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The military-controlled interim government, the Election Commission and the Anti-Corruption Commission seem to be in trouble because of legal obstructions to the government’s plan for holding the elections under the emergency and in its fight against corruption.
   The government and the commissions are, however, likely to intensify their legal battles in the Supreme Court, which resumes Sunday after 44 days of annual vacation.
   A number of the actions of the government and the commissions, including some ordinances, electoral process and corruption cases against politicians, have been pending with the Supreme Court.
   The High Court in July and August declared illegal two of the total 84 ordinances the interim government had promulgated since the proclamation of the state of emergency on January 11, 2007.
   Although the High Court in the verdicts has observed the caretaker government has no authority to promulgate any ordinance making provisions not directly related to elections, the interim government has promulgated eight ordinances after the verdicts.
   The interim government now faces rules issued by the High Court asking it to explain the constitutionality of a number of ordinances including the Emergency Powers Ordinance, two emergency powers orders suspending fundamental rights, the Emergency Powers Rules and the proclamation of the emergency, although the government and the Election Commission are out to hold the national elections under the emergency despite opposition of major political parties.
   The Election Commission faces the challenge in the High Court regarding the legality of its demarcation of the electoral constituencies. The commission is scheduled for November 1 or 2 to announce the schedule for the elections to the ninth Jatiya Sangsad in accordance with the redrawn constituencies, which has been stayed by the High Court till November 5.
   Election commissioner Sohul Hussain told New Age on Friday the commission would appeal to the High Court immediately after its reopening for expeditious disposal of the writ petitions in which the High Court had stayed the commission’s decision on constituency demarcation.
   He hopes the case might be disposed of soon removing the hurdle for the commission to announce the election schedule on November 1 or 2.
   The Anti-Corruption Commission’s drive, initiated after the January 11, 2007 changeover, against high-profile corruption suspects has been challenged as the High Court has stayed the proceedings of 85 corruption cases against 158 high-profile suspects, mostly politicians and businessmen, and asked the commission and the government to explain the legality of the initiation and continuation of the cases. The court also granted bail to the 158 people.
   Deputy inspector general (prisons) Shamsul Haider Siddiqui in the past week told New Age, ‘A total of 61 high-profile people [eligible to get special division facilities in jail] were put in jail on corruption charges after the January 11, 2007 changeover. About 50 of them have been released on bail granted by the High Court in two months.’
   At least 267 high-profile corruption cases filed by the Anti-Corruption Commission against politicians, businessmen and others have now been pending with the High Court as the accused challenged the legality of the cases.
   According to sources in the commission, it filed 140 applications with the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court seeking permission to appeal against the High Court orders that have granted bail to the politicians and stayed the proceedings of the graft cases against them till August 28, when the Supreme Court went on annual vacation.
   The commission’s counsel Anisul Huq told New Age on Friday they would file similar petitions in other cases stayed by the High Court.
   ‘We will also appeal to the court after the reopening of the Supreme Court for expeditious disposal of the petitions filed by the corruption suspects and also the petitions filed by the commission with the Appellate Division for halting the High Court orders that have granted bail to the corruption suspects or stayed the case proceedings.’
   The interim government and the Election Commission are out to hold the national elections under the emergency despite opposition of major political parties while the government is yet to reply to the rule issued by the High Court asking it to explain the constitutionality of the state of emergency.
   The High Court bench of Justice Khademul Islam Chowdhury and Justice Mashuq Hossain Ahmed on July 20 ordered the government to explain why the proclamation of the state of emergency, two emergency powers orders suspending fundamental rights, Emergency Powers Ordinance and the Emergency Powers Rules would not be declared ultra vires of the constitution.
   The government was also asked to detail in affidavit in four weeks when the national elections would be held and how it would hand power over to the elected representatives.
   Issuing the directive to the government, the court also observed the government’s plan for power handover must be transparent.
   The court passed the orders after hearing in four working days a public interest litigation writ petition filed by Supreme Court lawyers M Saleem Ullah, Mohsen Rashid, Nahid Sultana Juthi and Abdul Mannan Khan on July 14.
   According to insiders, the attorney general’s office is yet to receive any instruction including paragraph-wise comment from the government on the writ petition to reply to the rule.
   The petitioners’ counsel Ruhul Quddus Babu told New Age on Friday, ‘The government is yet to reply to the rule although the court has asked it to reply in four weeks.’
   ‘We will appeal to the court for expeditious hearing in the writ petition immediately after reopening of the Supreme Court as the government wants to hold elections under the emergency, the constitutionality of which is yet be decided by the Supreme Court,’ he said.
   The High Court bench of Justice ABM Khairul Haque and Justice M Abu Tarique on July 13 declared illegal the Muslim Marriage and Divorce Ordinance 2008 and observed the caretaker government could not make any ordinance making provisions not related to the holding of elections.
   The same bench on July 24 cancelled the Contempt of Courts Ordinance with a similar observation.
   The government also faces High Court rulings asking it to explain the legality of some other ordinances made by it including the Voluntary Disclosure Ordinance 2008, under which the Truth and Accountability Commission was formed on July 30, and the Anti-Corruption Commission (Amendment) Ordinance.

The central working committee of the Awami League is scheduled to sit today to review the political situation and discuss amendments to the party’s constitution in compliance with the Election Commission’s latest electoral laws.
   The AL is expected to approve a few proposals to be incorporated in its provisional constitution in order to get registered with the EC to be eligible for the parliamentary polls scheduled for December 18.
   Elected representatives at every level of the party, empowerment of women and separation of the front organisations are among the proposals the party is expected to deal with at the meeting, according to party insiders.
   It will curb the authority of the party chief granted by the present constitution, said a good number of central committee members.
   Bur the party’s general secretary, Syed Ashraful Islam, on Thursday said it would rather make the party chief more powerful if they approve the proposals in line with the electoral laws.
   As the government has approved an EC proposal allowing the parties to get registered by submitting a draft of the constitution, the AL decided to do so within the time set by the commission.
   The deadline for party registration is October 15, but sources at the Election Commission hinted at its extension in case the parties formally ask for it.
   The meeting, to be chaired by the AL’s acting president Zillur Rahman at its Dhanmondi office in the morning, will also consider a provision for having 33 per cent of women representatives at all levels by 2020, and separate the front organisations and overseas units of the party.
   The front organisations will operate independently.
   The party’s acting president on Thursday clarified that though the party would have no affiliate organisations it may maintain associate organisations.
   There is no scope for any confusion over associate organisations of the Awami League, he told reporters adding that the decision would be made at the central working committee meeting.
   The meeting is also expected to approve the manifesto for the 2008 national elections debated earlier by the senior leaders. The party chief, Sheikh Hasina, who is now paroled for medical treatment abroad, has approved the manifesto.

