tuesday, june 22, 2010 ashar 8, 1417, RAJAB 9, 1431 Hijri

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Leading News

DAP gets Cabinet approval
PM for quick implementation of the project

UNB, Dhaka

The Cabinet on Monday gave approval for publishing the gazette notification on much-talked-about Detailed Area Plan (DAP), a popular project of the present government to build Dhaka as a safe modern city.
Presiding over the 74th regular cabinet meeting held at Bangladesh Sec-retariat, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina ordered quick implementation of the Detailed Area Plan.
But before implementing the project, she directed the Rajdhani Unnayan Kartr-ipakkha (RAJUK) to put the DAP on its website in order to involve people of all professions and classes with the project. "We don't want any deficiency while implementing the DAP," the Prime Minister was quoted as saying by her Press Secretary Abul Kalam Azad.
Briefing journalists at the PID conference room, the Press Secretary said the cabinet formed an inter-ministerial body to ensure proper coordination among the Ministries and departments concerned during implementation of the DAP. It comprises seven ministries - Housing and Public Works, Land, LGRD, Communication, Shipping, Water Resources and Environment. Azad said that ministers and secretaries of the ministries will sit regularly to coordinate the project.
He informed that Prime Minister Hasina also told the cabinet that the wetlands of the city must be preserved at any cost. "Nobody will be spared in the process of preserving the wetlands," the Prime Minister said at a time when most of the ponds, canals and other water bodies have been filled up by some real estate companies and land developers.
On public involvement in the DAP, Hasina said like the Education Policy, the DAP must be kept on website so that people know the details of the project and can offer their views and opinions. According to official website of RAJUK, the DAP aims at implementing the Structure Plan and the Urban Area Plan policies and recommendations. The specific objectives of DAP include data management and dissemination at mouza dag level, providing a program for Multi-sector Investment Plan, providing control for private sector development and clarity and security of investment for inhabitants and investors, providing guideline for development considering the opportunity and constraints and ensuring sustainable environment DAP area is 1528 sq. km. or 590 sq. miles covering the total area under the jurisdiction of RAJUK.
The DAP has become the talk of the country after Bashundhara Group chairman Ahmed Akbar Sobhan alias Shah Alam, also the president of Bangladesh Land Developers Asso-ciation, locked in an altercation with Housing and Public Works Minister Abdul Mannan Khan at the Ministry during a meeting on DAP on last June 13.

 Onrush of hill water submerges Sherpur-Nalitabari road
Breaches develop in embankment, bridges

UNB, Sherpur

Onrush of hill water triggered by heavy rain in the upstream inundated vast areas of Nalitabari and Jhinaigati upazilas on Monday.
Chellakhali river in Nali-tabari was overflowing at several points due to onrush of hill water.
A bridge on Sherpur-Nalitabari road at Sannyasibhita caved in while an embankment on the river developed a 5oo-feet breach causing floods in the area, submerging 15 houses.
Road communications between the upazila and the district headquarters remained snapped since morning as overflowing extensively inaundated Sherpur-Gazirkhamar road creating a 1oo-feet breach on the road at Balughata area.
Rivers Bhogai, Maharashi and Someshwari alarmingly swelled and overflew submerging villages, roads, bridges and croplands on both sides of the banks.
A link road road of a bridge on Someshwari river was severely damaged at Dupuria area in Jhinaigati snapping road communication bet-ween the upazila headquarters and Bhayadanga.
Besides, over 100 houses were inundated as floodwater engulfed Jarulata, Manikkura and Haldigram villages in Nalkura union.

 Budget 2010-11
Implementation capability is ambitious: BNP

UNB, Dhaka

Mainstream opposition BNP, which has been abstaining from the current budget session in Parliament (Monday), said on Monday that the total size of the proposed national budget for 2010-11 fiscal is 'insufficient' compared to necessity but ambitious with regard to the government's implementation capacity.
Ten days after the national budget was placed in Parliament, giving the party's formal reaction to the budget, BNP standing committee member MK Anwar MP made the remarks at a press briefing at Khaleda Zia's Gulshan office on Monday afternoon.
Earlier on June 10, BNP secretary general Khandaker Delwar Hossain, in an instant reaction to the press had termed the budget 'highly ambitious and dreaming of a golden deer'.
Comparing percentages of GDP in terms of different macroeconomic scenarios covering total investment, ADP, import, export and government investment between fiscals 2005 -06 and 2009-10, he said it would be impossible for the government to implement the budget.
The figures showed a decrease in GDP for 2009-10 compared to 2005-06.
He said that in the proposed budget the area of Value Added Tax (VAT) has been increased massively, which would see 3,500 new items come under VAT, increasing the living costs for particularly poor people as well as the middle and lower middle class, and increase poverty levels as well.
On corruption, former Minister MK Anwar agreed with the Finance Minister's statement in the budget speech that corruption is one of the major obstacles to economic development. But, he alleged, by withdrawing 5,539 criminal cases so far against leaders and workers of Awami League and the Grand Alliance, the government had already bowed to corruption.
He said an absconding son of a top leader of the ruling party with a conviction of 17 years for corruption, was pardoned by the President without surrendering in court.
Referring to the Finance Minister's remarks that none can show any evidence of state corruption, he said the fate that had befallen Amar Desh acting editor Mahmudur Rahman (after it published reports of financial irregularities involving the Prime Minister's son) it is certainly true that no-one can now present any such evidence.
Mentioning the shutdown of private TV channels Jamuna and Channel 1 and the government's control over press, he said following such actions of the government, it is not wise to hope that the media will talk or write about corruption. Mentioning the government's previous 'unpleasant and unfortunate' response to the BNP's offer of extending cooperation to the government, MK Anwar said despite those they are ready to cooperate with the government in any affairs for the interest of the people.

   15 JCD activists injured in BCL attack on DU Campus
UNB, Dhaka

At least 15 leaders and activists of Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal (JCD) were injured in an attack by some activists of Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL), student wing of ruling Awami League, on Dhaka Univ-ersity (DU) campus on Monday morning.
Witnesses said a group of BCL cadres swooped on some JCD activists with iron rods while they were gathering at Madhur canteen in the morning. The BCL men beat up the JCD activists, leaving 15 of them injured. They ousted the JCD men from the canteen and also vandalized some chairs of the canteen.
Convener of JCD, DU unit, Abdul Matin and joint conveners Obaidul Haque Nasir, Mohidul Islam Heru, Habibur Rahman Sumon, Minhaz, Shahnewaz, Masud, Mosharraf, Shafique and Mahfuzur Rahman were among the injured. The injured were taken to Dhaka Medical College Hospital. JCD Central President Sultan Sallahuddin Tuku expressed concern over incident and condemned the attack by the BCL men.
Tuku said some 'unruly' BCL men attacked their activists without any provocation. The JCD president threatened that they would call tougher programme if the responsible BCL cadres are not punished. A tense situation has been prevailing on the campus.

   BSF kills two more Bangladeshis
31 border killings in last four months

TBT Report

Indian Border Security Force (BSF) killed two more Bangladeshis on Monday as its killing spree on Bangladesh border continues unabated despite India's repeated pledges to stop such killings.
With these, BSF killed 31 Bangladeshis in last four months and 111 in last 13 months. The number of Bangladeshis killed by BSF during the nine years period from January 1, 2000 to June 17, 2010 stands at 835. BSF also injured 860 and abducted 903 Bangladeshis in the same period. According to UNB news agency, a Bangladeshi cattle trader was shot dead and his companion injured by BSF in Chutipur area opposite Moheshpur frontier in the early hours of Monday.
The deceased was identified as Bahar Ali, 35, son of Akkas Ali and the injured is Altaf Hossain of Loraighat village in Moheshpur upazila.
Altaf who somehow managed to return home was rushed to Jessore general hospital in critical condition.
Lt Col Sultan Ahmed, commander of Rifles Battalion-35 said BSF troops of Chutipur camp opened fire on the two cattle traders near border pillar no. 60 while they were returning from India along with cattle at about 4 am, leaving Bahar Ali dead on the spot.
Meanwhile, BDR in a letter to their Indian counterparts strongly protested the incident and demanded immediate return of the body.
Another report from Chapainawabganj adds: Another Bangladeshi cattle trader was shot dead by Indian BSF opposite Chouka border in Shibganj upazila early Monday.
The deceased was identified as Rabu, 40, son of Arjed Ali of Ajmatpur Hajarbighi village of the same upazila. Lt Cl. Zayed Hossain, commander of Rifles Battalion-39 said BSF troops of Shabdalpur shot him dead near border pillar no. 175 while he was going to India for buying cattle at about 3 am.
Meanwhile, BDR in a letter to their Indian counterparts strongly protested the incident and dem-anded immediate return of the body.
In the last occasion, BSF of India gunned down a Bangladeshi cattle trader on Ronchondi border under Dhamoirhat upazila in Naogaon in the small hours of Thursday.
The victim was identified as Abdul Motaleb, 40, son of Abed Ali Mandal of frontier village Chak Sobdal of the same upazila. The killings of unarmed Bangl-adeshis by the BSF on the border are continuing in clear violation of the spirit of good neighborliness as well as international law and despite repeated pledges by the Indian authorities to stop it. In every meeting between BSF and BDR and also between the higher level officials of the two countries, the Indian side assures that killing of Bangladeshis by its forces on the border would come to an end immediately. But this pledge is seldom implemented.

Back Page

Unrest in garment sector fuels violence in Savar
UNB, Savar

Agitated garments workers have again gone on a massive rampage, locking in a series of clashes with police leaving at least 200 garment workers and 12 cops injured at Ashulia in Savar on Monday.
The garment workers blocked roads of all routes including the Dhaka-Tangail highway at Savar for about four hours.
Police and locals said the clash erupted at about 8am when police used force to disperse several thousand demonstrating garments workers as they ransacked the factories and blockaded the roads, demanding a monthly minimum wage of Tk 5,000 at Ashulia.
The angry workers ransacked 80 to 90 garment factories, set fire to four cars and vandalized 20 to 25 vehicles as they blockaded the roads of all routes linked with Ashulia including Nabinagar-Kaliakoir, Ashulia-Tongi, and EPZ-Abdullahpur from 2pm to 6pm.
They locked in a series of clashes with police as the law enforcers tried to disperse them, leaving at least 200 garments workers and 12 police personnel including Savar SI Aminul Islam were injured.
The injured were rushed to local hospitals and clinics.
Police lobbed tear gas shells, used water cannons and charged baton to disperse the agitated workers as they hurled brickbats at them. Police controlled the situation in the evening.
The agitated garment workers ransacked 80 to 90 garments factories including Ananta Garments, Ochine Gate, Shade Fashion Ltd of Narsinghapur, Meghna Apparels, Envoy garments and Universe of Jamgara area, Skyline, and Pearl Garments of Polashbari area during the clash. They also ransacked some markets including Sameer Plaza and Bhuiyan Market in Jamgara area.
The authorities shut down at least 100 factories in Asulia area for the workers' demonstration immediately.
Assistant general manager of Ananta Garments Jabiul Alom Firoj said the workers ransacked the factory without any reason.
He alleged that some persons who are not workers were involved in the violence.
Officer in Charge (OC) of Ashulia police station said there might have outer conspiracy in the violence.

   Govt to reopen Adamji Jute Mills with 500 looms soon
BSS, Dhaka

The government will reopen the giant Adamji Jute Mills soon installing 500 looms initially at a cost of Taka 306 crore.
"At the first phase, we will install 500 looms at No. 2 Shed on 11 acres at the mills and later another 500 looms will be installed which will create 5,720 jobs," Jute and Textile Minister Abdul Latif Siddique told BSS on Monday.
Mentioning that the four-party alliance government had shut down Adamji Jute Mills, leaving 27,000 people jobless, the minister said the present government has taken initiatives to reopen five jute mills, including Adamji, considering increasing demand for jute and jute goods both at local and international markets.
The fund for reopening the mills will be disbursed from block allocation of the government.
After reopening of the jute mills, a huge number of jobs will be created in line with the present government's election pledge, the minister said.
Thanking Bangladesh Bank Governor Dr Atiur Rahman for his role in reopening the mills, Latif said the shutdown mills had debts amounting to Taka 2,800 crore to banks that are now being reducing through rescheduling phase by phase.
Bangladesh Bank has already taken measures to repay the banks' debts of Taka 700 crore through 30 installments in bank- blocked system and provide bank guarantees for the mills under Bangladesh Jute Mills Corporation (BJMC).
Jute Secretary Ashraful Moqbul said the 500 looms would be set up at Adamji Jute Mills with modern machinery and the ministry has already contacted with jute machinery manufacturers of India and China in this regard.
BJMC Project Director Engineer (production) Tariqul Islam said BJMC had submitted three proposals to the ministry for reopening Adamji Jute Mills with modern equipment and the ministry is going to implement one proposal -'Export Yarn Jute Diversity'.
BJMC estimated that Taka 608 crore would be needed to install the total proposed 1000 looms at Adamji Mills, he said.

   Hanif urges BNP to cooperate rather than staging hartal
BSS, Dhaka

Joint General Secretary of Awami League Mahbub-Ul-Alam Hanif on Monday urged the opposition BNP to cooperate with the government's development endeavours rather than involving in unruly activities like hartal.
"No such situation has been created in the country that can trigger staging of such a big programme like hartal, he said while speaking as the chief guest at an anti-hartal seminar organized by Awami Olama League at the Jatiya Press Club here.
State Minister for Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Advocate Qumrul Islam and State Minister for Religious Affairs Advocate Shahjahan Mia spoke as the special guests while Awami Obama League President Moulana M Ismail Hossain presided over it and presented the keynote paper.
Hanif said BNP's hartal programme was declared not for ensuring the well-being of the common people rather it was for Khaleda Zia to capture the state power in the name of so-called demands.
Terming BNP's demand as baseless and imaginary, he said resignation of the Election commissioners was one of the demands of BNP, but they thanked the EC after the result of the CCC polls.
About BNP's demand for electricity, Hanif said BNP is responsible for the present crisis of power sector as they had failed to produce a single MW of electricity during their tenure. "People got electricity poles instead of electricity," he added.

