SATURday, july 17, 2010 sraban 2, 1417, shaban 4, 1431 Hijri

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Leading News

All-party JS body to prepare draft of amendments to Constitution: PM

UNB, Dhaka

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Friday disclosed that an all-party committee will be formed within 2-4 days to prepare a draft of amendments to the constitution in the light of the Supreme Court verdict on the 5th amendment.
The committee will be formed during the current session of parliament, she said at a meeting of the Awami League Central Working Committee at Ganobhaban.
On February 2 this year, the Supreme Court dismissed two petitions contesting the High Court verdict that declared illegal the 5th constitution amendment.
On August 29 in 2005, the High Court division bench comprising Justice ABM Khairul Haque and Justice ATM Fazle Kabir delivered the landmark judgment, declaring "illegal" the regimes of Khandaker Mushtaque Ahmed, Abu Sada't Mohammad Sayem, and Maj Gen Ziaur Rahman since August 15, 1975 changeover till April 9, 1979. Addressing the ALCWC meeting, Hasina, also the president of Awami League, lamented that Bangladesh could not achieve its desired development, as democracy was not allowed to run uninterruptedly by the military rulers.
She said the killers of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and the military rulers had mutilated the Constitution to meet their evil designs.
"Now the constitution has to be amended in the light of the apex court verdict as the military dictators distorted the constitution after 1975," she said in her opening remarks at the meeting. The Prime Minister asked the Awami League leaders and
workers to give make their best efforts to further strengthen the foundation of democracy in the country.
"Our hard-earned democracy has to be given a strong foundation," she said, recalling the days that preceded the December 28, 2008 parliamentary elections.
Hasina said she was arrested without any warrant and later threatened her not to return home from abroad after the political changeover of 1/11. "They threatened me, put pressure on me to compromise with them, but I never stepped aside from my demand of holding parliamentary elections," she said.
Hasina said people through their massive mandate in the last general election have reposed a great responsibility on the present government.
"People have kept their confidence and trust on us. Now it is our duty to honor their confidence," she said and urged her party leaders to work hard to fulfill the people's aspirations. The Prime Minister expressed her optimism that the government will be able to gradually resolve all the problems facing the people. About the BDR mutiny, she said the trial of the BDR mutineers would be completed in a transparent way as the investigation has been completed fairly. Awami League's district level leaders also attended the meeting, which was arranged to review the party's organizational activities and the government's various activities.

 Space for HSC brilliants scanty in Public varsities
BSS, Dhaka

The country this year witnessed the passing out of record high number of brilliant students securing GPA-5 in HSC examinations, but the space in major public universities appeared scanty even to accommodate half of them. According to statistics, over 26,000 students this year secured the Grade Point Average (GPA)-5 but the number of seats for freshers in major public universities or specialized state- run education facilities were less then half of the figure.
Education officials said given their current facilities, the premier Dhaka University could offer the highest 5,000 seats for the freshers, the suburban Jahangirnagar University could enroll 1,350, the public medical colleges 2,500 and the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) 885. A total of 4,42,389 students passed HSC examinations this year and its equivalent examinations with the pass rate being 72.78 percent. "Students even getting GPA-5 may have to get admitted to second- choice universities as the number of seats in reputed public universities is very limited," former Dhaka University Vice Chancellor AK Azad Chowdhury told BSS.
Whereas, he said, most of the 1,800 National University affiliated colleges in the rural areas were unlikely to get sufficient students because many of them are not willing to study there because of their poorer education standards.
He, however, said that many of the HSC- passed students would not go for higher studies mainly due to their involvement in professional work, financial inability, marriage of girl students, uncertainty about future, taking active part in politics and a host of other factors. Renowned academic Professor Sirajul Islam Chowdhury said some reputed colleges should be upgraded into universities by providing required facilities. University Grants Commission (UGC) Chairman Professor Nazrul Islam acknowledged the undesirable situation but said plans were taken to increase number of seats in universities, in possible cases introducing "double or evening shifts" as the number of HSC passed students was rising every year.
"No doubt, time has come to take steps for this. But we have to maintain the quality of education. Otherwise, the purpose of higher education will be failed," said the chief of the regulatory body for the highest seats of learning. Only two new public universities were established in the last four years while HSC pass rate increased by around 13 percent during the period and the number of GPA-5 holders rose four times since 2005.
The 20-year UGC strategic plan for higher education for 2006- 2026 suggested establishment of at least 28 new universities in the country.

 Four BTMC mills to resume operation this month
10,000 people to be employed

UNB, Dhaka

Four mills under the state-owned Bangladesh Textile Mills Corporation (BTMC) will start production again from the end of the current month on "service charge basis" that is expected to create job opportunities for some 10,000 people.
The four mills are Sundarban Textile Mills in Satkhira (main unit and Nilkamol unit), Amin Textile Mills in Chittagong, Darwani Textile Mills in Syedpur and Kurigram Textile Mills, said a source at the BTMC.
The process of evaluation for floating tenders to award the mills has already been completed. The source further said that at present, there are some 24 units of 20 mills under the control of BTMC, of which three mills are currently in operation.
Of the three mills, Bhalika Woolen Mills in Chittagong is run on rental basis while Rajshahi Textile Mills and Bengal Textile Mills on service charge basis.
"Some 6,000 people are now employed in the three mills. Other BTMC mills can be made operative if the private entrepreneurs come forward on service charge basis," said a senior official of the Corporation. Talking to UNB, he said that new textile mills were set under the BTMC after 1975 in Kurigram, Magura, Nilphamari and Rangpur to generate employment locally. "But now it seems that it would be difficult for the Corporation to restart operation in its various mills, which went out of operation due to various reasons - loan liabilities and old machineries."
He said that the BTMC put forward a proposal to the Jute and Textile Ministry in May this year to handover such inoperative mills through lease, but the proposal was not approved. After the 1990s, the BTMC mills fell under unfair competition with the mills set up in the private sector having latest technology. It is expected that if the existing problems can be addressed, the BTMC could play an important role in meeting the domestic demand as well as the demand of the export-oriented RMG sector and thus create employment opportunities for around 25,000 people.
According to the BTMC official, the major problem of BTMC mills is decrease of production capacity as the machineries became too old and dilapidated with the passage of time.

    Padma Bridge construction to begin in January next
BSS, Dhaka

Communications Minister Syed Abul Hossain Friday said the construction of much-awaited Padma Bridge would begin in January next year.
It would be possible to give the work order for construction of Padma Bridge within the current year, he hoped while talking to journalists during a visit to the Naodoba site of the bridge in Jajira to see the 'boring' activities to measure earthquake tolerance.
The minister said the list of pre-qualified contractors for construction of Padma Bridge would be sent to World Bank for approval on Monday.
The bid documents would be given after the approval of World Bank, he added. Syed Abul Hossain said Padma Bridge would be a 'rail ready bridge' as there will be railways on the bridge. The construction of the bridge will start in January 2011 and end in 2013, he said and hoped that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will open the bridge to traffic.
Officials of Kiso-Jiban Consultants Company Limited, engaged in the 'boring' activities, informed the communications minister that they are working to make Padma Bridge tolerant to earthquake measuring 8 on the Richter scale.
They said they are boring 80 to 150 metres deep into the Padma river and its banks to collect soil and sand which would be sent to Japan for test. Abul Hossain said the design of the bridge is being prepared keeping in mind that it can withstand 8 magnitude tremor. He said Padma Bridge would have rail connectivity with Khulna, Mongla and Barisal. Asian Development Bank (ADB) has expressed eagerness to give financial assistance in this regard. Acting Secretary of Bridge Division M Mosharraf Hossain Bhuiyan said a meeting of expert panel would be held in Hong Kong on July 27-28 to finalize the design of Padma Bridge. Experts from Bangladesh, Japan, the Netherlands, Australia and Canada will take part in the meeting.

    Bangladeshi workers killed in hotel fire in Iraq
Reuters, Iraq

A fire at a hotel in the northern Iraqi city of Sulaimaniya, possibly triggered by a gas leak, killed 30 people, including foreigners, and injured at least 22 others, police said on Friday.
A security official said the fire in Iraq's relatively stable and violence-free Kurdish region was not a terrorist act and the cause was under investigation. The fire broke out late on Thursday in a restaurant on the ground floor of the Soma hotel in the center of the city and raged out of control for several hours, officials said. Among those killed were Bangladeshi hotel workers and a Briton, an American, a Canadian, a Japanese, a Pole, an Ecuadorean and an Australian, a police source said. The source said some worked for Asiacell, an Iraqi mobile phone operator in which Qatar Telecommunications Co (Qtel) has a 30 percent stake. Another police official said a Chinese citizen also was among the dead.
Iraq's minority Kurds were oppressed by Arab dictator Saddam Hussein but have enjoyed virtual independence under Western protection since the 1991 end of the first Gulf War. As the rest of Iraq descended into sectarian warfare and a raging insurgency after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, Iraqi Kurdistan's relative stability has drawn foreign investors, principally from Turkey and the Middle East.

    Attempt to foil drive against unfit vehicles
TBT Report

There is an alleged attempt by a section of transport owners to foil the ongoing DMP drive against the old, faulty and unfit vehicles plying the roads of the capital.
As part of this ill-designed move, the Shyampur main road was blocked on Friday disrupting the traffic movement there for more than an hour.
Earlier, road blocks were put up and a number of vehicles were vandalized on Thursday on Dhaka Ariha road in protest against the drive against the unfit vehicles.
It may be pointed out that the drive launched from Thursday is aimed at improving the city's nagging traffic situation and stop frequent road accidents.
Fifteen mobile courts comprising members of police and Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA), each headed by an executive magistrate, are conducting the drive against buses and minibuses older than 20 years and trucks older than 25 years.

Back Page

Tk 60 crore plan for job creation, modernizing BITAC
BSS, Dhaka

The Ministry of Industries has drawn up three fresh projects for creating employment opportunities and modernizing Bangladesh Industrial Technical Assistance Centre (BITAC), industries ministry sources said.
The projects-Self Employment and Poverty Alleviation (SEPA), Modernization of BITAC, and Establishment of BITAC Bogra Centre-will be implemented during the next five years.
The BITAC, an autonomous body had been providing various training on diverse trades aimed at turning the huge manpower into skilled and productive workforce.
Under the SEPA project, some 10,000 poor people mostly women would be imparted vocational training to meet the growing demand for skilled manpower in industry sector both at home and abroad.
Dr Ihsanul Karim, Project Director of DEPA told BSS that the trades include light machine tools, RMG maintenance, general welding (refrigerator and air- conditioning), plastic processing, household appliance maintenance and other disciplines.
He said the main objective of the project is to develop practical technical skill of the workforce to help bolster the growth of SME sector and contribute to the industrialization process in the country.
Dr Karim, also an additional director of BITAC, said the women trainees would be given three-month training on nine trades while one-month on three trades for male.
Upon successful completion of the training, each women batch will be given with training kit in consistent with the training course designed for every batch, said the Project Director.
Bangladesh now meets 73 percent of its total demand for spare parts by importing although there is an opportunity to produce those locally.
The annual requirement for spare parts in the country is Taka 1,860 crore, of which Taka 1,360 crore worth parts are imported and the remaining is being produced locally, according to a research conducted by Micro Industries Development Assistance and Services (MIDAS).

  Dhaka hosts regional meet on Intellectual Property July 19-20

UNB, Dhaka

A two-day Regional Conference on Intellectual Property (IP) for the policymakers of 15 least developed countries (LDCs) in the Asia and Pacific region begins in Dhaka on July 19 aiming at policy formulation and finalization of implementation strategies.
Ministry of Industries, Bangladesh will arrange the conference in cooperation with World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). For the first time, Bangladesh will be the part of such a big international conference, which is considered a big achievement.
Three members from each of the 15 countries, including host Bangladesh, consisting of a minister, a lawmaker and a top government official will take part in the conference.
Other participating countries are Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar, Maldives, Afghanistan, Yemen, Cambodia, Kiribati, Samoa, Vanuatu, Solomon Island, Tuvalu, Laos and East Timur.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is expected to formally inaugurate the conference at Sonargaon Hotel in the city Monday morning.
A total of 14 themes have been selected for discussion in the two-day conference.
Some of the vital themes of the conference are Integrating Intellectual Property into National Development Policy and Strategies; IP and Public Policy Issues; IP and Public Health: Policy and Strategies for LDCs; Strategic Importance of Transfer of Technology; Copyright and Related Rights: Striking the Balance between Protection and Public Interest; Protection and Exploration of Traditional Knowledge and Folklores; Contribution to Sustainable Development in the LDCs; and Cooperation for Building IP Institutions in LCDs.
Foreign Minister Dr Dipu Moni, Industries Minister Dilip Barua and State Minister for Cultural Affairs Promod Mankin are likely to preside over the sessions.
Industries Ministry sources said Bangladesh would get realistic ideas through the conference on how traditional knowledge, genetic resources, folklore and traditional cultural expressions can be incorporated in country's development and economic growth.

   50% disabled children sexually abused in Bangladesh
UNB, Dhaka

Nearly 50 per cent of country's disabled children reportedly fall victims of sexual abuse with 91.1 per cent of them by their family members or close relatives, according to a recent study.
The study also confirmed that some 38.38 percent of the disabled children were sexually abused in absence of knowledge about body language.
Bangladesh Protibondhi Foundation (BPF) and Save the Children Sweden-Denmark jointly conducted the study that showed the barbaric scenario about the condition of disabled children in Bangladesh.
During the six-month long study from October 2009 to March 2010, the parents of 216 disabled children (aged 7-18) were interviewed in six divisional headquarters - Dhaka, Chittagong, Rajshahi, Barisal, Khulna and Sylhet - categorizing the disabled children as intellectually impaired, visually impaired, hearing impaired and physically impaired.
The researchers also collected data from some 535 adult disabled people, their family members, teachers and NGO workers.
The study reveals that most of the sexual offenders were male. Even teachers and therapists were found to be guilty in many cases. Of the victims of sexual abuse, 52 per cent were girls and 48 per cent boys - aged between 7 and 18 years.
According to the study, the rate of sexual abuse is even worse in case of mentally disabled children (intellectually impaired) due to their inability to express themselves or understanding the intention of the offender.
The study recommends increasing self-protection ability of the children with disability as well as making the concept of sexual abuse clear through specially designed counseling.
It also recommended counseling for the family members on how to better handle the issue and undertaking capacity building programmes for the NGO workers to address the problem.
Senior Researcher Dr Selim Chowdhury told UNB that parents of the victims are not willing to go for legal action as the disabled children cannot express them properly.

    3 killed, 29 injured in road accidents
UNB, Dhaka

Three people were killed and 29 others injured in separate road accidents in Naogaon, Bogra and Gazipur on Thursday and Friday.
In Naogaon, two motorcycle riders were killed and two others were injured in a collision between two motorcycles at Chakhariballav village on Mahadevpur-Nozipur road in Mahadevpur upazila at 11:45am Friday.
The deceased were identified as Ahsan Habib Bullet, 25, son of Altaf Hossain at Ankhirapara village in Mahadevpur upazila, and Monju, 45, of Nodhuni village in Patnitala upazila.
Of the injured, Sabuj Khan, 20, was admitted to Mahadevpur upazila health complex and Arifur Rahman to a clinic at Nozipur.
Bogra Correspondent said: Hafizur Rahman, 20, a motorcyclist, was killed and two other co-riders were injured when a potato laden truck hit the motorcycle from behind at Chonka bazaar in Sherpur upazila on Thursday.
Two injured Rubel Ahmed, 28, and Mamun, 18, were admitted to Shahid Zia Medical College Hospital in Bogra.
In Gazipur: At least 25 passengers were injured in a head on collision between two buses at Porabari bazaar in sadar upazila on Friday. Of the injured, five-Tazila, 5, Hasuni Begum, 35, Amena Khatun, 35, Amena, 35, and Rakib, 25, were admitted to Sadar hospital.

