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Leading News
World
hails Obama’s ‘brilliant’ victory
AFP, Paris
World leaders hailed Barack Obama's triumph Wednesday in
the US presidential election as the start of a new era
while calling for the global superpower to change the way
it does business.
Obama parties were staged in capitals around the world. A
national holiday was declared in Kenya-where Obama's
father was born-to welcome the first black US president.
But in a reminder of the global rivalries that Obama will
have to confront, within hours of his victory speech,
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev announced that Russian
short range missiles would be aimed at a US missile shield
in Europe.
Nothing however could stop the wave of optimism that
spread out from the United States after Obama's victory
over Republican rival John McCain.
South Africa's iconic first black leader Nelson Mandela
said Obama had shown that anyone could change the world.
"Your victory has demonstrated that no person anywhere in
the world should not dare to dream of wanting to change
the world for a better place," Mandela wrote to Obama.
Mandela applauded Obama's commitment to global peace and
security and said: "We wish you strength and fortitude in
the challenging days and years that lie ahead."
French President Nicolas Sarkozy said "your brilliant
victory rewards a tireless commitment to serve the
American people. It also crowns an exceptional campaign
whose inspiration and exaltation have proved to the entire
world the vitality of American democracy." "By choosing
you, the American people have chosen change, openness and
optimism," added Sarkozy who sent one of a flood of
congratulatory messages to the 47-year-old Democratic
senator.
"This is a moment that will live in history as long as
history books are written," said British Prime Minister
Gordon Brown. "Barack Obama ran an inspirational campaign,
energizing politics with his progressive values and his
vision for the future."
China's President Hu Jintao said in a written message: "In
a new historical era, I look forward to... taking our
bilateral relationship of constructive cooperation to a
new level."
Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso pledged to work with the
new US leader to strengthen relations.
Indian Premier Manmohan Singh called it an "extraordinary"
victory while Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said
Obama's victory was a landmark for equality 45 years after
Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech.
"Today what America has done is turn that dream into a
reality," Rudd told reporters.
European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso called
for the election to usher in a "new deal" between the
United States and the rest of the world to tackle the
global financial crisis and other troubles.
The Russian president said in his first state of the
nation speech that the Kremlin hopes "that our partners,
the new US administration, will make the choice for
fully-fledged relations with Russia." But Medvedev said
Iskander missiles will be based in the western territory
of Kaliningrad to "neutralise" US missile defence plans.
With wars in Iraq and Afghanistan heading White House
priorities abroad, there were also calls for a change of
tack on the US "War on Terror" launched after the
September 11, 2001 attacks. The "'War on Terror' cannot be
fought in Afghan villages... Afghanistan is the victim of
terrorism," Afghan President Hamid Karzai said. Obama's
election would not lead to a quick US disengagement from
Iraq, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said.
Hasina
returns early today
AL arranges ‘showdown,’
ticket-seekers flock for forms
Demands deferment of UZ poll schedule by one month
Staff Correspondent
The rank and file of Awami League are now in a festive
mood as the party President Sheikh Hasina returns home
after her four months 24 days overseas treatment today
(Thursday).
AL has taken all-out preparation to arrange a first-ever
mammoth gathering from Zia International Airport to
Dhanmondi Sudha Sadan residence as part of according a
grand reception to her on the day.
According to party sources, the AL President Sheikh,
started her journey from London by a flight of Emirate
Airlines on Wednesday and is expected to land at ZIA at
about 8am today.
Meanwhile, aspirants of AL ticket have begun picking up
nomination forms for the ensuing Parliamentary polls. Syed
Ashraful Islam on Wednesday inaugurated the distributing
party's nomination forms at the Banbandhu Avenue's AL
Headquarter in the morning. Tazimul Islam Shamim, relation
of Dr Wajed Mia, picked the very first nomination form by
paying TK some 7500 on behalf of Sheikh Hasina for
constituency -217 (Gopalganj -3) .
Nomination forms would be on hand till Friday. Final
selection of the grassroots level for candidates will be
completed by November 9 as per AL's decision. On the other
hand, as per election schedule, the last date for
submission of nomination papers is November 13.
While visiting the AL office, this correspondent witnessed
a huge gathering in and around of AL Central Office.
Around 970 nomination seekers picked up forms yesterday
Followers and supporters of respective candidates remained
busy showing their presence.
Coping with the fast changing political circumstances, the
party brought some changes of requirements filing the
nomination forms. Each candidate must fill up forms where
some information is mandatory. These requirements include:
address in details, academic qualification, previous
political records - students' politics, role of the
candidate in 1971, after 1975, during anti-BNP-Jamaat
movement in 2001 and after the 1/11 political changeover.
Talking to the newsmen, Syed Ashraful said, "We hope AL
would be able to select honest and fit candidates for the
upcoming polls. At the preliminary stage, forms for 300
seats will be distributed and later such allocation will
be finalized among the allies of the mega alliance."
"Sheikh Hasina will launch electoral campaign on Thursday.
Final decision for forging electoral alliance,
seat-sharing among allies, final nomination and election
campaign would be after Hasina's return," added the AL
spokesman.
Meanwhile, AL on Wednesday demanded of the Election
Commission (EC) to defer the upazilla polls schedule by
reasonable time at least one month.
A seven member high-powered AL delegation led by acting
General Secretary Syed Ashraful Islam held a meeting with
the Election Commission.
After more than one and half hour long parley with the
commission, talking to newsmen, Syed Ashraful Islam said,
"We have requested the commission to set the timeframe for
submitting nomination papers for UZ polls after the
parliamentary poll."
He said they also urged the commission to relax some
criteria barring candidature of bill and loan defaulters.
"We have also requested the EC to introduce a code of
conduct for both print and electronic media to ensure fair
and impartial coverage of election news of all political
parties. Besides, we have asked the commission to provide
the list of local election observers to us so that we can
asses their neutrality," Ashraf added.
While his attention was drawn about lifting emergency
before JS poll, the AL leader said, "It is the matter for
the government to decide on and we have already talked to
it in this regard. If necessary, we will sit with
government again."
Treatment hampered
VC, Pro-VC and Treasurer of BSMMU sacked
Staff Correspondent
Following removal of Vice-Chancellor, Pro-Vice-Chancellor
and Treasurer from Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical
University (BSMMU), BNP backed physicians, employees and
nurses on Wednesday staged demonstration hampering
treatment of patients at the hospital.
Under the banner of integrated doctors-nurse-staff
council, doctors and staffs staged demonstration demanding
resignation of health adviser and cancellation of
appointment in respect of persons who have been appointed
to these posts alleging that appointees are affiliated to
Awami League.
On Tuesday the government terminated Prof Mohammad Tahir,
Abdul Mazid and Abdul Gafur from the posts of VC, Pro-VC
and treasurer and appointed Prof Nazrul Islam as VC ,
Chowdhury Ali Kawsar and Mohammad Kamal as Pro-VCs and
Ruhul Amin as treasurer.
According to ministry source, Mohammad Tahir, Abdul Mazid
and Abdul Gafur were removed from their posts in
connection with submitting false medical report to the
High Court for securing bail of Mosaddek Hossain Falu.
On February 5, 2008 a medical board was formed with 5
doctors to examine Falu's health and same day the board
submitted its report. But on September 7 last, another
report of another medical board comprising 11 doctors was
furnished to the higher court for his bail but BSMMU
hospital authority was ignorant of this board.
When this statement of BSMMU was communicated to the
Appellate Division, it stayed bail of Falu granted by the
HC on the ground that medical certificate on which he was
granted bail was fake.
On October 27, the HC granted bail for three months to
Falu in a case involving misappropriation of corrugated
tin which were actually allocated as relief for
distribution among destitute people. In this case trial
court has sentenced Falu to five years' imprisonment.