   Triple suicide
Journalist Shafiqul Kabir, family members arrested

UNB, Dhaka

Senior journalist Shafiqul Kabir, his wife, two daughters and son-in-law, suspected-provocateurs in the suicide of his daughter-in-law and her two kids, were arrested from outside the High Court gate Monday afternoon.
The Detective Branch of Dhaka Metropolitan police only admitted the arrest of Kabir's son-in-law Delwar Hossain Patwari.
But a close relation of the detainees told UNB that all the five accused in the case have been detained by plainclothes men outside the High Court Gate.
A senior officer of DB preferring anonymity said they arrested Delwar from outside the High Court Gate while coming out of the court. Delwar was being interrogated under DB custody in connection with the case, he said.
Another source pointed out that the remaining four accused were detained by Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) but the elite force declined to say anything.
Meanwhile, the High Court on Monday rejected a plea of ad interim anticipatory bail sought by accused Delwar Hossain Patwary on surrender in connection with the much talked-about triple "suicide" over a family feud. "The petition is rejected as being not pressed," a vacation HC division bench headed by Justice Siddiqur Rahman Miah passed the order after hearing both the defence and the state lawyers. Additional Attorney General Murad Reza, citing case laws, opposed the petition on the ground that an accused of non-bailable offence should not get bail.
He told the court that police already arrested two persons, including an FIR-named accused driver, Al Amin, in connection with the case for interrogation.
Immediately after the High Court rejected his bail petition, accused Delwar Hossain Patwary was picked up by Detective Branch of police outside the court precincts at about 12:30 pm.
Journalist Shafiqul Kabir's daughter-in-law Farzana Kabir Rita, 35, her son Ishrat Kabir Pabon, 12, and daughter Raisa Rashmi Payel, 10, had committed suicide together by taking overdose of tranquilizers as suspected by police.
On June 11, police recovered the bodies from their 3-storey house 'Sonartori' at Jurain in the capital.
Originally, the five suspected-provocateurs in connection with the criminal charge - Shafiqul Kabir, special correspondent of the daily Ittefaq, his wife Noor Banu, two daughters Sukhon and Kabita, and son-in-law Delwar Hossain Patwary - were supposed to surrender before the High Court on Monday for seeking interim anticipatory bail apprehending arrest.
But when the petition came up for hearing, only Delwar Hossain Patwary turned up in the courtroom evading the plainclothes intelligence men moving in and around the court.

    Jatiya Party MP to initiate private member’s bill to ban hartal

UNB, Sangsad Bhaban

A Jatiya Party lawmaker plans to initiate a private member's bill seeking permanent ban on hartal.
Taking part in the budget discussion in Parliament on Monday, Jatiya Party lawmaker Mujib-ul-Huq said that he would soon initiate a private member's bill on hartal.
He said the proposed law would hold the central leadership responsible for any damage to public property in the name of hartal.
"Any party may call hartal, it is their democratic right. But my democratic right is not to support that hartal."
Criticising the main opposition BNP for calling hartal on June 27, Mujib-ul-Huq said: "None can damage my car or strip me off if I try to attend office during hartal. Constitution has not given such rights."
He said people should be freed from the curse of hartal forever.
The Jatiya Party lawmaker mentioned that he is going to propos in his bill that the central leadership will be responsible if the workers of the party calling hartal ransack public property.

   Special court-5 read out charges against 143 BDR mutineers

UNB, Dhaka

The special court-5, trying the mutineers under the 24th Rifles Battalion of Dhaka Sector, continued its proceedings for the second day Monday reading out the charges against 143 accused.
So far 183 accused out of 668 have been charged for committing the BDR mutiny. A total of 667 accused were produced before the trial court during charge framing as one of the accused Nayek Joynal Abedin died of cardiac arrest under in jail on May 14.
On Sunday, the same court read out charges against 40 accused.
The 3-member court, headed by BDR Director General Maj Gen Rafiqul Islam, was adjourned till 10am today (Tuesday).
Two other members of the court were: Lt Col. Golam Rabbani and Major Syed Hossain Tapash, and the Attorney General's representative, Deputy AG Mohammad Suhrawardy provided legal assistance to the special court.
The court sources said the special court-5 started its proceedings at about 11:00 am at Darbar Hall of Pilkhana, and it continued till 2:30 pm with a break.
The rebels staged the mutiny at the BDR Pilkhana headquarters on February 25-26 last year, killing at least 73 people, including 57 army officers deputed to the border force.

Editorial

Arsenic in water

Arsenic contamination of water is posing a serious threat to public health in the country. According to an AFP news agency report, up to 77 million Bangladeshis have been exposed to toxic levels of arsenic from contaminated drinking water, and even low-level exposure to the poison is not risk-free, The Lancet medical journal reported. Over the past decade, more than 20 percent of deaths recorded in a study that monitored nearly 12,000 people in Araihazar near the capital Dhaka appear to have been caused by arsenic-tainted well water. By some estimates, between 35 and 77 million people in Bangladesh have been chronically exposed to arsenic-contaminated water as a result of a catastrophically misguided campaign in the 1970s.
Millions of tube wells were drilled in the aim of providing villagers with clean, germ-free water. Many wells were inadvertently dug into shallow layers of soil that were heavily laced with naturally occurring arsenic. The UN's World Health Organisation (WHO) has called Bangladesh's arsenic crisis "the largest mass poisoning of a population in history."
In the new study released Saturday, physicians checked the volunteers' overall health and took blood and urine samples every two years. They also took samples of local well water to monitor for arsenic levels. After six years, 407 deaths had occurred from all causes, 21 percent of which could be attributed to arsenic concentrations above the UN's recommended threshold. Of deaths linked to chronic disease, 24 percent were associated with exposure to the poison at such levels. The death rate rose in line with the exposure. Bangladesh authorities reacted cautiously to the study.
Arsenic is one of the few major diseases that afflict people silently and cause major problems and sufferings to them. Reports published in the press last month said, the number of arsenic-attacked people is increasing in five upazila of the Pirojpur district due to drinking arsenic polluted shallow tube-well water as well as indifference of the concerned departments to the issue.
A survey reveals at least 90 percent of the villagers use shallow tube-well water. Usually, if above 0.05 pp arsenic is mixed with one litre of water, it is unfit for drinking. Mysteriously, none of health complexes in Pirojpur is able to provide the tablet named Rex or Dec for the people. Health and Family Planning officers say, although they are giving prescriptions to the patients, they can not give any medicine. The patients are buying Rex from outside. Arsenic-hit people may suffer from Gangrin, Cancer and kidney or liver problem for drinking arsenic polluted water for long.
The reports, including the one released by AFP, depict only the serious situation prevailing in the country. The situation relating to arsenic contamination of tube well water and spread of arsenic disease is almost the same in many districts of the country. This alarming scenario has developed over many years as proper attention to address the arsenic contamination issue was hardly given by any government since independence. This gross indifference to a critical problem led to the aggravation of arsenic disease and it continued to attack more and more people with the passing of time. Some foreign agencies are reported to have extended their helping hands to tackle the arsenic crisis, but unfortunately no tangible result was yielded due to lack of due attention and action by the local authorities. It may be mentioned here that majority of the rural people are still dependent on tube well water which carries the arsenic disease. And that is why the arsenic disease is so widespread among so many people across the country. If the polluted tube-wells are not sealed off or medicines are not provided or people are not made conscious of the arsenic water, the number of people afflicted with arsenic disease will be increasing at dangerous rate. So the government should go all out to combat arsenic contamination.

 Checking population growth

Planning Minster Air vice Marshal (retd) AK Khandakar on Sunday stressed the need for checking growth of the country's population to ensure sustainable development. "Additional population growth is a major barrier to the country's development. At any cost, we have to bring back the population growth rate close to zero," he said while addressing a workshop in the city.
In today's world population is considered everywhere as human resource. But unfortunately, in our country our huge population sometimes appears to be a burden due to illiteracy and unemployment. If the country's population continues to increase at the present rate of 1.39, the population will almost double in the next 49 years as the country' present total population is about 15 crore. For this, fulfilling people's basic needs like food, clothing, accommodation, education, health and communications infrastructures will be more difficult.
In fact, the huge population in a small country contributes largely to its poverty, hunger, unemployment, illiteracy, diseases, crimes and social instability. Over 40 per cent of our population live below poverty line and about 30 million of them are placed in abject poverty and are suffering from malnutrition. In other words about half of the population are engaged in a difficult struggle just for survival. Population explosion is the root cause of many of our problems such as food shortage, unemployment, illiteracy, lack of medicare and above all social instability.
In view of this, the government should step up its efforts to control the population explosion by all possible means. Moreover, in order use the population as strength, arrangements must be made fro the proper education and training of the populace.

Analysis

Indo-Pak thaw?

Instead of going for a big issues agenda at the moment, the focus at this stage should be on the atmospherics and nuts and bolts of our relationship.

Imtiaz Alam

In a flurry of high level contacts, the home/interior ministers of India and Pakistan are meeting on the sidelines of the SAARC Interior Ministers' Conference in Islamabad on June 26th and foreign secretaries of the two neighbours will also meet on June 24th to set the agenda for their foreign ministers' meeting next month. Indian Home Minister P Chidambaram's visit is going to be very crucial, so will be Ms Nirupama Rao's interaction with Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir to set the agenda for S M Krishna's meeting with Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi as a follow-up of the two prime ministers' meeting in Bhutan. The resumption of talks is a good omen. But will these contacts at the political level help overcome the "trust deficit" and bring a thaw?
It is still wide open whether the two sides could that easily overcome suspicions and move back to the composite dialogue process where they had left it before the 26/11 terrorist onslaught on Mumbai in 2008. The accord reached between Prime Minister Gilani and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, could not stand the backlash in India where Mr Singh was left alone by his Congress party to face the music. Earlier efforts at breaking the ice also did not work, despite various friendly overtures by President Asif Ali Zardari. The after-effects of the Mumbai terrorism continued to vitiate the atmosphere due to a half-hearted response to each other's queries. If India played on a victim syndrome to bash Pakistan and sections of the military establishment, Islamabad after beating the bush of denial failed to allay Indian apprehensions while competing with New Delhi in a war of dossiers. To add to its six dossiers, sent in April 2009, India has sent yet another dossier before the new round of talks as the two sides continue to wrangle over the investigation and prosecution.
Although Ajmal Kasab has been convicted and sentenced to death in Mumbai, the case against the alleged perpetrators of this heinous crime here seems to be not moving anywhere. Grand public shows of banned outfits allegedly involved in cross-border terrorism, say leading Indian analysts, reinforce Indian suspicions of involvement of state actors with non-state actors, although Pakistan vehemently denies it, which is not often taken at its face value by the international community. It seems that the Mumbai massacre will continue to haunt the coming round of talks. In all likelihood, Mr Chidambaram, who is among the few most influential ministers close to Ms Sonia Gandhi and who has been taking a very tough line against "cross-border terrorism", will keep the heat high on this count. To save the prospects of resuming a meaningful dialogue, the Pakistani side must keep its cool and try its best to allay the Indian Home Minister's apprehensions. Mr Chidambaram should return home with some palpable assurance to bring to justice the perpetrators of the crime, which Islamabad condemns as a most reprehensible terrorist act by the so-called non-state actors. Why should the state continue to take the Indian flak for an indefensible crime it claims not to have any hand in, and that too at a time when it is preoccupied in a war for its survival on the western front? In whose interest is it to keep the eastern front simmering with uncertainty?
The Gilani-Manmohan one-on-one meeting in Thimphu has created some hope as had Sharm el-Sheikh with a formal commitment, which was not kept by New Delhi. Other signals from India and other centres of power, especially the US, in recent times are encouraging. The statements from the Indian prime minister and foreign secretary do reveal a measure of flexibility if Pakistan helps overcome its "trust deficit". A policy statement by the Indian foreign secretary on June 15 is softer than what she has been saying ever since she took office. However, as "an intrinsic part of the long term vision of relations" Pakistan desires to have with India, she has asked Islamabad to "act effectively against those terrorist groups that seek to nullify and to destroy the prospects of peace and cooperation between our two countries". Most Indian experts close to the establishment are of the considered view that "nothing will move forward on the negotiation front with Hafiz Saeed leading big processions and some of the terrorist groups still openly operating", despite having been placed on the terrorist list by the UN. Islamabad for its own reasons may not be in a position to go as far at this stage as the Indians may desire.
It seems that the Indian establishment and the political leadership is not going to resume the composite dialogue process while living with what it perceives to be a low-profile insurgency or cross-border terrorism emanating from the territories under Pakistani control. Benefitting from the difficult times Pakistan is passing through, India is inclined to keep up pressure on Pakistan to also decisively act against the radical elements engaged on the Kashmir front. Without appreciating the visibly incremental change in Pakistan in its fight against terrorism that is going to gradually and inevitably expand to those "loyalist" groups who, without exception, are increasingly aligning with the al Qaeda terrorist network, India will not be able to extract substantial concessions from Islamabad that is at the forefront of the war on terrorism. Plenty of evidence shows that it is just a matter of time before India may no longer have the advantage of bashing Pakistan on account of the remnants of the "strategic assets" who are fated to join their ideological brethren in arms that are now gunning for Islamabad. Keeping dialogue suspended serves the purpose of the terrorists and India and Pakistan have ironically become hostage to the designs of the extremists. What will happen, if they again struck a heavy blow in India? That must not drive us mad that we are expected to become.
The fact of the matter is that nobody knows if there are any loyalist mercenaries left in the strategic kitty. New Delhi must show some more patience and greater understanding for the promising turnaround in Pakistan's policy on terrorism to complete full circle. Both sides must focus on expanding intelligence and security cooperation in what has become a joint struggle against terrorism, rather than living with old ways. No doubt terrorism and talks cannot go together. But they did and progressed despite terrorism under the Kargil captain, General Musharraf, and both Vajpayee and Manmohan. Ms Nirupama Rao has admitted that progress was made on Kashmir on the basis of making "boundaries irrelevant". Unfortunately, very important overtures by President Zardari towards India were not even acknowledged by New Delhi and he had to succumb to the pressures not to be that forthcoming towards an adamant India.
Instead of going for a big issues agenda at the moment, the focus at this stage should be on the atmospherics and nuts and bolts of our relationship. Indeed, India must be assured of our full cooperation to prosecute the perpetrators of Mumbai terrorism, besides effectively restraining any cross-border intrusion. While resolving not to let the dialogue process again get derailed by yet another provocation by the agent provocateurs, both sides must agree to strengthen the joint security mechanism to curb terrorism and effectively prosecute them. All those CBMs that were undertaken under the composite dialogue must be reactivated while agreeing on a liberal visa regime. While taking credible measures to overcome the trust deficit, both sides must stop cross-border interference, the two sides must revive the composite dialogue process where it was left off and not go back to square one.