    Call for ban on Jamaat, Shibir politics
BSS, Dhaka

Speakers at a roundtable on Friday called upon the government to ban the politics of Jamaat-e-Islami and its student front Islami Chhatra Shibir to stop the politics of 'communalism and killing'.
Demanding immediate beginning of the trial of war criminals, they also said time has come to take final a decision to ban the politics of Jamaat-Shibir who are doing politics of killing in the name of democratic rights.
Shamprodaikota Jongibad Birodhi Mancha (SJBM) organised the roundtable on 'national unity for trial of war criminals' at the Liberation War Museum in Dhaka.
Deputy Speaker in Parliament M Shawkat Ali attended the roundtable as the chief guest while Sector Commanders' Forum General Secretary Lt Col (retd) Harun-or-Rashid and Prof Syed Anwar Hossain of Dhaka University as the special guests. Coordinator of SJBM Ajoy Roy chaired the roundtable.
Shawkat Ali called for national unity to ensure the trial of war criminals, saying there is no major headway in this regard to date. "We must conduct the trial as the people have given us mandate for that," he said.
He said the government is going ahead with the issue very carefully which might seem to be slow. "The campaign to build public opinion in favour of trying war criminals must continue," said the Deputy Speaker.
Harun-or-Rashid urged the authorities concerned to complete the trail process remaining above any controversy.
The SCF secretary general said the 1971 war criminals who already got established in business and politics are trying to mount pressure on the government both nationally and internationally to bar it from holding the trial.
"A national consensus is a must in this regard," said Prof Anwar giving some instances of India and Britain in resolving their national issues.
He termed it a big challenge for the Awami League-led grand alliance government as it was their election pledge.
Among others, Presidium member of Gonoforum Pankaj Bhattacharya and Member-Secretary of SJBM Dr Noor Mohammad Talukder also addressed the meeting.

     Red Crescent collects information from families of 15 BD prisoners in Jammu

BSS, Habiganj

An investigation team of Bangladesh Red Crescent Society has collected necessary information from the houses of 15 people, who are detained in a prison in Jammu, India, for making arrangements of their release.
The investigation team led by Deputy Director of Bangladesh Red Crescent Society and Head of the Investigation Department Monwar Sarker visited different areas of Habiganj district and collected letters, pictures and other information from the families of 15 Bangladeshi prisoners Other members of the team are investigation officer of Red Cross International Committee Shirin Sultana and officials of Habiganj Red Crescent.
The Red Crescent Investigation Team told BSS that the letters and pictures will be sent by post to the prisoners. The investigation team also collected certificates from union parishad for releasing of the detainees.
During the visit, the investigation team has got information about 20 people of the district, who are missing. Monwar Sarker said the Red Crescent will work to find out the missing people. The Red Crescent sources said the main objectives of the investigation team is to establish a link between expatriate people and their family members and find out the missing expatriates.

Editorial

Looming admission crisis

A serious crisis is likely to creep up over the admission of the students, who have passed the HSC, Alim and HSC in Business Management examinations this year, to higher educational institutions due to shortage of seats in degree colleges, medical colleges and different private and public universities. Besides the universities, an alarming situation is likely to arise in the premier colleges in cities where many brilliant students are unlikely to get admission due to shortage of seats.
According to the BANBAIS, there are about 3 lac seats for the students in the country's degree colleges, medical colleges and public and private universities. The number of students who have passed HSC and equivalent examinations this year from ten education boards is 5,33,369 including 28,671 GPA-5 holders. Thus the number of successful students this year exceeds the seats by over two lakh. Worse still, about five thousand GPA-5 holders are likely to be deprived of entrance to the university of their choice as 28,671 students have secured GPA-5 while the number of seats in the public universities is 24 thousands. However, there is scope for admission of 2410 students to Medical Colleges. There are only 1,86,000 seats in the honours classes of the colleges under the National University. As a result, many of the successful students will not be able to get admitted to the colleges affiliated to the National University.
On the other hand, there is another problem relating to admission to the universities in the cities specially Dhaka. Most of the brilliant students who fared well in the examination are interested in getting themselves admitted to the reputed universities in the capital and other cities. But the number of seats there is too small to accommodate them all. So, hundreds of meritorious students including GPA-5 holders are sure to be deprived of the opportunity of admission to the institutions of their choice. In the capital, there will be a heavy rush of brilliant students from all over the country for admission to reputed universities like Dhaka University, BUET, Dhaka Medical College and Salimullah Medical College. For this situation, students and their guardians face an uncertain future in respect of admission to premier institutions of higher education.
In short, a serious uncertainty looms large over the future educational career of many students who came out successful in this year's Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) and equivalent examinations as adequate number of seats are not available there in the educational institutions at the higher level to accommodate them. It is really painful to learn that thousands of this year's successful HSC level examinees may be deprived of entrance to universities and colleges due to shortage of seats there. They may have to face this unfortunate reality for no fault of their own.
The grim reality is that many students who have passed HSC level examinations this year face an uncertain situation in respect of admission to institutions of higher education. This sort of problem arises every year but unfortunately nothing tangible is done by the authorities to resolve the crisis. It is really painful to learn that a large number of this year's successful HSC level examinees may be deprived of entrance to higher level educational institutions due to shortage of seats there.
If the students want to pursue higher education, it is the state's moral obligation to make the arrangements. As this is a chronic problem, the government should set up more educational institutions at higher level and until that can be done double shifts can be introduced in the existing educational institutions to accommodate enhanced number of students there. The present government has decided to establish three public universities. In this way some more educational institutions may be set up to ease the crisis permanently. Meanwhile, the colleges having honours courses and the public and private universities should increase immediately the number of their seats to accommodate more students.

 National Health Policy

The Nations is expected to get soon the long-awaited National Health Policy. The Parliament was told Thursday that National Health Policy 2010 will be finalized very soon and it will determine whether private practice by government physicians will be allowed to continue. Replying to a question Health Minister Dr AFM Ruhal Haque said the draft of the National Health Policy 2010 was formulated by a committee through a workshop after reviewing the opinions received from various institutions concerned and individuals. The draft health policy was already presented through a press conference, he informed. The Health Minister said that later subject-based workshops and workshops participated by representatives of various professional organizations and institutions were held. He said the present government soon after taking office has taken the initiative to formulate the national health policy and prepared a primary draft through organizing workshops at district and divisional levels.
In fact the work on the finalisation of the National Health Policy proceeded at a snail's pace due to administrative complications and opposition from the stakeholders. The present government has prepared a draft health policy in June 2009, but it was alleged that the draft was prepared without consulting professional bodies in the sector and that most of its contents were reportedly taken from the previous draft policy prepared in 2008 by the caretaker government. Experts stressed on finalising it after consultation with the stakeholders, professionals and members of civil society to make it pro-people. They alleged that it was drafted to encourage privatisation and thus commercialise the health services in the country.
The health sector of the country is in a mess and as a result public health is neglected alarmingly. In fact, it is an irony of fate of the people that the country's health sector itself is suffering from acute diseases and so unable to provide necessary services for the people. The infrastructure of the health sector is not strong enough to face the challenge of time and meet the growing needs of the huge population. Now, the health policy should take all these into consider and ensure adequate health services for the people.

Analysis

Post-US Afghanistan

There is only one unfolding scenario for the next two weeks: town after town falls to half-organised Taliban troops as they sweep across the land, with fiercest fighting taking place in the north. But then what?.

Dr Muzaffar Iqbal

Imagine the following scenario: the US-led NATO forces pull out of Afghanistan, though not as chaotically as Russians did, and certainly without admitting defeat. The most likely situation will be that they just install a new Afghan government of some kind, make a lot of fuss about helping Afghans, claim that now Afghans are ready to govern their own country, even claim the high moral ground of honouring their promise of not occupying Afghanistan, but depart, nevertheless. Then what?
There is only one unfolding scenario for the next two weeks: town after town falls to half-organised Taliban troops as they sweep across the land, with fiercest fighting taking place in the north. But then what?
The next scene is not clear, ground situation is not as straightforward, but still, one has to pierce through the cloud to explore various possibilities. But before doing so, one must secure the premise: are the US-led NATO forces really going to pull out and if yes, under what conditions?
It has been said over and over that Afghanistan is a country no one has been able to occupy; this is a historically proven fact, even though the political and military leadership of the United States acts as if it is beyond the constraints of several centuries of human history. Another factor is simple math: for how long can the US economy sustain a drain of five billion dollars a month? Obviously not forever.
Furthermore, every single coffin that goes back to the Unites States, Canada, the UK, Germany, or any of the other western countries, sends shock waves across the population. For how can any government -- facing its next round of public scrutiny at the next general election -- ignore these shock waves? Obviously not forever.
In addition to the above, the fact that the US aggression in Afghanistan has already surpassed the timeline set by Vietnam, which tested the ability of the US forces and economy to its limit, suggests that every new day that sees US forces in Afghanistan is now readily overtaxing its entire system.
Thus, President Obama, like all his partners in war, would need to seriously think through the modus operandi of a pull-out, if not by next July, then certainly before July 2012, when he gears up for his re-election. That leaves hardly enough time for working out post-US scenarios for all involved, especially the next door neighbour, Pakistan. But is Pakistani leadership ready for this? What are the questions which must be asked by Pakistanis?
Let us not pretend to know answers, but does Pakistani leadership even know the questions? Are there people in the army, in the Foreign Office, and in any of the political parties who are even capable of framing possible scenarios which will emerge in the post-US Afghanistan? The answer is obvious.
Thus, it becomes clear that Pakistan will deal with the post-US Afghan situation as haphazardly as it dealt with the situation during the long years of US occupation of that rugged land to the north. But would that be of any help in a drastically changed scenario in which the Taliban are not going to be content with operating across the so-called Durand Line, but would certain attempt to secure strategic cross-border areas in order to survive in Kabul?
Whether or not Pakistani leadership thinks through possible strategies, one thing is certain: the destiny of Pakistan is now irrevocably intertwined with that of Afghanistan. No matter what happens next, Pakistan will not be able to leave its neighbour to the north. There is a certain historical compulsion in this changed scenario, already predicted at the poetic level by Iqbal. That, however, is a topic for another quantum note. For now, let us just list the questions which need to be addressed by Pakistani leadership at the military and political levels:
1. What would be the role of Pakistani military during the massive pull-out of hardware and war machinery from Afghanistan? Assuming that it will be an orderly pull-out, and the NATO army will just fly out of its basis in Afghanistan, one cannot assume that they will spend millions, if not billions, of dollars on taking back their heavy armoured vehicles and other machines.
2. Assuming that a "US-friendly" government is installed, just like in Iraq, and the reigns of the country are handed over to this puppet regime (which may or may not include the present puppets), what would Pakistan do to secure its interests in the short-term, before the waves of the Taliban sweep across Afghanistan, and what would Pakistan do in the aftermath of the Taliban success?
3. What if the post-US era turns out to be that of another civil war in Afghanistan with the Taliban on the one hand and a US-supported regime (which will be internationally accepted) on the other hand locked in struggle to survive or perish? What would Pakistan do in such a situation?
4. Given that Pakistani military and political setup has not been able to secure its own cities from Afghanistan-related violence, what will Pakistan do to prevent the spillage of Afghan civil war into its own territory?
These are some of the questions which need to be urgently and openly debated at the national level. Had there been a functional parliament, one would have hoped that those who have been elected to take care of the nation's affairs would be already at it. In the absence of a functional parliament, there could be think tanks and political parties discussing these issues. But alas, there is little hope there as well. So, by default, the only possibility is Pakistan will have its knee-jerk reactions when the time comes and it will all depend on who holds the reigns at the point in time. Thus, those who are thinking ahead will try to have their men in place by then and if the present dispensation is willing to do their bidding, then they will keep it in place.


The writer is a freelance columnist. Email: quantumnotes@gmail.com

  Friends with Uncle Sam?

What particularly irked the Americans was the Indian applause for a much smaller shipment of the Soviet wheat that had arrived much earlier.

Inder Malhotra

Many of us still have hurtful memories of the mid-'60s when, after two successive years of savage drought, India desperately needed American wheat under the US Public Law 480 on rupee payment - and at relatively low prices because the country had no foreign exchange to buy food in the world market. Indira Gandhi had just become prime minister and chose to go to Washington on an official visit.
Lyndon Johnson gave her a gushing welcome and responded to the food problem confronting her effusively, promising as many as 10 million tons of PL480 wheat. However, at an early stage the transaction turned sour.
Infuriated by India's criticism of US bombings of Hanoi and Haiphong in the course of the Vietnam War, the irascible Texan put food shipments on such a tight leash that India literally lived from ship to mouth.
With every morsel we swallowed a little humiliation. When told that the Indians were saying exactly the same thing as the UN Secretary-General and the Pope were, Johnson had retorted: "The Pope and the Secretary-General do not need our wheat."
Many in India started demanding that we should say no to American wheat. Sensibly, Indira Gandhi said nothing. Privately, she told some confidants: "If food imports stop, these ladies and gentlemen won't suffer. Only the poor would starve."
All this was, in several ways, a replay of the dismal drama over the first US wheat loan to this country that had unfolded a decade and half earlier and generated much ill-will. Since few remember what came to pass then, the story is worth telling.
In 1949 the Indian food situation was as difficult as in the '60s and the foreign exchange position even worse. In November that year Nehru made his first visit to the US amidst a tremendous welcome. During his talks with Harry Truman he did mention the scarcity of food in India.
Truman's response was positive. But there were bureaucratic obstructions, resistance in the US Congress, procedural delays and other difficulties, including the American attempt to barter wheat for strategic materials.
There could therefore be no agreement even though there was a glut of wheat in America. India said that the US was "ungracious" and "stingy". What annoyed New Delhi the most was that the US had tried to use food aid as a "policy lever".
For their part, American officials complained that the Indian government had not "followed up" on Nehru's vague request to Truman. This, however, was not the end of the story.
By the summer of 1950, the Indian food situation had deteriorated. This time around the government conveyed to Washington India's requirement in clear terms. Nehru's sister, Vijayalakshmi Pandit, then ambassador to the US, handed the formal request for 2 million tons of wheat aid to the secretary of state, Dean Acheson. Truman was cautious, however, and sent an aide to the Capitol Hill to sound out Congressional opinion.
Senate foreign relations committee chairman Tom Connally told the luckless official: "You will have one hell ?of a time getting this thing through Congress." As Truman knew, there were reasons for India's unpopularity with many Congressmen. These included India's policy of nonalignment, its friendly relations with China, its peace-making role in Korea and American legislators' astonishing ignorance concerning India. Nevertheless, Truman decided to send the food aid legislation to Congress. He enlisted the former Republican president Herbert Hoover's support for the Bill. Even so, resistance to the measure was stiff. More obdurate than the Senate was the House of Representatives, which, at one stage, postponed the consideration of the issue.
What kind of pride and prejudice this country was up against is best illustrated by an interview Vijayalashmi Pandit had with Sam Rayburn, Speaker of the House and a legendary figure on the Hill at that time, from which she returned in a towering rage.
It had gone something like this: "Why don't you buy wheat from Pakistan which has wheat in surplus? The only reason you don't is because Hindu India wants to do down Muslim Pakistan," Rayburn said to the ambassador. She tried to control her temper as best she could and said testily that India was not Hindu India, and that it had "more Muslims than Muslim Pakistan."
Rayburn: "Oh, you have Muslims in India! Honey, why didn't you say so earlier?"
Ambassador: "Sam, I have been saying this for two years, ever since I came here, but you don't hear and you don't understand." Whereupon Rayburn's tone suddenly changed, and he said: "No, no, now that I know, now you will have no trouble. If they give you any more trouble, honey, you just tell me." (Source: B.K. Nehru, then minister for economic affairs at the Indian embassy in Washington.)
This, combined with carping criticism and foot-dragging by the US Congress, annoyed Nehru so much that he burst out: "We would be unworthy of the high responsibilities with which we have been charged if we bartered our country's self-respect or freedom of action, even for something we need badly."
Unsurprisingly, the opponents of the Food Aid Bill in Washington were miffed. Some days later the prime minister spoke of food aid in positive terms. He also declared that India would prefer the wheat as a loan not as a gift.
US Congressional nerves thus soothed, the India Emergency Food Aid Bill to loan India two million tons of wheat worth $190 million was eventually passed. On June 15, 1951 President Truman signed it into law, with Vijayalakshmi Pandit sitting by his side while everyone else stood.
However, when the American wheat arrived on Indian shores, the US did not get any thanks or public relations dividend. There had been too much acrimony and bad blood during Congressional hearings. Nehru thought it necessary to explain that despite the "best efforts" of the US administration, "there has been a feeling of resentment in India regarding the long delays and obstructionist tactics of some in the American Congress".
What particularly irked the Americans was the Indian applause for a much smaller shipment of the Soviet wheat that had arrived much earlier.