Talking to reporters, President of pro-BNP organization
Doctors' Association of Bangladesh, Prof Saiful Islam
Selim, said said the government had appointed the pro-Awami
League doctors to VC and other posts and sacked Tahir and
others on trivial matter.
Meanwhile, General Secretary of AL backed Swadhinata
Chikitshok Parishad Dr Kamrul Hassan supported new
appointment saying that on August 2 they submitted a
memorandum to the health adviser protesting irregularities
in BSMMU and termination of VC and others.
Not one reason,
but many for upholding emergency: Adviser
bdnews24.com, Dhaka
There is no particular reason, but rather many reasons,
for upholding the state of emergency, an adviser said on
Wednesday.
"It cannot be said that the state of emergency is being
upheld due to any specific reason," communications adviser
Ghulam Quader told reporters after a meeting with two
other advisers at the Secretariat.
"There are many reasons behind the emergency. If the
situation compels, there is no alternative to emergency.
It cannot be lifted fully," he said.
"A number of conditions of the state of emergency have
been relaxed. We are observing the situation."
"The emergency will be relaxed or lifted as the situation
demands," the adviser repeated.
Quader, hopeful of a better situation after the national
election said: "We have reached the electoral highway
leaving all hurdles behind."
"The Dec 18 election will be held properly. We have
withdrawn army intervention. We hope a free and fair
election will be held with the participation of all
parties."
"The qualitative change might be better than we are
expecting this moment," the adviser said.
Asked about the uncertainty of the participation of BNP in
the election, he said: "We are still working for an
understanding. The door for that is always open."
Quader said he hoped that BNP would join the elections.
The other two advisers present in the meeting were LGRD
adviser Anwarul Iqbal and law adviser AF Hassan Ariff.
Hossain Zillur, Mojaheed
meet Khaleda at midnight
Country at a critical
stage: Khaleda Zia
bdnews24.com, Dhaka
BNP chief Khaleda Zia held a closed-door meeting with
commerce adviser Hossain Zillur Rahman and Jamaat-e-Islami
secretary general Ali Ahsan Muhammad Mojaheed at her home
that ran well past on Tuesday midnight, an aide said.
The meeting, under wraps, took place hours before a summit
of the BNP-led four-party alliance is set to decide on
their participation in the general election slated for
Dec. 18 and Upazila polls 10 days later. Mojaheed drove to
Khaleda's Shaheed Mainul Road home in Dhaka Cantonment at
11:30pm and they were joined by Hossain Zillur 15 minutes
later, an official at the house told bdnews24.com by
phone.
Mojaheed left at 11:50pm, said the official who spoke on
condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to speak
to the media.
But the adviser stayed back until 12:45am to speak to the
former prime minister, who returned home at 11pm after
presiding over a meeting of the party's highest
decision-making body, the standing committee, at her
political office in Gulshan.
On Oct 10, Hossain Zilur meet secretly with Khaleda,
touching off swirls of controversy across the political
divide.
Our Staff correspondent adds: meanwhile, in the late
evening of 05 Nov Begum Khaleda Zia while talking to
newsmen claimed that the country was in a "critical
stage". Without any clear statement about BNP's
participation in the forthcoming election Khaleda Zia
called for a "national unity" to solve all existing
national problems and a return to democracy through
positive engagement between the political parties, the
government and the Election Commission.
Myanmar suspends
exploration activities in disputed waters
BSS, Dhaka
Myanmar on Wednesday kept suspended the exploration
activities at the disputed waters in the Bay of Bengal as
a flurry of diplomatic activities were underway with a
high-powered Bangladesh delegation holding talks with
Yangon officials in the Myanmar capital.
An official said Yangon agreed to withdraw their rig
installed in the disputed area of the sea under some
conditions as the two sides are expected to defuse the
tension over Myanmar's hydrocarbon exploration.
"The tension is largely defused though the navy ships of
both the countries are still staying at the area around
the rig" of a South Korean exploration company, he said.
The development came as a high high-level three member
delegation headed by Foreign Secretary Mohammad Touhid
Hossain left here for Yangon late last night to hold talks
with Myanmar authorities for requesting them to suspend
the exploration activities in the disputed area until the
settlement of the maritime boundary.
Maritime expert Commodore (retd) M. Khurshed Alam and
Commodore Habibur Rahman Bhuiyan of Bangladesh Navy are
accompanying the Foreign Secretary.
Foreign Adviser Dr Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury told newsmen
on Tuesday that Dhaka would try to settle the issue
"diplomatically, for Bangladesh is a peace-loving
country".
More substantive discussions on maritime boundary would
take place on November 16-17 when a Myanmar delegation,
headed by a Deputy Minister, will come to Bangladesh, he
said.
Meanwhile Myanmar Ambassador to Bangladesh U Phae Thann Oo
left here for Yangon last evening, official sources said.
Decision on gas price hike by mid
Nov
UNB, Dhaka
Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission (BERC) may
announce its decision by mid November about the
enhancement of natural gas price.
BERC sources said they are examining the proposal of
state-owned Petrobangla for raising the gas price by 65
percent on an average and also the opposite view expressed
by other stakeholders and consumers.
"We're hopeful of completing our job by the middle of the
current month and place it to the commission's top level
body for consideration," said a BERC official preferring
anonymity.
Earlier on September 24 BERC held a public hearing on the
issue where Petrobangla sought for 65 percent rise in gas
price. But other stakeholders vehemently opposed the idea.
After the hearing, BERC chairman had announced that the
commission would announce its decision by October 31.
But the decision was stalled in the face of stiff
opposition from the industrial and other sectors.
Export-oriented industries like garments and textiles are
opposed to the price hike, arguing that it will adversely
affect them in view of the worldwide economic recession.
They said if the state-owned petroleum corporation is
allowed to increase the gas tariff, it will have a chain
impact on the entire socio-economic sector.
They suggested that the government should first evolve a
policy for giving subsidy to the energy and power sector
and then come with proposal for price hike.
But Petrobangla demanded the gas price hike on average by
65 percent, arguing that if it is not allowed Petrobangla
will not be able to continue its operation incurring huge
loss.
Petrobangla has suggested raising the rate of double
burner oven to Tk 600 from Tk 400 and for single burner
oven Tk 550 from Tk 350, a rise of 50 percent.
For metered domestic consumers, the raise was proposed to
Tk 208 from Tk130, an increase of 26.81 percent.
Similarly, Petrobangla proposed to raise gas price for
commercial users by 26.08 percent, meaning that per-unit
(1000 cubic feet or 1 mcf) price will come to Tk 291.59
from existing Tk 233.12.
For the industrial consumers, Petrobangla proposed to
re-fix per-unit gas price at Tk 182.25 instead of present
rate of Tk 148.13, with a rise of 23.03 percent. The same
rate will apply to the tea-estates.
For captive power plants, the new rate is proposed to be
Tk 182.25 per unit, up from existing Tk 105.59, a rise of
72.60 percent.
The Petrobangla proposed Tk 93.73 per-unit gas price for
the Power Development Board (PDB), independent power
producer (IPP) and small power plant (SPP) from existing
Tk 73.91, a rise of 26.81 percent.
Back Page
Reforms needed for strong
democracy
Staff Correspondent
Ex-Chief Adviser to the caretaker government Justice
Latifur Rahman on Wednesday said reforms are needed at
every sector in the country to strengthen democracy and
ensure transparency and accountability.
"Since independence all governments failed to rule the
country. No governments during the last 37 years were able
to make the parliament effective. If the parliament is not
made functional, the achievement of liberation war cannot
be retained" Latifur Rahman said while addressing a
discussion on 'Reforms of Government Institutions in
Overall Development' held at the National Press Club
yesterday.
He said political interference in appointing judges, has
created confusion and doubt among the common people about
getting proper justice. "Before separation of judiciary
from the executive body, the judiciary system could not
work independently. It is not possible for us to proceed
forwards, if we cannot bring change in our overall
policies," Latifur Rahman added.