Commerce and education adviser Hossain Zillur Rahman had a meeting with BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia behind closed doors at her Dhaka Cantonment residence Friday evening, according to an aide of the leader.
   Zillur, also a key player in the interim government’s dialogues with political parties, presumably invited Khaleda and her party to a formal dialogue with the interim government, expected to take place sometime this week.
   He told New Age Thursday that he would formally invite the party to the talks in a day or two.
   The details of the one and a half hours meeting, which started at about 7:15pm, between Khaleda and Hossain Zillur were not available till this report was filed at 10:00pm Friday.
   BNP standing committee member Chowdhury Tanvir Ahmed Siddiqui, who is also chief of the party’s committee to set agenda for the dialogue, said Thursday, ‘There is a possibility of a meeting with the government on October 15 and we, some thinktanks, sat for drafting the party’s demands to be placed at the meeting.’
   BNP secretary general Khandaker Delwar Hossain on Friday said the party would make a decision on the issue of registration with the Election Commission after holding dialogues with the government and its allies.
   According to the draft agenda set by the BNP, the party delegation will ask the government to ensure an atmosphere conducive to holding free and fair parliamentary elections with participation of all political parties, scrap the amendments to the Representation of People Order 1972, lift the state of emergency immediately, defer the dates of upazila elections by a rational length of time, refrain from announcing the schedule for upazila elections before parliamentary polls, withdraw all ‘false’ cases filed against the party leaders, including chairperson Khaleda Zia, and release of all political detainees from prison.

The Bangladesh Nationalist Party on Friday said it would make a decision on the issue of registration with the Election Commission after holding dialogues with the government and its allies, expected later this week.
   The party also asked the Election Commission to extend the deadline for registration of the parties.
   ‘We are not against registering with the Election Commission but have some reservations about some of the conditions. We will make a decision on the issue after we vent our concerns over the issues in the dialogue with the government’, the BNP secretary general, Khandaker Delwar Hossain, said Friday.
   The party will hold talks with the alliance partners after the meeting with the government, he added.
   ‘I don’t think it would hamper the electoral process if the deadline for registration with the Election Commission is deferred by a few days’, said Delwar after placing flowers at the monument in Dainik Bangla crossing in the city erected in memory of Shaheed Naziruddin Ahmed Jehad, a student of Ullapara College in Sirajganj, who was killed in police firing during the anti-autocracy movement in 1990.
   The Election Commission has set October 15 as the deadline for registration of the political parties willing to contest the next parliamentary elections scheduled for December 18.
   The BNP and the interim government are expected to sit in a formal dialogue, tentatively on October 15, to discuss electoral issues.
   According to the draft agenda set by the BNP, the party delegation will ask the government to ensure an atmosphere conducive to holding free and fair parliamentary elections with participation of all political parties, scrap the amendments to the Representation of People Order 1972, lift the state of emergency immediately, defer the dates of upazila elections by a rational length of time, refrain from announcing the schedule for upazila elections before parliamentary polls, withdraw all ‘false’ cases filed against the party leaders, including chairperson Khaleda Zia, and release of all political detainees from prison.
   The party has formed a committee to draft the dialogue agenda. The committee submitted the draft to party chairperson Khaleda Zia Thursday night.
   The Shaheed Jehad Parishad organised a discussion on the day marking the 18th anniversary of his death at the Institution of Diploma Engineers, Bangladesh.
   BNP standing committee member Chowdhury Tanvir Ahmed Siddiqui, Jatiyatabadi Juba Dal organising secretary Khairul Kabir Khokan, BNP executive committee member and former Chhatra Dal president Habibun Nabi Khan Sohel, former Chhatra Dal president Shahabuddin Laltu and former convener of the organisation ABM Mosharraf Hossain spoke at the discussion.
   The death of Jehad triggered a student uprising led by an all-party students unity that ultimately saw the fall of the regime of HM Ershad on December 4, 1990.
   Marking the anniversary, the BNP and its front organisations, and student leaders of 1990s paid tributes to him by placing flowers at the monument.