Inder Malhotra is a veteran Indian journalist and political commentator©Indian Express

Viewpoints

A squandered opportunity

When the United States continues backing autocrats, against the will of their people, then Washington loses much of its
leverage to demand reform from other regimes like Iran and Syria.

Mohamad Bazzi

When he took office, US President Barack Obama made it a priority to restore US credibility after the damage done by his predecessor. Obama pledged to revamp America's relationship with the Arab and Muslim worlds, raising hopes for a dramatic change in US policy.
Unfortunately, his administration's actions have fallen well short of his eloquent words. People in the Middle East are accustomed to soaring rhetoric that leads nowhere. There's a useful term for it: haki fadi-empty talk.
More than a year after his much-celebrated speech in Cairo, Obama is dangerously close to being full of haki fadi. He has failed to deliver on a crucial ambition: advancing democracy and human rights in the Arab world.
While Obama rejected the notion that Islam and democracy are incompatible, his administration has chosen to pursue regional stability at the expense of democratic reform. The administration is especially reluctant to disrupt its alliances with the region's many authoritarian rulers, hoping that these autocrats can help broker an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement after decades of failure.
Obama said all the right things about democracy promotion in his Cairo speech. "America does not presume to know what is best for everyone, just as we would not presume to pick the outcome of a peaceful election," he said. "But I do have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn't steal from the people; the freedom to live as you choose."
Yet Obama chose to deliver this message in Egypt. President Hosni Mubarak has been in power since 1981 under emergency laws that allow the regime to imprison dissidents without charge or trial, and to stifle peaceful political activity. As a strategic ally of Washington, Egypt receives nearly $1.8 billion a year in US assistance, making it the second-highest beneficiary of American foreign aid after Israel (excluding US spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan).
In May, Egypt extended the state of emergency for another two years. In 2005, it had promised to replace the emergency statutes with specific anti-terrorism laws. After the latest extension, the US State Department tepidly declared that it was "disappointed."
The Obama administration inherited a decades-old US policy of supporting autocratic regimes in exchange for political acquiescence. Many governments in the region rely on vast secret police agencies to keep them in power, using the "war on terror" as a cover to silence any opposition. These regimes put on a veneer of stability for the West, but in reality their political systems are weak, corrupt and calcified.
It is these contradictions between US rhetoric and actions that lead people in the Middle East to distrust the United States and spin conspiracy theories about its motives.
When the United States continues backing autocrats, against the will of their people, then Washington loses much of its leverage to demand reform from other regimes like Iran and Syria.
Washington fears that supporting reform in the region would bring Islamist groups to power. Without any democratic space for popular-based political movements to emerge, Islamists like the Muslim Brotherhood have the greatest influence through their social service networks. These well-organised groups would likely win any free balloting-so the autocratic rulers have a convenient bogeyman to avoid elections.
But democracy is not just about voting. It is a slow process of promoting individual rights and building up civil society, a free press, an independent judiciary and other state institutions. These efforts take time and they make a far less glamorous photo-op than a quick election.
Since Obama's Cairo speech, his administration has remained remarkably quiet on democracy promotion and has been reluctant to criticise US allies. The administration has also blocked threats from members of Congress to link future US aid to democratic reform or improvements in Egypt's human rights record. The president and his aides regard these policies as political realism. People in the region see them as yet another example of the United States favouring expediency over real change.
It is not too late for Obama to change course. Egypt has two important elections coming up: a parliamentary vote in November and a presidential ballot a year later. The US administration must insist that the regime allow free and open elections, where opposition groups are able to field candidates without intimidation or the threat of arrest.
Obama has a tremendous capacity to elicit empathy. He has an opportunity to fundamentally change the Arab world's perception of America. If he can make the United States a more sympathetic power-a country that sticks up for the little guy and does not tolerate repression-that will better serve American interests and security in the long run. But the last thing the Middle East needs is more empty talk.


Mohamad Bazzi is an adjunct senior fellow for Middle East studies at the US Council on Foreign Relations

  Obama is sitting on his hands

Must we all wait until the election in November? But then what will Palestinians do if he loses?.
 
George S. Hishmeh

The lovefest celebrated in Washington for all to see when Barack Obama welcomed Benjamin Netanyahu recently was markedly different from their contentious, behind-closed-doors meeting in April. But judging from the early assessments, it is not certain that their relationship will bear fruit in the near future.
For one, the American and Israeli leaders are both hoping that their get-together will serve their political ambitions at home. Obama, whose approval rating has lately dropped markedly, will in the next four months face crucial midterm elections, when Americans elect a new House of Representatives and a third of the Senate, now controlled by his Democratic Party. He apparently fears that his stance on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict may affect the voting; it certainly is giving the Republican Party and its Jewish supporters ammunition to try and cripple Obama.
Netanyahu is also hopeful that mending his relationship with the American leader will improve his standing at home, following the international condemnation of Israel's bloody attack on the recent Gaza-bound Freedom Flotilla. More importantly, many Israelis fear that the Israeli prime minister's heretofore poor relationship with Washington may affect upcoming Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiations.
The Obama-Netanyahu meeting occurred as two Arab-American journalists of American, if not international, renown received a shameless and vicious lashing from some of their colleagues and the discredited pro-Israel lobby. Helen Thomas, the doyenne of the White House press corps, and Octavia Nasr, Middle East senior editor at CNN, were castigated by the Israeli lobby and their supporters within the media for their supposedly "inappropriate" comments, which were, respectively, critical of Israeli colonists and approving of a revered Muslim cleric aligned to Hezbollah.
What Thomas said offhandedly was that the Israelis in the Occupied Territories should go back to wherever they had come from. In answering a follow-up question, she suggested they could go back to Europe, America and elsewhere. Nasr, a Lebanese Christian, tweeted that she admired Grand Ayatollah Syed Mohammad Hussain Fadlallah for his stance in defence of Arab women's rights. Consequently, the 89-year-old Thomas quit her journalism career and Nasr was fired by CNN - a harsh decision. (Nasr might feel vindicated on learning that British Ambassador to Lebanon Frances Guy had equally eulogised the ayatollah on her blog as "a decent man", but she was not disciplined by her government for her remarks - they were only removed from her site.)
Hypocritical reaction
Those who went after Thomas and Nasr failed to recall, to cite but one example of many, that Golda Meir, the late Israeli prime minister, once declared, "there is no such thing as Palestinians". If that was not an "inappropriate" remark, what is? Anyway, she was never taken to task.
Hardly a week passed between Netanyahu being praised by Obama for his readiness to take "risks for peace" and his government demolishing three Arab houses in occupied East Jerusalem - an action that is bound to infuriate Palestinians, including Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who recently said there was no point in resuming direct talks with the Israelis under current circumstances. Even Haaretz, the Israeli daily, acknowledged that this Israel action in occupied East Jerusalem has "effectively end[ed] an unofficial freeze of such internationally-condemned demolitions".
Obama may be walking a thin line, but he should not miss the point that Israel is nowadays facing increasing criticism from the American Jewish community and others over its deplorable actions. This should embolden him to take crucial steps towards resolving this 62-year-old conflict.
For example, the World Zionist Organisation is slowly being dismantled "and nobody seems to care", writes J.J. Goldberg, editorial director of the American Jewish newspaper The Forward. In a lead story, The New York Times last week revealed that in violation of US laws "at least 40 American [evangelical and Jewish] groups ... have collected more than $200 million [Dh735.6 million] in tax-deductible gifts for Jewish [colonies] in the West Bank and [occupied] East Jerusalem over the last decade".
After a visit to Israel and the Occupied Territories, the Times' columnist Nicholas D. Kristof writes, "Israel goes out of its way to display its ugliest side to the world by tearing down Palestinian homes or allowing rapacious [colonists] to steal Palestinian land". In another column, he stresses that "the [Israeli] occupation is morally repugnant" and goes on to quote an Israeli human-rights activist who pointed out an Israeli colony "that looks like an American suburb". Of the fowl kept there, he said: "Those chickens get more electricity and water than all the Palestinians round here".
How can Obama close his eyes while Netanyahu proceeds with his two-faced policies? Must we all wait until the election in November? But then what will Palestinians do if he loses?

George Hishmeh is a Washington-based columnist. He can be contacted at ghishmeh@gulfnews.com

 The price of truth in Anglo-America

Two main issues come to mind. The first is about the true commitment of the US and UK to the principles of freedom of speech and press.

Rami G. Khouri

Two fascinating yet troubling incidents took place in the past week related to American and British public figures - a British ambassador and an American journalist - who had their fingers burned for acknowledging the deep respect that the late Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, the Lebanese Shiite Muslim religious figure, enjoyed throughout Lebanon and the Islamic world.
The British ambassador to Lebanon, Frances Guy, said Sunday she regretted "any offence" caused by a blog post two days earlier in which she had praised Fadlallah for being a man of spiritual and intellectual depth. She had written: "When you visited him you could be sure of a real debate, a respectful argument and you knew you would leave his presence feeling a better person."
That gesture reflected both the best of her own character as a decent human being and her professionalism as a diplomat whose job is to know the society where she is posted, with all its nuances.
The convergence of those two qualities, it seems, may have been too much for the British government. The Foreign Office quickly removed her original comments, saying that she had expressed her personal views that clashed with official policy. It also noted: "While we welcomed his progressive views on women's rights and interfaith dialogue, we also had profound disagreements - especially over his statements advocating attacks on Israel."
Guy's latest blog Sunday included her expression of regret for offending anyone. She explained correctly that the original blog "was my personal attempt to offer some reflections of a figure who while controversial was also highly influential in Lebanon's history and who offered spiritual guidance to many Muslims in need."
Fadlallah's death also created problems for Lebanon-born Octavia Nasr, senior editor with CNN television and a long-time analyst of the Arab world for that company. She was fired last week after sending out a personal tweet praising Fadlallah as "one of Hizbollah's giants I respect a lot".
After losing her job for expressing a personal opinion that also happened to be an honest one (if slightly inaccurate, as he was not formally a Hizbollah man), Nasr later said of her original statement via Twitter that, "it was an error of judgement for me to write such a simplistic comment and I'm sorry because it conveyed that I supported Fadlallah's life's work. That's not the case at all".
What do we learn from these incidents?
Two main issues come to mind. The first is about the true commitment of the US and UK to the principles of freedom of speech and press. If knowledgeable people like Guy and Nasr get punished, humiliated or merely slapped on the wrist for making sincere personal statements about important public issues, then why should anyone take seriously the American and British governments and their armies that come to our region regularly to promote democracy and freedom of speech and press?
Do the US and UK governments want us to act as free men and women in everything except when the issue touches Israeli sensitivities?
The second is about nuanced analysis and assessment of Arab societies and leaders, including, in this case, a man like Fadlallah who elicited enormous respect but also angered many in Israel and the West for supporting military resistance to the Israeli occupation of south Lebanon.
Instead of seeing him in black and white only, it is more sensible to acknowledge his many prevalent humanistic qualities while also disagreeing with aspects of his worldview - as the two women hinted at in their subsequent statements. But, again, this seems forbidden when the matter includes active opposition to Israeli policies.
We see here once again the failure of the prevailing Israeli-driven Anglo-American view that anyone who opposes or actively fights Israel is discounted and boycotted as a terrorist. No other aspect of one's life, values or actions can be examined or acknowledged; we exist only insofar as we acquiesce to Israeli demands.
This is not only an enormous tragedy and waste in terms of perpetuating the destruction caused by the Arab-Israeli conflict, it is also a massive dagger in the heart of Anglo-American-Israeli rhetoric about their respect for democracy, and their desire to promote personal and political freedoms in our region.
Every time an American or British government official speaks to us about facing truth and reality, we will recall these two minor incidents and ask them when they plan to break free from the hysteria, hypocrisy and political blackmail that still define so many aspects of Anglo-American-Israeli relations.
We in the Middle East are used to this sort of racist intellectual terrorism. American and British citizens who occasionally dare to speak accurately about the Middle East and its people are still learning about the full price of the truth when Israeli interests are in the room.

International

Pakistan accuses India of limiting talks
AFP, Islamabad

Pakistan on Friday accused India of limiting a rapprochement process by refusing to discuss some of the thorniest issues that separate the bitter nuclear-armed rivals.
"They were narrowing down the talks, which was simply not acceptable to Pakistan," Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi told reporters in Islamabad one day after extended meetings with his Indian counterpart.
The discussions between Qureshi and India's S.M.Krishna were the third high-level contact in a six-month thaw, which the United States has encouraged as a means of boosting regional stability given the war in Afghanistan.
India and Pakistan agreed to meet again and found common ground on terrorism, but the talks did not yield confidence-building measures as a means to restarting peace talks broken off by India after the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
Instead talks were overshadowed by accusations from India's home secretary G.K. Pillai that Pakistan's powerful intelligence agency controlled and coordinated the Mumbai carnage that left 166 people dead.
"We wanted that our discussions should lead to a roadmap but Indians felt they did not have the mandate to commit to it," Qureshi said. "The issues between the two countries are complex and if you expect these issues not to be on the table and want dialogue to proceed... this will be difficult," he added.
Qureshi claimed Pakistan had certain proposals to "restore confidence and bridge the trust deficit" as part of the rapprochement process with India.
"India should realise that a forward movement in the dialogue process is in the interest of the two countries," he added.
Relations between the two countries, which have fought three wars since the subcontinent was divided in 1947, have been plagued by border and resource disputes, and accusations of Pakistani militant activity against India.
India and Pakistan have fought two wars over the disputed Kashmir region and Kashmiri militants have been fighting New Delhi's rule for two decades in an insurgency that has claimed tens of thousands of lives.

   Curfew reimposed in Indian Kashmir
AFP, Srinagar

Indian security forces reimposed a strict curfew in Kashmir's main city Friday after a decision to ease restrictions for the first time in five days led to huge street protests.
The clampdown was briefly lifted on Thursday and thousands took to the streets of Kashmir's summer capital Srinigar to denounce the Indian security forces, who are accused of killing Kashmiris during recent protests against Indian rule.
Police vehicles fitted with loud-hailers announced late Thursday the re-imposition of the curfew, warning residents not to venture out of their homes. A curfew was also clamped on Handwara and Baramulla in the north and on Gandherbal town in the east to thwart a planned separatist march to Srinagar, police said.
The Muslim-majority Himalayan region has been wracked by demonstrations since June 11 after Indian police and paramilitary forces were accused of killing 15 civilians -- many of them teenagers -- in less than a month.
As violence spread, local authorities slapped stringent curfews on most of the region, arrested activists and ordered the army onto the streets of Srinagar. India and Pakistan each hold part of Kashmir but claim it in full.
Meanwhile, an Indian army major and two soldiers were injured Friday in an ongoing gunbattle with heavily armed militants in the Mendhar area of southern Poonch district, an army spokesman said.
They were the latest casualties in a fight that has been raging since late Tuesday. It has also left an army major and two militants dead and six soldiers injured, including a colonel, who was the commanding officer. In the same district, the Indian army accused Pakistani troops of violating a ceasefire along the Line of Control, the demarcation that splits Kashmir between India and Pakistan.
An anti-India insurgency in the part ruled by New Delhi has claimed an estimated 47,000 lives.