Imtiaz Alam is Editor South Asian Journal. He can be reached at imtiazalampak@yahoo.com

  South Asian power games

The bogey of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq has backfired to some extent, but the ploy has provided an opportunity to permanently station US troops in the country, essential to control the hydrocarbon resources of the area.

Alam Rind 

The defeat of the USSR in Afghanistan and its subsequent disintegration is attributed to inaptness of 'communism' as an ideology vis-à-vis 'western liberal democracy'. This notion has been so strong that Francis Fukuyama in his book The End of History and the Last Man, published in 1992, put forward the thesis that the end of the Cold War or collapse of communism also marks the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalisation of western liberal democracy as the final form of human government. Disappearance of the USSR also created an ideological void, where the US was left with no competitor, a situation wherein it is difficult to manipulate global events necessary to maintain hegemony over the world's energy resources, an essential ingredient to lengthen the period of global leadership. In order to address this 'ideological void', Samuel P Huntington forwarded a thesis of The Clash of Civilisations in 1993, implying that future wars will be fought between Muslims and non-Muslims. The thesis provided the necessary ideological basis and justifications to subjugate Muslim states rich in hydrocarbon and natural resources.
This ideology became the centre of international attention to the extent that the UN named the year 2001 as the year of 'Dialogue among Civilisations' based on the theory introduced by former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami. In 2005, the prime minister of Spain, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, and Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan proposed the 'Alliance of Civilisations' at the 59th General Assembly Session of the UN to galvanise collective action to combat extremism.
The concept of 'clash of civilisations' would not have drawn so much attention in the absence of al Qaeda and the Taliban in the first place. Secondly, the events that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union were motivated by economic compulsions rather than ideological pursuits. Primarily, the concept has helped western governments to smoothen their public opinion in favour of US/NATO invasions of Iraq, Afghanistan and possible future adventures. The bogey of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq has backfired to some extent, but the ploy has provided an opportunity to permanently station US troops in the country, essential to control the hydrocarbon resources of the area.
Afghanistan was attacked to avenge 9/11 and to dismantle the al Qaeda network operating in the area. Huge amounts were promised by the global powers for the development and uplift of Afghanistan and its people. Unfortunately, even after the lapse of about nine years, both development and military components of the military adventure have largely failed to achieve their purpose. On the contrary, fundamentalists have regained enough strength to reinitiate their activities in Chechnya. China is wary of their possible influence in its Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region and terrorism has increased manifold in Pakistan. It clearly indicates that the US presence in Afghanistan is counterproductive as far as combating terrorism is concerned. But the fact is that it has enabled the US to place its troops on possible land routes for export of Central Asian mineral and hydrocarbon resources through the Indian Ocean.
So the struggle going on in the world is not ideology-based, rather it is economy-based. The one who controls global resources has a greater say. The vacuum created by the collapse of the USSR is being used by the US to build a new web of like-minded states to control the world's resources. Russia and China can transform into competitors; their growth needs to be checked. India with its human resource, landmass, growing economy, links with Israel and geographical location makes a natural choice for the US to be recruited as an ally. The ongoing US-India strategic dialogue is a manifestation of the same. One only wonders about the reliability of India as, in the long-term, its regional and global interests may not be in sync with those of the US.
As a result of the recent recession, the Americans are cash-trapped and need support. The US president has already announced the exit schedule of troops from Afghanistan. That will create a vacuum, which India would not be able to fill. It is questionable whether India will be able to protect US interests in the region at the cost of the alienation of two neighbouring superpowers, when its own clout in Afghanistan is so frail that it strongly resisted holding of a peace jirga in Kabul as it will find no role in Afghanistan if a national government is formed. The US is trying to balance its act in the region by winning over the support of Pakistan, critical for its troops' honourable exit from Afghanistan, while building long-term relations with India. This exercise is unlikely to reap the desired results without the resolution of regional disputes.

The writer is a freelance columnist.

Viewpoints

Can Obama stop the leaking oil?

It's right for Obama to be concerned about the consequences of this disaster, but wrong - and dangerous for him to pretend he is capable of controlling it.

Anne Applebaum

In the Gulf of Mexico, plumes of black oil are gushing into the ocean, coating the wings of seabirds, poisoning shellfish, sending tar balls rolling onto white Florida beaches. It is an ecological disaster. It is an economic nightmare. And there is absolutely nothing that the American President Barack Obama can do about it. Nothing at all.
Here is the hard truth: The US government does not possess a secret method for capping oil leaks. Even the combined wisdom of the Obama inner circle all those Harvard economists, silver-tongued spin doctors, and hardened politicos - cannot prevent tens of thousands of tonnes of oil from pouring out of a hole a mile beneath the ocean's surface.
Other than proximity to the Louisiana coast, this catastrophe therefore has nothing whatsoever in common with Hurricane Katrina. That was an unstoppable natural disaster that turned into a human tragedy thanks to an inadequate government response. This is just an unstoppable disaster, period. It will be a human tragedy precisely because no government response is possible.
Which leads me to mystery: Given that he cannot stop the oil from flowing, why has Obama decided to act as if he can? And given that he is totally reliant on BP to save the fish and the birds of the Gulf of Mexico, why has he started pretending otherwise - why, in his own words, is he looking for someone's "a** to kick"? I am guessing that there are many reasons for this recent change of rhetorical tone and that some of them are ideological.
Expectations
Of course, this is a president who believes that government can and should be able to solve all problems. Obama has never sounded particularly enthusiastic about the private sector, and some of his congressional colleagues the ones talking of retroactively raising the cap on BP's liability, for example, or forcing BP to pay for the lost wages of other oil company's workers are downright hostile.
A large part of the explanation is cultural, however: Obama has been forced to take on a commanding role in a crisis he cannot control because we expect him to both "we" the media, and "we" the bipartisan public.
Whatever their politics, most Americans in recent years have come to expect a strong response - an invasion, a massive congressional bill from their politicians in times of crisis, and this one is no exception. They want the president to lead somewhere, anywhere.
A few days ago, the New York Times declared that "he and his administration need to do a lot more to show they are on top of this mess," and should have started "putting the heat" on BP much earlier as if that would have made the remotest bit of difference.
But Mitt Romney, who last I checked is right of centre, sounded almost exactly the same note: Obama, he said, should be "leading this entire effort to bring together the experts, the various oil company executives, the engineers from various oil companies as well as from the various academic think tanks."
This comment reminds me of the time the European Union solemnly decided to form a committee to fight unemployment, as if that were an actual solution.
Waiting for the president's call
I also love the idea that all those offshore oil engineers twiddling their thumbs at academic think tanks the Heritage Foundation? The Brookings Institution are only waiting for the president's phone call to spring into action.
In truth, the organisation most likely to have the phone numbers of the "experts" is BP. The organisation that will get them to Louisiana fastest is BP.
I am writing this not because I like, admire, or even have an opinion about the company formerly known as British Petroleum, but because BP's shareholders have already lost billions of dollars, and BP's executives are motivated to find solutions faster than anyone in the White House ever could.
Bashing BP or seeking to punish BP is pointless. This is not only because we will soon learn that many companies American, Japanese, even Halliburton were responsible for that rig, but because whatever the solution, BP has to be part of it.
Paradoxically, 'talking tough' about this oil crisis also makes both Obama and America look weak internationally just as 'talking tough' about Iran made the Bush administration look weak.
Harsh rhetoric is fine if it reflects a real will to do something, a real plan of action, and the existence of a Plan B for when the first one fails. But when angry words anti-BP, anti-British, anti-oil-company reflect the absence of any alternative policy whatsoever, they just sound pathetic.
It's right for Obama to be concerned about the consequences of this disaster, but wrong - and dangerous for him to pretend he is capable of controlling it. We should stop calling on him to do so.


Anne Applebaum is a columnist for The Washington Post and Slate magazine (www.slate.com), She is the author of Between East and West: Across the Borderlands of Europe and Gulag: A History, for which she won the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction in 2004.

  Helen Thomas pays the price for objectivity

With the concentrated ownership of the corporate media today, no independently minded journalist can have a career in print or TV media. You defend the Washington/Tel Aviv line, or you are out of work.
 
Paul Craig Roberts

The propagandists for the Israel lobby, who occupy the Wall Street Journal editorial page are determined to remove Helen Thomas from the annals of journalism.
In case you have already forgotten, a few days ago the distinguished career of Helen Thomas, the 89-year-old doyen of the White House Press Corps, was ended by the Israel lobby, which made an issue about her opinion that immigrant Jews should leave Palestine and go back to their home countries.
The White House Correspondents' Association fell in line with the demands of the lobby, and the cowardly president of the organization added the association's disapprobation to that of the neoconservative cabal.
Having removed Helen Thomas from the journalism scene, the lobby is now working with its agents on the Wall Street Journal editorial page to eliminate the Helen Thomas Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Society of Professional Journalists.
A nonentity in the world of journalism, James Taranto, apparently is associated with the Wall Street Journal editorial page, although Wikipedia reports that he was incapable of graduating from journalism school at California State University, Northridge. On a Wall Street Journal web site, Taranto writes: "We've been calling Thomas 'American journalism's crazy old aunt in the attic' for years," and he asks who would now accept the Helen Thomas award after Ms. Thomas revealed she really was crazy by criticizing Israel.
I would for one. Of course, the Society of Professional Journalists would never give the award, assuming the distinguished award survives the assault of the Israel lobby's assassins, to a critic of Israel. Helen excepted, American journalists are cowards. With the concentrated ownership of the corporate media today, no independently minded journalist can have a career in print or TV media. You defend the Washington/Tel Aviv line, or you are out of work.
The absence of independently minded journalists on the Wall Street Journal editorial page is an extraordinary change from my days as associate editor of that page. The editorial page editor, Robert Bartley was ambitious and forced himself to tolerate talented colleagues. Mere opinion was not our task. Often we scooped the reporters on the news side of the paper. Our editorials reported new developments and provided factual analysis.
I was hired as Jude Wanniski's replacement. Jude, associate editor was fired, allegedly because the journal's brass caught him handing out election campaign literature on a train platform, but if you believe American journalism was ever that pure, I have a bridge in Brooklyn for sale.
Jude was fired, because the neoconservatives got rid of him by telling Bartley that Wanniski was overshadowing him. That was too much for Bob's ego. Jude, of course, being a real journalist, was objective toward the Palestinians and thus had earned the enmity of the Israel lobby.
Once Bob was rapidly declining with prostate cancer, neoconservatives engineered the takeover of the editorial page. Today the once proud Wall Street Journal editorial page is a leading apologist for Israeli/American war crimes and police states.
To return to the nonentity, James Taranto, who wants to throw Helen Thomas down the memory hole: Thomas' opinion that Israelis should stop stealing the villages, homes, and lands of Palestinians, while confining Palestinians to the equivalent of the Warsaw Ghetto, is equated by Taranto to the advocacy of "ethnic cleansing" by Helen.
Of course, it is the Israelis who are doing the ethnic cleansing. Many Jews have documented Israel's ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, such as Uri Avnery, a former member of the Israeli terrorist organization, Irgun, Ilan Pappe, Israel's most distinguished historian and author of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, and the Israeli peace group, ICHAD, who have been my house guests. The Israeli newspaper, Haaratz, is far more critical of Israeli policy than Helen Thomas, and so is MIT professor Noam Chomsky, the distinguished British journalist and filmmaker John Pilger, and the distinguished scholar, Norman Finkelstein, the son of holocaust survivors.
But Taranto prefers an 89-year old adversary.
Israel is an unnatural state. It was created by terror that was accommodated by craven British and US "diplomacy." Israel exists for one reason only: The US government provides the money, weapons, and diplomatic protection. Any other government that murdered thousands of civilians in other countries, as Israel does routinely in Lebanon, Gaza, and the West Bank, would have its entire government and military on trial before the War Crimes Tribunal at The Hague. Israelis have no worst enemy than their own government.
Every time the rest of the world tries to hold the Israeli government accountable for its crimes, the US vetoes the UN resolution. America has become the enabler of the Zionist-hijacked Israeli government. And the Israeli government knows it. Israeli government leaders have publicly bragged for decades about their control over the US government. US Adm. Tom Moorer, chief of naval operations and chairman of the joint chiefs of staff after whom the F-14 "Tomcat" jet fighter was named, declared publicly: "No American president can stand up to Israel." Apparently no American journalist can either.
I am a critic of Israel's heartless policy toward the Palestinians, but I do not want Israel destroyed. I want it moved or reformed. Bring the small number of Israelis to America before there is a nuclear war over the fact that they are where they should not be.
To try to claim a land and dispossess its people on the basis of a spurious two thousand year old deed is an audacious act of conquest and dispossession.
My proposal to relocate Israelis in the US is rhetorical, but why not insist that the Israelis, who are heavily dependent on US largess, reform? Why should Americans support an apartheid racist state that denies citizenship to the rightful inhabitants? What kind of morality, if any, does the Wall Street Journal editorial page represent when it defends Israelis who force Palestinians into ever-shrinking ghettos, deprived of water, food, medical care and schools? Why must Palestinians live in dread of Israeli bulldozers arriving to flatten their homes in order to create space for Zionist "settlers."
Allegedly, the US is a superpower, but in fact it is a puppet state of the Israeli government. Witness, for example (the examples are numerous), the fate of the Goldstone Report on Israeli war crimes committed in Israel's assault on Gaza during December 2008-January 2009. Goldstone is a Zionist Jew and a distinguished judge. He was given the task by the United Nations to investigate the Israeli attack on Gaza. Being an honest person, he provided evidence of Israeli war crimes.
What was the result? The bought-and-paid-for US Congress voted, on the instructions of their master, the Israel lobby, to deep-six the Goldstone Report by a vote of 344 to 36.
Amazing, isn't it, there were only 36 US Representatives who were not owned by the Israel lobby.
Of course, James Taranto serves the lobby. The Wall Street Journal editorial page is not even a shadow of its former self, when it speaks, speaks for Israel and for the Bush/Cheney militarist police state. It has fallen into the low ranks of Brownshirt propaganda. The fact that management tolerates the continuation of totally nonobjective journalism shows why print newspapers are failing everywhere.
The hubris of Taranto, a mere propagandist who will never come close to the league in which Helen Thomas resides, causes him to think that he is fit to pass judgment on a real journalist. Taranto epitomizes the hubris of the neoconservatives. Not a single one of them has the smallest accomplishment.