The Election Commission is likely to extend the October 15 deadline for applying for party registration by a few days if the major parties formally request the commission to do so. The election commissioners on Friday, while talking to New Age over the telephone, hinted that they would reconsider Bangladesh Nationalist Party’s call to extend the deadline for registration by a few days as the leaders of the major political parties have started preparing to get registered.
   ‘We heard the call in the TV news. The BNP leaders’ statement was praiseworthy as they do not oppose the registration process. But the request to extend the deadline should be made formally to the EC. After being formally requested, the EC will discuss it and take a decision’, Election commissioner M Sakhawat Hussain told New Age.
   The BNP secretary general, Khandaker Delwar Hossain, on Friday said, ‘It won’t hurt anyone and hamper the electoral process in any manner if the deadline for registration with the Election Commission is shifted by a few days.’
   Chief election commissioner ATM Shamsul Huda reportedly said on Thursday that the EC would take an acceptable decision if the major parties formally request it to shift the deadline. However, on Tuesday last he had said the EC was not worried about the time left and vowed not to extend the October 15 deadline.
   Election commissioner Muhammed Sohul Hussain told New Age on Friday that the time was very short, but a realistic decision should be taken after discussion at the EC’s meeting to facilitate participation of all the political parties in the polls.
   Only eight minor political parties, not the major ones, have so far applied for registration with the Election Commission with only four days left for the deadline to expire.
   Some 130 parties and groups, including the Awami League, have collected forms, and eight of them have applied for registration, said sources in the EC.
   Indicating that the BNP will apply for registration soon, Delwar said on Friday, ‘The four-party alliance will jointly take a decision on registration, and that meeting will be held after BNP’s meeting with the government on October 15.
   The Jamaat-e-Islami amir, Matiur Rahman Nizami, on Thursday said his party would get registered, and if necessary amend its constitution to do so.
   The Awami League will finalise its preparations, including amendment of its constitution if necessary, to be eligible for registration. The Communist Party of Bangladesh, the Jatiya Party led by Hussain Muhammad Ershad and other political parties said they were ready to submit registration forms.
   The seven parties which applied for registration are the Bangladesh Krishak Sramik Janata League, Workers Party of Bangladesh, Bangladesher Samyabadi Dal (M-L), Liberal Democratic Party, Freedom Party, National People’s Party and the Jatiya Party faction led by Anwar Hossain Manju.
   The EC on August 27 issued a notice, inviting political parties to apply for registration in a prescribed form and also submit a number of documents, including bank statements and sources of income.
   The military-controlled interim government on Monday approved an amendment to the electoral laws that allows the political parties to get registered without holding council sessions.
   Now with the approval of the amendment to the earlier revised Representation of the People Order, political parties will be allowed to submit a provisional constitution to the EC to get registered by October 15 and contest the December 18 parliamentary polls.
   But six months after the first sitting of the next parliament, the parties must ratify their constitutions by duly holding council sessions in line with the latest electoral laws that call for more ‘democratic’ practices within the parties.

The government is yet to demolish the buildings that have been identified as extremely vulnerable and derelict because of age and decay, causing more than 20,000 people to live a perilous life under roofs that may collapse any day.
   After a century-old five-story building at Shankhari Bazar in Old Town of Dhaka collapsed on June 9, 2004, causing 19 deaths, the government took the issue seriously and formed several committees to identify the dilapidated buildings in city.
   Rajuk and the Dhaka district commissioner’s office are carrying out two more surveys to identify the risky buildings, but so far these committees have failed to take any effective measures except to identify 687 dilapidated buildings.
   A technical committee was formed and headed by the then chief engineer of the Dhaka City Corporation, Idris Mian, which identified numerous buildings as vulnerable and 165 as most vulnerable.
   The survey report was submitted to the secretarial committee which was also formed after the Shankhari Bazar tragedy with representatives of the DCC, Rajuk, land, law, public works and housing and finance ministries and Dhaka’s eputy commissioner as members, at its meeting on January 3, 2005, but the committee is yet to take any initiative to raze the structures.
   In another survey, the Urban Planning Department of the Dhaka City Corporation tagged 726 buildings as risky after it wrapped up a survey of 10 DCC zones in early November, 2005.
   The survey was conducted in two of the ten DCC zones and was completed last month. It covered wards 71 and 72 of Old Dhaka which include Siddique Bazar, Shankhari Bazar, and Khilgaon and Madartek.
   ‘The number of vulnerable structures will increase as landowners often do not follow the National Building Code 1993 while erecting their structures. They are also very indifferent to the safety aspects,’ said a senior engineer of the DCC.
   ‘The common tendency among most landowners is to construct the building as quickly as possible, and that too at a low cost. That often makes the structures fragile,’ said the engineer.
   ‘Rajuk is the authority which should inspect the buildings and ensure that they are up to the specified standards, but it has ignored its obligation for a long time,’ he added.
   According to the Dhaka City Corporation Ordinance 1983, the DCC is responsible for demolishing all derelict structures. At first the DCC has to ask the owner of the structure to raze it. If the owner does not obey, the DCC will then destroy it and the owner has to pay the cost of demolition along with the annual taxes.
   The structures identified as vulnerable are between 30 to 350 years old and vary from one-storey structures to multi-storey buildings. Some modern multi-storey buildings were found to be vulnerable as well because of the poor standard of construction.
   RAJUK sources said that it would not be possible to verify the legitimacy of many structures unless a door-to-door survey is carried out.
   According to top officials of the Public Works Department and Rajuk, the entire city is dotted with buildings which were either built without any approval by Rajuk or in total violation of proper construction rules. Officials said that over 95 per cent of all structures approved by Rajuk in the city have been built by unscrupulous people who deviated from the original plans to save money or time.
   An official of the Public Works Department said a large section of landowners, developers, engineers and architects are involved in deviating from the construction rules and cutting costs to the bare minimum. Rajuk, the sole authority for approving the building plans and monitoring construction, is riddled with corrupt people, and anyone can get anything done through a gang of highly influential and well-connected middlemen.
   The chief engineer of Rajuk, Shah Alam, told New Age, ‘According to the Dhaka City Corporation Ordinance 1983, the DCC is responsible for demolishing all vulnerable structures, and so far as I know it hasn’t held any meeting on the issue during the tenure of the interim government.’
   The chief engineer of the DCC, Ashfaqul Islam, told New Age, ‘We have already sent letters to the vulnerable building’s owners and asked them to demolish their buildings. After the Eid we will hold a follow-up meeting and issue another letter, and if the owners don’t agree to do as we say, we will immediately start demolishing their buildings.’