  Pakistan market bomb kills 10
AFP, Peshawar

A bomb blast ripped through a busy car market in Pakistan's infamous tribal district of Khyber on Friday, killing 10 civilians including children, officials said.
The explosion rocked Kuki Khel town in Khyber, on the NATO supply route into Afghanistan and part of Pakistan's tribal belt that Washington considers an Al-Qaeda headquarters and the most dangerous region on Earth.
"Ten people have been killed, there were three children among the dead. Fourteen people were wounded in the blast," Khyber district senior official Shafeerullah Khan told AFP.
The timed device was planted in a ditch in a crowded market where people buy and sell second-hand cars, he said.
Two intelligence officials also confirmed the death toll saying three shops and four cars were destroyed. Officials described the area as a stronghold of Lashkar-e-Islam, a homegrown militant group that has carried out Islamist vigilante-style campaigns, kidnappings, shootings and attacks in Khyber. The group has been the target of Pakistani military operations.
Bombs and attacks blamed on Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked militants have killed more than 3,560 people across nuclear-armed Pakistan since government troops besieged a radical mosque in Islamabad in July 2007.
Much of the violence has been concentrated in northwest Pakistan and the border areas with Afghanistan, where around 143,000 US and NATO troops are battling to turn around a nine-year war against Taliban insurgents. Pakistan army chief of staff General Ashfaq Kayani on Friday expressed "satisfaction" over operations against militants in the tribal belt. "He regretted the loss of precious lives in the recent terrorist attacks and reiterated the need to continue efforts to remove the menace of terrorism from the country," an army statement quoted him as telling corps commanders.
On Thursday, a suicide bomber targeted a military convoy, killing five people in the Swat valley where the army put down a Taliban uprising last year.
It was the deadliest attack in the district since February and underscored that militants still pose a threat in the region despite a major military operation to re-capture a valley paralysed by the Taliban.

  Germany’s Merkel urges China to open up markets
AFP, Beijing

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday prodded China to ease access to its markets, as the world's top two exporting nations signed a series of deals reportedly worth several billion dollars.
After meeting Premier Wen Jiabao and overseeing the signing of the agreements covering trade, energy and culture, Merkel said she had emphasised German wishes for greater openness in the world's third-largest economy.
"Chinese companies, like those of many other countries, enjoy very good access to the German market. We hope that German enterprises can enjoy the same access to the Chinese market," she told reporters.
Trade between the export powerhouses has grown rapidly -- to 91 billion dollars last year, up from 41 billion dollars in 2001, according to Chinese data.
However, in the past few years, the trade balance has tipped decisively in China's favour, with Chinese exports to Germany tota-lling 55 billion dollars last year, while trade in the other direction amounted to 36 billion dollars.
"Neither Germany nor China pursues a trade imbalance," Wen said during a joint press conference after their talks.
"We hope that trade can be balanced and orderly."
China overtook Germany last year to become the world's top exporter, with some 1.2 trillion dollars in merchandise exported, according to World Trade Organization figures. Germany exported 1.12 trillion dollars of goods in 2009.
Merkel also said China still had not satisfied all the requirements for attaining market economy status in the eyes of Europe, a designation expected to lessen the occurrence of trade actions being taken against China.

  US urges quick end to Thai state of emergency
AFP, Bangkok

A senior US envoy urged Thailand Friday to lift a state of emergency imposed in parts of the country since April in response to mass street protests "as soon as possible".
William Burns, the State Department's number three, questioned whether the country could resolve its political problems while freedom of expression is restricted. But, in remarks to reporters and university students, he stressed Thailand should find its own way out of the crisis, reiterating US calls for a peaceful, democratic solution and "genuine reconciliation and tolerance."
Ninety people, mostly civilians, were killed and nearly 1,900 were injured in violence sparked by the anti-government Red Shirts' two-month-long rally, which ended with a bloody army crackdown in May.
The emergency powers -- enabling authorities to detain suspects without charge for up to 30 days and close anti-government media -- were extended last week for three more months in Bangkok and 18 other provinces.
Burns questioned how the country could "build confidence in its economy" with violence on the streets, or solve its political rifts if "rights are restricted".
He said that to retain these powers indefinitely was "not healthy for a democratic system". "Clearly the US hopes that the state of emergency ... can be lifted as soon as possible," he said. Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has set out a five-point reconciliation plan, which the US Congress has said should form the basis of efforts by all parties in Thailand to resolve their differences. The next stop on Burns' regional tour will be Phnom Penh on Saturday for events marking the 60th anniversary of relations between Cambodia and the United States.
He is then set to head to Indonesia, with which President Barack Obama has been seeking stronger ties, and will round off his trip on Monday and Tuesday in the Philippines.

  Philippines to bring home 25,000 who fled Muslim conflict
AFP, Manila

The Philippine government is aiming to return home within two months 25,000 people who were displaced due to a decades-long Muslim rebellion in the south, an aide said Friday.
President Benigno Aquino, who took office on June 30, wants the process completed during his first 100 days in office, Teresita Deles, the presidential adviser on the peace process, told a news conference. "What we do want is to address that as quick as possible, bringing home those who can be brought back to their places," Deles said.
The effort is part of a broader strategy to push forward peace talks with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), which has been fighting for an independent Muslim homeland in the southern Philippines since 1971. "We need to bridge that gap between the negotiating table and the lives of communities," Deles said. The evacuees are scattered over a string of tent cities on the southern island of Mindanao, where they scrape by on food rations from the social welfare department and foreign aid organisations including the United Nations.
To ensure their safety as they return home, the government will ask the 12,000-member MILF to maintain a ceasefire that had been negotiated with the previous government, Deles said.

  EU urges Maldivian factions to resolve crisis
AFP, Colombo

The European Union appealed Friday to the government and opposition in the Maldives to work out a compromise to the political crisis that has led to angry demonstrations.
A power struggle between President Mohamed Nasheed and the opposition-controlled parliament led to street protests earlier in the week, in which police said at least nine police officers and six civilians were hurt.
"We call on all sides to show restraint and work towards a peaceful and consensual solution to the political situation confronting the country," the EU said in a statement released in Colombo. Street protests are rare in the Maldives, which is better known as an upmarket tourist destination.
Nasheed reappointed his 13-member cabinet last Tuesday, a week after they resigned en masse, alleging that parliament was stopping the government from functioning. On Thursday, the main opposition Maldivian People's Party (DRP) said the government had created a breakdown in law and order and that the nation of 330,000 Sunni Muslims was no longer safe and secure.

 27 killed in Iran twin suicide mosque bombings
AFP, Tehran

Iran was Friday probing twin suicide bombings in a crowded Shiite mosque which killed 27 people in a southeastern province ravaged by a fierce Sunni insurgency despite the hanging of its leader.
Thursday's bombings, which left members of Iran's Revolutionary Guards among the dead and wounded, came less than a month after Sunni militant Abdolmalek Rigi, who led the insurgency in the region against Tehran's rule, was executed.
The bombers detonated their payloads at the Jamia mosque in Zahedan, capital of restive Sistan-Baluchestan province, as worshippers were celebrating the birthday of Imam Hussein, grandson of the Muslim Prophet Mohammed. The attack "has left 27 people martyred and 270 wounded," Health Minister Marziah Vahid Dastjerdi told the Mehr news agency, adding that 11 of the wounded were in critical conditions.
Hossein Ali Shahriari, member of parliament from Zahedan, told ILNA news agency that more than 300 people were wounded in the attack.
Deputy Interior Minister Ali Abdollahi said some of the dead and wounded included members of the Guards.
The governor general of Sistan-Baluchestan, Ali Mohammad Azad, said Iran was investigating the attack which reportedly was claimed by Rigi's group, Jundallah (Soldiers of God).
"We are investigating who was behind the attack," Azad said and suggested it could have been a cross-border operation. "Our foreign enemies are across the borders and want to disrupt the security of our country and the region," he said without elaborating.
Similar attacks in the past in Sistan-Baluchestan, which borders Pakistan and Afghanistan, have been claimed by Jundallah and Tehran says the group receives backings from US and British intelligence services.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton when condemning Thursday's bombings said that Jundallah had claimed the assault on the mosque.
"I condemn in the strongest possible terms today's terrorist attacks claimed by Jundallah that targeted Iranians at a mosque in the Sistan-Baluchestan province of Iran," Clinton said in a statement.

   Somalia erupts into Uganda election campaign
AFP, Kampala

Deadly bombings in Kampala have invited Somalia into Uganda's election campaign, with veteran President Yoweri Museveni vowing to go for broke and his political rivals warning against adventurism.
Somalia's Al Qaeda-linked Shebab group claimed responsibility for the bombings that left at least 73 dead, saying that the attacks were retaliation for Uganda's troop deployment as part of an African Union force in Mogadishu. "The results of military adventurism can have consequences that can be horrible for everybody," Kizza Besigye, who is expected to challenge Museveni for the third time in the February 2011 vote, told AFP. "I have been opposed to this thing from the beginning," Besigye said, when asked about the AU force AMISOM, to which Uganda became the first contributor in early 2007.
He argued that sending troops to prop up an administration -- Somalia's transitional federal government -- that has no control over its own country was untenable.
The head of Uganda's Conservative Party, John Ken Lukyamuzi, also posited that AMISOM was fighting a losing battle against the insurgency and told AFP that Uganda's more than 3,000 troops should be "withdrawn immediately".
Besigye charged that Museveni was making a habit of reckless cross-border military interventions decided without consulting the public.
He offered as an earlier example Uganda's support for independence fighters in south Sudan, which prompted Khartoum to back the Lord's Resistance Army rebels who killed and kidnapped tens of thousands in northern Uganda.
"Regardless of the merits of each individual conflict, the issue is disregarding the input of parliament and therefore the Ugandan people," he said. Uganda's parliament, which is overwhelmingly dominated by Museveni's ruling party, did sign off on the Somalia deployment but opposition parties said a debate never took place.

  Israelis see Obama as pro-Palestinian: poll
AFP, Jerusalem

Forty-six percent of Israelis believe US President Barack Obama is more pro-Palestinian than pro-Israeli, according to an opinion poll published by the English-language Jerusalem Post on Friday.
Only 10 percent of the 515 Jewish Israelis interviewed thought Obama was more pro-Israel, 34 percent said he was neutral and 10 percent did not express an opinion.
The poll suggests the July 6 White House meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Obama did not significantly change Israelis' perceptions of the US president. A similar survey in March showed that 48 percent thought Obama was more pro-Palestinian and nine percent thought he was more pro-Israeli.
The poll was taken between Monday and Wednesday and has a 4.4 percentage point margin of error.

  Putin meets ‘Russian Obama’ on regional trip: reports
AFP, Moscow

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has for the first time met an African immigrant dubbed the "Russian Obama" after he won national fame by standing last year for elected office, reports said Friday.
Putin met Joaquim Crima at a construction site for new accommodation for servicemen in southern Russia Thursday and then later even summoned him to a full scale government meeting with regional officials, newspapers said.
Crima, an immigrant from Guinea-Bissau who has lived in Russia since 1989, last October become the first black man to bid for a seat on a local assembly in Russia.
In the end, he came only third in his district in the Volgograd region of southern Russia but his mere candidacy was hailed as significant in a country where non-whites can still endure racist abuse. Undeterred by his ballot box setback, Crima joined the ruling United Russia party and worked on a project to restore a local road which he wants to name after Putin.
Pictures showed Putin, looking jovial and casually dressed in a sports jacket, shaking hands with Crima, who was wearing a tie and a short-sleeved white shirt.
At the government meeting Putin asked Crima -- known locally by the Russian first name and patronymic Vasily Ivanovich -- whether it was better to work "in Africa or the Volgograd region".
Crima started by thanking Putin for the "great honour that you have shown me" and then impressed the prime minister further with his reply, according to a transcript published on the government website.
"I think it is not a question of whether it is better to work in Africa or Russia. It depends on the person. If a person really wants to live better, he must always strive towards something," Crima said.

  Jundallah: Shiite Iran’s Sunni insurgents
AFP, Tehran

The shadowy Sunni rebel group Jundallah, which claimed twin suicide bombings that killed 27 people in southeastern Iran on Thursday, has been fighting the Shiite regime for nearly a decade.
Tehran has long charged that the group has received backing from Washington as part of its efforts to undermine the Islamic regime.
Some Western media reported similar allegations of support for the militant group from the former administration of George W.
Bush after he singled Tehran out for regime change as part of an "axis of evil", alongside Stalinist North Korea and now executed dictator Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
But while Jundallah insists that its attacks have been aimed at military targets, particularly Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards Corps, they have claimed a growing civilian death toll and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was quick to speak out against the latest bombings.
"I condemn in the strongest possible terms today's terrorist attacks claimed by Jundallah that targeted Iranians at a mosque in the Sistan-Baluchestan province of Iran," Clinton said in a statement. Jundallah claims to be fighting for the interests of the southeastern pro-vince's large ethnic Baluch community, who unlike most Iranians, mainly follow the Sunni branch of Islam. The Baluch straddle the border with neighbouring Pakistan and Afghanistan and Jundallah militants have taken advantage of the unrest in the region to find safe haven in the border region.
The group suffered a reverse earlier this year when Iran captured its historic leader Abdolmalek Rigi after scrambling warplanes to intercept a flight he was taking from the United Arab Emirates to Kyrgyzstan.
Iran paraded Rigi before the cameras of the English-language state Press TV before hanging him in the capital's notorious Evin prison last month.

  Madcow nearly eradicated in Europe: EU
AFP, Brussels

Madcow disease is on the verge of being eradicated in Europe, the EU's executive arm said on Friday as it proposed an end to the systematic killing of entire herds when a sick cow is discovered.
"The European Union has made great progress in its battle against BSE and we are finally on the brink of eradicating the disease within the Union," said European Health and Consumer Policy Commissioner John Dalli. The European Commission said the "systematic cohort culling of cattle could be stopped" because of the dramatic drop in cases of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE). Animals from herds in which a cow suffered from the disease could be sold for consumption as long as they test negative before entering the food chain, it said. The commission also proposed to relax a ban on animal protein used in pig and poultry feed that was imposed in 2001. This would allow pig meal to be fed to poultry and poultry meal to pigs.
But it would maintain a prohibition on "intra spe-cies recycling": the feeding of pig meal to pigs or poultry meal to poultry.
Madcow disease was first diagnosed in Britain in 1986 before spreading to the rest of Europe. The EU slapped a total ban on exports of British live cattle in March 1996 at the height of the mad cow crisis, after London reported a link with a new form of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) in humans, connected with eating BSE-tainted beef. The EU lifted the ban on British beef in 2006.

  Obama cautious on oil ‘good news’
AFP, Washington

US President Barack Obama Friday gave a cautious welcome to the "good news" that BP has halted the flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, saying a permanent solution still needed to be put in place.
Obama went out of his way to guard against any euphoria after the new cap was placed on the well by the British-based firm, but said the device would at worst allow most of the oil gushing into the sea to be captured. "There were a lot of reports coming out in the media that seemed to indicate, 'Well, maybe this thing is done,'" Obama said.
"We won't be done until we actually know that we've killed the well and that we have a permanent solution in place.
"We're moving in that direction, but I don't want us to get too far ahead of ourselves." Obama noted that BP engineers along with government scientists were now carrying out a battery of tests to determine whether the well could be safely shut down using the new cap, without threatening the structural integrity of the well.
"Even if a shut-in is not possible, this new cap and the additional equipment being placed in the Gulf will be able to contain up to 80,000 barrels a day, which should allow us to capture nearly all the oil until the well is killed," he said.
"The final solution to this whole problem is going to be the relief wells and getting that completed."
Obama, before heading off for a vacation weekend in Maine with his family, stressed that there was still an enormous job to do in cleaning up the huge environmental damage wrought by America's worst environmental disaster.
And he stressed that his administration would not let up on BP in order to ensure that the firm pays for clean-up costs and to help businesses which have been devastated by the disaster.