Paul Craig Roberts was an editor of the Wall Street Journal and an assistant secretary of the US Treasury.

  In the winter of their years

To compensate, the rising middle class is turning to a new real estate phenomenon: Florida-style retirement communities.

Jason Overdorf

When 72-year-old Dr. Ram Das Agrawal decided he was ready to give up his Chhattisgarh medical practice a few years ago, he was eager to find a community where he could live out his remaining years in peace, without worrying about health care, safety, or the daily hassles of maintaining a home in India.
Shortly after his daughter married and moved to Alwar, Rajasthan, she helped her father find the solution. Among the first real estate complexes of its kind in India, Ashiana's Utsav at Bhiwadi is a 640-unit community for senior citizens where Agrawal not only enjoys the security of corporate-managed maintenance, 24-hour medical care on call and similar benefits, but also plays in table tennis tournaments and sings with a music club.
"It's beyond what I imagined," Agrawal said. "I'm happy."
India's economic boom is gathering momentum, like a snowball rolling downhill. But the country's strivers are fighting harder than ever for a piece of the pie - working longer hours, migrating to new cities or emigrating to richer lands. Today fewer than 40 per cent of Indians live in so-called "joint families," traditional arrangements where brothers shared the family home with their parents even after they'd married and had families of their own, according to real estate consultancy Jones LaSalle Meghraj.
To compensate, the rising middle class is turning to a new real estate phenomenon: Florida-style retirement communities.
"Their children have gone abroad or to other cities for jobs, and the parents are all alone," said Santosh Dhamdhere, marketing manager at Atashri, a retirement community in Pune, Maharashtra. "Initially, when we started we were skeptical and had a low response. But now it is selling like hotcakes. There is a big market that is untapped."
Untapped, and growing. It's true that India is one of the youngest countries in the world, and getting younger. By 2020, the average age of an Indian will be 29 years, compared to 37 for China and 48 for Japan. But thanks to higher life expectancy, India's elderly population is growing rapidly, too. The current elderly population of about 81 million people will nearly double to 150 million by 2020, with even more rapid growth in the numbers of people more than 80 years old, according to Help Age India, a non-profit organisation that works on elderly-related issues.
To meet the projected demand, real estate developments for older people are mushrooming on the outskirts of cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Pune and Kochi. Paranjape Construction's Atashri Foundation has completed four retirement communities and has a fifth nearing completion around Pune, for example, and has typically sold all 100-200 units within a month of a new project launch.
Ashiana Housing has retirement resorts in Bhiwadi, Jaipur and Pune, with around 1400 one-, two- and three-bedroom units in total. Similarly, the Dignity Foundation operates a 25-acre project "for active and productive living for senior citizens" 90 kilometers from Mumbai (Bombay), while Riverdale Retirement Resort-home, in Kochi, Kerala, among others, operates an American-style assisted living facility. "If you look at the top-seven cities in the country and the current working stage, on that basis, if you convert that into square footage for retired couples, I wouldn't be surprised if demand exceeds 5 to 6 million square feet," said Sanjay Dutt, chief executive, business, at Jones LaSalle Meghraj.
A gleaming forest of golden-colored condominiums, Utsav at Bhiwadi, where Dr. Agrawal lives, offers myriad services that are tailor-made for older Indians who might not otherwise be comfortable living alone.
A single-gated community, the complex is more stringent about security than ordinary real estate developments - instituting a closed-circuit TV system, background checks for house maids and an internal postal system to eliminate the usual incessant to-and-fro of private couriers, for instance. Every flat has emergency call buttons to summon help, and there's a nurse on the site 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
And all the normal residential amenities - vegetable vendors, grocer, gardener, and so forth - are vetted and provided by Ashiana. The atmosphere is a lot like a college, with a student-union-like community center that boasts a theater, game room and restaurant, and an activities director organises a series of events every month to encourage residents to build friendships and avoid feeling isolated.
"We've addressed all the fears of senior citizens," said A. Gonogopadhyay. Ashiana Housing's corporate vice president, he was a key driving force in pioneering the retirement community concept, and now he's a resident. "Once you know you have that support," he said, "you get extra vigor."
Sadly, only a handful can afford this kind of care. Units at Ashiana's Bhiwadi complex range in price from around $40,000 to $65,000, for example, making them affordable for the upper middle class but out of reach for most Indians. At the same time, new wealth has eroded the foundations of traditional values. Once the source of wisdom, child care, and financial support, many in India's older generation, who struggled to earn in a month what today's salaried class makes in a day, are viewed as obsolete. For the poor, health care for the aged is unavailable in most places, and with only two medical colleges across the entire country teaching geriatric care, that's unlikely to change soon. Worse still, only about 10 per cent of the population has any form of pension, while another 12 million older people from below-poverty-line families get a stipend of about $5 a month.
"In India, old people have to work till they die," said Mathew Cherian, Help Age India's chief executive.
Ageing isn't easy for the middle class, either. With the adoption of American-style retirement communities and nursing homes, Indian elders, and their children, have begun to confront some American-style problems. Retirees don't always find the paradise of card games, bingo, and like-minded company that their children imagine for them in retirement communities. Children living abroad feel guilty that they don't call and visit often enough, and their sequestered parents feel deserted and isolated. "There's a lot of bitterness," said Help Age India's Cherian.
"Feelings of isolation are always an issue as age advances, but it's a question of your own attitude also," said Agrawal, who has clearly applied the lessons he learned treating patients to his own life.

International

Six NATO soldiers killed in Afghanistan
AFP, Kabul

Six NATO soldiers were killed in three separate incidents Monday in southern Afghanistan, where the US-led alliance is mounting an ambitious campaign to flush out Taliban militants, the military said.
In the deadliest incident, three Australian commandos and a US soldier were killed when their helicopter crashed in the southern province of Kandahar, the single worst loss of life for the Australian military in the Afghan war.
Another two NATO troops were killed in separate bomb explosions but their nationalities have not been released.
Britain also announced a grim toll of 300 dead in Afghanistan after one of its soldiers died from wounds suffered in an explosion earlier this month in the neighbouring southern province of Helmand.
The deaths brought to 281 the number of foreign soldiers killed in Afghanistan this year, according to an AFP tally based on figures kept by the independent icasualties.org website.
Much of southern Afghanistan is blighted by the Taliban insurgency, now in its deadliest phase since the conflict began almost nine years ago after the US-led invasion ousted the hardline Islamist regime.
The US military has warned that casualty tolls will inevitably climb as foreign forces build up their campaing to oust the militants from Kandahar, the Taliban heartland and a hotbed of bombings, assassinations and lawlessness.
British Prime Minister David Cameron, who visited Afghanistan earlier this month, said British troops would leave "as soon as they (Afghans) are able to take care and take security for their own country".
He described the latest British death as "desperately sad news.
"Another family with such grief and pain and loss. Of course the 300th death is no more or less tragic than the 299 that came before." Australia said Monday's helicopter crash, which killed three Australian commandos, was not caused by enemy fire but was the country's deadliest single incident in the nearly nine-year conflict.
"This is a tragic day for Australia and the Australian Defence Force," Prime Minister Kevin Rudd told parliament. "This is a very heavy price to pay."
It was the second helicopter crash to kill NATO troops this month. Taliban militants killed four US soldiers on June 9 when they shot down a helicopter in the southern province of Helmand.
Two weeks ago, NATO suffered one of its heaviest tolls in a single day when 10 of its soldiers including at least one American were killed in a string of attacks in Afghanistan.
NATO, US and Afghan soldiers are preparing their biggest operations yet against the Taliban in Kandahar, with total foreign troop numbers set to peak at 150,000 across the country by August.

   Pakistan will abide by US sanctions on Iran: Gilani
Reuters, Islamabad

Pakistan will abide by any US sanctions on Iran, which Washington has warned could hit Pakistani companies involved in a $7.6 billion Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline deal, the prime minister said on Monday.
Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani's remarks came the day after US Special Envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke warned Islamabad against becoming too committed to the project because of the expected sanctions' effects."If the US imposes sanctions, they will have international implications and Pakistan as a member of the international community will follow them," he told reporters at a press conference in the southern Sindh province. The US Congress is finalising legislation tightening sanctions on Iran over its nuclear programme, which Washington believes is being used to develop weapons. Tehran denies that.Holbrooke urged Pakistan to wait and see the final legislation before moving ahead on the deal, signed in March.Pakistan is desperate for new energy sources, saddled with expensive power generation and a daily shortage of as much as 5,000 megawatts. Frequent power outages hamper industry and have sparked street protests against President Asif Ali Zardari's government.Washington has not criticised the gas pipeline project too loudly, forced to balance its need to back Pakistan, a crucial ally in the global war against al Qaeda, against its goal of isolating Iran.The UN Security Council imposed a fourth round of sanctions on Iran on June 9 over its nuclear programme, which Washington believes is being used to develop weapons. Iran denies trying to develop a nuclear arsenal.The pipeline, expected to be completed by 2015, originally would have terminated in India. However, New Delhi has been reluctant to join given its long-running rivalry with Pakistan.

  India seeks extradition of US boss over Bhopal disaster
AFP, New Delhi

India is to push the US to extradite the American former boss of the company blamed for the 1984 Bhopal gas disaster, as part of a new government response to the accident, a minister said Monday.
Under fire for the slow pace of justice and inadequate clean-up of the site of the disaster, the world's worst industrial accident, the government created a panel of senior ministers to draw up recommendations for fresh action.
The panel, whose advice will now be handed to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, has recommended renewing efforts to secure the extradition of the former chief executive of Union Carbide, which owned the plant at the centre of the case.
The disaster unfolded on the night of December 2, 1984, when the pesticide plant in Bhopal, the capital of central Madhya Pradesh state, spewed 40 tonnes of toxic gas into surrounding residential areas.
The gas killed thousands instantly and tens of thousands more from its lingering effects over the following years.
"India will make vigorous efforts to get Warren Anderson repatriated," Minister for Urban Development Jaipal Reddy told AFP after the panel finalised its work.
Anderson was arrested in India after the accident, but he then fled the country. Repeated requests for his extradition have been turned down by US authorities and few now expect Washington to assent.
The now retired Anderson, like the local managers of Union Carbide's subsidiary in India, faces charges of criminal negligence. Seven of the local managers were convicted on June 7, while Anderson was named as an absconder.
Amid anger in India about the perceived leniency of the sentences given to the Indian managers-two years in prison pending appeal-Anderson has become a target and a lightning rod for a general feeling of injustice.
The ministers also recommended that the federal government help with the clean-up of the site in Bhopal and that compensation for victims be doubled, Reddy said.
"We have decided on a compensation of 10 lakh (one million rupees, 22,000 dollars) for each of the dead, minus the amount already received," Reddy said.
The ministerial group has also recommended the setting up of a federal medical research facility in Bhopal to monitor the health conditions of survivors and children born to them, Reddy said.
Other members of the panel included Home Minister P. Chidambaram, Health Minister Gulam Nabi Azad, Law Minister Veerappa Moily and Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh.