Islamic Democratic Party, a political party floated by the leaders of banned Islamist outfit Harkatul Jihad Al Islami, is under constant surveillance of the government, said Dhaka Metropolitan Police commissioner Naim Ahmed.
   ‘They are under our surveillance. If they are found involved in any unlawful activities, they will be brought to book’, Naim Ahmed told New Age Monday.
   When asked whether the government had allowed the leaders of Harkatul Jihad Al Islami [widely known as Huji] to launch the IDP in the guise of an iftar party, he said, ‘They sought permission for an iftar party and we allowed them as we did not find anything wrong in permitting them to organise an iftar party, a religious function.’
   Most of the initiators of IDP are Soviet-Afghan war veterans and leaders of banned militant outfit Harkatul Jihad al Islami.
   On August 31, the IDP applied with the Election Commission for registration as a political party for participating in the next general elections. It has formed committees in 42 districts and in all thanas of Dhaka city. The party has begun renting offices in districts and forming committees and organising activists in 300 upazilas across the country.
   According to the draft IDP constitution that was submitted to EC for registration, the objective of the party is to establish an administration based on the Charter of Medina.
   The party will, however, follow the national constitution, the Qur’an and the Hadith while conducting its activities, according to article 12 of IDP constitution.
   The amir [chief], all members of the standing committee and two-thirds of the members of other committees of the party will be Islamic cleric, it said.
   There is no woman member in the lists of about 370 leaders of the central and district committees, which were submitted to the Election Commission, although the IDP constitution suggests that there should be women division in almost all committees of the party.
   The IDP iftar party, held in the city’s Diploma Engineers Institution, was attended by the party adviser Kazi Azizul Huq, convener Maulana Sheikh Abdus Salam, weekly Blitz editor Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury, daily Amar Desh assistant editor and Human Rights Forum general secretary Sanjeeb Choudhury, PK Barua of Bouddha Kristi Prochar Sangha and Chitta Francis, a representative of Christian community.
   Sheikh Abdus Salam heads the IDP convening committee. It was under his leadership that a group of Afghan war veterans launched Huji in Dhaka in April, 1992.
   Both Kazi Azizul Huq and Abdus Salam admitted that they had a background of Huji. But they claimed that they had dissolved Huji in 1998 and changed the name of the organisation to Islami Gana Andolan. The government had banned Huji in October 2005.
   When asked if Mufti Abdul Hannan, who was found involved in militant attacks, had any links with the IDP, Kazi Azizul Huq, believed to be the mastermind of the party, told New Age that they had expelled Hannan from Huji in 1998.
   He said the goal of IDP was to run the country as per the Charter of Medina that gives equal rights to all citizens irrespective of religion and ethnicity.
   ‘We want to introduce Shariah only for the “willing” Muslims. Other Muslims and followers of other religions and ethnic minorities may follow the existing law of the land and norms of their communities’, he said. ‘We don’t want to impose anything on anyone.’
   When asked about the provisions of the IDP constitution to restrict the leadership of the party only to the ulema, he said, ‘We would propose amendment to the constitution to include non-cleric persons, even if they are from other religions, in the committees.’
   Azizul Huq said IDP wanted that citizens of Bangladesh should not be barred from travelling to any land in the world, including Israel.
   ‘Bangladesh should establish diplomatic relations with Israel’, he said. ‘What’s the use of maintaining hostility to Israel when Palestine and some other Arab countries maintain ties with it?’
   When asked if the IDP receives funds from foreign sources, especially from Israel and the US, he claimed, ‘IDP is run by the money donated by its leaders and members.’
   He, however, added, ‘Richard L Benkin, an American Jew, provides IDP moral support as it [IDP] is favours Bangladesh-Israel diplomatic relations.
   Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury echoed Azizul Huq. ‘I cooperate with IDP as it upholds interfaith understanding and supports the idea of establishing diplomatic ties with Israel.’
   About the sources of the party funds Choudhury said, ‘Nobody will admit to getting foreign funds even if they receive it. It is difficult to identify sources of money in the present world.’

They stumbled in 2000, and fell on their faces in 2004 — so can anyone believe what opinion pollsters say about Barack Obama’s lead over John McCain today?
   Scientific surveys aimed at predicting the winner of the November 4 election are proving harder than ever, polling experts admit.
   ‘It’s going to be a very difficult election to predict because we can’t use normal statistical models,’ said Steffan Schmidt, a political science professor at Iowa State University.
   In 2000, major media US broadcasters may have helped tip the balance of an extraordinarily tight race in favour of Republican George W Bush by announcing that he had beaten Democrat rival Al Gore in Florida.
   The call, based on calculations of preliminary data, was retracted two hours later, but the issue of who won Florida proved the key to overall victory, eventually awarded to Bush.
   Even more embarrassing was the US media’s reporting of exit polls in 2004 that showed Democrat John Kerry cruising to victory against Bush. When real votes were counted, Bush emerged the winner.
   Now, four years later, pollsters face a new and unique set of problems.
   The biggest imponderable is the significance of racism in an election where Democrat Obama is bidding to be the first black president in US history.
   One theory — the so-called ‘Bradley-Wilder effect’ — is that people tell pollsters they support Obama because they are afraid of sounding racist. Then in the privacy of the polling booth on November 4 they promptly opt for the white Republican candidate, McCain.
   The latest national opinion polls show Onama maintaining an average lead of six points over McCain.
   In other words, the slim, yet firm lead held by Obama in opinion polls may prove hollow on election day.

