said that considering the increasing demand of new high-yielding seeds among the farmers, the DAE holds regular demonstrations at the farmers' level in different areas as per their particular interests for seeds. He said they collect foundation seeds from the Bangla-desh Agriculture Development Corporation (BADC) and distribute those free of cost among the farmers. The farmers are also given special containers for preserving the seeds.
The DAE official said the local upazila agriculture offices in all the 64 districts select demonstration plots and impart training to selected farmers on how to make the best use of fertilizer and seeds. He informed that with the use of high-yielding seeds that raises production by 15-20 percent, farmers harvested 12-15 maunds of aman paddy per bigha, 20 maunds of boro paddy and 11-13 maunds of wheat.
Under the ongoing DAE project, the production target of aus seeds for the 2010-11 season is 2,000 metric tons against the countrywide demand of 15,000 metric tons, the aman seeds 30,600 tons against the demand of 90,350 tons and the boro seeds 35,235 tons against the demand of 85,250 metric tons. The target for wheat seeds is 13,600 metric tons against the demand of 69,000 tons while that of jute seeds is 95 tons against the demand of 4,020 tons.
Under the project, the DAE is providing the farmers with high-yielding seeds of BRRI-Dhan 28, 29, 33, 34, 36, 39 and 47, wheat seed varieties Protibha, Satabdi and Prodeep, and jute seed varieties 09897 and 072. Explaining the low production target for high-yielding jute seeds, which is just 2.4% of the country's total demand, DAE project director Rezwanul Islam said they are only working to increase the production of 'tosha' seeds. "The demand of 'deshi' jute seed is met locally, but around 2,000 metric tons
of 'tosha' seed are imported every year,"
he added.

   People suffer as money matters in land offices
UNB, Rajshahi

Common people suffer serious hassles as a section of officials at land and sub-registrar offices allegedly indulge in corruption and anomalies in the district, as also in other partsof the country.
People are subjected to such harassment when they go to get government services such as land registration, mutation, acquisition and leasing.
During fact-finding visit to different offices, it came to light that unscrupulous land officials first demand high amounts of speed money from commoners for providing services.
On refusal, they misbehave with the service-seekers and ask them to come any other day or say it will take a long time to get the work done on various excuses. Getting caught in the toils, hapless people have to negotiate underhand dealings.
People also have to pay many times the actual price of stamp, cartridge paper and deed copies.
"Local people are compelled to pay venal land officials for registration of land as corruption and lack of transparency and accountability reign in land administration," said one land officer at Durgapur land office, preferring not to be named.
Reports are rife from different parts of the country that many an assistant commissioner (AC) land, sub-registrar, tahsildar, deed-writer, kanungo and settlement officer indulge in malpractice.
The Durgapur officer, claiming him as an honest person, suggested updating database, land acquisition procedure and papers, and punitive measures against wrong information on land. He also suggested collection of all fees by pay order, opening registration book, fee book, receipt book, tip book and adequate supply of government forms.

   Display of art works abroad can enhance BD’s image
UNB, Dhaka

Display of quality art works abroad reflecting Bangla-desh's rich art and cultural heritage could be a good publicity and diplomacy to enhance the country's image.
Foreign envoys made the observation at the opening ceremony of the two-day printmaking workshop at Cosmos-Atelier71 in the city on Friday morning.
Foreign Secretary Mizarul Quayes opened the workshop along with South Korean Ambassador Suk-Bum Park and Swiss Ambassador Dr Urs Herren. CosmosAtelier71 Chairman Enayetullah Khan and renowned artist Kalidas Karmaker also spoke on the occasion.
Leading local and foreign artists were present at the opening ceremony.
Swiss Ambassador Dr. Urs Herren praised the works of Bangladeshi artists and observed that these pieces of art works could be exhibited abroad for good publicity and diplomacy for Bangladesh.
He said people abroad would be surprised seeing the dynamic art works demonstrating the rich culture of Bangladesh.
South Korean Ambassador Suk-Bum Park said he attended many artist gatherings and cultural programs in Bangladesh where he found that people here love works of art. He said Korea could be a partner of Bangladesh in sharing experience in the arts and cultural domain and further enrich each other's culture.
Opening the workshop, Foreign Secretary Mizarul Quayes praised private initiative to promote art and cultural heritage of Bangladesh alongside the government endeavours. He said it is important to take the country's rich art and cultural heritage to the outside world and make Bangladesh familiar with the people abroad.
The Foreign Secretary assured cooperation to the private initiatives to promote such activities further.