Business/Economy

Price hike for world's cheapest car Nano
AFP, New Delhi

The makers of the world's cheapest car, the Nano, said Friday it was raising the price of the snub-nosed four-door vehicle as it announced plans to ramp up production.
Launched in 2009 with a price tag as low as 123,000 rupees (2,629 dollars) by Tata Motors, the car has been pitched at India's aspiring middle classes, many of whom now travel on two-wheelers.
A spokesman for Tata Motors said the price for the Nano-billed as the world's cheapest car-would have to increase for new customers by three to four percent due to a "very sharp increase in input costs."
"It is a very nominal increase given the rise in raw material costs," the spokesman told AFP, asking not to be named in line with company policy.
Carmakers in India have been steadily increasing prices this year to offset higher raw material costs such as steel and rubber.
However, Tata Motors said the company would keep the price unchanged for the first 100,000 Nano customers as promised when the car was first displayed in 2008.
As a result of production problems, Tata has so far delivered a less-than-expected 45,000 Nanos to customers.
It was forced to shift production to India's western state of Gujarat after a violent land dispute in Singur in communist-ruled West Bengal obliged it to scrap in 2008 its virtually complete Nano plant.
Now, however, Tata said it expected to be able to bump up production of the Nano as its new Gujarat plant had become operational ahead of schedule. "It is very good news for us, it has been completed in just 14 months," the spokesman said.
The company will also continue producing the Nano at a factory in the northern state of Uttarakhand to help clear the backlog of orders. The Nano has sparked a race among global carmakers to create other low-cost cars for the Indian and other emerging markets.

 China boosts offer for WTO pact on government contracts: US

AFP, Washington

China had submitted an improved offer to join a WTO pact that could open up the Asian giant's multi-billion-dollar government contracts to foreign bidders, US officials said Thursday.
Beijing submitted its revised offer last week to participate in the World Trade Organization's agreement on government procurement, or GPA, which regulates trade in public-sector purchases, the officials said.
"We are still analyzing it but we recognize that it includes significant improvements over its initial offer that was submitted at the end of 2007," when China first applied to join the pact, said deputy US trade representative Demetrios Marantis.
"It's better than it was in 2007 from a variety of respects, including coverage of central government entities," he said at a Washington forum.China has regularly been criticized for not allowing foreign companies access to large government-backed projects.
Marantis said the new offer could be "a solid step toward ensuring China's huge government procurement market is open to US companies."
Washington and the European Union have been pushing China, which joined the WTO in 2001, to join the procurement agreement now limited to 41 of the WTO's 153 members, including the US, EU's 27 members and Japan. The latest to join was Taiwan last year.Agreement partners had evaluated China's application in December 2007 and wanted better terms than those offered by Beijing.
Last month, US lawmakers proposed a ban on the US government buying Chinese-made goods or services until Beijing joins the procurement agreement that demands that countries do not discriminate against foreign bidders in non-defense contracts.
The lawmakers, three Democrats and Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, complained that US firms cannot compete in China's government procurement market, estimated at 500 billion dollars, while the US government buys Chinese tires, ammunition, office equipment, and other items.

  Airlines need 30,900 new planes by 2029: Boeing
AFP, London

Airlines will need 30,900 new passenger and freighter jets worth 3.6 trillion dollars by 2029 to meet an increase in global air traffic being led by Asia, US planemaker Boeing forecast Thursday.
Publication of the data comes as the aviation industry prepares for the biennial Farnborough airshow near London due to begin on Monday-a key industry event where new plane orders are expected to be announced.
"We see a total demand of 30,900 aircraft valued at 3.6 trillion dollars" (2.8 trillion euros) by 2029, Boeing marketing chief Randy Tinseth said in London on delivering the aerospace giant's latest 20-year market outlook.
"The largest market in 2009 is for travel within North America followed closely by the Asia Pacific region," said Tinseth, marketing head of Boeing Commercial Airplanes.
"If we look forward 20 years from now based on our growth rates, clearly the landscape of aviation will change ... The Asia Pacific market will clearly be the largest market in the world followed by traffic within North America then Europe."
Last year Boeing forecast that airlines would need 29,000 new planes worth 3.22 trillion dollars by 2028.
Boeing also estimated on Thursday that the world's fleet would almost double to 36,300 planes in 2029 from 18,890 last year, with the majority of new aircraft being single-aisle carriers.
"Demand in the single aisle market is clearly being driven by the growth of low-cost carriers," said Tinseth, adding that China would probably need 4,000 new planes over the next two decades, most of which would be single-aisle.
Boeing said it expected the world economy to grow by an average of 3.2 percent a year by 2029."The world market is doing much better than last year, but there are still challenges," said Tinseth.
He added that by 2029, almost 43 percent of all airline traffic will be to, from or within the Asia-Pacific region, compared with about one third currently.
"The Asia-Pacific region shows the most robust market gains, with China leading the way," said Tinseth.
Boeing said that the Middle East-one of the fastest growing regions for air travel in recent years-represents another "very strong market."

  Europe faces years of weak growth: IMF head
AFP, Paris

Europe's economy risks several years of weak growth which threaten to drive up unemployment and weaken spending power, the head of the International Monetary Fund warned on Friday.
Despite recovering growth in Asia, Africa and the United States, "the risk for Europe is several years of weak growth," IMF Secretary General Dominique Strauss-Kahn said on the television news channel France 24.
"That means little spending power, problems in welfare systems for pensions and health and a rise in unemployment."
Strauss-Kahn said "it is not the only place in the world where there are difficulties but there is clearly a European growth problem."
He judged there was a "quite substantial" risk of weak growth, but the IMF did not see a return to full-on recession as a major likelihood.
The IMF last week raised its 2010 global growth forecast, projecting the world economy will grow by 4.6 percent. It strengthened its outlook for several major regions, but held its forecast for Europe steady at 1.0 percent.

  Work still needed to repair economic damage: Obama
AFP, Holland, Michigan

US President Barack Obama admitted Thursday the progress he had wrought in turning around the economy was not yet sufficient to repair the "enormous damage" of the worst recession in decades.
But Obama argued in Michigan, on his latest trip to highlight his stimulus plan, that his policies were working, and that the country was heading in the right direction ahead of crucial mid-term congressional elections in November.
"The progress we have made so far is not nearly enough to undo the enormous damage the recession caused," Obama said, at a groundbreaking ceremony for a stimulus-funded plant that will make batteries for hybrid cars.
"As I said since the day I took office, it is going to take time to reverse the toll of the deepest downturn in a generation and I won't be satisfied as long as even one person who needs a job and wants to work can't find one.
"But what is absolutely clear... is that we are headed in the right direction-and that the surest way out of the storms we've been in is to keep moving forward, not to go backward," Obama said. Obama also took a fresh swipe at Republicans, accusing them of wanting to go back to the policies that helped caused the recession.
"I just want to make sure that everybody understands that this country would not be better off if this plant hadn't gotten built," he said.
Obama travelled to Michigan with fears mounting among Democrats that they could lose control of the House of Representatives, and even the Senate in the mid-term polls, a scenario which could severely constrain Obama's power.
Recent opinion surveys have revealed fraying public support for Obama, and rising doubts about his economic management amid fears the rebound is slowing with unemployment still at 9.5 percent.
But Obama was expecting a piece of good news on Thursday, with the Senate finally expected to thwart Republican delaying tactics and pass the most sweeping Wall Street reform bill since the 1930s.
Obama visited the site of a new plant built by Compact Power Inc., which got part of the 2.4 billion dollars of stimulus funds to encourage firms to build electric batteries for a new generation of vehicles.
The Compact plant will make electric batteries for a new generation of Chevrolet Volt and Ford Focus cars, as Obama seeks to create a new jobs-rich green economy.
Compact Power is a subsidiary of South Korea-based LG Chem Ltd, and the plant will create up to 200 construction jobs and when it is complete will employ 300 workers in Michigan, one of the states worst hit by the recession.
It is the ninth advanced battery factory set up as a under the Recovery Act. The White House says that thanks to Obama's policies, the United States will have the capacity to produce up to 40 percent of the world's batteries by 2015.

  Indonesia sees PC sales surges 76 pc in 2nd quarter
Xinhua, Jakarta

The sales value of personal computers on Indonesian market surged by 76 percent year on year on the second quarter this year, thanks to the popularity of netbooks, the Jakarta Globe reported on Friday.
Wijaya Suhanda, chairman of the Indonesian Computer Business Association, said that Indonesia's PC sales volume reached 1.2 million units from April to June, as against 680,000 units in the same period of 2009, while the sales value hit 2.8 billion U.S. dollars, up 76 percent from 1.62 billion dollars in the year- earlier. Of the total sales value, 60 percent were from the portable PC sector, in which netbook sales reached 1.24 billion dollars, nearly doubled from the 651 million dollars in the year- earlier period. That figure accounted for two thirds of the total sales in the portable PC sector. Meanwhile, netbooks recorded a sales volume of around 500,000 units in the second quarter, as against only 270,000 units in the year-earlier.
Wijaya attributed the popularity of netbooks to improved consumer purchasing power and cheaper prices for netbooks, which are the results of the appreciation of rupiah.
And Daniel Rustandi, marketing director of PT Acer Indonesia, said that the nation's improving telecommunications also stimulated sales of PCs, especially portables. "Indonesia's infrastructure supporting PC usage has definitely gotten better, especially the growing number of Wi-Fi locations," he said. "So with the improving infrastructure, the number of PC users, especially laptop and netbook users, will naturally increase."
Indonesian Computer Business Association estimated that Indonesia's PC sales this year would top at least 3.6 million units, up 29 percent year on year from 2.8 million units; while the sales value would hit 8.6 billion dollars, as against about 7. 8 billion dollars in 2009.

  Oil hovers around $76 in Asian trade
AFP, Singapore

Oil hovered around 76 dollars in volatile Asian trade Friday after weak economic data dampened hopes of a swift US rebound from recession.
New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in August, was down 24 cents at 76.38 dollars a barrel in afternoon trade, deepening its decline since the morning.
Brent North Sea crude for September delivery turned lower and was down 35 cents at 75.74 dollars.
"Some economic data in the United States are signalling slower economic growth and that has put a lid on any price rally," said Victor Shum, an analyst with energy consultancy Purvin and Gertz in Singapore. Doubts about the strength of the US recovery were fuelled by reports Thursday that manufacturing activity in the state of New York and in the Philadelphia region was weaker than expected this month.
The strength of the economic rebound in the United States is being closely watched by investors because it consumes more energy than any other country in the world.
Shum told AFP concerns about the US economy were weighing down Asian stocks and this sentiment was likely to spill over into the oil market.

  World's richest man aims for a simple life
AFP, Mexico City

Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim may be the world's richest man but he limits his monthly salary to 24,000 dollars and travels in a Suburban, according to his latest biography.
Slim, 70, knocked Bill Gates form the top of the Forbes list of the world's billionaires this year with an estimated fortune of 53.5 billion dollars.
He began his business career aged 10, selling sweets and drinks to his family and later made his name with aggressive investments during crises.
"Unlike aristocrats, the jet set or the monarchy, he's extremely simple," biographer Jose Martinez told AFP as a new edition of his 2002 book, 'Carlos Slim, unpublished portrait,' was set for release across Latin America. According to his biographer, Slim's fortune far exceeds the amount calculated by Forbes.
The fifth of six children-three boys and three girls-Slim was born into a well-off family, including a Lebanese immigrant father, in Mexico City in January 1940.
Slim studied civil engineering and later built up the telephone monopoly Telmex after acquiring it from the government in 1990.
He hit the top spot of billionaires after his fortune rose 18.5 billion in 12 months, and shares of America Movil, of which he owns a 23-billion-dollar stake, were up 35 percent in a year, according to Forbes.
Last year he injected 250 million dollars into the ailing New York Times, becoming its second biggest partner and surprising some in the media.
"He has no say nor vote. He did it to support the paper in a crisis and he intends to sell it, but the group hasn't yet recovered," Martinez said.
The soft-spoken billionaire's empire is ever-present in Mexico, including department stores, construction companies and the Inbursa financial group.

  Canada, EU on track for free trade deal in 2011
AFP, Bucharest

Canada and the European Union will meet their target to sign an "ambitious" free trade agreement in 2011, Canadian International Trade Minister Peter Van Loan said Thursday in Bucharest.
"All the signs right now indicate that we will meet our target of an agreement in 2011 that is ambitious and broad," Van Loan said during a press conference. A fourth round of negotiations is currently taking place in Brussels.
"After a fifth round in October in Canada, difficult political negotiations will occur and the agreement-drafting will occur," the minister added.
The European Union is Canada's second-largest export market, largely behind the United States. In 2009, Canadian exports to the EU totaled 29.8 billion Canadian dollars (18.8 billion euros). Canada has been trying for years to sign a free trade deal with Europe.
Official talks for a Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement were launched in June last year.
An agreement "would result in a net benefit growth in our economies of 38 billion Canadian dollars annually" (26 billion euros), Van Loan stressed, adding that "two-thirds of this benefit would accrue to the European economy."

  Greece to raise more money from the markets
AFP, Athens

Struggling Greece will try to raise another 1.5 billion euros from the financial markets after a successful sale of bills last week, the state debt management agency said on Friday.
"Greece will offer 13-week Treasury bills on July 20 (Tuesday) ... to raise 1.5 billion euros (1.95 billion dollars)," the PDMA said in a statement.
Athens sold 1.625 billion euros in six-month treasury bills last Tuesday at a rate of return of 4.65 percent, only slightly higher than it paid in April, in an operation seen as at least a good first step back to normality.
The government had originally intended to raise 1.25 billion euros from the sale but demand worth 4.546 billion euros allowed it to raise more.
Last week's sale was the first since Greece was rescued from insolvency by a 110-billion-euro (138-billion-dollar) loan package put together by the EU, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund in May.
In return, Athens pledged to put its parlous public finances in order with draconian austerity cuts. The measures have sparked protests in the recession-hit country but the EU on Monday said the reforms were on track.

  China overtakes India in Asia-Pacific outsourcing business
PTI, Beijing

Aided by low labour costs, China has overtaken India as the primary destination of outsourcing and shared services for Asia- Pacific companies-netting business to the tune of 20 billion dollars, according to accounting firm KPMG.
The KPMG survey, which covered 280 senior company executives across Asia, showed that China's outsourcing and shared services are rapidly expanding-winning a substantial market share over India and other regional destinations.
"Though, at the moment, the country has still not reached the level of maturity seen in India, the growth of China's outsourcing market is significant. Many Western companies may still see India as their location of choice, but for executives within Asia Pacific the message is clear-China is now leading the way," said Edge Zarrella, global head, IT Advisory, KPMG China, was quoted as saying in the official media here. According to the survey, 42 per cent of the respondents said their companies have set up one of their shared services centres in China. As many as 41 per cent said they have a third-party outsourcing provider in China.
Singapore stands second as a popular location for shared services at 29 per cent, followed by India at 25 per cent. Figures from KPMG show that in 2007, China's onshore and offshore outsourcing market stood at only USD 7.5 billion. That amount nearly tripled to USD 20 billion last year, according to the Ministry of Commerce. KPMG predicts that China's total outsourcing market will stand at USD 43.9 billion by 2014.
Shared services are also expanding rapidly in China. The survey found that over 80 per cent senior executives employ an outsourcing strategy, shared services, or a combination of the two.
Low labour costs was one of the main reasons for China's growth in the outsourcing business, the survey said, adding that 51 per cent of the respondents said it was the main criterion for making their decision.
The key factors used for determining the location of their shared services centre are low labour cost and language capabilities (53 per cent each), the KPMG said.
However, Alan Fung, partner of performance and technology, KPMG China, said that senior executives should think twice before making their location choices based solely on the cost factor.