Expressing grave resentment over delay in disposal of
thousands of cases, he said litigants are not getting
justice. "Around 6 to 7 thousands cases are being
instituted every year. If these cases are not disposed
timely, those will never be settled. Law should be
simplified. Corruption has increased due to existing
loophole. I hope the next elected democratic government
will restore and uphold the country's democracy," the
former caretaker government Chief said.
A key note paper was presented in the discussion.
According to the paper the sectors and institutions in
Bangladesh that require reforms include division of power
in governance and sharing of responsibility between an
elected head of state, the President and the other organs
of government. The key functionaries in the process and
functioning of the civil administration should in their
appointment and selection have concurrence of the Jatiya
Sangsad, as in most mature democracies.
The key note presenter suggested some major areas to be
reformed. These are: Making justice available to all who
are victims of injustice of all kind. Police training
inclusive of ethical elements so that the police personnel
are morally enabled to perceive themselves as friends,
service providers and protector of the people. Bridging
the gap between the private and public sector initiatives
in the educational fields. The school level of learning,
both primary and secondary should be more knowledge and
information based. The universities and the affiliated
colleges as higher seats of learning may wish to enjoy the
required elements of academic autonomy and freedom, put
political polarization of the clientele pattern in the
past had turned leadership among students and teachers
into political cadres.
In the foregoing contexts the key thrust of the reforms is
to ensure accountability, transparency, efficiency and
instill in the people a sense of responsibility. It is
imperative that sectoral-institutional reforms and
technology should go hand in hand and both be
institutionalized in the interest of poverty alleviation
and development of the country.
Row
over 27th BCS result
Successful and unsuccessful
candidates at loggerheads
DU Correspondent
The successful candidates in the first and second phase
results of the 27th BCS are now at loggerheads as both
groups are demonstrating demanding their recruitment in
government jobs.
The unsuccessful candidates in the 2nd phase result along
with their parents began fast-unto-death at the premises
of Central Shaheed Minar on November 1 demanding
cancellation of the result and removal of PSC Chairman Dr
Saadat Hussain. Some 20 candidates who were on hunger
strike fell sick and received treatment from Dhaka Medical
College Hospital.
The candidates are demanding immediate cancellation of new
results and appointment of candidates who were successful
in the previously published results. The candidates also
demanded a judicial investigation into the scandal created
in publishing the results.
On the other hand, successful candidates in second phase
have been staging demonstration on the Dhaka University
campus demanding their immediate appointment in government
jobs saying the second phase result was fair and credible.
They formed a human chain at TSC intersection on Tuesday
to press home their demand.
The Public Service Commission published the second phase
results of 27th BCS examinations on September 24,
recommending 3,239 candidates for appointment at cadre
posts. The results came after over three years' legal
hassle and allegations of irregularities in preliminary
test, written exams and viva voce. Earlier, the PSC had
published the results of the 27th BCS exams on January 21
last year.
But allegations of corruption in the selection process
made the rounds so much that the reconstituted PSC
cancelled the viva results on May 30 last year, following
recommendation of the advisory council.
The government has recently decided again to investigate
into the publication of first and second phase results of
27th BCS exams.
BATEXPO-2008
fair begins in city from today
Global recession may be seen as a risk or as an
opportunity: BGMEA President
Staff Correspondent
BGMEA President Anwar ul Alam Chowdhury Parvez said the
newly elected US President Barack Obama's textile policy
will bring a positive impact on Bangladesh RMG sector.
"As the US democrat political party's policy is to develop
the industrial sector in the country, its leader and newly
elected US President's Barack Obama is in favour of
industrial growth. Obama earlier declared that if his
party is able to come to power, he will continue
restriction on import of RMG from China after the year of
2009. It will be a good news for our RMG sector," the
BGMEA President said at a press conference held at his
office in the city yesterday.
Referring to the global financial recession, he said it
may be seen as a risk or an opportunity for the RMG sector
in Bangladesh. "Considering the impact of global recession
we will have to work hard. Following the global economic
recession, country's central bank Bangladesh Bank was
panicked. The Central Bank has taken a conservative
decision in disbursement of loans. The Central Bank should
not be panicked but should play a supportive role in order
to encourage the industrial sector," the BGMEA President
said.
He said it is not possible to be sure about the impact of
global recession on the basis of out export outcome
between the month of July and August. "We will be able to
understand the impact of global recession between the
month of September and October. In positive sense, the
developed countries will rush for lower market and it will
be a positive sign for the RMG sector of Bangladesh.
Simultaneously, in negative sense, the buyers of developed
countries have reduced the price rate of RMG products. The
product which was earlier sold at US $ 6 in the European
market, the buyers of developed countries now don't want
to buy the same product above US $ 4.5," he added.
The BGMEA President informed that the organisation is
going to arrange three-day long 19th BATEXPO-2008 fair
from today (Thursday) at Sonargaon Hotel. Chief Adviser
Fakhruddin Ahmed will inaugurate the fair.
"Bangladesh RMG sector has entered into a diversified era
through relentless efforts of a group of dynamic and
pro-active entrepreneurs. To fulfill a requirement of
1,00,000 skilled workers, BGMEA along with its institute
of Fashion and Technology (BIFT) has already started a
countrywide training programme in co-operation with the
government. Our prime objective is to retain our
competitive edge in the world apparel market in long run,"
he said.
He said BATEXPO has become a coalescence of the
manufacturers, foreign buyers and business personalities
from home and abroad.
"It is worth mentioning that the world apparel market of
500 billion dollars, by next few years, will go up to 800
billion dollars. During 2007-2008 RMG sector earned more
than US $10 billion and we have a target to reach USS 15
billion by the next three years. To materialize our
target, such interaction of exposition will act as a
catalyst to explore new markets, tap potentialities,
increase competitiveness and face global challenges," the
BGMEA President said.
40
clemency certificates given
BNP-led 4 party alliance was most corrupt: TAC Chairman
Staff Correspondent
Truth and Accountability Commission (TAC) Chairman Justice
Habibur Rahman Khan on Wednesday said BNP led 4-party
alliance government was the most corrupt government in the
last 37 years.
"BNP led 4-party alliance not only was most corrupt
government but also the alliance government pushed the
country's overall situation to the verge of ruin. However,
all past governments were engaged in corruption more or
less during their respective tenures," Justice Habib told
reporters at a press briefing at the TAC office in the
city yesterday.
He called upon the next elected democratic government not
to be involved in corruption and refrain from
politicisating every sector. "We will have to be
determined and committed for resisting any grim scenario
in the country like during BNP-led four-party tenure. We
don't want to see such situation any more," the TAC
Chairman said.
TAC Chairman also urged the government to strengthen the
investigating departments in a bid to intensify their
investigation into corruption for uprooting irregularities
from the country.
He said various government sectors are the most corrupted
as a larger number of clemency seekers who came to the TAC
are government incumbent and former employees. "As high
ups of the government offices are engaged in corruption,
so all classes of other subordinate employees are engaged
in corruption and corruption has broken out in all
sectors," he added.
TAC completed its hearing on 231 cases till date where
applicants admitted their ill-gotten wealth worth Tk
26,01,16,057 while the commission asked the absolution
seekers to deposit their illegal properties within three
weeks and Tk 13,95,55,963 has been already deposited by
136 clemency seekers to the public exchequer.
Replying to a query, TAC Chairman said "We summoned 17
corrupt bigwigs of BTCL and BRTA. Of them, 11 persons came
to TAC and eight persons including one who was former
chairman of BTTB are incumbent and former employees of
BTCL. Besides, two of them have applied to the commission
for clemency voluntarily confessing their corruption and
surrendering illegal properties."