Sports

Bangladesh keen to beat Sri Lanka in hockey
TBT Report

Bangladesh hockey team seeks nothing but a win against Sri Lanka in its inaugural match in the 11th South Asian Games (SAG) at Moulana Bhasani National Hockey Stadium in Dhaka today.
The hockey competitions of the SAG start with the match between India and Nepal, beginning at 1pm, while Bangladesh is facing Sri Lanka in the second match at 3pm.
Bangladesh team has no injury scare and the players are in fine fettle, the Manager of Bangladesh hockey team Anvir Adil Khan said on Friday.
"There is a fine oneness among the players in the team and the boys are yearning to show their prowess against the Asian powerhouses. We've taken long preparations for the Games. We're hoping the players will excel to fare good results, putting behind the disappointment of the previous edition," Khan, the former Bangladesh international said. Bangladesh players will go into the today's match hoping nothing short of a win against the islanders, he added. "Last time we lost a bronze losing to the Lankans.
But this time we don't want to miss our target. Though we set a target to win a bronze in the Games, but it is not impossible for us to break into the top two," a confident Khan said. Bangladesh finished fourth in the last SAG in 2006 out of four contenders.

  Bangladesh expects better show from shooters
TBT Report

Bangladesh shooters are determined to put up an improved performance in the 11th South Asian Games (SAG). Bangladesh won two golds in shooting in the 2004 SAG in Islamabad, Pakistan but this time they are expecting to bring more laurels for the country.
Shooting in Bangladesh came to spotlight when Asif Hossain Khan clinched the 10m Air Rifles gold medal in Commonwealth Games in 2002 and repeated his success in South Asian Games in 2004.
But, after the double feats, Asif was going through a bad-patch and was dropped from Bangladesh's 2008 Beijing Olympic squad for poor performances.
He bounced back boldly to celebrate his return shooting his best score of 694.5 to bag the 10m air Rifles gold in Pakistan. Asif khan will be a key player in 10 m air rifle. Abdullah Hel Baki, who will team up with Asif and Shovan Chowdhury in the team's 10m air rifles in the SA Games, is also in a very good form.
Sharmin Akhtar, who won Bangladesh a gold medal at the 9th SAF Games has been kept on standby as Sharmin Akhter Ratna, Sadia Sultana and Tripti Datta are set to compete in both individual and team events of 10m air rifles. Gold-winning shooter of the Commonwealth Championship and 8th SAF games Sabrina sultana is expected to grab gold in 50m rifle prone.
Although Bangladesh won just two silvers in the last SAF games in Colombo, it hoped that the shooters will wipe out the shocking performance with success in this edition of the SA Games. If Bangladesh shooters do their job well and play to their potentials, shooting can be a goldmine for host Bangladesh.
Shooting Squad: 10m air rifles (women): Sharmin Akhter Ranta, Syeda Sadia Sultana, Tripti Datta and Sharmin Akter (reserved); 10m air rifle (men) Abdullah Hel Baki, Asif Hossain Khan, Shovon Chowdhury and Mahmudul Hasan (reserved); 25m pistol (women): Sinthia Nazneen, Mitti Dewan and Antara Islam; 25m pistol (men): Hafizur Rahman, Moksedur Rahman and Selim Azad; 50m rifle (men): Towfique Shahriar, Ramjan Ali and Abdullah Hel Baki; 50m rifle (women): Sabrina Sultana, Tripti Dutta and Sharmin Shilpa; 10m air pistol (women): Armin Asha, Sinthia Nazneen and Farhana Kawser; 10m air pistol (men): Hafizur Rahman, Moksedur Rahman and Selim Azad; 50m pistol (men): Nadimul Islam, Selim Azad and Hafizur Rahman; skeet (men): Iqbal Islam, Nuruddin Selim and Altamash Kabir.

  Afghanistan shocks India in men's football
TBT Report

Afghanistan scored a stunning 1-0 victory against gold favorite India in the men's football match in the 11th South Asian Games at MA Aziz Stadium in Chittagong on Friday.
Belal Arezou scored the only goal for the Afghans just two minutes before the interval. Indians tried hard to comeback into the game in the remainder. They created ample chances but did not find the equaliser.
Moirangthem scored a hattrick as India thrashed Sri Lanka 8-1 in the opening match of women's football match at Bir Shreshtha Shaheed Mustafa Kamal Stadium, Kamalapur in Dhaka. India dominated from the outset of the match and created more chances but managed to score two goals before the first half.
After the first half, India established a total domination over Sri Lanka and added more goals to seal a huge victory against the islanders. Sri Lanka scored its only goal from a free-kick.