  OPEC sees world oil demand growing by 1.2 pc in 2011
AFP, Vienna

OPEC, which pumps 40 percent of the world's crude, forecast on Thursday a 1.2-percent increase in global oil demand in 2011, with demand for its own crude oil to rise for the first time in three years.
In its latest monthly report, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) held its forecast for world oil demand growth for 2010 steady at 1.1 percent, or an extra 0.95 million barrels per day (bpd).
And in 2011, growth would pick-up only fractionally to 1.2 percent or an additional 1.0 million bpd, "reflecting continued caution about the pace of the global economic recovery," OPEC said.
Nevertheless, demand for OPEC crude-the 12-country cartel accounts for 40 percent of the world's oil-was set to see growth of 0.2 million bpd, "the first increase in three years," it added.
OPEC's latest forecasts differ slightly from those recently published by the International Energy Agency (IEA), the energy strategy arm of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. While the IEA also forecast stable demand growth both this year and next year, it put oil demand this year at an average 86.5 million bpd and 87.8 million bpd next year.
OPEC's forecasts are slightly lower at 85.4 million bpd and 86.4 million bpd respectively.
In 2010, "the current economic situation in most developed countries remains sluggish. The economic recovery is not only slow, but also facing considerable uncertainty," the cartel said.
Nevertheless, the global economic recovery was expected to start during the second half of 2010 and would "continue through the whole of 2011 with more or less even distribution among the four quarters," it wrote.
As in 2010. oil demand growth next year would take place in non-OECD countries, notably China, India, the Middle East and Latin America.

  Don't turn away from euro
French PM tells Japan investors
 
AFP, Tokyo

French Prime Minister Francois Fillon urged Japanese investors on Friday not to shun the euro despite the recent crisis triggered by Greece's debt woes.
He also pressed Japan to abolish market barriers for European goods, including new medicines and railway products, before working toward a possible Japan-EU free trade pact.
"It is not in Japan's best interest to turn away from the euro," he told a group of business leaders in Tokyo, saying that the single currency had been stabilised through concerted EU action. "True, there is no doubt that the eurozone has gone through the most serious crisis in its history," said the French premier, on a two-day visit to Japan, which was the leading Asian investor in France in 2009. But he argued that there is nothing inherently wrong with the single currency for 16 member-states of the 27-nation European Union.
"Was the crisis caused by the single currency? Absolutely not," he said. "We have witnessed a classic sovereign debt crisis with badly managed public finances."
Fillon stressed that Europe, including powerful players France and Germany, is united and working closely together to stabilise the currency and reform public finances.

  Level of poverty in Italy remained stable in 2009
AFP, Milan

Poverty in Italy remained stable in 2009 in spite of the economic crisis, affecting 4.7 percent of the population or about three million people, the national statistics agency ISTAT said on Thursday.
ISTAT said poverty did not rise sharply during the crisis thanks to economic relief offered to families and a temporary layoff mechanism that allowed companies to halt operations for months at a time, with workers covered by public unemployment insurance. Absolute poverty, ISTAT said, is the inability "to acquire goods and services essential to attain a lifestyle held as a minimum acceptable."
Poverty remained higher in the south of the country, where it affected 7.7 percent of the population, than in the richer north, where 3.6 percent of residents can be considered poor.
Throughout 2009, eleven percent of households, or almost eight million people, lived in "relative poverty," with less than half of the 983 euros (1,265 dollars) that the average Italian spends each month.

  Germany's Daimler posts 2.1b euro profit
AFP, Frankfurt

German automotive giant Daimler posted strong quarterly figures Friday on the back of soaring demand for its Mercedes cars and trucks, a weaker euro boosting exports and cost cutting measures.
Daimler said it made a second quarter operating profit of 2.1 billion euros (2.7 billion dollars), reversing a year-earlier loss of one billion euros. The group also said its sales in the three months to June jumped to 25.1 billion euros from 19.6 billion euros a year earlier.
The results were especially driven by Mercedes-Benz Cars, Daimler's auto division, a statement said.
That unit posted sales of 14 billion euros and earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) of 1.38 billion euros, owing to stronger demand, "especially in China and the United States," it said. Other factors given were "an advantageous product mix as well as better price penetration and positive exchange effects" as the euro declined in value against other major currencies. Daimler Trucks, the world's leading maker of heavy vehicles, turned in a stronger performance as well, benefitting from cost-reduction measures, the statement said. Daimler shares rose 1.44 percent to 43.90 euros in afternoon trading on the Frankfurt stock exchange which was up 0.34 percent overall.

  Myanmar strives for meeting domestic gas demand
Xinhua, Yangon

Myanmar has laid a 24-inch natural gas pipeline, transmitting gas produced from the Yadana gas field in Mottama offshore area to gas distribution camp of Ywama in Yangon to be further distributed for domestic use since mid-June.
It is believed that with the availability of the transmitted gas, gas-run power plants will be able to generate more electricity to satisfy the demand of Yangon residents, said the official daily New Light of Myanmar Friday.
In Myanmar, energy demand is high as construction and infrastructure development tasks are booming. In addition to above- ground resources, Myanmar is also blessed with rich underground resources including oil and gas.
There were 19 onshore oil and gas fields before 1988 but the number had reached 31 after 1988. Many more new onshore and offshore oil and gas fields were found one after another over the past more than 20 years.
According to the geological condition, Myanmar has 14 geological valleys in the onshore regions, among which the state- run Myanmar Oil and gas Enterprise (MOGE) has conducted surveys in the central region, Pyay and Delta regions.
It was reported that there remain many more promising regions for exploitation of oil and gas in the country.

  Delhi, Kerala, Goa have least number of poor: UNDP
PTI, London

Amidst acute poverty across South Asia, the five states of Delhi, Kerala, Goa, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh have the least number of poor people in India, according to a new measure of global poverty developed at the University of Oxford for the UNDP.
The new measure, called the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), has been developed and applied by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI).
It will be featured in the forthcoming 20th anniversary edition of the UN Development Programme Human Development Report.
A detailed analysis using the MPI reveals that South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa have comparable intensities of poverty, according to an OPHI working paper titled 'Acute Multidimensional Poverty: A New Index for Developing Countries'. In terms of human lives, South Asia has the world's highest levels of poverty. Fifty-one per cent of the population of Pakistan is MPI poor, 58 per cent in Bangladesh, 55 per cent in India, and 65 per cent in Nepal.
The analysis states: "We find that Delhi has an MPI equivalent to Iraq (which ranks 45), whereas Bihar's MPI is similar to Guinea's (the 8th poorest country in the ranking).
"In terms of headcount, in Delhi and Kerala 14 per cent and 16 per cent of the population are MPI poor, respectively, whereas in Jharkhand 77 per cent of the population are MPI poor and in Bihar, 81 per cent".
Other 'top ten' states with the least number of poor in India are Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand, Maharashtra, Haryana and Gujarat. The analysis by MPI creators reveals that there are more 'MPI poor' people in eight Indian states (421 million in Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal) than in the 26 poorest African countries combined (410 million). "Just to provide a sense of perspective, the population of the poorest Indian state Bihar, with 95 million people, exceeds the sum of nine of the ten poorest African countries," according to the authors Sabina Alkire and Maria Emma Santos. Further analysis shows that in India, the Scheduled Tribes have the highest MPI (0.482), almost the same as Mozambique, and a headcount of 81 per cent.
The Scheduled Castes have a headcount of 66 per cent and their MPI is a bit better than Nigeria. Fifty-eight per cent of other Backward Castes are MPI poor. About one in three of the remaining Indian households are multi-dimensionally poor, and their MPI is just below that of Honduras, the paper says.

National

People’s participations in implementing national budget stressed

BSS, Rangpur

Speakers at a post-budget discussion in Rangpur on Wednesday stressed the need for enhanced participation of the people in the implementation of the national budget to ensure need-based developments at the grassroots levels.
The process of building a digital Bangladesh could be accelerated through ensuring balanced and uniform developments and bringing the backward areas to the mainstream national advancements by involving the grassroots people, they added.
They also suggested for enhanced people's participation from all walks in the society including womenfolk for proper and effective implementation of the national budget everywhere to turn Bangladesh into a medium income nation by the year 2021. They said this at the post-budget discussion organized by Samadhan Sangstha (SS) with the assistances of Debi Chowdhurani Polli Unnayan Sangstha (DCPUK), BCD and MCM at Gangachara upazila parishad auditorium in the district.
Chaired by Executive Director of SS Mahbubur Rahman, the discussion was attended and addresser by Gangachara upazila chairman Majibar Rahman Pramanik as the chief guest. Vice-president of Gangachara upazila unit Awami League Abul Hossain Fatik, Youth Development Officer SM Mohsin, Coordinator of DCPUK Saidur Rahman and Executive Director of SAFE Shamimuzzaman attended and addressed as the special guests. The speakers opined for enhanced involv-ements of local people and representatives of all communities and adopt their suggestions and opinions in the process for effective implementation of the national budget to ensure people's welfare and developments.
They said that sustainable, uniform and smooth developments of all areas and regions would be hampered and welfare of every citizen be affected without involving the local citizens and knowing their problems for exploring the potentials and needs of every area.
They urged for putting maximum emphasis on implementation of the best ever and most ideal and pro-people budget for building a developed digital Bangladesh for making the Charter of Changes, Vision-2021 and digital Bangladesh programmes successful.
The area-based economic potentials could be properly explored in the prospective agriculture, animal husbandry, poultry, diary, weaving, handlooms, mineral resources including coals, silk and other sectors by involving the local citizens, they said.
They also urged for putting due emphasis on setting up of coal-fueled power stations, small, medium and heavy industries, involving more womenfolk with SMEs, enhanced infrastructural developments for faster changing of the socio- economic conditions.
Without emancipation of local citizens, it would be difficult to identify the available prospects and possibilities those are now prevailing at different areas and regions for development of the rural citizens, they said.
The speakers put special emphasis for boosting SMEs involving more women and rural people for expanding business and income-generating activities by setting up of the need-based potential industries counting the local prospects and possibilities.

  Liton vows to ensure transparency and accountability in RCC uplift activities

BSS, Rajshahi

Mayor of Rajshahi City Corporation (RCC) AHM Khairuzzaman Liton has vowed to ensure and maintain transparency and accountability in all sorts of administrative and development activities of the city corporation.
He made this vow while facing the cross-section of people regarding various development issues of the metropolis at the conference hall of Rajshahi Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Rajshahi on Wednesday night. Cons-cious Citizens Com-mittee (CCC), an initiative of Transparency International Bangladesh, organized the public facing session Mayor Liton faced criticism and applause for his performance during the last around two-year of his tenure.
Replying to questions, he said the Rajshahi Textile Mills restored functioning and work for installing 50-megawatt power generation plant at Katakhali and it will go for commissioning by the next March while process for establishing another 100-megawatt power plant at the same site is going on.
Expressing his optimism he said some portions of the city dwellers are going to enjoy the pipeline-based gas supply by the year end.
Nighttime intercity train "Dhumketu" has been running between Rajshahi and Dhaka and installation of mixed gauge rail line from Abdullpur to Rajshahi is under process.
Liton expected that at least 10 garment factories will be established here after transmission of gas supply which will create job for at least 10,000 people.
Referring to the city's healthcare facilities and services he revealed that the 500-bed Rajshahi Medical College Hospital will be elevated to 1000-bed and the city hospital will be transformed into a medical college.
In the meantime, he said the long-cherished Rajshahi Shishu Hospital has started functioning in two rented multi-storied buildings in the preliminary stage.
He painted development plan in cultural sector, ornamentation of road crossings and sections, illumination in different print and lighting in roads, water treatment plant at Shayampur, 15 public toilets and another two on mobile vans.
For creating park facilities, he said the existing and neglected Shaheed AHM Quamaruzzaman Central Zoo and Park will be developed and cable car will be installed from park inside to T-embankment at the river Padma. Moreover, small parks will be created in each ward.

  Social movement against eve teasing stressed
BSS, Rangamati

Speakers at a meeting stressed the need for creating social movement against eve-teasing to ensure a congenial atmosphere in educational institutions as well as society.
Females are being harassed and victimized by eve-teasing in various ways and it should be stopped forever by building strong resistance and creating social awareness, they said.
They were speaking at a meeting organized by Summaiya Parishad of Rangamati at local press club on Wednesday.
Rangamati Press Club president Sunil Kanti Dey, district Awami League joint secretary KM Jashim Uddin Babul and district Scouts secretary Mohammad Mostafa Kamal, among others, addressed the meeting.
Urging the government to take strong measures to curb crimes against females and to free the country from social menace like eve- teasing, the speakers appealed the government for deployment of plain-clothes law enforcers around the educational institutions and demanded ban on setting up tea stalls and makeshift shops near the educational institutions. Earlier, a human chain was formed in front of the press club protesting eve teasing.
A large number of students, teachers, guar-dians, public representatives, social and cultural personalities, political leaders including the journalists took part in the human chain.

   RCC operates pre-primary education for distressed children
BSS, Rajshahi

Rajshahi City Corporation (RCC) has been operating 21 child development centers and pre-primary schools for educating the distressed and underprevilaged children in the metropolis. The corporation has taken necessary steps for expanding the activities further aimed at bringing more disadvantaged children under the child flourishment and literacy activities.
City Mayor AHM Khairuzzaman Liton revealed this while inaugurating a five- day training programme for the female teachers of the schools at the city bhaban seminar hall in Rajshahi on Wednesday as the chief guest.
He viewed that the poor and merginalized children have fundamental rights of becoming educated so they must be given educational scopes free of cost. In this regard, he underscored the need for bringing all the slum children and other underprevilaged ones under the literacy activities for building them as worthy citizens. To make the efforts a complete success, he asked the officials and staffs concerned to discharge their duties with utmost sincerity and honesty along with patriotic zeal.
Besides, he urged upon the participating teachers to become sincere about their duties so that the target group of people could derive the total benefit of the programme. Liton underscored the need for transforming the children into skilled human resources as they are the key-players to make the nation economically prosperous. He viewed that the nations, who involved the children in proper education, have attained cherished development and added that utmost importance should be given on uplifting them through enriching them with modern knowledge.

   Call for creating sustainable marketing system for char dwellers

BSS, Gaibandha

Speakers at a function in Gaibandha on Wednesday called for creating sustainable marketing system in char areas to improve economic condition of the char dwellers.
"Chili and cow milk are the main products of the char people and their livelihood depend on it to a great extent but the char dwellers do not get fair prices of their produces due to lack of good communication network.
In this context, a good business linkage between the char and developed areas can play a vital role to make the char dwellers more economically benefited and change their life style as well", they said.
They were addressing an opinion exchange meeting between Oxfam GB- Bangladesh and Gaibandha Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) at the conference room of Chamber Bhaban in the town.
The main objective of the meeting was how to create a sustainable business linkage to the char people to sell their produces at fair prices. Oxfam GB's South Asian Private Sector Adviser Amit Vatsyayan, President of GCCI Shahjada Anwarul Quadir, vice president Abdul Latif Hakkani, directors Dr. Shahiduzzaman Harun and Maksuder Rahman Shahan and journalist M. Shahiduzz-aman took part in the discussion, among others.
Oxfam delegates said the organization has been working in the country since 1972 and many development activities have already been taken place and also being implemented for the char people under its various programmes.