When asked whether the timeframe of submission of
application for mercy will be extended, TAC Chairman said
they are determined not to extend the time.
Crime
HC commutes
death sentences of three convicts to life term
UNB, Dhaka
The High Court on Wednesday commuted the death sentences
of three convicts to life imprisonment for 1999 killing of
engineer Humayun Kabir in Dhaka. The trial court in 2003
convicted and sentenced to death Faisal Alam Ansari, his
brother Mohammad Saiful Alam Ansari and their goon Rana
Ahmed. Convict Faisal, a partner of Kabir's oil business
in the US, is now in jail, while Ansari and Rana Ahmed
remained absconding.
Justice M Imman Ali of the single death reference bench,
delivered the judgment commuting the death penalty to
life-term.
Earlier, on November 22, 2005, a 2-judge HC bench passed
dissenting orders in the murder case. Justice Khondker
Musa Khaled affirmed the trial court death sentences,
while Justice Zubayer Rahman Chowdhury opposed it and
passed life term imprisonment. Kabir was gunned down at
Central Road in Dhanmondi in the capital on the night of
November 21, 1999 when he went with Faisal to see a
would-be bride.
After trial, Judge Mohammad Sirajul Islam of the First
Additional Metropolitan Sessions Judge's Court passed the
verdict on July 29, 2003 awarding death sentences to the
three accused for killing Kabir in a bid to grab his
property.
Kabir, who had worked as an engineer in the US since 1981
and married an American, came home to Bangladesh on
November 13, 1999. Advocate Abdul Malek and Anisul Huq
appeared for Faisal while Gulzar Hossain pleaded for the
state.
Five get 17 yrs for keeping arms
BSS, Satkhia
The additional district and session judge (Court-1)
Satkhira, Md. Mahbub-ul-Alam convicted five persons on
Tuesday and sentenced them to suffer rigorous imprisonment
(RI) for 17 years in an arms case. The convicts are Bashir
Uddin son of Maula Box of village Taltola, Haran Chandra
Sharma son of Shubol Chadra Sharma of village Chatiantola,
Anowarul Gazi son of Joynuddin Gazi of village Agordari,
Parvin Akthar wife of Anowarul Gazi of the same village
all are under sadar upazila and Shajeda Khatun wife of
Shajjad Hossain of village Toilkupi under Tala Upazila of
the district.
According to the prosecution, acting on a tip off
Patkelghata camp police raided the house of one Shajjad
Hossain Gazi of village Toilkupi under Tala Upazila in the
night on May 25, 2003 and arrested accused Bashir Uddin
and Haran Sharma from the house. According to confessional
statement of Bashir and Haran police raided the house of
Anowarul Gazi of village Agordari under sadar upazila and
recovered one revolver, one gun, one pipe gun, 6 knife and
two rounds of bullets from the house. A case was filed
with Tala Thana police. After investigation police
submitted charge sheet accusing five persons including two
women.
After examining the records and witnesses the judge handed
down the verdict in a crowded court.
APP Advocate Abdus Selim appeared for the state.
Young man held for his bid to abduct schoolgirl
UNB, Satkhira
A young man was arrested Tuesday while he was trying to
abduct a schoolgirl in Bakal area of the town.
Police said, Abdus Sobhan Dhali, 25, of Chalteghata
village in Shyamnagar Upazilla picked up Sajida Khatun,
14, a student of class nine, from in front of her Bakal
High School at 9am and took her to a private car. Sensing
the ill motive of Abdus Sobhan the private car driver
Alamgir Hossain drove straight to the school defying
Sobhan's order.
Later, the school authorities informed Sadar thana police
and handed over Sobhan to them. Confirming the incident
Sadar thana OC Abdul Quader Beg said the girl was kept in
police custody. A case was filed in this connection.
Octane worth Tk 40 lakh seized
BSS, Chandpur
Members of Bangladesh Coast Guard seized 38 drams of
octane worth about Tk 40 lakh from a Cargo ship from the
river Meghna on Monday.
Acting on a tip-off, a team of the Coast Guards raided the
cargo ship in the river Meghna and seized the octane. The
crew of the ship managed to escape. None was arrested.
A case was filed with Chandpur Model Thana in this
connection.
5200 pieces smuggled CD seized in Benapole
UNB, Benapole, Jessore
BDR personnel seized 5,200 pieces of illegal Indian CD
from Goyra village here on Wednesday morning.
Acting on a tip-off, a team of BDR chased a gang of
smugglers when they entered into Bangladesh territory from
India with the CDs in the morning. At one stage the
smugglers fled the scene leaving the CDs behind.
The seized CDs were deposited to the local customs house.
5 held with Indian Sarees
BSS, Satkhira
Members of Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) in separate two drives
at Satani and Kaliani areas arrested five smugglers
including a woman and seized 210 pieces of Indian sarees
worth about Tk 14 lakh under Sadar upazila here on
Tuesday.
The arrested smugglers were identified as Mahbubor Rahman
,35, son of Sayed Ali Sardar of village Kaliani under
sadar upazila, Hafizur Rahman ,32, son of Abdus Salam
Munshi of village Bhawp Khali, Motiur Rahman ,30, son of
Moniruzzaman of village Adauspur both under sadar thana of
Narail district and Munshi Shamsur Haque ,35, son of
Munshi Abdul Hai and his wife Kamona Haque ,30, of village
Panail of Faridpur district.
BDR sources said, acting on a tip-off, a team of the BDR
intercepted a Satkhira-bound micro bus coming from Boikari
border in Satani coridor area and recovered 35 pieces of
Indian sarees from the micro bus and arrested them.
According to the confessional statement, the BDR raided
the house of Mahbubor Rahman of Kaliani under sadar
upazila and recovered another 175 pieces of Indian sarees.
The arrested were handed over to police. A case was filed
with sadar thana in this connection.
Criminal killed in encounter with RAB
UNB, Narsingdi
A top criminal was killed in an encounter between his
accomplices and RAB at Madanganj rail line in the district
town early Wednesday.
The deceased was identified as Abu Siddique, son of M
Matiur Rahman of Kawriapara in the town.
Acting on a tip-off, a team of RAB-11 raided Siddique's
house in the area at about 3:30 am. Sensing the presence
of the law-enforcers, Siddique and his accomplices ran
away from the house. The elite force chased Siddique, who
at one stage opened fire on them in the rail line area,
forcing them to fire back. Suddique was caught in the line
of fire and fell down on the ground.
Later, he was rushed to Sadar hospital, where the
attending doctors declared him dead. The law-enforcers
recovered a pistol and four rounds of bullet from his
possession.
Siddique was wanted in 18 criminal cases filed with the
different police stations in the district, police said.
Last year, Siddique was arrested by police in an extortion
case and later he was released on bail.
Dacoit busted
BSS, Barisal
Police arrested one convicted notorious dacoit from
Natullabad area of the city this noon, police said.
Acting on a tip-off, a team of police raided the residence
of Shahid Fakir (38), son of Mannan Fakir at Natullabad
area at 12- noon. The arrested was convicted for
committing dacoity at Apollo diagnostic centre in the
city. The district and session judge court has awarded him
17 years of RI in the case. He was sent to jail on
Wednesday.
3 drug peddlers held
UNB, Sylhet
Elite force RAB in their separate drives arrested three
alleged drug peddlers along with huge quantity of sex
stimulating Viagra tablets and phensidyl syrup on Tuesday.
Acting on a tip-off, a team of RAB-9 raided 'Rainbow
Complex' in Station road area of the city and arrested
Krishna Dutta, 30, along with 800 pieces Viagra tablet in
the afternoon. RAB said, during preliminary interrogation,
he confessed his involvement with Viagra peddling since
long in the area. In another drive RAB personnel also
arrested two drug peddlers - Rafique Miah, 40, and Foyez
Miah, 38, - along with 104 bottles of phensidyl syrup from
the city at noon.