Fears of a higher fiscal deficit as the global economic turmoil fallout have started gripping many minds here though the country’s lesser integration with world’s financial markets gives policymakers some respite from any immediate exposure.
   While major export sectors are sensing a slowdown in orders from American and European buyers, economists are ringing alarm bells for a slump in remittance income, foreign capital inflows and external funding.
   They want the regulators to watch out the developments in global financial markets on day-to-day basis and plan contingency measures beforehand.
   Some of them foresee a situation which may call for a higher capital adequacy or merger of weaker banks before they face collapse in an adverse situation if the global financial crisis prolongs for a couple of years.
   However, the interim government thinks that the Bangladesh economy is still not in need of a quick rescue package to cope with the challenges posed by the turmoil that rattled the financial and capital markets worldwide.
   Adverse impacts of the global crisis are not far away as economists reveal that Bangladesh has now been exposed to exchange rate volatility, shrinkage in external aid and foreign direct investment, decline in remittances and risks of losing highly paid jobs held by non-resident Bangladeshis in the USA and Europe apart from uncertainty on the export front.
   A good number of Bangladeshis, including a few holding key posts in the interim administration who invested their pension funds in the Western markets, might have lost significant amounts of their money, sources close to them hinted.
   Economist Mustafizur Rahman explained that weak dollars and influences of economic recession on the Middle East countries might affect Bangladesh’s remittance earnings besides the direct impacts on exports to the West. ‘Given the global economic slowdown, we will have to readjust our policy to save our economy and protect the interests of all concerned,’ added the executive director of Centre for Policy Dialogue.
   ‘Essentially foreign aid will be dwindling and there will virtually no FDI [foreign direct investment],’ said economist Atiur Rahman, expressing apprehensions of implications of the global recessionary trends on a number of fronts in Bangladesh.
   He recommended formation of a monitoring cell or task force to keep a constant watch on the country’s banking sector and stock market.
   The development economist who chairs research organisation Unnayan Samunnay, however, felt that Bangladesh might be benefited from a probable increase in the demand for low-cost products in Western markets hard-pressed by financial meltdown.
   The crisis is said to have threatened to reverse years of prosperity that financed the economic growth in developed and emerging countries through a global financial system that made credit widely available.
   ‘Since consumer confidence has been shattered due to the turmoil, we in Asia will be affected in terms of declining exports, shocks in remittances earnings and also bilateral aid. Western governments may turn their faces from countries like ours when they themselves remain in a serious crisis,’ observed Mamun Rashid, a banker.
   To him, exchange rate, interest rate and exports are the areas that call for more attention from the government and stakeholders.
   Lending rates between global banks continued to rise frustrating the efforts of central banks to reduce rates and boost investments worldwide amid collapse of a number of banks in the USA and threats to many leading ones in Europe.
   Global stocks went into a tailspin on Friday, with double-digit losses in Frankfurt, London and Tokyo, on widespread fears that the financial crisis was spiralling out of control, dealers said.
   World finance chiefs were preparing an emergency meeting in Washington as a wave of panic selling swept across markets. Interest rate cuts and billions of dollars’ worth of cash injections by central banks failed to calm the mayhem.
    Though Bangladesh’s financial and capital markets are still unresponsive to world phenomena, there is limited space for complacence, some economists believed.
   ‘If the crisis prolongs for two years or more, many Bangladeshi small banks may need merger or higher capital to survive,’ said Iqbal Ahmed, an economist at local research organisation Unnayan Onneshan.
   He felt that regulators should press the banks to speed up their efforts to strengthen capital base to thwart any future crisis. ‘Regulators also need to frame guidelines for banking merger,’ he said.
   With the country’s exports, mainly readymade garments and also leather, already at stake, the government is yet to know how it would cushion balance of payments deficit if remittances fall and how budgetary deficit would be financed if foreign aid declines.
   Exports valued $14.1 billion and remittances worth about $8 billion together comprises less than one-third of the country’s gross domestic product amounting to $72.3 billion, according to the latest statistics. The flow of foreign direct investment into the country in 2007 was $666 million.
   External financing is forecast to cover half of the total fiscal deficit in the next three fiscal years as the flow of foreign fund, as projected in the medium-term budget framework, would be Tk 13,580 crore in the current fiscal and increase further to Tk 15,730 crore by the 2010-11 fiscal. Foreign aid Bangladesh receives is about 2 per cent of the GDP.
   Financial policymakers and regulators have started responding to the alarms voiced by economists and business leaders.
   Commerce adviser Hossain Zillur Rahman is expected to sit soon with finance adviser AB Mirza Azizul Islam, now in the USA, to discuss the courses of action to be followed by the government to cope with the situation.
   Bangladesh Bank is set to issue a circular with cautionary notes on liquidity situation of banks, payment in foreign currencies and foreign exchange reserve so that the global turmoil does not have severe negative impacts on the country’s financial sector, said sources there. A stakeholders’ conference is also planned later this month to work out strategies to minimise impacts on export and remittance earnings.
   ‘We will not need any quick rescue package since our case is different from many others. We have to focus on medium and long-term measures to make exports and remittances sustainable,’ Zillur told New Age when asked about the government’s response to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression of 1930s.
   World Bank president Robert B Zoellick made his account in a recent speech, saying: ‘The events of September could be a tipping point for many developing countries. A drop in exports, as well as capital inflow, will trigger a falloff in investments. Deceleration of growth and deteriorating financing conditions, combined with monetary tightening, will trigger business failures and possibly banking emergencies. Some countries will slip toward balance of payments crises. As is always the case, the most poor are the most defence-less’.
   ‘Confidence in the economy won’t be restored as long as growth is low, and growth will be low if investment is anaemic, consumption weak, and public spending on the wane,’ noted Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz in an article, expressing fears of a prolonged economic downturn.

The monitoring cells at the Bangladesh Bank and all other commercial banks are closely watching the global markets rattled by the financial implosion in the United States and European Union, bank sources have said.
   The cells called ‘dealing rooms’ will operate even at the weekend.
   Monitoring cells at some of the commercial banks operated on Friday, a weekly holiday, to keep tabs on the situation and their investments in the international financial institutions, an official at the central bank said.
   ‘If the international banking system crashes, the local commercial banks would make prompt decisions about their investments and could shift them to more secure institutions’, he said.
   The Bangladesh Bank, at a meeting on Wednesday with the governor in the chair, also decided to ask commercial banks to be cautious about payment of foreign currencies against the backdrop of the global financial meltdown.
   The bank sources said the central bank would take cautionary measures for minimising risks to the country’s commercial banks from the wave of the global economic turmoil.
   Currently, the central bank is closely monitoring the commercial banks’ liquidity situation, payment of foreign currencies and the foreign exchange reserves.
   In view of the financial implosion in the United States and European Union countries, the central bank will remain cautious in investing in the international banks and financial institutions, the meeting decided.
   Bangladeshi commercial banks have some amount of foreign currencies deposited with the fourth largest US bank, Wachovia, which recently narrowly escaped bankruptcy.
   Besides, US financial giant Citigroup said it would not seek to bar Wells Fargo from taking over the troubled Wachovia. Most of the Bangladeshi remittances from the US come through Wachovia.
   About the possible impact of the global financial turmoil on the country’s financial system, the Bangladesh Bank official said there was no reason to be much worried about the situation as the implosion would not have any direct impact on the country’s economy. But, he warned, if the recession caused by the turmoil continued for long, it would certainly affect the country’s export, import and remittance inflow.
   Meanwhile, the World Bank sent a letter to the central bank asking information about the commercial banks’ foreign currency holdings. But the central bank has decided not to provide the information.