  China coal mine explosion kills 46
AFP, Beijing

An explosion in a central China colliery on Monday killed 46 miners, state media reported, in the latest deadly accident to strike the country's notoriously dangerous mining sector.
The blast happened near Pingdingshan city in the central province of Henan when a store of gunpowder kept underground detonated, according to reports citing the State Administration of Work Safety.
The accident in the Xingdong No 2 Mine occurred at about 1:40 am (1740 GMT) with 72 miners working at the time, 26 of whom were brought to safety, China Central Television said.
The remaining 46 have been confirmed dead, it said.
China's vast coal mining industry is notoriously accident-prone, with lax regulation, corruption and inefficiency as mines rush to meet soaring demand. China relies on coal-generated power for about 70 of its electricity needs.
A total of 2,631 miners were killed in China last year, according to official figures, but independent labour groups say the actual figure could be much higher as many accidents are covered up to avoid costly mine shutdowns.
In March, a flood at the huge, unfinished Wangjialing mine in the northern province of Shanxi left 153 workers trapped underground. A total of 115 were recovered alive, in what was seen as a rare successful rescue for the industry.
Yet despite numerous pledges after that accident and other big mining disasters, there is virtually no let-up in the regular reports of deadly mishaps.
Just last September, Pingdingshan was the scene of a mine blast that killed 76 people. The accident prompted officials to call for a massive safety review of the city's 157 mines, which were temporarily shut down.
Zhao Tiechui, head of the State Administration of Coal Mine Safety, said in February that China would need at least 10 years to "fundamentally improve" safety and reduce the frequency of such disasters.
As part of its efforts to increase safety standards, the central government has levied heavy fines and implemented region-wide mining shut-downs following serious accidents.
But such actions have resulted in the under-reporting of accidents as mine bosses seek to limit economic losses, labour rights groups maintain.
The March disaster in Shanxi province set off a new round of official pledges to make the industry safer, but since then several other accidents have been reported, leaving dozens of miners dead.

  Sri Lanka furious as UN's Ban names war crimes panel
AFP, Colombo

Sri Lanka is "deeply unhappy" at a move by UN chief Ban Ki-moon to name a panel to look into alleged war crimes committed during the final months of the island's civil war, an official said Monday.
Colombo repeated a protest that President Mahinda Rajapakse made to Ban in March, a senior government official who declined to be named told AFP. "The government is deeply unhappy with the appointment of this panel and made it very clear to the secretary-general himself and other UN representatives that this is unwarranted and uncalled for," the official said.
Ban was due to name the three-member panel later Monday to advise him on the massive military campaign that finally crushed the separatist Tamil Tiger rebels in May last year after decades of fighting.
Colombo has been dogged by war crime charges following the final offensive. It has consistently rejected as fabrications videos, pictures and satellite photos released by rights groups as evidence of war crimes.
Ban's move follows a visit to the island last week by Lynn Pascoe, the UN under secretary-general for political affairs.
Pascoe told reporters on Thursday that the panel of experts would advise the UN chief on issues of "international standards" and "accountability" surrounding the end of the war. Rajapakse warned Ban in March that the appointment of the panel would compel Sri Lanka to take "necessary and appropriate action", although he did not give further details.
The Sri Lankan government last week held official celebrations of the Tigers' defeat, with Rajapakse delivering a speech insisting that his soldiers did not kill a single civilian. "Our troops carried a gun in one hand and a copy of the human rights charter in the other," the president said. "Our guns were not fired at a single civilian."
Rights groups as well as the United States and the European Union think otherwise and have said the allegations are credible and worth investigating.
The UN itself has said that at least 7,000 ethnic Tamil civilians perished in the first four months of last year, just before the government claimed final victory over the Tigers.
The military has also been accused of executing rebels as they surrendered. The exact mandate of Ban's panel is not yet clear, but diplomats said the team could be a precursor to a full-blown war crimes investigation. US President Barack Obama sent two senior advisers to Colombo last week to urge Sri Lanka to promote post-war ethnic reconciliation by tackling claims of war crimes committed by both sides in the fighting.

  26 Taliban suspects freed in Afghan peace bid
AFP, Kabul

Up to 26 Taliban suspects have been freed from jails in Afghanistan as part of efforts to persuade Islamist insurgents to make peace, Afghan and US officials said Monday.
The prisoners included men detained by the US military at Bagram Air Base, two in police custody in Kabul and six from a small prison in the eastern province Khost, the officials told AFP. "They were detained for suspected links to armed opposition groups," said Nasrullah Stanikzai, advisor to President Hamid Karzai and a member of a government committee assigned to review the cases of the prisoners.
"We reviewed their cases one by one. But there was not enough evidence against them," Stanikzai said.
Stanikzai said 12 of the men were freed from a US-run jail at Bagram, the biggest NATO and US military base in Afghanistan.
Michael Gottlieb, a civilian US official dealing with prisoners, however, said 18 had been freed from Bagram after a landmark peace conference on June 2.
The release came after hundreds of tribal elders, religious leaders and other Afghan notables called at the "peace jirga" for ways to get insurgents to lay down their weapons.
The gathering called on the US-backed administration to release ordinary Taliban fighters to gain the trust of rebels fighting against the government.
Karzai then established a commission and ordered it to re-examine and free Taliban-linked prisoners detained on weak evidence. Stankzai, one of the five members of the committee, said that his body had found 35 other prisoners of "the same category". "They'll be freed soon," he said, adding that 19 of the men were being held by the US military and the rest by the Afghan government. He said "dozens" of prisoners could be freed under his committee's review.
Gottlieb told AFP: "We share the commission's goal of ensuring that no detainee is held on the basis of unfounded charges or false accusations."

  Indian women get tough with 'eve-teasers'
AFP, New Delhi

The elegant Indian scarf known as a "dupatta" is a symbol of female modesty, but in the right hands it is also an effective weapon to combat the unwanted attentions of men.
"Fling it over the attacker's neck, pull him, go for the final thrust and he will be thrown on the ground in front of your eyes," shouts a police officer as she demonstrates her moves at a civilian training session in New Delhi.
Scores of young girls and women applaud the display, and then learn for themselves how to fight back against "eve-teasing"-the south Asia term for sexual harassment in public places.
Women across India are often victims of provocative remarks, aggressive male posturing and even physical assaults such as groping on the street and in crowded buses and trains.
According to the National Crimes Record Bureau (NCRB), 200,000 incidents of crime against women were reported in 2008.
But officials at the bureau admit that many-perhaps most-women refrain from reporting incidents due to the social stigma attached to being a victim of molestation or even rape.
"Come on women. Learn to shout, learn to object and learn to hit back," demanded Radha Sharma, a trainer at the state-sponsored self-defence workshop in Delhi.
Since it was set up in 2002, it has coached 70,000 women, from students to housewives, at ten-day free courses organised at school premises during the summer break. Young girls in designer jeans and women wearing shalwar kameez robes or colourful saris are taught how to deploy their own possessions to defend themselves.

 Iran bars two UN nuclear inspectors
AFP, Tehran

Iran has barred two UN inspectors from entering the country after they filed a "false" report about Tehran's nuclear programme, atomic chief Ali Akbar Salehi was Monday quoted as saying.
Salehi, who implements Iran's nuclear programme, said the two inspectors had also leaked information about the Islamic republic's atomic work before it was due to be officially announced, the ISNA news agency reported.
The action against the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors comes less than a fortnight after the UN Security Council imposed a fourth set of sanctions on Iran, followed soon after by unilateral punitive measures by the United States and the European Union.
It also comes after the IAEA in its latest report raised fresh doubts about the true nature of Iran's nuclear programme.
"These two inspectors do not have the right to come to Iran because they leaked information before it was to be officially announced and they also filed a false report," Salehi was quoted by ISNA as saying.
"In other words because of these two reasons it has led us to (bar) them from coming to Iran," he said, adding that Iran has asked the IAEA to replace the two inspectors with new officials, who would be allowed to visit the Islamic republic to check its nuclear facilities.
"In the last session of the IAEA board of governors, we told the IAEA that the report filed by the two inspectors was incorrect and we objected to it," he said.
"The report was totally wrong. Based on the safeguard agreement, we requested that these two inspectors do not come to Iran and be replaced with two others."
Salehi said the decision is also an attempt to convince Iranian lawmakers that Tehran's "cooperation with the IAEA will only be within the framework of the safeguard agreement" between Iran and the UN nuclear body.
Influential Iranian lawmaker Alaeddin Borujerdi who heads parliament's foreign policy commission had last week called for action against the IAEA inspectors.
"These inspectors provided information to media and Iran's atomic body must stop such violations committed by them," Borujerdi was quoted as saying by state news agency IRNA.
In its latest report on Iran, the IAEA complained that Tehran is pressing ahead with its contested uranium enrichment activities-despite UN sanctions-and is now producing enriched uranium at even higher levels of purification.
Iran has said that since February it has been enriching uranium to the 20 percent purification level, despite the West's belief that it does not have the technology to turn that material into fuel rods used to power a reactor.
The IAEA report said the agency remained concerned about the true nature of Iran's nuclear ambitions.

   Kyrgyzstan on hunt for ‘militants’ behind ethnic clashes
AFP, Osh

Security forces in Kyrgyzstan on Monday started tracking down those behind the ethnic clashes that left 2,000 dead, stoking tensions in the Central Asian state's volatile south.
As authorities announced a special operation to flush out "militants" in the ravaged city of Osh, human rights groups alleged that two people had been killed and 20 wounded by security forces overnight.
Regional authorities said only one person had been killed in an operation in the village of Nariman.
"A special operation began on June 21 in Osh against those who refuse to surrender their weapons, who will be considered militants," the military command office in Osh said in a statement.
"The information... alleging that 20 people were wounded in the clear-up operation in Nariman does not correspond to reality," it added.
The statement went on to say that "when special forces were clearing one of the sectors, someone shot at them. A special forces officer fired an answering shot. One person died. We see this as resistance. The acts of the officer were justified."
Witnesses in Osh said security forces had moved into the village of Nariman, near the border with Uzbekistan, overnight with armoured vehicles and helicopters, sparking a firefight.
Anna Neistat, a local researcher for Human Rights Watch, said the group had seen two dead and 20 wounded taken from the village to a local hospital.
A spokesman for the Osh mayor's office confirmed that a "firefight" had taken place in Nariman Monday morning but did not elaborate. Kyrgyzstan arrested 20 people on Sunday over their suspected role in ethnic clashes, as the military cleared makeshift barricades from Uzbek areas in the ravaged city of Osh. The removal of the barricades happened without incident, despite fears it could reignite the violence in the south of the Central Asian country that has left up to 2,000 dead and forced 400,000 from their homes.

   Iraqi FM says political ‘bickering’ risks street riots
AFP, Baghdad

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari warned on Monday that prolonged "bickering" over who should be the war-torn country's prime minister is angering the public and risks stoking deadly street riots.
With no new government in sight almost four months after an inconclusive general election, Zebari told AFP that a frenzied protest over electricity rationing in which a man was shot dead could be a harbinger of more trouble.
The economy is also suffering because of a political vacuum that has seen the process bogged down since the March 7 national ballot, the second such poll since the US-led ouster of Saddam Hussein in 2003.
The failure to form a government after months of fruitless "horsetrading, manoeuvring and jockeying for position," may also require the United Nations to help broker a deal to end the impasse, Zebari said.
"What we saw in Basra on Saturday was a warning. It was the writing on the wall. The anger they (demonstrators) showed was extraordinary."
Thousands of men protested in Basra, 450 kilometres (280 miles) south of Baghdad, amid temperatures of 54 degrees Celsius (130 Fahrenheit) to demand the electricity minister's resignation.
Some of them carried a coffin draped in a black flag, while windows of a government building were smashed, reflecting their anger at inadequate power supplies which have seen much-needed air-conditioning units sit idle.
A similar protest on Monday over electricity shortages injured 14 policemen as hundreds of demonstrators hurled stones at local government offices in Nasiriyah, another southern city.
Zebari said there was a risk that the ambition of politicians, including Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and former premier Iyad Allawi, was overshadowing the public's demand for nuts-and-bolts services.
"Bickering over the position of the prime minister and who will form the new government... has been one of the key impediments to progress," said Zebari.

  NATO chief mourns Britain’s 300th death in Afghanistan
AFP, Brussels

NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen expressed sympathy to Britain on Monday over its 300th military fatality in Afghanistan, but he said the deaths were not in vain.
"I express my deep condolences to the United Kingdom for the losses British forces have suffered in Afghanistan," Rasmussen said in a statement.
"My thoughts are in particular with the families of the 300 British soldiers who have lost their lives in this vital mission," he said. After the announcement, British Prime Minister David Cameron pledged to withdraw troops as soon as the war-torn state can handle its own security.
The grim landmark comes during a year which has already seen the second-highest number of British fatalities since operations began in 2001 -- 55 -- and amid signs that most Britons want the 9,500 in Afghanistan troops pulled out.
"These soldiers, and their comrades from 45 countries who serve in the mission, have helped to ensure that Afghanistan is no longer a safe haven for terrorists who can threaten our streets, airports and metros," Rasmussen said.
"A safer Afghanistan means a safer world; our soldiers are making an enormous sacrifice, but they are also making steady progress in helping to meet that goal," he said.