Robbers loot Tk 3 lakh from filling station
UNB, Satkhira
Armed bobbers looted over Tk 3 lakh from a filling station
at Alipur in the district town on Monday midnight,
injuring its two employees.
Police said a gang of bandits equipped with arms swooped
on the filling station and beat up its employee Siddiqur
Rahman and manager Anisur Rahman. Later, they broke the
almirah open and took away the money. Abu Syed Mohammad
Naser, son of the filling station owner Abdus Sabur, filed
a case with the police.
Phensidyl recovered four held
BSS, Khulna
Police recovered 360 bottles of phensidyl and arrested
four drug traders from the city on Monday.
Khalishpur Thana of Khulna Metropolitan Police (KMP) said
acting on tip off a team arrested four veteran drug
traders from Mujgunni Saburer More area of the city and
recovered 360 bottles phensidyl from them red handed on
Monday.
The arrested persons are Khalilur Rahman 30, Alal 35, both
son of Hazi Mobarak Sarder of SatkhiraSadar thana, Abdur
Razzak 32 and Masuma 45 both son and wife of Abdur Rashid
Haolader of Jhlakhati district. They were sent to custody.
Editorial
What we can learn
from US elections
Well the US elections
are over with Barack Hussein Obama winning a historic
land-slide victory. The election has been termed "historic"
for a number of reasons: the voter turnout has been the
highest since the last one century; the campaigning involved
unprecedented amount of resources in terms of money, efforts,
man-hours and time; remarkable use was made of information
technology such as the internet and the electronic media and
last but not the least the winner was a black man whose father
was an immigrant from Kenya. The Americans had wanted
"change", they voted for it and now they have got it. So, what
can we, in Bangladesh, learn from all these? Quite a lot in
fact, but lets have a look at some of the things that happen
in US elections and things that don't happen in ours.
Firstly, political parties and candidates stuck to the "rules"
embodied in the Constitution and made some 200 years back.
Everyone functioned within the framework of a well set
"process" which everyone knew, understood and agreed to. We,
in Bangladesh, are not able to agree to any rules or process
and tend to change these every time an election comes around
to suit the need of one or the other political party to
continue clinging to power. Also we tend to bend the rules as
well as the process to suit transient and changing situations
and needs. So, uncertainty and confusion prevails in every
election with allegations of a lack of "level playing field"
and an absence of "free, fair and credible" election.
Secondly, parties and candidates in US elections campaign on
political, economic and social issues, taking time to go
directly to the voters with the issues, all over the country.
The campaign leading up to this particular US election lasted
for 21 months, starting from the primaries which select party
candidates to the final vote for the presidency. Consequently,
the political parties, the candidates and the voters all have
a chance to get involved, to debate on the issues and to
understand and grasp them before voting. We, in Bangladesh, do
not do that. We have two major political parties of the AL and
the BNP with two respective ideologies of "pro-liberation" and
"nationalist" forces which nobody clearly understands. The AL
and the BNP select their candidates through a process which
does not involve the electorate and voters are expected to
vote for these candidates and for either of the two platforms
of "pro-liberation" and "nationalist" forces. Political,
social and economic issues are never discussed, debated or
understood.
Thirdly and most importantly, in US elections nobody
interferes in the process. The government does not send in its
intelligence services to intimidate the political parties, the
candidates or the media; the police does not beat up political
activists or voters; the political parties do not mobilize
their supporters to beat up their opponents; public and
private property is not destroyed or burned and people not
killed; their equivalent of the Election Commission is notable
for its absence from the media and nobody even knows who these
people are. We do all of these things and therefore, we have
lackadaisical elections without the least prospects or chances
of democracy ever taking root either psychologically or
physically.
Campaign
against
war criminals
The campaign against
the war criminals for their trial on the charges of committing
crimes against the nation and humanity continues to get
momentum with every passing day. As announced earlier, the
Sector Commanders Forum (SCF) on November 4 made public their
preliminary list of 50 war criminals, which includes the names
of Jamaat-e-Islami Ameer Matiur Rahman Nizami and its
Secretary General Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojahid and also Jamaat
leaders Golam Azam, Maulana AKM Yusuf, Delwar Hossain Saidee,
Md Kamruzzaman, Abdul Kader Mollah, Mir Kashem Ali and BNP
leader Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury among others. The forum
urged the government to put on trial the war criminals under
the International Crimes Tribunal Act, 1973. The forum leaders
also said they would soon publish the complete list of war
criminals, who were under trial before December 31, 1975 and
were later released by the then government. The forum also
urged people not to vote for them. It again urged the
government to seek United Nation's help to try war criminals.
SCF Chairman and deputy commander-in-chief of the Liberation
War Air Vice-Marshal (retd) AK Khandaker said, "We asked the
government to try war criminals but it did not listen to us."
It is undoubtedly a good move on the part of the SCF to launch
and continue movement for the trial of the war criminals. It
is both an irony and a pride that the sector commanders who
fought the liberation war risking their lives are now
struggling for the trial of the war criminals as the
politicians proved themselves unwilling or unable to do so.
The forum is also making efforts for involving the United
Nations (UN) in the process of trying the War Criminals in
Bangladesh and persuading the people to ensure that no war
criminal or anti-liberation element is elected to the
parliament.
The demand for the trial of the war criminals is a national
demand. Showing respect to the popular demand the government
should immediately initiate the process of the trial of the
war criminals by constituting a tribunal and forming a
commission. It is unfortunate that no political government
took the necessary steps to ensure the trial of the war
criminals as has been done by a number of countries in recent
times. The emergency government should at least initiate the
process so that the future elected government can carry
forward the task involving the United Nations.
Analysis
President Barack Hussein Obama
America has chosen to elect him president. Thank you, Martin
Luther King: Peace at last. Thank God Almighty. Peace at last.
Jonathan Power
If
only Martin Luther King could wake from the dead! And his
faithful deputy, Ralph Abernathy. And Bayard Rustin who
organized the Great March on Washington in 1963 that roused
American public opinion to push for the landmark Civil Rights
Act that abolished Southern segregation. And the militant
Stokley Carmichael who led the students, both black and white,
to knock on every black door in the small towns and byways of
the South to mobilize them to vote. And, not least, President
Lyndon Johnson who, putting his own racist past behind him,
used his formidable political energy to push through Congress
both the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act.
If only they could rise up what would they see? Would they
believe that one, Barack Hussein Obama, son of an African,
educated as a small child in Indonesia where he was registered
in school as a Muslim, and brought up later in Hawaii by his
100% white, mainstream grandparents, could be today elected as
president of the United States?- the “dream” come true when,
as Dr King prophesied, “every Negro in this country.... will
be judged on the basis of the content of his character rather
than the color of his skin”.
But that generation, now all mouldering in their graves, did
it! We must bow down before them and cry with happiness. “It
will be a glorious day, the morning stars will sing together,
and the sons of God will shout for joy”, preached Dr King. And
it is. Against all expectations it has come to pass.
It is perhaps America’s greatest achievement since the
Declaration of Independence, one that President George W.
Bush, for all his missteps and misplaced conservatism, must be
honored for too. He put two blacks in charge of America’s
national security, Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, a
tremendous step forward that helped pave the way for Obama.
The effect on the rest of the world will be stunning. No
European nation, including Russia that has a part black
national poet, Pushkin, is within sight of electing a man of
color as head of government, yet Europeans will be profoundly
thankful that the America they began to hate can now again be
admired, and even loved. Africa, needless to say, will be
electrified. Asia will nod sagely, recalling that India, in
modern times, has had a woman prime minister, a Moslem
president and now a Sikh prime minister.