After handing New Zealand a sour defeat in the first game, Bangladesh will be prepared to the face the backlash when the two sides meet in the second one-day international at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium today.
   The match, which will start at 9:00am, will be aired live by the Bangladesh Television. The Bangladesh Cricket Board could not resolve the crisis over the satellite broadcasting until last night which means no other channel would be able to show the game.
   As the BTV has only the terrestrial rights, it would not be able the air the game on its satellite channel BTV World, said the BCB officials. The off-the-field circus, however, has failed to make any impact on the players.
   Bangladesh will be going into the match knowing that a win will earn them the series, something which they have never won against any major opponent. It is a situation which they have never got into and that is the main motivation of the team.
   ‘We never won the first match of a major series. It is something new for us and also an added advantage. Everybody knows that we have two games in hand to ensure the series,’ vice-captain Mashrafee bin Murtaza told reporters on Friday. ‘We know that New Zealand will try to come hard on us. We are prepared for it. In the next game our target will be to bowl, field and bat better than the first game,’ said Mashrafee.
   Bangladesh have retained the same 12 players for the second game, but a change in the pace attack is not very unlikely. Pacer Syed Rasel, who returned to the game after a long lay-off for injury, could face the axe. Rusty Rasel bowled only two overs in the first game and conceded 18 runs. If he misses the game finally, it is certain that rookie pacer Mahbubul Alam will make his debut.
   Change or no change, vice-captain Mashrafee said they will take the second game as a new one and will try to improve upon their performance. ‘We were told by the skipper that it is a new game, we have to do everything anew. There is no room for complacency,’ said Mashrafee.

The Awami League president, Sheikh Hasina, now in London, on Friday demanded lifting of the state of emergency to create free, fair and transparent atmosphere for general elections.
   ‘Emergency must be lifted so that people can vote freely and make a government of their choice. People’s political and fundamental rights must be restored,’ she told reporters after attending a seminar on human rights affairs at the House of Lords.
   Lord Avebury, vice-chairman of UK Parliamentary Human Rights Group, chaired the seminar.
   Asked about confusion over elections on December 18, Hasina said she believed the elections would be held and every Bangali at home and abroad must work for the elections. ‘Elections will be held and it must be held,’ she said.
   A number of British lawmakers and leaders of the UK Awami League and BNP attended the seminar.

Finlands former president Martti Ahtisaari won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for a decades-long career of peacemaking around the globe from Namibia to Kosovo.
   The Norwegian Nobel Committee chose Ahtisaari to receive the $1.4 million prize from a field of 197 candidates ‘for his important efforts, on several continents and over more than three decades, to resolve international conflicts.’
   ‘These efforts have contributed to a more peaceful world and to ‘fraternity between nations’ in Alfred Nobel’s spirit,’ the award committee said in its citation, adding it hoped the award would inspire other peacemakers around the world.
   Sweden’s Nobel, the philanthropist and inventor of dynamite, created the prizes in his will in 1895.
   Ahtisaari, aged 71 and who was Finland’s president from 1994 to 2000, has for years been a favourite to win what many consider the world’s top accolade.
   ‘He has been one of the top trouble-shooters for the United Nations for more than a generation,’ said Jan Egeland, a Norwegian former head of UN emergency relief operations.
   In 2005, Ahtisaari brokered peace between Indonesia and rebels in Aceh province to end 30 years of fighting. Until March last year he led Serb-Albanian talks on Kosovo as UN envoy.
   He was architect of a European Union-backed plan for Kosovo’s independence from Serbia which guaranteed Serb minority rights and was implemented bloodlessly after the wars that tore apart Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
   ‘In 1989-90 he played a significant part in the establishment of Namibia’s independence,’ the committee said.
   ‘In 2005 he and his organisation Crisis Management Initiative were central to the solution of the complicated Aceh question in Indonesia.’
   ‘In 1999 and again in 2005-07, he sought under especially difficult circumstances to find a solution to the conflict in Kosovo,’ the committee said.
   Ahtisaari was point man for Western Europe and the United States in 1999, delivering NATO’s peace terms to then Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic to end the Kosovo air campaign.
   Starting in the 1970s as a UN official, he helped Namibia move to independence, finally achieved in 1990.
   ‘Naturally I am very pleased by the decision,’ Ahtisaari told Norwegian broadcaster NRK.
   ‘Namibia was absolutely the most important because it took such a long time,’ he said, but said his work in Aceh and the Balkans were also among the most significant.
   Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was delighted to hear Ahtisaari had won the prize, a spokesman said.
   ‘We have known him to be a man of honour, a man of integrity and a man who not only has full devotion to the cost of peace but also has the rare talents to help make it to practical priority on the ground,’ the spokesman said.
   The prize ‘underlines the importance of continuous and stubborn work towards peace in the Balkans,’ said European Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn, a fellow Finn responsible for the Balkans.
   ‘He is a professional diplomat and a very skilful negotiator,’ Serbia’s former foreign minister Zivadin Jovanovic said. ‘However in Serbia he represents a symbol of Kosovo’s independence and he will be remembered as an architect of Kosovo’s secession.’
   Former Kosovo prime minister Agim Ceku said: ‘The prize has gone to the man that deserves it.’
   The award was seen as a swing back to the core values of the prize in peacemaking and disarmament after a prize last year to former US vice-president Al Gore for work on global warming.
   Ahtisaari is the first peace broker to win since former US president Jimmy Carter in 2004. The prize will be given to the president in Oslo on December 10.