  Easing of Gaza siege criticised by Palestinians, Israelis
AFP, Jerusalem

Israel's decision to ease its blockade of Gaza has drawn criticism from Palestinians who say it does not go far enough and Israelis who fear it will strengthen the territory's Hamas rulers.
Western governments, however, including the United States, have hailed the move as a step in the right direction.
Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, who has held sway in the West Bank only since Hamas seized power in Gaza and ousted his forces in 2007, insisted Israel must completely lift the four-year-old blockade.
"President Abbas demands the complete lifting of the siege on Gaza," his spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina said.
"These steps alone are not sufficient, and all efforts must be exerted to ease the suffering of the people of Gaza," he added.
Gaza's Islamist rulers also dismissed Israel's decision and called for "the complete and genuine lifting of all forms of the blockade."
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said this must include "the opening of all the crossings and guaranteeing the movement of residents and the entry of all goods, especially industrial and building materials."
"We want all of Gaza's needs to be met, including electricity and fuel and the lifting of all banking restrictions, and this is what is not included in the Israeli decision, which means the siege is still in place," he told AFP.
Israel announced on Sunday it would allow the import of strictly "civilian" goods, but will restrict "problematic dual-use" items-thought to include construction materials which can be used to build rockets and bunkers. Israel did not mention allowing exports out of Gaza.
The new policy follows mounting international pressure in the wake of a May 31 Israeli commando raid that killed nine Turkish activists aboard a flotilla of aid ships on a blockade-busting bid.
Israeli Human rights group Gisha insisted the government should allow "free passage of raw materials into Gaza, export of finished goods," as well as travel for humanitarian, work, study and family reasons.

  World's most important job: being a good dad, Obama says
AFP, Washington

The president of the United States said Sunday the most important job was not his but that of being a good father.
In an emotional plea to supporters on Father's Day, President and First Father Barack Obama encouraged dads to "step up and fulfill their responsibilities as parents, partners and providers.
"As the father of two young daughters, I know that being a father is one of the most important jobs any man can have," Obama said, referring to his daughters Malia, 11, and Sasha, nine.
Obama, whose Kenyan father left him when he was only two years old, has launched a national dialogue on how to address early on the challenges of father absence, dispatching top officials around the country to discuss the issue.
"I was raised by a heroic mother and wonderful grandparents who provided the support, discipline and love that helped me get to where I am today, but I still felt the weight of that absence throughout my childhood. It's something that leaves a hole no government can fill," he said in an emailed statement.
"Studies show that children who grow up without their fathers around are more likely to drop out of high school, go to jail, or become teen fathers themselves." The statement came a day before the president was due to unveil his Fatherhood and Mentoring Initiative to "help fathers fulfill their responsibilities as parents."
The White House said he would "discuss the importance of responsible fatherhood and mentoring to build healthy families and communities" at an event in Washington.
"This Father's Day, I'm thankful for the opportunity to be a dad to two wonderful daughters," Obama said. "And I'm thankful for all the wonderful fathers, grandfathers, uncles, brothers and friends who are doing their best to make a difference in the lives of a child."
In his traditional presidential proclamation on the Father's Day holiday, Obama took the unusual step of giving a nod to non-traditional fathering by mentioning the role of families with "two fathers."
"Nurturing families come in many forms, and children may be raised by a father and mother, a single father, two fathers, a step-father, a grandfather, or caring guardian," he said in the annual statement released on Friday.
In his first Father's Day declaration, last year, Obama also honored "those surrogate fathers who raise, mentor, or care for someone else's child."
First Lady Michelle Obama has spearheaded a "Let's Move" anti-childhood obesity drive and encouraged parents and teachers to educate kids about good nutrition and improve the quality of US school meals.

  Panic hits Gaza smuggler market amid talk of open borders
AFP, Rafah

As the news spread that Israel would ease its four-year blockade on the Gaza Strip, merchants in the territory's main smugglers' market raced to unload their merchandise.
The prices of televisions, refrigerators and washing machines that had been hauled hundreds of metres (yards) through tunnels beneath the Egyptian border plummetted in the Rafah border town's sprawling Al-Najma market.
"Crate of cola, 20 shekels (five dollars) only!" Abu Hassan, 54, shouted at passersby as he glanced nervously at several boxes of fizzy drinks stacked up outside his shop. He used to sell a crate for as much as 30 shekels.
"If Israeli cola is allowed to enter before I sell off my inventory it's going to hit my business really hard and I am going to lose a lot."
Israel announced Sunday it would allow in everything that cannot be used by Gaza's Hamas rulers to build weapons or fortifications, dealing a potentially fatal blow to the tunnel trade that has largely sustained the coastal enclave.
Israel and Egypt sealed Gaza off from all but basic goods in June 2006 following the capture of an Israeli soldier by Palestinian militants and tightened the closures a year later when the Hamas movement seized power.
Since then nearly all the consumer goods in the territory, including fuel, cigarettes, animals and appliances, have been brought in through a vast network of tunnels taxed and regulated by the Hamas-run government.
More than 150 people have died in recent years from cave-ins, electrical shocks and other tunnel mishaps, most of them young men and boys with no other opportunities for employment.
Now tunnel operators say much of the smuggling has ground to a halt.

Business/Economy

DCCI president for minimizing trade gap between India and BD

UNB, Dhaka

Dhaka Chamber of Commerce & Industry (DCCI) president Abul Kasem Khan on Monday urged for minimizing trade imbalance between India and Bangladesh through solving various problems including visa.
"We have to minimize trade gap between India and Bangladesh and solve various problems including that of visa for better trade relation," he said when a 11-member delegation from Bengal National Chamber of Commerce & Industry (BNCCI), led by its President Shri SK Roy, called on the DCCI president at the Chamber office.
The DCCI President said that there is a huge potential of bilateral business between the two friendly countries adding, "We have to utilize these potentials for our mutual benefit,"
He also stressed on removing barriers of businesses between the two countries.
The BNCCI president Shri SK Roy called upon the business community of both the countries to come forward with a changed mind set.
He also stressed on the infrastructural development of Bangladesh for attracting Foreign Direct Investment.
DCCI Vice Presidents Md Sirajuddin Malik, Rafiqul Islam Khan, MA Baten, Maj. (retd) Md Yead Ali Fakir, M Bashir Ullah Bhuiyan, TIM Nurul Kabir, Waqar Ahmad Choudhury, Al-haj Md Nasiruddin Khan, M Anwarul Haque, Md Sirajul Islam (Bulbul) and MS Shekil Chowdhury, were present, among others, in the meeting.

 World stocks soar after Chinese move on yuan
AFP, London

Global equities surged on Monday on a promise by China to relax constraints on the yuan, seen as a step to defuse tension with the United States before a G20 summit in Canada this weekend.
"Investor sentiment has improved quite dramatically over the weekend, with the news that China has pledged to allow its yuan to appreciate, helping to drive all major markets higher," said analyst Joel Kruger at trading website DailyFX. "Global equity, commodity and currency prices have all jumped out to a good start in the early week, and it will be interesting to see just how long this development is able to keep a more broadly cautious market afloat."
China said over the weekend that it would allow the yuan more flexibility in adjusting to market forces.
This was widely seen as a move to head off a dispute with the United States over exchange rates at the looming Group of 20 gathering in Toronto on June 26-27. In late morning trade, Frankfurt shares leapt 1.54 percent, London jumped 1.13 percent and Paris gained 1.72 percent.
The European single currency climbed against the yen and dollar, as the Chinese move encouraged investors to buy the risk-sensitive euro.
The yuan climbed on Monday to the highest level against the dollar for five years.
And crude oil prices also rose strongly, breaching 79 dollars per barrel on expectations of higher demand from Chinese consumers. In Asia, the Tokyo stock market rallied 2.43 percent and Hong Kong leapt 3.08 percent.
Shanghai jumped 2.90 percent, Sydney won 1.33 percent and Singapore picked up 1.62 percent in value.
"Asian equity markets were stronger across the board ... as the Chinese authorities signal preparedness to allow resumed appreciation of the yuan," said analyst Bernard McAlinden at NCB stockbrokers in Dublin.

  Malaysia targets 7pc exports growth
AFP, Kuala Lumpur

Malaysia on Monday said its exports are expected to grow between six to seven percent in 2010 as demand improves due to global economic recovery.
"Growth rates in major economies such as the USA, Europe and Japan are expected to recover at moderate levels," the Ministry of International Trade and Industry said in its 2009 annual report.
Malaysia, Southeast Asia's third-largest economy, said its exports dipped 16.6 percent in 2009, attributed to the downturn in the global economy.
It said Malaysia hopes to woo 27.5 billion ringgit (8.6 billion dollars) of approved investments in the manufacturing sector and 45.8 billion in the services sector in 2010.
"The government will ensure that the investment environment remains conducive and competitive," it said, adding that it hopes to attract investors in the areas of aerospace, biotechnology and pharmaceuticals.
Early June it unveiled a 69-billion-dollar plan intended to spur growth and attract much-needed foreign investment as it faces increasing competition from regional neighbours. The country is aiming to become a high-income economy by 2020 rather than continuing to rely on its low-cost structure to make it attractive.
Trade Minister Mustapa Mohamed later told reporters that Malaysia was targeting 40 billion ringgit in approved manufacturing investments in 2010.
Malaysia approved a total of 766 manufacturing projects worth 32.6 billion ringgit in 2009, compared with 919 projects with investments totaling 62.8 billion in 2008.
Foreign investment accounted for 22.1 billion ringgit, or 67.8 percent, of total investments in 2009, while domestic investments represented 32.2 percent, or 10.5 billion.
Investment in the services sector in 2009 totaled 36.3 billion ringgit in 2,720 approved projects, compared with 50.1 billion in 2,779 approved projects in 2008.

  Japan to nearly double 2010 growth forecast
AFP, Tokyo

The Japanese government has decided to upgrade its economic growth forecast to around 2.6 percent for the year to March 2011, from an earlier projection of 1.4 percent, reports said Monday.
The report comes as exports continue to show a stable recovery, particularly in trade with robust Asian economies, while the fall in corporate capital investment had started to slow, the Nikkei newspaper said.
The new forecast will be announced after the cabinet approves new fiscal rehabilitation measures on Tuesday, Kyodo News said, citing government sources.
"The government has judged that the economy will continue to recover at a faster pace than initially anticipated, backed by strong exports to China and other Asian countries as well as firm personal consumption in Japan," Kyodo said.
If realised, the projection would mark the first expansion in Japan in three years.
Japan's economy grew an annualised 5.0 percent in the January-March quarter, with rising exports and signs of improving domestic demand.

  Britain insists it needs cuts after Obama G20 letter
AFP, London

Britain insisted on Monday that it still needs to tackle its deficit "more quickly" after US President Barack Obama wrote to G20 countries warning against scaling back government spending too fast.
"Different countries have different starting points and for some countries, such as our own, there is a need to get on and tackle the deficit more quickly," Prime Minister David Cameron's official spokesman told reporters.
Obama warned in a letter on Friday that leading world economies should "commit to restore sustainable public finances in the medium term" but avoid scaling back spending too quickly or the global economy recovery could be affected.
Britain's finance minister George Osborne is unveiling an emergency budget Tuesday expected to feature the biggest cuts for decades.
The new government is bidding to rein in state borrowing forecast to reach 155 billion pounds (185 billion euros, 230 billion dollars) or 10.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in the year to March 2011.
European countries led by Germany say cutbacks are needed now amid worries about the health of the eurozone, fuelled by huge public debts in Greece and Spain.

National

UN under secretary Dr. Anna listens to fear of slum dwellers

BSS, Dhaka

The UN Under Secretary General and Executive Director of UN HABITAT Dr. Anna K. Tibaijuka on Monday visited the city's biggest Korail slum, home to over 100,000 poor people migrated from rural areas due mainly to river erosion and unemployment.
Dr Anna, who is based in Nairobi, Kenya, paid a short visit to the slum area between the city's posh areas of Gulshan and Banani, exchanged views with the community people and came to know the process of development taken by themselves.
She listened to the slum dwellers fear of a possible eviction drive by authorities to accommodate an information and communication technology (ICT) village over part of the 100 acre slum areas. "Eviction is not a solution. The solution must be a planned resettlement of the poor people," Anna told journalists after her interaction with the community people at Korail.
She said urbanization is irreversible and the poor people migrating to urban areas could not be sent back to their rural bases.
The challenge is acute in all over the world, especially in the developing and emerging economies, she said adding that only a planned urbanization could partly solve the problem.
Anna, who has a project in Kenya's biggest Kibera slum areas in Nairobi, said the uses of 100 acres of land could be utilized through planned settlement of the slum dwellers, who could be given part of the land to build low cost apartments for the families living in Korail. In this context, she suggested that the public and private banks could come forward to build cooperative housing, payment of which could be paid in 60 years of period by the beneficiaries.
The problems that exist over Korail land use could be solved through dialogue with the government, she said adding that the UN was ready to help Bangladesh help resettle the poor people living in the slum areas. In this context, she mentioned about the ongoing
'Partnerships for Poverty Reduction (UPPR) Project' and said that the lives and livelihoods of three million urban poor in 30 towns in Bangladesh would be improved at a cost of $120 million during 2007-'15.
National Programme Coordinator of UPPR Azahar Ali, Town Manager of UPPR Mohammad Nazrul Islam, local ward councilor of Dhaka City Corporation Abdul Alim Naqui, among others, accompanied the UN executive. Later, Dr Anna made a courtesy call on State Minister for Housing and Works Advocate Abdul Mannan at the latter's office in Bangladesh Secretariat..