The Middle East will rejoice too. Muslims have always had less
hang ups about racial equality than western Christians. Now
they will expect to see a man who has climbed out of the
abysmal abyss of poverty and separated parents in a country
once riven with prejudice will profoundly and instinctively
understand the plight of the Palestinians and will really this
time put America’s strength in motion to enable a two state
solution.
All the continents, including South America, where blacks and
Indians remain largely powerless, will sense the importance of
this victory.
Inevitably American foreign policy, given the weight of the
bureaucracy, the power of the military-industrial complex
(which Obama has written scathingly about) and the innate
tendency of perhaps a majority of Americans to believe in
“manifold destiny” will be hard to change. There will be
immense resistance- from the established press, from many in
academia who often have their own vested interest in the
wishes of the military-industrial complex and the sheer innate
conservatism of a poorly educated society where too many can’t
even find Ukraine or Georgia on the map, much less Kenya or
Indonesia.
On top of that there is the enormous residue of the financial
crisis to be cleaned up and a major world wide recession to be
avoided. Has Obama the courage to realize that the present
federal budget must be sharply cut if he is going to make way
for his health care and social reforms, and that in this time
of stringency the only savings can come from the inflated and
misdirected defense budget?
The world needs not just a new Bretton Woods to revamp the
world’s great economic institutions, but it needs a United
Nations that works in harmony (as it did in George Bush Sr’s
today when he partnered Mikhail Gorbachev in making the
Security Council a place of unanimity). It needs an end to
thinking and behaving as if the Moslem threat was as big a
threat as the Soviets were in Cold War days, as too many
politicians, academics and pundits have declared. It needs
major nuclear disarmament as the U.S. has promised at
conferences of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It needs
to keep oil prices reasonably low which means real
conservation and a civilized, mature relationship with Iran.
Obama in this campaign has revealed his character- he has at a
relatively young age found and mastered his own sense of
gravity. And America has chosen to elect him president. Thank
you, Martin Luther King: Peace at last. Thank God Almighty.
Peace at last.
(Jonathan Power is an internationally renowned freelance
columnist. Copyright Jonathan Power. Dateline Lund, Sweden;
November 4th 2008.
E-mail: JonatPower@aol.com or phone: +46 706 510879)
Crisis
as prelude to a new Golden Age
Indeed, the present crisis is one of those
epochal moments in human affairs. How we act now will have
implications far beyond the present turmoil. It will shape the
lives of future generations.
Mary Kaldor
Underlying
the financial crisis is a deeper structural crisis in the real
economy. It has to do with the mismatch between our social and
political institutions and the profound changes in society
wrought by the so-called `new economy.’ This is why the
solution goes well beyond a bank bail-out. Sustainable
economic growth and stability can only be achieved again
through a `new deal’ at a global level that includes
addressing climate change, poverty reduction and human
security. Indeed, the present crisis is one of those epochal
moments in human affairs. How we act now will have
implications far beyond the present turmoil. It will shape the
lives of future generations.
The best book to explain all this is Carlota Perez
“Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital: the Dynamics
of Bubbles and Golden Ages”. Perez can be described as a
neo-Schumpeterian, a strand of economic thought developed in
the Science Policy Research Unit at the University of Sussex
in the 1980s and 1990s, under the inspiration of Christopher
Freeman .
Their argument is based on the idea of long waves in the
history of capitalism, as a consequence of the bunching
together of technological innovations, which they call a
`techno-economic paradigm ‘. Each wave is characterized by
some critical invention that leads to a new set of
technologies and infrastructures that all are interlinked, and
a new type of `best practice’.
Since 1771, when Arkwright’s Mill was opened in Cromford,
there have been five great surges of development:
l
The industrial revolution characterized by the mechanized
cotton industry, factory labour, and the spread of canals;
l
The age of steam and railways;
l
The age of electricity and steel;
l
The age of the car and mass production and
l
Our own era the age of information and telecommunications
technologies.
Each era is characterized by some defining moment like Ford’s
Model T first mass produced in 1908 or the discovery of the
microprocessor in 1971; by its own core factor of production
such as oil (the age of the automobile) or the chip (the age
of information technology). The epoch is also defined by a
core economy - Britain in the first three waves with the US
and Germany catching up in the third wave, and the US in the
two most recent waves, spreading to Europe and Asia.
Each era goes through an installation period that ends in a
financial collapse and a deployment period when all conditions
are there for taking full advantage of the new technologies
across the whole economy and the benefits are more evenly
spread throughout society. This ends in a phase of maturity
and eventually saturation when the techno-economic paradigm is
diffused throughout the economy and society and when
technological progress slows down, the core factor of
production is no longer plentiful and when protest about
established ways of doing things develops.
Perez’s contribution is two fold. First she demonstrates the
importance of the institutional framework. She explains crises
and depressions in terms of a mismatch between social and
political institutions and the techno-economic paradigm. She
accounts for `golden ages’ in terms of contrasting periods of
harmony.
The depression of the 1930s is explained in terms of the
mismatch between financial and regulatory arrangements, which
were an expression of the social and political institutions,
largely established by Britain in the late nineteenth century
and the huge potential for economic expansion resulting from
the marriage of oil and mass production pioneered in the
United States known as Fordism.
These new technological discoveries had resulted in massive
productivity increases that were not matched by the pattern of
demand. The `new deal’ and the war led to redistribution of
income and the construction of the Bretton Woods system,
through which sterling was supplanted by the dollar, that
enabled the rise and spread of mass consumption in the West
(and in the East, mass armaments) and that led to a new Golden
Age in the 1950s and 1960s. .
But already in the late 1960s the productivity gains of the
mass production era began to slow down and workers and
students began to rebel against the tedium of mass production
routines. The stagflation of the 1970s and 1980s was the
result of the maturity of those technologies, when it became
harder and harder to innovate within the existing paradigm,
when markets became increasingly saturated and when the key
factor of production, oil, became much more expensive.
The developed economies revived in the 1990s. Not only was
there intense investment in information technology itself
which was beginning to weigh more significantly in growth and
employment but we also witnessed the modernization of the mass
production industries with computerized equipment, the
internet and the new organizational models. At the same time
and thanks to the global reach of telecommunications, massive
production capacity was created across the world, and
especially in Asia .
The rapid growth of information and telecommunications
technologies and their application to a range of industries in
the last two decades has, however, largely taken place within
the pattern of demand established during the Fordist era,
based on consumption and, to a lesser degree, military
spending. Cars and consumer durables have greatly improved.
The Internet has made possible cheap air travel. New consumer
goods like ipods or video games have been invented. New more
precise aircraft, missiles and tanks have been developed in
the military sector. Above all, similar patterns of
consumption have reached millions of people in places like
China or India.
But all the same the new paradigm is coming against limits -
limits imposed by existing patterns of income distribution,
limits resulting from the saturation of consumer markets in
the West and, perhaps most importantly the economic and
environmental limits that are the consequence of the
dependence of this pattern of growth on carbons, especially
oil. What is needed now are a new set of institutions capable
of shifting the pattern of demand so as to allow the new
paradigm to diffuse through out the global economy in a
sustainable way.
Perez’s second contribution is to explain the role of finance
capital in these great surges of development. Finance is
critical for the spread of innovation. Schumpeter defined
capitalism as that `kind of private property economy in which
innovations are carried out by means of borrowed money.’ Each
wave is also characterized by financial innovations - joint
stock companies in the railway age, hire purchase in the
automobile age, or plastic and e-banking or hedge funds in the
current era. In the installation phase, finance capital starts
to fund the new technologies and big profits are made. Indeed,
many of the new financial innovations have made possible the
increase in real consumption; for example, credit cards and
new types of mortgages. This is the period when deregulation
becomes fashionable and when free markets are seen as the
mechanism for addressing the sluggishness of the old paradigm.