Tarique Rahman, ailing elder son of BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia, was admitted to a hospital in London on Thursday.
   ‘Tarique Rahman was undergoing health check-up and physiotherapy. But he has been admitted to a hospital as his condition deteriorated,’ his physician Kazi Mazharul Islam Dolon told New Age from London over telephone on Friday. Tarique’s lawyer Nasiruddin Asim, who returned to Dhaka from London Thursday, said they would not disclose the name of the hospital upon a request from the hospital authorities.
   Tarique, his wife Zubaida Rahman and their daughter went to London on September 12 for his treatment. He was staying at a rented house in the city before getting admitted to the hospital.
   The military-controlled interim government had arrested Tarique, 43, also the senior joint secretary general of BNP, on March 7, 2007 at their Dhaka Cantonment residence and implicated him in as many as 13 cases on charges of corruption and extortion.
   He was released on bail on September 3. He received treatment at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University hospital from January 31 to September 11.
   According to reports of BSMMU medical boards, he was suffering from compression fracture in his spinal bones, cervical disc prolapsed with radicalopathy, right hip arthropathy, chest pain with palpitation, severe muscle spasm in lumber region and right lower limb, serenegative spondyloarthopathy and narrow angle glaucoma.
   The boards recommended ‘further investigation and treatment in an advanced centre abroad’ for his ailment.

Bangladesh will propose changing the schedule of the Dhaka-Kolkata Maitree Express to make it more attractive and convenient for passengers, say senior railway officials.
   Bangladesh wants the train to reach Dhaka on every Tuesday and go back to Kolkata on Wednesday, the Bangladesh Railway director general, Md Belayet Hossain, told the news agency.
   He said they had no problem with the schedule of the train operated from Dhaka.
   Currently, one Bangladesh train starts from Dhaka to Kolkata on Saturday and returns from Kolkata on Sunday.
   Similarly, one Indian train starts from Kolkata for Dhaka on Saturday and returns next day.
   ‘According to the current schedule, if passengers go to Kolkata by train, they have to spend seven days in Kolkata for the next return train.
   ‘Because of the inconvenience, passengers travel by bus, instead,’ Belayet reasoned.
   ‘If the Indian authorities agree, the new schedule would come into effect from January next year,’ said the director general.
   He said they would table the proposal at the next inter-governmental railway meeting scheduled next month.
   ‘If the new schedule is implemented, the Maitree Express trains would become more attractive and convenient for passengers,’ railway’s additional director general (operations) Quazi Asadullah told the news agency.
   He said both Bangladesh and India agreed cutting the travel time by two hours.
   ‘The agreed travel time cannot be enforced until the Indian Railway (Eastern Railway) completes the construction of a new platform at Kolkata station,’ said Asadullah.
   Maitree Express takes at least 12 hours — six hours for customs and immigration formalities at the border stations — to reach Kolkata from Dhaka and vice versa. This has been a drag on the travellers.
   The direct passenger trains were launched on April 14 after the service had been snapped in 1965.
   According to the railway figures, 100 passengers travel on average by the 418-seat train.

A human rights watchdog in Chittagong on Friday alleged that a 15-year-old boy had been languishing in Chittagong Central Jail for the last two weeks though no substantial allegation was found against him.
   An investigation conducted by the human rights activists of local chapter of the Bangladesh Society for the Enforcement of Human Rights revealed that the Satkania police arrested Jamal Hossain, son of poor farmer Abdus Salam of village Charati on September 28 at his house though there was no case or arrest warrant was pending against him.
   The detained innocent adolescent did not get the opportunity to celebrate Eid-ul-Fitr with his near and dear ones as he has been in the jail since then.
   The Satkania police told the BSEHR team that they had arrested Jamal on the basis of a pending warrant in connection with a robbery case with the Bandarban sadar police filed on April 8 in 2000.
   On the other hand, Bandarban Court inspector Ohidul Alam told the fact-finding team that the robbery case was settled much earlier and all the accused in the
   case were acquitted by the court in 2003.
   The age of Jamal during the robbery was only 7 and his village Charati under Satkania upazila is about 60 kilometres off the place of the robbery under Bandarban sadar upazila, the inquiry report of the BSEHR said.
   Jamal was now a student of Class X of Lohagara Islamia Dakhil Madrassah and previously he was not accused in any criminal case.
   Delwar Hossain, elder brother of Jamal alleged that some of their neighbour instigated the Satkania police to arrest his innocent brother out of previous enmity on the basis of a false warrant.
   Chittagong Metropolitan chapter of the BSEHR
   conducted the investigation into the allegation submitted by the family of Jamal
   following a directive from
   the central executive director of the organisation, Elina Khan.
   The human rights body has put forwarded a bail petition to a local court.
   President of the local chapter of the BSEHR Zia Habib Ahsan and general secretary Mohammad Sharifuddin demanded immediate release of Jamal and proper punishment for those responsible for the cruelty inflicted on the innocent boy.

Prices of rice, vegetables, and spices marked another round of increase in the city markets in a week as, market sources said, traders were eyeing windfall profits cashing in on poor supply during Eid and Durga Puja holidays.
   Ordinary grade coarse rice varieties, Guti and Swarna, sold for prices between Tk 32 and Tk 33 a kilogram at Jatrabari, Thataribazar and Hatirpool on Friday. The varieties just before Eid which fell on October 2 sold for Tk 31 a kilogram.
   ‘Traders may have increased the prices as they expect the demand to grow after Eid and in the absence of fair price outlets run by the Bangladesh Rifles or any other open market sales programmes,’ said Emdad Hossain Malek, chief of the market monitoring cell at the Consumers Association of Bangladesh.
   The rice retailers at Jatrabari and Thataribazar said they were forced to increase the price as prices increased on the wholesale market because of poor supply during Eid and Durga Puja holidays.
   Green grocers also increased the prices of vegetables by Tk 4–20 a kilogram each.
   Up by Tk 20 a kilogram, green chili sold for prices between Tk 80 and Tk 100 at Mohakhali on Friday. Traders increased by Tk 4 the prices of onions, which sold for prices between Tk 28 and Tk 35.
   ‘As imports of Indian onions remains halted because of Eid and Puja holidays, supply shortage has pushed up the onion prices on the wholesale market,’ said a trader at Nakhalpara.
   Retail prices of all verities of vegetables, including pointed gourd, bitter gourd, long beans and tomato increased by Tk 4 to Tk 10 a kilogram at Nakhalpara.
   Prices of garlic increased to be retailed between Tk 30 and Tk 38 a kilogram against the retail prices ranging between Tk 28 and Tk 34 before Eid.
   Price of non-packed palm and soya bean oils declined further on the wholesale and retail markets, but the prices of bottled soya bean oil increased on the retail market.
   Super palm, finely refined palm oil which accounts for about two-thirds of domestic edible oil consumption, was traded at Tk 2,350 a maund (37.3kg) on the wholesale market at Maulavibazar on Thursday.
   Super palm sold for Tk 2,650 a maund the previous week and for Tk 3,950 a couple of months ago.
   Price of different brands of bottled soya bean oil, retailed between Tk 530 and Tk 540 on Friday, increased by at least by Tk 5 in the week.
   Sugar was retailed between Tk 35 and Tk 38 a kilogram, salt between Tk 15 and Tk 18, packed coarse flour between Tk 36 and Tk 37 and red lentils of different verities between Tk 88 and Tk 106.