  Internet at all public offices in 7 divisions, 64 districts by Dec

BSS, Dhaka

All public offices in seven divisional headquarters and 64 districts would get computers with high-speed Internet connections through fiber optics by December this year.
The Internet services at all public offices would establish connectivity with the upcoming information centers in progress at all the 4,501 unions, making a bridge of information between the rural people and the government service providing organizations.
National Project Director of Access to Information (A2I), being operated from the Prime Minister office, Nazrul Islam Khan disclosed this while addressing a workshop on 'Digital Bangladesh and Our Role' at the District administration office in Magura on Sunday.
Member of the JS Standing Committee on the Ministry of Education Biren Sikdar was the chief guest while Deputy Commissioner Sushanta Kumar Saha was in the chair.
Later talking to BSS, Khan said the government would build information centers equipped with various digital devices like computer, fax, photocopies, webcam with Internet connection at all union by next year.
Referring to 847 unions still out of the national electricity grid, he said solar panels would be installed at those unions to operate the information centers. After the establishment of the union centers, the rural people could easily make connectivity with the division, district and upazila headquarters through video conferencing for accessing their required information.
"We hope that the Union Information Centers will bring huge positive changes in the rural areas towards making the government's vision of building digital Bangladesh a success," Khan said.

  137 food warehouses to be built in 15 northern district
BSS, Bogra

The government has decided to build 137 new warehouses in 15 northern districts of the country for 1.10 lakh metric tons (MTS) food grains storage. The construction of the godowns will start in the current month at a cost of Taka 222 crore and complete by February next year.
The government has stepped up efforts to build new warehouses as it failed to procure adequate foodgrains in the current season due to lack of storage facilities though the country has witnessed a bumper Aman and Boro production. The Food Department has already selected construction firms through inviting tenders while Public Works Department will implement the project.
Twenty-two foodgrain warehouse will be built in Dinajpur, 12 in Thakurgaon, five in Panchagarh, two in Nilphamari, two in Lalmonirhat, four in Kurigram, seven in Rangpur, four in Gaibandha, five in Joypurhat, 40 in Bogra, six in Naogaon, six in Sirajganj, nine in Pabna, four in Rajshahi and four in Natore.
The 15 districts of the northern region now have 640 godowns with the capacity of 4,09,750 MTs.
On completion of the warehouses, the districts will have a total food grains storage capacity of 5,19,750 MTs. Rajshahi Regional Food official Sirajul Islam told BSS that he hoped the construction of the godowns would be completed before the next Aman and Boro seasons.

  Govt. urged to allocate special fund for rehabilitation of Sidr, Aila hit people

BSS, Borguna

Speakers at a discussion have urged the government to allocate special fund in the annual development programme (ADP) for 2010-11 financial year for the rehabilitation of the Sidr and Aila affected people.
They urged the government to earmark the special allocation in the national budget for the Sidr and Aila hit people of 14 South-Western coastal districts of the country. The discussion on "Budget Allocation: Rehabilitation of Sidr and Aila Affected People" was jointly organized by USAID, Protagi Prokolpo and Khan Foundation" at the Amtoli upazila UT and DC hall on Sunday.
The speakers alleged that only Taka 46.92 lakh has been earmarked in the budget for 3.50 lakh people of Amtoli upazila of Borguna district where 12,000 families have not yet been rehabilitated. Prior to discussion, a procession was brought out demanding the special allocation for the rehabilitation of Sidr and Aila hit people of 14 South-Western districts of the country.
Chaired by Prof. Rehana Mahbub of Amtoli Degree College, the discussion was addressed, among others, by upazila chairman Salahuddin Ahmed, teachers leader Dewan Mujibur Rahman, Poura councilor Masuda Kader and journalist Khan Matiur Rahman.

   ICT-based service delivery can help build Digital Bangladesh: Liton

BSS, Rajshahi

Mayor of Rajshahi AHM Khairuzzaman Liton has said that the wide-ranging promotion of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) based improved service delivery process could be the means of building digital Bangladesh as announced by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
"We want to present a prosperous and happy Bangladesh for the next generation through implementing the digital Bangladesh program by 2021," he further said. He was inaugurating a 10-day training course for the Union Information Service Providers at Rajshahi City College Computer Laboratory here yesterday as the chief guest. Bangladesh Computer Council under its 'district level computer laboratory installation and ICT training launching project' organized the course.
He said the present government has taken an effective step to implement the digital program and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has appointed the talented students for quick expansion of the program and expedited the pace of the work.
Terming the education as main criterion of Rajshahi city Mayor Liton said the city would be highlighted across the world through the education. Liton mentioned that the successful implementation of the digital program would contribute a lot to solve the existing problems relating to food, wear, shelter, education and healthcare.
Besides, he said the people can easily get access to the global information network including infrastructural, conservancy, street lighting and water supply installations of the developed countries.
Chaired by Principal of the college Prof Kabirul Islam the ceremony was addressed, among others, by Additional Deputy Commissioner (Education and Development) Subal Bosh Moni and Vice-president of district Awami League Rafiq Uddin.
A total of 20 youths from nine upazilas of the district are taking part in the course.

   IBCCI pleads for study on Northeastern-Bangla trade volume

BSS, Agartala

The Indo Bangladesh Chamber of Commerce and Industries (IBCCI) has pleaded for a joint study on trade volume between Bangladesh and Northeastern states.
Addressing the second stakeholders' consultation meet on Indo- Bangla trade organised by CUTS International-a leading NGO based in Jaipur-here Sunday, IBCCI president Abdul Matlub Ahmed said there was no authentic report of import and export between the two countries.
He suggested that Northeastern states involved in trade with Bangladesh undertake a detailed study over the financial aspects of transit and transshipment benefit for both NE region and Bangladesh, besides import and export for easy implementation of the Indo-Bangla accord signed in January, agency report today said.
Ahmed said there was a great potential for increasing trade and investment between NE and Bangladesh, as both have natural market for each other. Supplementing Ahmed, Industry and Commerce Minister of Tripura Jitendra Choudhury welcomed foreign direct investment (FDI) from Bangladesh in all potential sectors of the state, which was not developed yet though there had been a congenial atmosphere. the report added.

Sports

Brazil beats Ivory Coast 3-1 to reach 2nd round
AP, Johannesburg

Luis Fabiano scored a pair of goals and Elano added another as Brazil beat Ivory Coast 3-1 Sunday to secure a spot in the second round of the World Cup with a match to spare in Group G.
Luis Fabiano scored his first goal in six matches for Brazil with a powerful right-footer in the 25th minute after a perfect pass by Kaka between defenders. He jumped over defender Kolo Toure before firing into the top of the net from a difficult angle. Luis Fabiano doubled the lead in the 50th with a left-footer from near the penalty spot after beating two defenders inside the area. TV replays appeared to show Luis Fabiano handling the ball to gain control. Elano scored Brazil's third goal in the 62nd after another setup by Kaka, who was sent off in the 88th after being booked twice within four minutes in a spiteful finish.
Didier Drogba, in the starting lineup for the first time since breaking his right arm on June 4, scored the lone goal for Ivory Coast with a header in the 79th.
It was a physical match at Soccer City, with hard fouls from both sides and players confronting each other at times. Kaka got into an altercation with Kader Keita near the end of the match and was ejected after a second yellow card.
The victory at Soccer City gives Brazil six points from two matches, leaving the Ivory Coast in difficult position to advance from the group stage. Portugal and North Korea play on Monday in Cape Town. Brazil has won all six matches it has played against African nations in the World Cup. The last had been a 3-0 win over Ghana in the round of 16 of the 2006 tournament in Germany. Drogba's goal was the first Brazil conceded to African nations in football's marquee tournament. Luis Fabiano hadn't scored in more than nine months for Brazil, since netting twice in a victory over Argentina last September in a World Cup qualifier. The crowed cheered his name after the second goal.
Brazil had beaten North Korea 2-1 in the opener, while Ivory Coast drew Portugal 0-0.
Kaka, coming off a season plagued by injuries, again was far from his best, but showed his poise on Sunday by setting up Luis Fabiano's first-half goal and Elano's in the second half in front of 84,455 fans at Soccer City.
Brazil made some uncharacteristic passing mistakes in the beginning and was not able to take control of the match, allowing the Ivorians to threaten in counterattacks and free kicks. Ivory Coast put nearly all players on defense when Brazil held possession, leaving Drogba alone up front. "I thought we came back after 3-0 rather good, but we couldn't score more than one," Ivory Coast coach Sven-Goran Eriksson said. Drogba attempted a long-range free kick in the 13th but his shot sailed way wide.

  Portugal beats NKorea 7-0
AFP, Cape Town

A merciless Portugal tore North Korea to shreds in a 7-0 rout on Monday, putting them within reach of the knockout rounds and eliminating the Asian nation from the World Cup.
With Brazil already qualified from Group G, Portugal now have four points to Ivory Coast's one, leaving Didier Drogba's team with only an outside chance of making the round of 16.
North Korea have lost both their games and will head home after their last match against the Africans.
A Raul Meireles strike put Portugal in front with the Porto midfielder pouncing in the 29th minute. But it wasn't all one-way traffic, with North Korea creating their own chances as they powered forward on the counter-attack. The game changed though with three quick second-half goals from Simao, Hugo Almeida and Tiago that left North Korea shellshocked before substitute Liedson banged in the fifth. Captain Cristiano Ronaldo got the sixth, ending his two-year international goal drought, before Tiago made it seven.
Portugal coach Carlos Queiroz made four changes to the team that drew 0-0 with Ivory Coast, with Tiago replacing the injured Deco and Simao, Almeida and Miguel in for Danny, Liedson and Paulo Ferreira. The revamped team started brightly on a slippery pitch after persistent rain.
Ronaldo signalled his intentions by unleashing a long-range strike on two minutes that goalkeeper Ri Myong-Guk did well to collect. Ricardo Carvalho also had an early chance, rattling the post with a header, as Portugal set about their task with vigour. The opportunities were coming thick and fast as Portugal used wingers Simao on the right and Ronaldo on the left effectively North Korea finally got a shot at goal on 10 minutes with defender Cha Jong-Hyok whipping a 30 yard piledriver just past the upright. As the rain returned, the Koreans were starting to look handy and far more aggressive than when they lost 2-1 to Brazil, surging forward to threaten the Portgual goal.
The Cholima were certainly not intimidated and could have taken a shock lead when captain Hong Yong-Jo's shot was parried by Eduardo, only for Mun In-Guk to head the rebound over the bar.
The Portuguese came out after the break pushing hard for the second goal which inevitably came on 53 minutes with Meireles slicing open the Korean defence with a pass to Athletic Madrid's Simao who slotted the ball past Ri.
North Korea were in disarray and let their guard down again three minutes later when Fabio Coen-trao beat his man on the left and sent a lovely cross to Hugo Almeida who made no mistake with a powerful header.
Portugal were rampant and the fourth goal came soon after when Ronaldo picked out Tiago in the box and he clinically side-footed home before Liedson volleyed in the fifth with nine minutes left. Ronaldo made the most of a lucky bobble to get the sixth in the 87th minute before Tiago rubbed salt in the Korean wounds with a late deft header.

   Sinful to bench Messi against Greece, says Maradona
AFP, Pretoria

Diego Maradona plans on making seven substitutions to his starting lineup for Argentina's match with Greece, but star Lionel Messi will play Tuesday because benching him would be sinful.
Maradona, whose squad is all-but assured a berth in the round of 16, will give his reserves a chance to see some action, but Barcelona striker Messi will be on the field and might even be the captain for La Albiceleste.
"We wanted to give Lionel a break but he will play," Maradona said. "He's the best player in the world. I think it would be a sin not to give him to the team, to the people, and leave out a player who could decide the match."
Messi, who spectacularly set-up three Argentina goals in a victory over South Korea, could wear the Argentine captain's armband with regular captain Javier Mascherano of Liverpool set to sit out after an earlier yellow card.
Asked if Messi might assume the captain's armband the way Maradona himself did in an earlier World Cup, the legend said only, "You will know that when the people go on the pitch."
Maradona looks forward to seeing Messi net his first World Cup goal.
"I would really love that Leo does what is supposed to be done during the World Cup," Maradona said. "I remember when I scored that first goal we had the match in our hands. Perhaps Messi can have the same experience." Messi has not been solved by rival goalkeepers, Maradona contends, noting his set-up ability on Real Madrid striker Gonzalo Higuain's three goals against the Koreans.
"The choreography allo-ws you to see Messi in a way you never expected to see him," Maradona said. "I'm extremely impressed with Messi's performance. He keeps opponents moving. He hasn't scored yet but...
"In the matches I played, I was there when they needed me. I didn't always score the goals and this is what Lionel is good for. He is distributing the ball."
Maradona is confident in what amounts to a second team, saying some of them could earn their way into the first squad if they play well against Greece.
"These people are ready to risk their lives on every ball," Maradona said. "If they perform well they could be on the first team in the round of 16. They all have a chance. They will fight for a position.
That's the motivation." Maradona, who turns 50 in October, remains unhappy over an unwhistled kicking foul in the Korea match, saying, "When the Korean kicks and gets no card, you have your doubts this is football and not kung fu fighting."

  S. Korea, Nigeria set for all-out battle
AP, Durban

Nigeria may have lost both its games so far at the World Cup, but a win over South Korea on Tuesday could still see the Africans make it through to the round of 16. Form side Argentina looks set to top Group B, needing only a draw against Greece in a simultaneous game Tuesday to lock up that spot. The other three sides are all alive in the fight for second place.
Unless Greece upsets Argentina or secures a high-scoring draw, the Koreans will need only a draw against the Nigerians to make it through to the knockout stages. Nigeria can make it by beating South Korea while relying on Argentina to win.
"The game against Nigeria last will not be easy ... players must do more than they did in the last match," Korea coach Huh Jung-moo said, referring to the 4-1 defeat by a rampant Argentina. "We left them a backdoor open for attack," he said. "We will be more solid and better organized in the last game." The Nigerians are eager to make up for their 2-1 loss to Greece, in a game turned by the 33rd-minute expulsion of Nigeria midfielder Sani Kaita for a senseless sideline foul when he kicked out at an opponent. Kaita has publicly apologized over the incident that let the Greeks back in the game Swedish coach Lars Lagerback said his Nigerian team would keep fighting as long as they have a chance of getting out the group. "The positive thing is that we still have a chance of qualifying, although we need a helping hand from Argentina," Lagerback said. "We need a fresh start, and we'll do that by beating (South Korea)."
Nigeria is among the African teams that have disappointed at a World Cup in which they were expected to shine on home soil.