But because the spread of the new paradigm comes up against
limits, the installation period ends in a frenzy phase when
the `new economy’ is not yet large enough for sustained
investment but when finance capital has got used to making big
profits. `In order to achieve the same high yield from all
investments as from the successful new sectors’ says Perez
`finance capital becomes highly `innovative’. Imagination
moves from real estate to paintings, from loans in faraway
countries, to pyramid schemes, from hostile takeovers to
derivatives or whatever.’
This is the moment when greater risk is licensed and when a
mountain of paper wealth is created masking the mismatch
between the new economy and the social and political
institutions. This is a period of extreme social polarization
when the gains from economic growth are not redistributed. It
is a period that celebrates making money, in which selfishness
is considered `good’. And it is in this context that financial
schemes become increasingly wild.
At the same time, the financial architecture, along with the
institutional framework, also inhibits the channeling of
capital into productive growth. In each wave, financial
architecture has been centered on the core country. The
dominant currency was sterling in the first three waves. After
Bretton Woods, the dollar became the international currency
and the Federal Reserve the lender of last resort. For the
first twenty five years after Bretton Woods, the system, based
on fixed exchange rates tied to gold and the dollar, worked
rather well; this was a period of harmony, the Golden Age of
the automobile era. The United States provided massive
economic and military assistance to the rest of the world
(except the Communist bloc), which returned to the US in the
form of purchases of American goods.
But as other countries caught up, US trade surpluses vanished.
The turning point was the high cost of the Vietnam War and the
collapse of the Bretton Woods system in 1971, the same year
that Intel invented the microprocessor. In the subsequent era
of floating exchange rates and neo-liberal prescriptions, the
dollar remained the dominant currency. But instead of
stimulating the rest of the world, the American financial
system sucked in money from the rest of the world through
massive borrowing. Much of this money came from the so-called
emerging markets and oil states via what are known as
sovereign wealth funds. But it also came from poor countries
who borrowed when economic aid dried up and who continue to be
net lenders to the United States. The trillion dollar war in
Iraq and the Bush era tax cuts for the rich has taken US
borrowing to new heights; as of September 2008, overall US
debt was 350% of American GDP.
The borrowing was, of course, a stimulus to the world economy.
China and India grew dramatically through exporting to the
indebted West. But both because of exchange rates and because
there were no limits to US borrowing, most of the current
account surpluses ended up inflating Western assets rather
than improving infrastructure and reducing poverty. As long as
the world had confidence in the United States (and Britain)
and as long as assets continued to inflate thus generating
high returns from lending, the debt could keep growing.
The current crisis is the end of the frenzy phase of
installation -the moment when the bubble has burst. Of course
the immediate crisis is the consequence of short term factors
(weak financial regulation, securitization, excessive
risk-taking, etc.) whereas the underlying structural problems
are long-term. While the argument about the mismatch between
institutions and the techno-economic paradigm suggests that a
crisis is inevitable, the theory cannot predict when the
crisis will happen or how.
The risk is that ameliorative measures are taken now to
restore trust in the financial sector without addressing the
long term structural problems that result from the dismantling
of many of the institutions of the automobile era, through
deregulation, and the absence of an appropriate institutional
framework for the new information era. The problem is that
patterns of demand and the habits formed by political and
social institutions tend to be much more resistant to change
than economies. Or to put it in another way, economic change
is a consequence of market relations, whereas institutions and
culture change through various forms of social and political
contestation. In previous eras, it has taken war and
revolution as well as prolonged depression before a new
institutional framework was established.
Continued on page-5
Viewpoints
Crisis as prelude to a new Golden Age
Continued from page-4
After all, the Wall Street
crash took place in 1929 and it was only after the war and
fascism, that the conditions for a new golden age of the
automobile era were established.
The point, of course, is that the crisis is a turning point
when the challenge is to establish a new global regulatory
framework that can channel the new innovations into
economically and environmentally sustainable economic growth.
We need a new global financial architecture-, based on a
combination of the dollar, the euro and the yen and a new
exchange rate mechanism - in short, a new Bretton Woods. We
need new methods of financial regulation as well as access to
liquidity for poor countries. But above all, we need a new
global stimulus package that will facilitate the spread of the
information era and the growth of productive capital in
sustainable ways so that lending does not continually increase
debt but also creates sufficient income based on productive
work to repay debt. Otherwise, the global economy is likely to
limp along and we are likely to face more crises (both
economic and political) in the future.
Such a package could involve large-scale redistribution to
developing countries , allowing them to build the critical
infrastructures of the information era, and to increase the
consumption of poor people by providing jobs so that
consumption is financed by productive income rather than debt.
But it would also need to involve energy saving innovation,
recycling especially waste, and the development of renewables,
especially solar power, so that increased economic growth does
not come up against the limits that could result from the high
price of carbons and environmental degradation including
global warming. It must be possible to spread the benefits of
development without killing the planet.
The package would also need to involve a restructuring of the
security sector away from the Fordist preoccupations with
state security and sophisticated weapons platforms powered by
combustion engines to providing the everyday security that
could enable economic development in large parts of the world
relying on to a much greater extent on improved communications
than improved weapons. This is what is needed to initiate the
transition from installation to full deployment, to promote
the golden age of the information era.
In many of the commentaries on the crisis, there are calls for
a new Keynes. Others insist that Keynsianism never worked and
that neoliberalism should not be abandoned. What these two
views fail to take into account is that the appropriate
remedies depend on the phase of the long cycle. In the
installation period, liberalization frees up finance capital
to invest in the new paradigm and to finance big increases in
productivity. But in the deployment phase, some sort of
stimulus is needed to channel finance into sustainable outlets
and to develop appropriate markets.
The new Keynes has to be a Neo-Schumpeterian. Neo-Schumpeterianism
is both supply side and demand side; it is about matching the
social and institutional framework to the techno-economic
paradigm. Keynes thought it was enough to dig holes within a
national context if that would stimulate the economy and,
indeed, that was the solution in a mass production era. But in
the current era, any stimulus has to be directed towards
structural sustainability on a global basis. This is Keynesian
in the sense of stimulating demand but it is neo-Schumpeterian
in so far as it matters how money is spent, in the insistence
that any stimulus must provide a sustainable outlet for the
extraordinary gains in technological know-how of the last
thirty years.
A global effort to eradicate poverty and tackle climate change
world-wide would be the best way to overcome the limits to
productive and environmentally sustainable growth and spread
the new techno-economic paradigm.
(Mary Kaldor is the Director of the Centre for the Study of
Global Governance and a Professor of Global Governance at the
London School of Economics. An expert on security and civil
society, she has researched and written exclusively about
these topics.
Source:
www.opendemocracy.net)
The
Military-Industrial Complex
The current situation represents the worst of
all possible worlds. Successive administrations and Congresses
have made no effort to alter the CIA’s role as the president’s
private army.
Chalmers Johnson
Most
Americans have a rough idea what the term “military-industrial
complex” means when they come across it in a newspaper or hear
a politician mention it. President Dwight D. Eisenhower
introduced the idea to the public in his farewell address of
January 17, 1961. “Our military organization today bears
little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in
peacetime,” he said, “or indeed by the fighting men of World
War II and Korea… We have been compelled to create a permanent
armaments industry of vast proportions… We must not fail to
comprehend its grave implications… We must guard against the
acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or
unsought, by the military-industrial complex.”
Although Eisenhower’s reference to the military-industrial
complex is, by now, well-known, his warning against its
“unwarranted influence” has, I believe, largely been ignored.
Since 1961, there has been too little serious study of, or
discussion of, the origins of the military-industrial complex,
how it has changed over time, how governmental secrecy has
hidden it from oversight by members of Congress or attentive
citizens, and how it degrades our Constitutional structure of
checks and balances.
From its origins in the early 1940s, when President Franklin
Delano Roosevelt was building up his “arsenal of democracy,”
down to the present moment, public opinion has usually assumed
that it involved more or less equitable relations — often
termed a “partnership” — between the high command and civilian
overlords of the United States military and privately-owned,
for-profit manufacturing and service enterprises.