  Inter piles on Juve agony
AFP, Rome

Mario Balotelli scored a last-gasp winner to help Inter Milan add to Juventus's misery on Thursday with a 2-1 comeback win at the San Siro that takes them into the semi-finals of the Italian Cup.
The forward, so often the target of racist abuse from Juve fans, thumped in the rebound of a Thiago Motta shot, one minute before the end after Lucio's 71st-minute goal had cancelled out Diego's early opener for the visitors.
Inter will face Fiorentina in a two-leg semi-final, the first of which will take place next week.
The match could be Ciro Ferrara's last in charge of Juve as Italian media say the club intend to sack him after a dreadful run of form.
Thursday's defeat leaves his side with little real chance of winning a trophy this season as they are already out of the Champions League and have dropped to sixth in Serie A, 16 points behind leaders Inter, after losing five of their last six league games.

   Egypt crushes eight-man Algeria
AFP, Benguela

Defending champion Egypt thrashed bitter rival Algeria 4-0 to reach the Africa Cup of Nations final on Thursday and stay on course for an unprecedented seventh title.
In a stormy semi-final clash, Algeria ended the game with just eight players as Egypt avenged their painful World Cup qualifying defeat against their North African rivals last November.
Victory also extended Egypt's unbeaten run in the championship to 18 games.
On Sunday, the Pharaohs will on Ghana, who pipped Nigeria 1-0 in the other semi-final.
Egypt took the lead in the 39th minute through a penalty by Hosni Abdrabou after Emad Motaeb was brought down by Rafik Halliche inside the box.
The big Algeria defender saw red for his second booking of the night.
Mohamed Zidan extended Egypt's lead in the 65th minute when he let fly from 15 metres beyond a diving goalkeeper Faouzi Chaouchi. Soon after Nadir Belhadj became the second Algerian player to be sent off after a vicious two-footed tackle on Ahmed Al-Muhammadi.
Substitute Mohamed Abdel Shafi put the game beyond the Desert Foxes of Algeria on 81 minutes when he found the back of the net from a very tight angle on the left.
Algeria's woes were compounded in the 86th minute when goalkeeper Chaouchi was also sent off after he launched a wild kick at a goal-bound Mohamed 'Gedo' Nagy. Supersub Nagy made it 4-0 in stoppage when he slammed the ball past replacement goalkeeper Lamine Zemmamouche. Egypt assistant coach, Shawki Gharib, said they deserved to reach their third consecutive Nations Cup final.
"We are a great team and deserved to be in the final again because we defeated three World Cup finalists (Nigeria, Ivory Coast and Algeria) to get there. We also scored 10 goals in three matches," he said.
Gharib dismissed suggestions that Benin referee Koffi Codjia decided the outcome of this much-anticipated clash. "Refereeing mistakes are part of the game and it is because of these mistakes that we are not going to the World Cup. We have suffered from mistakes by referees in the past," he argued.
However, Algeria coach, Rabah Saadane, blasted the referee's performance.
"The referee decided the outcome. There was a plan against us when he gave our best defender (Rafik Halliche) a red card for what was not a penalty," said Saadane.

  Williams sisters crowned doubles champions
AFP, Melbourne

Venus and Serena Williams coasted to their 11th Grand Slam doubles title on Friday when they beat top seeds Cara Black of Zimbabwe and American Liezel Huber to be crowned Australian Open champions.
The American pair won 6-4, 6-3 for their second successive Australian title and their fourth overall in an 86-minute victory over the 2007 winners. They also won here in 2001 and 2003.
Both pairs had almost identical winning records over the early rounds but the Williams sisters dominated the final, easing to a comfortable win.
However, the actual moment of the victory caught Venus by surprise, as she had not realised it was match point and was taken aback by Serena's sudden unbridled delight.
"I actually didn't know the score and I thought that it was 5-2," she said with a laugh. "I thought, she's really happy about this break.
"I thought, wow, I've never seen her this happy, but I'll go with it."
Serena, who plays Justine Henin in the singles final on Saturday, said their success as a doubles combination made them wish they had teamed up earlier.
"We were talking today about how we wished we had have played more when we were, you know, younger," she said.
"We still feel like we have so much we can win and just stay focused. We just love being out there and we love the competition.
"More than anything, we really have fun, we smile and we enjoy it."
The sisters are now the third most successful women's doubles partnership in the Open Era, after Martina Navratilova and Pam Shriver (21 Grand Slam titles), and Gigi Fernandez and Natasha Zvereva (14). They have now won four of the past six Grand Slam doubles titles.