   Dropouts can be rooted out thru’ empowering female SMC members: Speakers

BSS, Rangpur

Speakers at a training course held at Chilmari upazila in Kurigram have said that primary school dropouts can be stopped through proper empowerment of the female members in the School Management Committees (SMC's).
They said that the primary students will be benefited more from the School Feeding Programme (SFP) under the World Food Programme (WFP) if the female SMC members were also properly trained and their leadership strengthened.
Side by side with meeting nutritional deficits of the primary school going students, the SFP has been playing important roles in reducing the number of dropouts, especially in the disaster- prone and poverty-prone backward and remote char areas, they said.
They said this at the Leadership Development Training Course for Female Members of the SMC's organized under the ongoing SFP and Food for Education Programme (FEP) of the WFP at Char Shakhahati No-2 Government Primary School (GPS) on Wednesday .
Rangpur-Dinajpur Rural Service (RDRS), implementing organization of the SFP, organized the course participated by the female members of the SMCs, headmasters, presidents of the SMC's of the beneficiary schools and elite of the remote areas.

   Social movement, awareness must for making a drug-free society

BSS, Rangpur

Speakers in Rangpur on Thursday underscored the need for building a drug-free society through launching social movement and creating mass awareness and launch joint efforts of all to build a happy, healthy and peaceful nation.
They also stressed for more social steps involving all stakeholders to save the young generations from drug addictions as the youths have been becoming the victims of drug addictions and the situation can create barriers to normal flourishing of their talents.
They said this while addressing an anti-drug discussion organized by Rangpur Sub-Regional Office of the Department of Narcotics Control (DNC) at Shishu Niketon High School in the city with its Headmistress Rawshan Ara Begum in the chair.
Deputy Director of Rangpur DNC Ahsanur Rahman attended and addressed the discussion as the chief guest while teachers of the school Mohammad Hamim, Bimal Chandra Roy and Office Assistant Shafikul Islam addressed among others.
All teachers and students of the reputed educational institution were present and they vowed for conducting anti-drug campaign of 'No to Drugs' for building a drug-free society.
The speakers discussed the fearful consequences and impacts of drugs on the young generations, human civilization and underscored the need for taking stringent measures against drug trafficking and proper social steps to save the youths from drug- addiction.

   Plant palm oil saplings to meet edible oil demand
BSS, Gaibandha

The speakers have stressed on the need for planting the saplings of palm oil trees on a large scale to meet the family demand of edible oil, maintain the ecological balance and enhance the beauty of the nature.
"A palm tree gives us at least 40 KGs of oil per annum by which a family with four or five members can fulfill its yearly demand of edible oil easily. On the other hand, if more than one tree can be raised, they will be sources of income all the year round and help change the socio-economic condition of the growers undoubtedly", they said.
They said this in a motivational meeting on palm oil cultivation at the hall room of Kathalbari Samaj Kalyan Sangstha (KSKS) under Sadar Upazila of Kurigram district on July 15.
Bangladesh Palm Oil Development Project arranged it in cooperation with The Happy Bangladesh and its partner organizations Palli Unnayan Sangstha (PUS), working for popularizing the cultivation of palm trees in northern region including Gaibandha, Kurigram and Rangpur districts to eradicate poverty and 'Monga' under motivational programme.
The cultivation methods and the oil collection process from the ripe palm fruit were elaborately described by manager of the project Abdur Rahim Badal side by side with distributing the leaflets to the participants in this regard.
Presided over by Khairul Alam Lal, chairman of the KSKS, the meeting was also addressed, among others, by chief executive of PUS Anisur Rahman Joarder, executive director Ashraful Islam, district coordinator Masud Ahmed and journalist M Shahiduzzaman. A large number of people including the farmers, public representatives, teachers, the local elite and the journalists took part in the meeting.
Talking to BSS, the chief executive of PUS said they have taken a massive programme to plant the saplings of palm oil in the northern region in the years ahead to change the socio economic conditions of the poor and to advance the northern districts towards development through popularizing its cultivation to the growers.

   Police arrests 169 in Rangpur
BSS, Rangpur

Police in separate raids arrested 169 persons including listed terrorists and recovered contraband narcotics substances from different places in the district during the past 72 hours till Friday noon.
Police said the arrested persons also include suspected criminals, cheats, smugglers, thieves, absconding warrantees and accused, drug traffickers and peddlers, muggers, extortionists and other anti-social elements.
Police also recovered smuggled goods, phensidyl, locally produced wine, lethal weapons, stolen goods and other illegal things during the raids.
Of the arrested, Kotwali police netted 34 persons, Pirganj six, Badarganj nine, Mithapukur 72, Pirgachha 33, Gangachara six and Kawnia police arrested nine persons during the raids.
The arrested persons were later sent to jail, the police sources said.

   3 held with drugs in Munshiganj
UNB, Munshiganj

Members of taskforce in separate drives arrested 3 drug peddlers along with huge contraband drugs from different parts of the district on Thursday.
A team of anti-drug taskforce conducted a drive at Mollar Char and arrested drug peddler Tamijuddin, 35, from a trawler along with huge quantities of hemp.
In another drive, drug peddlers Latif, 30, and Mukter, 25 were arrested along with 250 grams of hemp from Binodpur old Launch-ghat area of Sadar upazila.
Later, the task force also recovered 950 bottles of phensidyl from a private car in an abandoned condition at Baushia in Gazaria upazila on Dhaka-Chittagong highway. Another report from Narayanaganj adds: Members of Rapid Action Battalion (RAB)-11 arrested one drug peddler along with 500 grams of heroin at Dhaka-Narayanganj Link Road check post in Fatulla thana on Thursday morning.
The arrestee was identified as Abdul Malek alias Babu, 48, son of late Motaleb Munshi of Duliya Maddhyapara area of Sujanagar upazila of Pabna district.
RAB sources said a team of RAB-11 led by Lt Commander Mahbubul Alam searched a bus coming from Kushtia at the check post and arrested Malek along the contraband heroin.

   BSFIC starts 'uthon baithak' with farmers to encourage sugarcane cultivation

BSS, Dhaka

Bangladesh Sugar and Food Industries Corporation (BSFIC) has undertaken various measures to encourage farmers to raise cultivation of sugarcane, apply developed method in farming and supply more sugarcane to mills.
As part of the initiatives, BSFIC Chairman Dr Ranjit Kumar Biswas on Fridar launched 'uthon baithak' (courtyard meeting) with the farmers in the Puthia sub-zone area under Rajshahi Sugar Mills.
At the meetings, the sugarcane farmers raised their problems to the BSFIC chairman, who assured them of solving those.
The farmers said they would supply more sugarcane to save the sugar mills that are the only ago-based heavy industries in the northern region. A large number of farmers, including public representatives, were present at the meetings.

   ‘Bangladesh model for developing nations’
UNB, Dhaka

New UNDP Country Representative Rebecca Hansen has said Bangladesh is a model for developing nations and expressed her conviction that she would be successful in carrying out UNDP programs in Bangladesh.
Rebecca who will take up her new assignment in Bangladesh in September remarked it during a meeting with Bangladesh Permanent Representative to UN Dr A K Abdul Momen in New York On Thursday.
Momen apprised her of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's vision 2021 and said Bangladesh has been working on a roadmap to get elevated to a middle income country by 2021 despite various odds and obstacles.
The Permanent Representative sought UNDP cooperation for achieving the country's targets to attain cent percent enrolment in school by 2011, cent percent literacy rate by 2014, cent percent sanitation by 2013 and cent percent food security by 2012.
Momen said Bangladesh is on the road towards achieving four out of first seven Millennium Development Goals. Bangladesh is also committed to the 8th MDG for global partnership for development, he added.
He sought cooperation in introducing 'school lunch program' to stop dropouts from schools. Rebecca assured him all out cooperation in this respect.
As Dr Momen recalled UNDP's contribution to prepare voter list and ID cards for holding free and fair elections in 2008, Rebecca said UNDP feels happy for contributing to the transition to democracy in Bangladesh through fair elections.

   Work unitedly for building digital BD: Rangpur DC
BSS, Rangpur

Divisional Commissioner of Rangpur Jashim Uddin Ahmed has called upon all concerned for working unitedly with utmost sincerity for building a developed digital Bangladesh as envisioned by the present government.
He also asked the Deputy Commissioners (DC) of all eight districts of newly formed administrative division of Rangpur, all government officials and employees for working to build a poverty-free and developed Rangpur division at the earliest.

   Krishi technology fair begins
BSS, Mymensingh

A three- day 'Krishi Technology Fair, 2010' began in Phulbaria upazila to boost food production in farm land by utilizing latest agro technology. Parliament member Advocate Muslem Uddin formally inaugurated the fair organised by upazila agriculture extension office in cooperation with upazila parisad.
The inaugural function was addressed, among others, by uapzila nirbahi officer Md Rukun Uddin, mayor of Phulbaria pourashava Golam Kebria, vice chairman of upazila parisad Kabir Hossain, deputy director of Department of Agriculture Extension(DAE) Md Muzammel Haque. Upazila agriculture officer Md Abdul Hye delivered welcome speech. Advocate Muslem Uddin MP said present government is committed to boost food grains production in the country.
That's why the government under the leadership of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has given top priority to agriculture sector for raising food production by utilizing latest agriculture Technology, he said.
He said the fair would inspire the farmers for applying latest agro technology to harvest bumper food production. A total of 32 stalls have been setup in the fair.

   Debiganj UNO foils early marriage bid
BSS, Panchagarh

At the intervention of Upazila Nirbahi Officer (UNO) of Debiganj in the district, an incident of early marriage was stopped at Sonahar village of the upazila.
Sources said the marriage of Amina, 13, daughter of Jaminur of Sonahar village, was fixed with an adolescent boy Nazmul, 14, son of Habibul of the same village and all preparations were taken to complete the wedding ceremony.
On information, Debiganj UNO Abu Zafar along with a team of police rushed to the spot and managed to stop the marriage of two immature children by convincing their parents.

Sports

India enberks on test series tomorrow against Sri Lanka
AFP, Galle

India on Sunday embarks on a third Test series in two years against Sri Lanka, with the world's top-rated side hoping to end their 17-year drought in the island nation.
The Indians have not won a Test series in Sri Lanka since a 1-0 success by Mohammad Azharuddin's team in 1993, despite playing on similar slow wickets at home.
India lost 2-1 the last time they played in Sri Lanka, in August 2008, but gained revenge with a 2-0 victory at home a year later that propelled Mahendra Singh Dhoni's men to the top of the official Test rankings.
India's new-found love for Test cricket over the more lucrative one-day matches saw them pencil in the three-Test series against Sri Lanka-and another chance to defend their ranking.
It was an offer too good to refuse for Sri Lanka, whose only scheduled Test series this year would have been at home against the West Indies in November.
"The boys were desperate to play Test cricket, which is the pinnacle of the sport, and I am grateful that India agreed to this series," Sri Lanka captain Kumar Sangakkara said.
Sri Lanka, currently fourth in the Test rankings behind India, Australia and South Africa, are hoping to showcase their prowess in home conditions, where they have proved almost invincible.
The Sri Lankans have won eight of their last nine series at home, the only setback coming in 2006, when Pakistan won a two-match series 1-0.
Their success has mainly been down to the prolific work by world bowling record holder Muttiah Muralitharan, backed by a strong batting line-up led by Sangakkara and former captain Mahela Jayawardene.
Off-spinner Muralitharan, 38, who will quit the five-day game after the first Test, needs just eight more scalps to reach the unprecedented tally of 800 Test wickets, adding to a record 515 in one-day matches.
India have not lost a Test match at home to Sri Lanka, but they know the Sri Lankans are a very different proposition on their own patch.
"We know the past has not been very good, but we want to look towards the future," said Dhoni, turning out for national duty just two weeks after getting married.
"We have played Sri Lanka so much in the last few years that we know their strengths and weaknesses and hopefully we can exploit that. Sri Lanka are a strong team at home, but we have the ability to win."

  Henry announces international retirement
AFP, Harrison

French striker Thierry Henry on Thursday confirmed that he has retired from international football after making 123 appearances and scoring a record 51 goals for France.
Appearing at a press conference at the Red Bull Arena here following the officialisation of his move to Major League Soccer side the New York Red Bulls, the 32-year-old explained the reasons behind his decision.
"I've worn (the French shirt) 123 times and I've always had goosebumps when I've worn the blue jersey," he said.
"But you have to know when to stop. There are young players coming through."
Henry, who arrives in America from Spanish champions Barcelona, dismissed suggestions that he was winding down his career.
"When you join a club you always try to win the title, which is what I'll do here," he said, adding that football was on the rise in the United States.
"Twenty-five million people watched the final of the World Cup.
"It's extraordinary."
Henry earned his first cap for France in a friendly against South Africa in October 1997 and played his final international game against the same side, as France bowed out of the World Cup at the group phase with a 2-1 defeat by the hosts last month following a disastrous campaign.
Between those two games, Henry's career in French colours touched soaring highs and miserable lows.
He was a junior member of the side that won France's first World Cup on home soil in 1998 and which went on to win the 2000 European Championship and the 2003 Confederations Cup.
His tally of 51 international goals was 10 goals more than the mark of 41 set down by former France great Michel Platini.
One of his most memorable strikes came in the quarter-finals of the 2006 World Cup, when he volleyed a Zinedine Zidane free- kick into the roof of the Brazil net to send France into the last four.
He endured bitter disappointment with France, however, when Les Bleus crashed out of the 2002 World Cup at the group stage and then repeated the feat at Euro 2008.
His France career ended under a cloud after his controversial handball against the Republic of Ireland in a World Cup play-off in Paris last November enabled France to progress at the expense of the Irish.
He subsequently spent most of his time in South Africa on the bench, after France coach Raymond Domenech informed him prior to the start of the tournament that he was no longer guaranteed a starting place.
With 123 caps, Henry trails only Lilian Thuram (142) in the list of his country's all-time appearance makers.

   Wayne Rooney contract talks to be stepped up by Manchester United as court case ends

AFP, Manchester

Manchester United and England star Wayne Rooney will pay just nominal damages to his former agents Proactive after an attempt to sue him for 4.3 million pounds (6.6 million dollars).
Rooney will have to pay only a "restitutional remedy" amounting to around 90,000 pounds (138,227 dollars) after the ruling into his court battle with the sports management firm was handed down on Thursday.
Rooney and his wife Coleen had been taken to court by Proactive, who claimed the couple had withheld the commission on multi-million pound deals brokered during the time they represented him.
The 24-year-old made no payments after football agent Paul Stretford, a director and founder of Proactive, left the firm in October 2008 -- taking with him Rooney and the revenue his fame generated.
Rooney was signed by Stretford for Proactive in 2002 when he was still playing for Everton and the teenage striker quickly garnered multi-million sponsorship deals with companies including Nike, Coca-Cola and EA Sports.
Proactive argued that, as such contracts for Rooney and Coleen were brokered by Stretford while he was still at the firm, they were due the 20 percent commission-amounting to 4.3 million pounds.
But Judge Brendan Hegarty, who had postponed handing down the ruling until after the World Cup following a three-week trial in February, dismissed that claim and also rejected an application to appeal from Proactive's lawyers.
Judge Hegarty told the court: "The contract imposed very substantial restraints upon Mr Rooney's freedom to exploit his earning ability over a very long period of time on terms which were not commonplace in the market and which were not the outcome of commercial negotiation between equals.
"Proactive cannot, therefore, recover as a matter of contract, any sums which remain unpaid but which would otherwise have fallen due to it under the terms of the agreement had it not been unenforceable."
Ian Mill QC, representing Proactive, told the court they would consider taking the matter to the Court of Appeal.
In a statement, Rooney, who followed the ruling while on holiday in Barbados, said: "I am delighted to have won this case. Coleen and I have always been happy to pay all commissions due to the people who were owed them.