Unfortunately, the truth of the matter is that, from the time
they first emerged, these relations were never equitable.
In the formative years of the military-industrial complex, the
public still deeply distrusted privately owned industrial
firms because of the way they had contributed to the Great
Depression. Thus, the leading role in the newly emerging
relationship was played by the official governmental sector. A
deeply popular, charismatic president, FDR sponsored these
public-private relationships. They gained further legitimacy
because their purpose was to rearm the country, as well as
allied nations around the world, against the gathering forces
of fascism. The private sector was eager to go along with this
largely as a way to regain public trust and disguise its
wartime profit-making.
In the late 1930s and early 1940s, Roosevelt’s use of
public-private “partnerships” to build up the munitions
industry, and thereby finally overcome the Great Depression,
did not go entirely unchallenged. Although he was himself an
implacable enemy of fascism, a few people thought that the
president nonetheless was coming close to copying some of its
key institutions. The leading Italian philosopher of fascism,
the neo-Hegelian Giovanni Gentile, once argued that it should
more appropriately be called “corporatism” because it was a
merger of state and corporate power.
Some critics were alarmed early on by the growing symbiotic
relationship between government and corporate officials
because each simultaneously sheltered and empowered the other,
while greatly confusing the separation of powers. Since the
activities of a corporation are less amenable to public or
congressional scrutiny than those of a public institution,
public-private collaborative relationships afford the private
sector an added measure of security from such scrutiny. These
concerns were ultimately swamped by enthusiasm for the war
effort and the postwar era of prosperity that the war
produced.
Beneath the surface, however, was a less well recognized
movement by big business to replace democratic institutions
with those representing the interests of capital. This
movement is today ascendant. Its objectives have long been to
discredit what it called “big government,” while capturing for
private interests the tremendous sums invested by the public
sector in national defense. It may be understood as a
slow-burning reaction to what American conservatives believed
to be the socialism of the New Deal.
Perhaps the country’s leading theorist of democracy, Sheldon
S. Wolin, has written a new book, Democracy Incorporated, on
what he calls “inverted totalitarianism” — the rise in the
U.S. of totalitarian institutions of conformity and
regimentation shorn of the police repression of the earlier
German, Italian, and Soviet forms. He warns of “the expansion
of private (i.e., mainly corporate) power and the selective
abdication of governmental responsibility for the well-being
of the citizenry.” He also decries the degree to which the
so-called privatization of governmental activities has
insidiously undercut our democracy, leaving us with the
widespread belief that government is no longer needed and
that, in any case, it is not capable of performing the
functions we have entrusted to it.
Mercenaries at Work
The military-industrial complex has changed radically since
World War II or even the height of the Cold War. The private
sector is now fully ascendant. The uniformed air, land, and
naval forces of the country as well as its intelligence
agencies, including the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency), the
NSA (National Security Agency), the DIA (Defense Intelligence
Agency), and even clandestine networks entrusted with the
dangerous work of penetrating and spying on terrorist
organizations are all dependent on hordes of “private
contractors.” In the context of governmental national security
functions, a better term for these might be “mercenaries”
working in private for profit-making companies.
Tim Shorrock, an investigative journalist and the leading
authority on this subject, sums up this situation
devastatingly in his new book, Spies for Hire: The Secret
World of Intelligence Outsourcing.
Several inferences can be drawn from Shorrock’s shocking
exposé. One is that if a foreign espionage service wanted to
penetrate American military and governmental secrets, its
easiest path would not be to gain access to any official U.S.
agencies, but simply to get its agents jobs at any of the
large intelligence-oriented private companies on which the
government has become remarkably dependent. These include
Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), with
headquarters in San Diego, California, which typically pays
its 42,000 employees higher salaries than if they worked at
similar jobs in the government; Booz Allen Hamilton, one of
the nation’s oldest intelligence and clandestine-operations
contractors, which, until January 2007, was the employer of
Mike McConnell, the current director of national intelligence
and the first private contractor to be named to lead the
entire intelligence community; and CACI International, which,
under two contracts for “information technology services,”
ended up supplying some two dozen interrogators to the Army at
Iraq’s already infamous Abu Ghraib prison in 2003. According
to Major General Anthony Taguba, who investigated the Abu
Ghraib torture and abuse scandal, four of CACI’s interrogators
were “either directly or indirectly responsible” for torturing
prisoners. (Shorrock, p. 281)
Remarkably enough, SAIC has virtually replaced the National
Security Agency as the primary collector of signals
intelligence for the government. It is the NSA’s largest
contractor, and that agency is today the company’s single
largest customer.
There are literally thousands of other profit-making
enterprises that work to supply the government with so-called
intelligence needs, sometimes even bribing Congressmen to fund
projects that no one in the executive branch actually wants.
This was the case with Congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham,
Republican of California’s 50th District, who, in 2006, was
sentenced to eight-and-a-half years in federal prison for
soliciting bribes from defense contractors. One of the
bribers, Brent Wilkes, snagged a $9.7 million contract for his
company, ADCS Inc. (“Automated Document Conversion Systems”)
to computerize the century-old records of the Panama Canal
dig!
A Country Drowning in Euphemisms
The United States has long had a sorry record when it comes to
protecting its intelligence from foreign infiltration, but the
situation today seems particularly perilous. One is reminded
of the case described in the 1979 book by Robert Lindsey, The
Falcon and the Snowman (made into a 1985 film of the same
name). It tells the true story of two young Southern
Californians, one with a high security clearance working for
the defense contractor TRW (dubbed “RTX” in the film), and the
other a drug addict and minor smuggler. The TRW employee is
motivated to act by his discovery of a misrouted CIA document
describing plans to overthrow the prime minister of Australia,
and the other by a need for money to pay for his addiction.
They decide to get even with the government by selling secrets
to the Soviet Union and are exposed by their own bungling.
Both are sentenced to prison for espionage. The message of the
book (and film) lies in the ease with which they betrayed
their country — and how long it took before they were exposed
and apprehended. Today, thanks to the staggering
over-privatization of the collection and analysis of foreign
intelligence, the opportunities for such breaches of security
are widespread.
I applaud Shorrock for his extraordinary research into an
almost impenetrable subject using only openly available
sources. There is, however, one aspect of his analysis with
which I differ. This is his contention that the wholesale
takeover of official intelligence collection and analysis by
private companies is a form of “outsourcing.” This term is
usually restricted to a business enterprise buying goods and
services that it does not want to manufacture or supply
in-house. When it is applied to a governmental agency that
turns over many, if not all, of its key functions to a
risk-averse company trying to make a return on its investment,
“outsourcing” simply becomes a euphemism for mercenary
activities.
Euphemisms are words intended to deceive. The United States is
already close to drowning in them, particularly new words and
terms devised, or brought to bear, to justify the American
invasion of Iraq — coinages Bromwich highlights like “regime
change,” “enhanced interrogation techniques,” “the global war
on terrorism,” “the birth pangs of a new Middle East,” a
“slight uptick in violence,” “bringing torture within the
law,” “simulated drowning,” and, of course, “collateral
damage,” meaning the slaughter of unarmed civilians by
American troops and aircraft followed — rarely — by
perfunctory apologies. It is important that the intrusion of
unelected corporate officials with hidden profit motives into
what are ostensibly public political activities not be
confused with private businesses buying Scotch tape, paper
clips, or hubcaps.
The wholesale transfer of military and intelligence functions
to private, often anonymous, operatives took off under Ronald
Reagan’s presidency, and accelerated greatly after 9/11 under
George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. Often not well understood,
however, is this: The biggest private expansion into
intelligence and other areas of government occurred under the
presidency of Bill Clinton. He seems not to have had the same
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