  Pakistani fans demand cricket chief's sacking
AFP, Karachi

Furious Pakistani cricket fans Friday staged a protest and burnt bats and stumps after the team's defeats in the Test and one-day series in Australia, demanding the removal of the cricket chief.
Around 250 young cricketers from various academies in Karachi chanted slogans against the team and the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) during the hour-long protest under the banner of the "Save Pakistan cricket campaign."
The protesters chanted "Go, Butt, Go!", "President Zardari, save Pakistan cricket", and "Goodbye Pakistan cricket" as they burnt dozens of cricket bats, stumps and an effigy of PCB chairman Ijaz Butt.
Pakistan's national team were blanked 3-0 in the Test series and trail a five-match one-day series 4-0 on their dismal tour of Australia.
Amir Akram, chairman of the recently-formed campaign, said President Asif Ali Zardari must remove Butt, blaming him for destroying the game.
"Cricket is our love and the recent defeats have disheartened millions of fans across the country, so we demand President Asif Zardari to remove Butt, who is too old to run the board," Akram said of the 71-year-old PCB chairman.
Zardari is the patron of the PCB and appointed Butt in October 2008.
Butt has also come under pressure from the National Assembly's standing committee on sports, which has been demanding his removal since last year.

  Khulna Div registers second win in N. League
UNB, Dhaka

A six-wicket haul by Murad Khan guided Khulna Division to a 179-run victory over Barisal Division in a four-day match of the 11th National Cricket League at Khan Saheb Osman Ali Stadium at Fatullah Friday.
It was the second successive win for Khulna Division after a 49-run victory over Sylhet Division in the second round match. Chasing the victory target of 363, Barisal Division, resumed their second innings Friday with overnight score of 35 for no loss and were all out for 183 runs in 65 overs.
Tail-ender Sohag Gazi scored 34 runs while night watch opener Anhur Newaz Khan made 27 runs. Besides, Sajedul Islam (23), Fazle Rabbi (19) and another night watch batsman Shariar Nafees were the other notable contributors for Barisal Division.
Murad Khan did the major damage to Barisal Division grabbing six wickets for 64 runs while Syed Rusel captured two wickets for 34.
In the day's another match between Dhaka Division and Rajshahi Division were settled for a draw at the Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium in Chittagong.
Resuming the fourth day Friday with overnight score of 298 for 5, Dhaka Division declared their second innings at 440 for 9 in 144 overs, setting a 261-run winning target to Rajshahi Division.
Night watch batsman Suvagata Hom contributed 74 runs, while Mohammad Sharifullah added 56 and another night watch batsman Nadif Chowdhury added 41 runs. Delwar Hossain, who took three wickets Thursday, took another wicket today to finish his spell with 34-4-106-4, while Farhad Hossain who took one wicket on Thursday bagged another wicket today to finish his spell with 22-2-78-2.

  Piercy leads Farmers Open
AFP, California

American Scott Piercy, who attended nearby San Diego State university, fired an eight-under 64 Thursday to take the lead after the opening round of the PGA Farmers Insurance Open.
Piercy equalled his career low score and has a one-shot lead over a group of four golfers that includes Japan's Ryuji Imada at the Torrey Pines Golf Course.
Playing the North Course, he shot 29 on the front nine and finished with nine birdies and a bogey.
"Last year, I learned a lot," said Piercy, who missed the cut in his first two events this year. "I felt like I should've won two or three times."
American Phil Mickelson, who has strong family ties to the area, shot a respectable two-under 70 in his season debut.
"I was anxious to get the year started," Mickelson said. "I got off to a solid start. I am further along than year's past."
Mickelson, who won this event three times, needed 33 putts in an up and down day which included three bogeys and five birdies.
"The greens are fast and bumpy," said Mickelson. "Not because they're not in great shape. They're so soft that every step is leaving a bunch of impressions.
"I feel more ready to come out and shoot low scores than I ever have."
This is the third-consecutive year Mickelson has opened with a 70. In 2009 he finished in a tie for 42nd and two years ago he tied for sixth.
One of the most impressive rounds of the day was turned in by Australian Robert Allenby who shot a five-under 67.
Allenby was one of just three of the top 23 names on the leaderboard who played the more difficult South Course.
His round included five birdies and no bogeys and he hit 71 percent of his fairways.