  Mexico, Uruguay need only draw to advance in World Cup
AP, Rustenburg

Mexico and Uruguay need only a draw their match Tuesday to qualify for the next round of the World Cup, so both may choose to field more defensive lineups. Mexico and Uruguay are at the top of Group A after two matches, each with four points, while South Africa and France both have one point. So, both France and the host nation will be eliminated from the World Cup if Mexico and Uruguay draw.
Mexico has fielded attacking lineups in its two previous matches, in a 4-3-3 formation. The strategy has won praise from pundits and other teams. Paraguay coach Gerardo Martino has said that Mexico is the best team he's seen at the tournament so far. The biggest decision Mexico coach Javier Aguirre will have to make for Tuesday's match at Royal Bafokeng Stadium is who will be in his forward line.
Aguirre may choose to go with boom youngster Javier Hernandez over veteran Guillermo Franco, who started in Mexico's 1-1 draw against South Africa in the opening match and the 2-0 win over France.
But it was the 22-year-old Hernandez who made headlines when he followed in the footsteps of his grandfather - who scored in the 1954 World Cup in Switzerland- by scoring the opening goal as a substitute against France.
Carlos Vela, who also started in the two previous matches, is a doubt with a right leg injury. Aguirre may decide to go with Pablo Barrera, the forward who replaced Vela when he got injured late in the first half against France.

  Afridi blasts Pakistan to record total
Cricinfo Online

Shahid Afridi unleashed the kind of fury he is famous for after his openers Shahzaib Hasan and Imran Farhat set the platform with contrasting fifties, as Pakistan blitzed to their highest ODI score, and looked set for their first victory in 2010. Bangladesh's seamers bowled without purpose, and though their spinners did their best to pull things back in the middle overs, they had not planned for the Afridi redux - as aggressive as the marauder of old, but inventive and measured to go with it. His hurricane 124 off 60 balls, supported by a fifty from Umar Akmal, put Pakistan in control of what is effectively the battle for third place in the Asia Cup.
These are early days yet, but captaincy seems to have brought out the best in Afridi. He has retained the willingness to attack, but saddled with the responsibility of shepherding a young team, he has weeded out the risks. No more heaving across the line or short-arm pulls, at least not until he gets his eye in, and he still has the range to score at an other-worldly pace.
Having collared a better attack in more trying conditions earlier in the series, he barely broke a sweat in dealing with Bangladesh's offerings. With Umar Akmal already in the groove when he came out in the 29th over, Afridi warmed up to the task, working the spinners around for a couple of overs. He flexed his muscles in the 32nd, lofting Suh-rawadi Shuvo over long on for six, and cashing in on the over-compensation by pulling for four. There were two strokes of luck soon after, with an inside edge whistling past the stumps, and Mortaza dropping a skied sitter in the 37th over. After that, Afridi unleashed the full range of his fury as Pakistan accelerated at a ridiculous rate.

  Portugal fans in seventh heaven as NKorea thrashed
AFP, Cape Town

Portugal fans were in seventh heaven Monday after witnessing their team's World Cup demolition job over North Korea, hailing Cristiano Ronaldo as a legend and laying down the gauntlet to Brazil. Scores of fans began an impromptu konga outside Cape Town's Green Point stadium after the 7-0 victory over the Koreans, blaring their vuvuzelas and banging drums at the start of a party that promised to be a long one.
"It was unbelievable. It was the best performance I have ever seen by them, maybe not in the first half but especially in the second half," said 75-year-old Jose de Silva from Sandim in northern Portugal. "Ronaldo is back to his best, he's the finest in the world. Can we win the cup? Why not?"
Ronaldo, named man of the match, scored one of the six second half goals that the Portuguese rattled in, totally demoralising a North Korean team who only narrowly lost to Brazil 2-1 in their first match of the tournament.
Joe de Souza, who hails from Ronaldo's home island of Madeira, reckoned that the team still had room for improvement but predicted they would beat Brazil 3-0 on current form. The pair play each other in the final tie of their so-called group of death in Durban on Friday.
"He (Ronaldo) will get better and better. They are beginning to click and we can definitely make the semi-finals and then who knows," said de Souza, 52.
"I reckon we can take on Brazil. We want to get past them and top the group so we don't have to play Spain next." J.P. Van der Spui, a Cape Town student whose mother also hails from Madeira, said Ronaldo was awesome.
"He's a legend with a capital L. That guy has twinkle toes. The best thing about him is he can do 20 headers and his hairstyle still looks great," he said.
"He's got to be about the best player in the world. It's between him and (Argentina's Lionel) Messi."
The drubbing was a huge letdown for the North Korean minnows after their promising start to the tournament against Brazil. They were again cheered on by a small group of fans dressed in North Korean colours, all of whom brushed away questions, and a smattering of other fans from Asia who said they had done the continent proud. "I think all of Asia is behind the DPR (Democratic People's Republic of Korea. They are so poor but they have shown such strength of mind to be here," said 25-year-old Ling Bai, from Changchun in China's northeast Jilin province.

  French football in chaos after players’ mutiny
AFP, Knysna

The France World Cup squad resumed training here on Monday a day after they went on strike over the expulsion of forward Nicolas Anelka.
The 21-man squad jogged round the pitch while embattled coach Raymond Domenech chatted with his coaching staff. Anelka's foul-mouthed outburst at coach Raymond Domenech sparked a chaotic chain of events, with the striker being kicked out of the team after his bust-up at half-time of France's defeat to Mexico was revealed in a French newspaper. The forward, who plays for English Premier League champions Chelsea, arrived back in London early Monday, after his teammates had refused to take part in a session on Sunday.
Amid extraordinary scenes at their training base in South Africa and in full view of TV cameras, team captain Patrice Evra had a shouting match with fitness coach Robert Duverne before the scheduled session, forcing Domenech to intervene. When the players refused to train, a furious Duverne stormed off and threw his stopwatch across the pitch in frustration.
The players' mutiny prompted top French Football Federation (FFF) official Jean-Louis Valentin to resign, saying he was "disgusted" by the players. Domenech read out a statement from the players expressing their opposition to the decision to kick Anelka out of the squad and said they deplored the way the dressing room bust-up between him and Domenech had been revealed by sports daily L'Equipe on Saturday. "We regret the incident at half-time of the France v Mexico match, but we regret even more the divulging of an event which was only the squad's business and was part and parcel of the life of a top-level team," the statement added. "The FFF did not at any point try to protect the squad," the players said. "It took a decision based solely on facts reported by the press, without consulting the players."
Anelka, 31, was sent home after refusing to apologise for the expletive-laden outburst at Domenech after the coach had criticised his low-key first-half performance in the 2-0 defeat to Mexico on Thursday.
France, the 1998 World Cup winners and 2006 runners-up, are supposed to be preparing to face host nation South Africa on Tuesday in their final group Group A game with qualification on the line. If Mexico and Uruguay draw their match the same day, France are out of the tournament regardless of the result against South Africa. Evra refused to blame Anelka on Saturday, saying the real problem in the squad was a "traitor" who had leaked the incident to the media. French Sports Minister Roselyne Bachelot said the nation felt "great indignation" at the implosion of the squad and said she would hold crisis talks with the players and Domench in South Africa on Monday.

  High stakes for Serbia and Australia in final match
AFP, Nelspruit

Australia and Serbia face a must-win game at the Mbombela Stadium here on Wednesday while keeping an eye on the outcome of the other Group D game to decide which teams progress to the World Cup's last 16.
Serbia could even go through to the knockout stage with a draw against the Socceroos, but for the Australians, with just one point, it's all or nothing. Ghana, who lead Germany and Serbia by a point, take on the Germans at Soccer City at the same time and they will have to ensure that they win, so it is high pressure stakes for all teams.
The Serbs stunned Germany 1-0 last Friday to bounce back into last 16 contention after an opening loss to Ghana, while Australia were routed 4-0 by Germany and held Ghana to a 1-1 draw playing with 10 men.
The Socceroos will have to find a replacement for experienced centre-back Craig Moore, who picked up his second yellow card of the tournament, while star attacker Harry Kewell is suspended after his red card for hand-ball on the goal-line against Ghana.
Coach Pim Verbeek may go for defender Michael Beauchamp, who impressed as a substitute in friendlies against New Zealand and Denmark and whose height and strength may be needed to deal with Serbia's potent aerial threat from striker Nikola Zigic. One plus for the embattled Aussies is the return from a one-match suspension of Everton midfielder Tim Cahill.
"This whole week I've kept myself really fresh," Cahill said. "I'm really excited and ready to go. I'm sharp, I've made sure the manager can see I'm edgy to still be in the selection." Skipper Lucas Neill believes the Socceroos can repeat their 2006 World Cup performance and reach the last 16 if they can beat Serbia and hope the Germany-Ghana match doesn't end in a draw.
"There is unbelievable belief within the team," Neill said. "We are obviously hurt and we've given ourselves a mountain to climb in the first game, but we're still here and the nation shouldn't give up on us because we haven't given up."

  Argentina aims for 3 games, 3 wins at World Cup
AP/UNB, Polokwane

Argentina could become the first team at the World Cup to wrap up three victories if it defeats Greece on Tuesday - though a draw would be enough for the twice world champions to advance to the last 16 as Group B winners. Coach Diego Maradona's team has so far underlined its status as one of the tournament's biggest favorites, scoring an aggregate 5-1 goal difference. "We can all be happy," Maradona said. "Two games, two wins - and the way we achieved them."
Greece might need a helping hand from Nigeria if it is to advance - unless it earns an unlikely three-goal margin victory over Argentina. Greece could scape through on a smaller win or even a draw, but it then depends on a still pointless Nigeria to get a favorable result against South Korea at a simultaneous game in Durban. The 2004 European champions lost their opening game 2-0 to South Korea, then rallied to beat Nigeria 2-1 for their first ever World Cup win, points and goals. They're now hoping to keep their momentum going.
"For sure, the team can do better and can show more on the pitch," defender Sokratis Papastathopoulos said. "We will be freer to play, because the game against Nigeria was like a final ... We are very relaxed after the win, and in my opinion this will help us a lot."
Forward Pantelis Kapetanos called all the Argentina players "exceptional," but believed Greece has a chance of beating them. "It's also up to us. If we play well, we can make it," Kapetanos said. "If we stay concentrated for the entire 90 minutes, I believe the match can be won." Kapetanos acknowlegded the depth of the Argentina squad, saying "they have 22 fantastic players and (Lionel) Messi, who is one step higher in quality - the best player in the world." Greece was expected to rely on its well-known defensive tactics to stop the opponent's dazzling attack featuring Messi, Carlos Tevez and Gonzalo Higuain, who had a hattrick in Argentina's 4-1 demolition of South Korea on Thursday.

  Lampard the peacemaker as Capello crushes Terry revolt
AFP, Rustenburg

Fabio Capello was back in charge of England's World Cup campaign on Monday after a player revolt launched by John Terry fizzled out, two days before a decisive meeting with Slovenia. Terry had challenged Capello's authority by promising to air a string of grievances at a squad meeting on Sunday evening, even if that meant upsetting the Italian. If it was intended as a coup, it proved to be an abortive one. It emerged on Monday that Terry did not utter a single word at a meeting which was, according to his Chelsea team-mate Frank Lampard, exclusively dedicated to Capello's dissection of what went wrong in the goalless draw with Algeria.
In a typically accomplished performance in front of the world's media, Lampard smoothed over the cracks that have appeared as a result of England's stuttering start to the tournament, suggesting his team-mate's comments had been misinterpreted.
"I've not read the reports but from what I hear, I think it has been completely overdone in terms of crisis meeting and things like that," Lampard said. "I don't know if John backed off. The meeting was the manager dealing with the Algeria game and we moved on.
"I'm not going to say John said this and the manager said that. I've had enough of people trying to make out there are different factions in the camp. "The Algeria game had to be addressed and it was not nice viewing."
Lampard said Terry's comments were simply a reflection of his plain-talking nature, rather than him pursuing a personal agenda-which some have linked to Capello's decision to strip him of the captaincy in February following revelations about his affair with England team-mate Wayne Bridge's former partner.

  It was my fault, says North Korean coach
AFP, Cape Town

North Korean coach Kim Jong Hun took full responsibility for their humiliating 7-0 World Cup hammering by Portugal on Monday, admitting he got his strategy wrong.
After holding Portugal for almost half-an-hour, and even creating chances of their own, the Cholima collapsed in the second-half, unable to stop the carnage as they were eliminated from the tournament.
"In today's match, our players I think played to their full potential but tactically speaking it fell apart and we could not block their attacks and that's why they scored so many goals," said the poker-faced Kim.
"As a coach, it was my fault for not playing the right strategy.
"As they game went on, Portugal became more aggressive and after we conceded the first goal, the desire and wish to equalise led to my team's collapse."
The last 45 minutes was not a pretty sight for the Koreans, and their drubbing was made worse with the match broadcast live into their Stalinist homeland - the first live game shown there in a year. Asked how he felt his countrymen would react, Kim said they would understand.
"Back home, I believe that they will look at our next game and they will be rooting for us to play well," he said.