  Porterfield century helps Ireland beat Bangladesh
AFP, Belfast

Ireland captain William Porterfield inspired his side to another success against a Test-playing nation as Bangladesh were beaten by seven wickets in a one-day international in Belfast on Thursday.
Porterfield hit 108 from 116 balls at Stormont to ensure Ireland easily chased down Bangladesh's total of 234-9 with seven wickets and five overs to spare.
The victory will serve to strengthen Ireland's case for more top-level opposition as the team, which defeated Pakistan at the 2007 World Cup, continues to improve rapidly.
Ireland were on top from the start and quickly reduced Bangladesh to 25-3, with Trent Johnston and Boyd Rankin doing the damage.
Imrul Kayes and the in-form Tamim Iqbal made just five each, while Jahurul Islam departed with just three runs to his name.
Bangladesh, who had claimed a first ever win over England last Saturday, recovered reasonably well thanks to Junaid Siddique's 100 from 123 balls and 50 from Shakib Al Hasan.
Junaid brought up his century off his 121st delivery, nine of which he hit for four. But he lasted just two more balls as Kevin O'Brien claimed his wicket.
Despite some powerful hitting from Mashrafe Mortaza in the closing overs, Bangladesh's total always looked within reach for Ireland once Porterfield got into his stride.
The 25-year-old left-hander, who plays English county cricket for Gloucestershire, struck seven fours and three sixes on the way to his fifth one- day international century.
With opening partner Paul Stirling hitting seven fours in his 50, Ireland were well on course for victory by the time the first wicket fell at 118.
Porterfield was joined by Alex Cusack, who scored a composed 45 from 77 balls, and the pair were so comfortable that even the loss of two wickets late on couldn't derail the hosts.
Ireland will aim to repeat this emphatic victory when the sides meet again at the same venue on Friday.

  Froch, Abraham to fight in Monaco
AFP, New York

Former super middleweight champion Carl Froch and Arthur Abraham will fight on neutral ground in Monaco in the third stage of the Super Six World Boxing Classic, tournament backer Showtime said Thursday.
The bout, in which both fighters will be seeking a spot in the tournament semi-finals, is scheduled for October 2 at the Chapiteau de l'Espace Fontvieille in Monaco.
Froch had wanted the fight in his native England, Abraham wanted it in Germany and Showtime discussed holding it in Montreal.
"The intensity of the selection process for this venue speaks to the enormity of the moment," Showtime vice president Ken Hershman said in a statement.
"All the fighters in the tournament have set out to prove that they are the world's best at 168 pounds by fighting their peers - the most dangerous men in the division - fight after fight.
"Any perceived advantage or disadvantage has been calculated."
The tournament awards points based on three guaranteed bouts in the opening stages. Knockouts are worth three points, a win by decision is two points and a draw is one point.
Andre Ward is the only fighter to win his first two bouts and leads the tournament with four points. Abraham has the only knockout and is second with three points, while Froch is tied with Mikkel Kessler and Andre Dirrell with two points each. Late substitution Allan Green has zero.
The four with the most points after their third fights will advance to seeded semi-finals. A championship showdown is tentatively scheduled for next year.
Froch lost his World Boxing Council version of the super middleweight title in his previous bout with a narrow defeat to Kessler on April 24.
Abraham lost by disqualification in his last bout in March after hitting Dirrell on the chin while Dirrell, who had dominated the fight, was down.

  Cram wants Britain to change the record in 2012
AFP, London

Britain must capitalise on the 2012 London Olympics by reclaiming domination over middle distance running, Steve Cram said, 25 years to the day since he smashed the 1,500 metres world record.
The British track star, still keeping trim at 50, was the first man to run the distance under three minutes 30 seconds, posting 3:29.67 in Nice, southern France, on July 16, 1985.
He went on to break the mile and 2,000 metres records within 19 days, as British dominated the world at middle distance running under Cram, Sebastian Coe and Steve Ovett.
Cram's mile time of 3:46.32, recorded at Oslo on July 27, 1985, and his 2,000 metres time of 4:51.39, set in Budapest on August 4, 1985, are still the European records, while his 1,500 metres is still the British benchmark.
But he would desperately love the 2012 Games to give a British athlete the impetus to shatter his records at long, long last.
"It's sad that in Britain we've had great women - Paula Radcliffe, Kelly Holmes, Lisa Dobriskey, Jennifer Meadows - but with men, here we are 25 years later," Cram told AFP.
"You shouldn't be able to hold a British record in athletics for that time, it's not right."
He said Britons could muscle into a gap in the market.
"Sprint is Caribbean/American-dominated, in longer events it's Kenya and Ethiopia but the 800 and 1,500 metres we can still be successful at," he said.
"If Seb, Steve and I were running now, we'd be right in there winning those races: today's runners are not going any faster. We just need a couple of Brits who can get in there and get involved - as we've seen in the women's."
Cram, now a BBC commentator, said gold medals at the London Games would be crucial in restoring athletics to its former glory in Britain.
"We desperately need to win golds in athletics. It lifts the Games. The place will come alive," he told AFP.
"We will win gold in cycling and rowing, but in that Olympic Stadium, we need to have people with the chance to win.
"I want a British athlete in every single final - minimum.
That's the base level, and we should be able to achieve that."
Cram believes there are many reasons why British athletics has fallen from its peak, starting with not enough youngsters being encouraged into it at school as parents push their children into football.
No British men's records have been broken in the Olympic track events since 1997, something the athletics legend from Jarrow in northeast England wants to see challenged.
"We're putting way too much emphasis on sprinting," Cram said.
"Sprinters get all the publicity but when was the last time a British sprinter won a medal at a major championships?
"The route we've taken recently is a dangerous one, trying to centre everything around Loughborough (central England) and Lee Valley (London), when athletics has always been spread around the country," he added.
"It's also very coach-driven, but you've got to get that balance right between the influence of the coach and the champion-thinking athlete."
The London 2012 played up its legacy credentials.
Cram said athletics clubs had to be prepared for an influx of people inspired by the Games, but reckons parts of Britain do not yet have good competition structures and facilities in place.

  Barcelona set aside 50m euros for new players
AFP, Madrid

Spanish champions Barcelona, who secured a bank loan of 155 million euros this week to solve cash-flow problems, have set aside 50 million euros to spend on new players, the club said on Thursday.
"The club has approximately 50 million euros net to spend on new players each season," Barcelona said in a statement, after vice-president for finance Javier Faus gave a news conference to provide details about the loan.
Barcelona signed striker David Villa for 40 million euros in May but have parted ways since the end of the season with Ivory Coast defender Yaya Toure, French striker Thierry Henry and Ukrainian defender Dmitryo Chygrynskiy.
Toure joined Manchester City in a deal worth 30 million euros, Chygrynskiy returned to Ukrainian powerhouses Shakhtar Donetsk in a deal worth 15 million euros, while Henry joined the New York Red Bulls for a yet to be disclosed fee.
"In the case of this season, buying David Villa combined with the sales of Yaya Toure and Dmytro Chygrynskiy balance themselves out," the statement said.
Barcelona hope to bring Arsenal captain and Spanish international Cesc Fabregas back to the club but so far their overtures have been rejected.
Last week Barcelona's new president Sandro Rosell insisted that his side would not break the bank to land Fabregas.
"We won't pay an unjustified sum. We won't lose our heads over this business," said he said.

   Leon joins Real Madrid as Mourinho moves in
AFP, Madrid

The Mourinho Years began for Real Madrid on Thursday as Jose Mourinho met his players for the first time, with one new player arriving amid rumours of possible exits.
The Spanish giants announced the signing of winger Pedro Leon on a six- year deal from Getafe.
The player, who turns 24 in November, will undergo medical tests on Friday before being official unveiled at Real's Santiago Bernabeu stadium at 12:30 pm (1030GMT), the club said in a statement posted on their website.
The club gave no financial details but public television TVE said the deal was worth 10 million euros.
Leon helped Getafe to their best-ever finish of sixth place in the Spanish league last season.
Thursday marked Portuguese coach Mourinho's first encounter with his new charges, but with the bulk of the Real Madrid squad still on leave after the World Cup, he was greeted by just 10 players.
They underwent medical examinations before the proper start to training on Friday.
That did not stop the rumour mill, though, which is working overtime on suggestions striker Raul and midfielder Guti, both absent on Thursday, will be gone by the time Real begin their quest to unseat champions Barcelona in the Spanish league at the end of next month.
The 33-year-old Raul, who has played his entire professional career at Real, having made 550 appearances since his debut in 1994, has been linked with a move to German club Schalke and has also been associated with English clubs Manchester United and Blackburn Rovers.
The fact he spent time on holiday in New York this summer has also seen talk that he may be about to follow former France captain Thierry Henry to the New York Red Bulls.
Guti, another Real lifer having made his pro debut in 1995, is also reported to have had offers from Turkey and Greece as well as Blackburn and Zenit St Petersburg.
French midfielder Lassana Diarra is also likely, according to the Spanish media, to leave the club after meeting Mourinho on Wednesday to discuss his future.

  Sweden's Ibrahimovic announces return to national team
AFP, Stockholm

Striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic said Friday he was returning to the national team after a short hiatus from his international career set doubts on his future playing for Sweden.
"What I have always said, is that I am proud to play for the national team ... You can count on me to be there at the national team's next game," the Barcelona player told a webcast press conference.
Ibrahimovic explained his break was a result of Sweden failing to qualify for the World Cup by loosing to Denmark in an October 2009 game.
"After the last game, when we didn't get into the World Cup, I felt my motivation disappear," he said.
"So I decided to give up. I had no desire to play. I'm a competitor, I play to win. After your career, you want to be remembered as someone who won," he said.
The striker said Sweden coach Erik Hamren awoke his motivation.
"He has the same mentality as me. He promised me a medal," he said, sitting next to the coach and laughing with reporters.
Hamren called the player's decision "excellent."
"A motivated Zlatan is worth gold for the Swedish team. He's one of the best players in the world," he said.
Last November, Hamren was among the first to tell media Ibrahimovic doubted his future with the national team.
He had asked the player to give him a definite answer before August.
The 28-year-old striker, referred to as simply "Zlatan" in Sweden, has scored 22 goals in 62 internationals and has been named Sweden's player of the year four times.
He joined Barcelona in July 2009 from Inter Milan in a deal worth 75 million euros (90 million dollars) but had a mixed first season at the Spanish league club and ended it on the substitutes' bench.
According to Catalan sports media, he has decided to quit the club to return to Italy.

   Former Pakistan captain Latif heads to Afghanistan
AFP, Karachi

Former Pakistan captain Rashid Latif said Friday he would become Afghanistan's batting coach and try to bring the nascent team into play with other Asian nations.
"I have decided to join the Afghanistan team as batting coach and help them improve at international level," Latif told AFP.
"I received an offer from Afghanistan cricket officials and some of the minor formalities will be worked out when I go to Jalalabad later this month."
The former wicket-keeper batsman, who played 37 Tests and 166 one-day internationals between 1992-2004, said it was important for Afghan cricket to get help from other Asian countries.
"They need more and more cricket to improve and once other Asian countries like Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka tour them or invite them, Afghanistan cricket team will improve," said Latif.
Latif said foreign tours will help generate interest in Afghanistan.
"I will help liaise with Afghan officials and since they have one-day cricket status I will try to arrange their series in Pakistan, so that cricket is also revived in my country," said Latif.
International cricket ground to a halt in Pakistan after militants attacked the Sri Lankan team bus in March 2009.
The attacks killed eight people, injured seven Sri Lankan players and put paid to Pakistan's chances of staging international cricket for years.
Latif said Afghanistan's cricket was improving by leaps and bounds.
"Afghans have shown a passion for cricket and the way they progressed to the World Twenty20 was remarkable," said Latif.
Afghanistan featured in the third edition of the World Twenty20 held in the West Indies in April-May this year.
Latif will help Afghanistan prepare for next month's tour of Scotland where they play one four-day match and two one-day internationals.
The war-torn nation has seen cricket become a number one sport in recent years. Most players learnt the game at refugee camps in Pakistan.

  Adriano close to Barcelona switch - reports
AFP, Madrid

Sevilla's Brazilian utility player Adriano is close to a move to Barcelona, according to Spanish media reports on Friday.
The 25-year-old, who can play at full-back or as a wide midfielder, will join the Spanish champions for a fee in the region of 10 million euros, the sport dailies AS and Mundo Deportivo reported.
Adriano has been at Sevilla since 2004, twice tasting success in both the King's Cup (2007, 2010) and the UEFA Cup (2006, 2007).
He would become the first player to move to Barcelona since the arrival of new club president Sandro Rosell at the beginning of July.
Barca have already completed the signing of Spanish international striker David Villa, who arrived from Valencia for a fee close to 40 million euros.

  Bettencourt leads Reno-Tahoe Open by one shot
AFP, Reno

Matt Bettencourt seized the first-round lead at the Reno-Tahoe Open on Thursday, one stroke in front of fellow American Chris DiMarco.
Bettencourt, who won the 2008 Nationwide Tour Championship but has no PGA Tour victories, hit his drive 355 yards on the par-five 17th and landed a four-iron from 260 yards within three feet for eagle to highlight his round.
It was enough to keep him in front with a six-under 66 despite a bogey at the last.
The 35-year-old from Northern California said he probably played almost 100 rounds of golf in the neighboring Reno area as a youth, and has played plenty at the Montreux club where this tournament is held.
"My confidence is building. I feel real comfortable," he said. "I feel really acclimated to the elevation."
"The whole game is about confidence. I think that's what Tiger (Woods) has bred so well over his career. I mean, he's so much more confident than everybody else. We all believe in ourselves. You know, it's just the matter of getting on a hot streak."
DiMarco, a three-time winner on the PGA Tour who hasn't finished in the top-10 since 2008 fired a 67 - with the aid of his 14-year-old son, Cristian, acting as his caddie.
Will MacKenzie, the 2006 Reno winner, and Craig Bowden were two shots off the pace on 68.
More than a dozen golfers were grouped on 69 including Australian Steve Elkington, Woody Austin, Aussie Mark Hensby, J.J. Henry and Chad Campbell.
DiMarco's son helped read the tricky mountain greens and even called him off of using his driver when a two-iron proved to be the perfect choice on the 464-yard, tree-lined eighth hole.

  India vow to spoil Muralitharan’s finale
AFP, Galle, Sri Lanka

India are determined not to join the party as Sri Lanka celebrate world record wicket taker Muttiah Muralitharan's final Test appearance in Galle from Sunday.
The off-spinner, 38, will retire after the opening contest of the three-match series at the Galle International Stadium, in which he needs eight scalps to reach the unprecedented 800-wicket mark in Test cricket.
Local fans want Muralitharan to claim those eight wickets and lead Sri Lanka to victory in what will be a fitting end to a remarkable, but controversial, 18-year Test career.
However, Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni said his world number one team will not allow Muralitharan-who is commonly known as Murali-to have it all his way.
"Good luck to Murali, but we are here to win," said Dhoni, who teams up with the Sri Lankan in the Twenty20 Indian Premier League for current champions Chennai Super Kings.
"We all know Murali is a great bowler and his achievements speak for themselves. More importantly, he is also a great human being and I cherish his friendship.
"However, this is Test cricket and we do not intend to give our wickets easily. Our batsmen would like not to give him the opportunity to reach 800 wickets during the first Test."
The 132-Test veteran, the most successful bowler in history with record hauls in both Test (792) and one-day (515) cricket, said last week he was retiring from the longer version since he had nothing left to
strive for.
"I have achieved what I wanted to achieve. There is nothing left or any target to reach," he told reporters at the announcement of his decision to quit tests.
Muralitharan had earlier talked of retiring after the home series against the West Indies in November, but changed his mind because he "did not want to keep so many talented youngsters waiting."
Local media reports said Muralitharan preferred not to wait till the end of the India series because he was unsure of being able to manage the workload of an entire series.