Around 200 Bangladeshi workers, who were cheated by their recruiting agents, were forced to live in deplorable conditions for months near the Bangladesh high commission at Jalan Ampang in Kuala Lumpur.
   The daily New Straits Times of Malaysia on Thursday reported the suffering Bangladeshi workers were finally moved to a shelter managed by the Bangladesh high commission.
   The high commission’s representative, Wasiuzzaman, told the daily 350 workers were already staying in the shelter. These workers, who were either cheated or not paid their wages, were waiting to be re-employed.
   Wasiuzzaman also told the reporter they had compiled a list of 28 errant recruiting agents who were responsible for the miseries of the workers who had spent their last penny to bag a foreign job.
   The deputy minister in Malaysia’s prime minister’s Department, senator T Murugiah, who also heads the Public Complaints Bureau, said the system of hiring foreign workers must be changed to stem abuses by unscrupulous agents.
   ‘Foreign workers who were cheated were simply dumped,’ he said, citing the miserable fate of the Bangladeshi workers.
   ‘We will sit down for a discussion with representatives of the ministry of human resources and employers to work out ways to protect Bangladeshis from being exploited,’ said Murugiah, who had talked with Bangladeshi workers living under the flyover.
   Ghulam Mustafa, president of the Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies, said his organisation was not told of how the workers in Malaysia had been cheated. ‘If we had been told of the misery of the cheated workers, we would have exerted pressure on the agents concerned.’
   Mustafa said after realising the sorry state of the cheated workers, his association had helped the Bangladesh high commission to arrange a rented shelter for them.
   Mustafa blamed the Bangladesh high commission in Malaysia which often forwards job demand notes, placed by agents, without investigating the employer in Malaysia and the facilities ready for the recruited workers.
   ‘How does a [Bangladeshi] recruiting agent get the necessary authentication of the proposed job visas from the Bangladesh high commission when the jobs and facilities are not ready or do not exist?’ asked Mustafa.
   Malaysia, with around 4,00,000 Bangladeshis employed there, is one of the top five destinations of Bangladeshi migrant workers, and each aspirant spends around $3,000 for a promised job in the country.
   Cheating of workers by employment agents in Bangladesh and Malaysia has been rampant for years and has forced the Malaysian government to ban the import of Bangladeshi workers several times.
   The Bangladesh government has so far failed either to take stern action against the criminal agents or to begin strict monitoring of the recruitment process.
   Bangladeshi migrant workers have remitted $8 billion in the past financial year that ended in June.

At least 40 people were killed for a second straight day in the Sri Lankan military’s push into rebel Tamil Tiger territory, the military said on Friday, a day after a failed suicide attack targeting a minister.
   Air force jets also kept up relentless strikes on Liberation Tiger of Tamil Eelam targets, part of a concentrated seek-and-destroy strategy to gradually regain rebel-held ground while wiping out as many guerrillas as possible.
   The battle is now concentrated around Kilinochchi, the Tigers’ headquarter town 330 km north of the capital, Colombo. It is a strategic and symbolic prize for president Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government.
   ‘Jets attacked an LTTE senior leader’s hideout, a command centre and a Black Tiger camp in Kilinochchi this morning,’ air force spokesman Wing Commander Janaka Nanayakkara said. The Black Tigers are the LTTE’s elite unit, groomed for suicide missions.
   The Tigers later said that the jets had targeted civilians.
   ‘Two civilians including a schoolteacher were killed and seven more wounded in an air strike this morning,’ the LTTE said in an e-mailed statement.
   A later raid hit rebels gathered near the north-western port of Nachikkudah, another frontline area, the air force said.
   The LTTE says it is fighting to create a separate homeland for Sri Lanka’s minority Tamils, who have complained of marginalisation by successive governments led by the Sinhalese majority since independence from Britain in 1948.
   Fighting on Thursday killed 39 Tigers and wounded 21, while two soldiers were killed and 12 were wounded, the military said. The tolls are all but impossible to verify, with both sides engaging in regular distortions for propaganda purposes. The war zone is also closed to most journalists.

China has stepped up scrutiny of milk production, tightening dairy controls and threatened to ‘out’ offenders amid a widening health scandal, state media said on Friday.
   At least four Chinese infants have died and thousands have been treated in hospital after drinking toxic milk and milk formula that has led to Chinese-made products being pulled off shelves around the world.
   The formula was laced with the chemical melamine to cheat nutrition tests, the latest in a long line of Chinese food and product safety scandals involving items as diverse as fish, drugs, toys, toothpaste, tires and petfood.
   ‘The regulations tighten control of how milk-yielding animals are bred, how raw milk is purchased and the production and sales of dairy food,’ Xinhua news agency said.
   ‘There will also be more severe punishment for people who violate safety standards and quality control departments that fail to fulfil duties ... Law-breaking producers will be blacklisted and outed publicly.’
   Several local officials have already been sacked and 27 people have been arrested. More than 20 milk companies have already been named as offenders.
   ‘Any non-food chemicals or hazardous substances are prohibited from being added into raw milk in its production, purchase, storage, transport and sale,’ Xinhua said, citing the regulations issued on Thursday by the State Council.
   But the health ministry on Wednesday released new dairy standards and safety limits for melamine — one milligram of melamine per kilogram for infant formula and 2.5 mg per kg for milk, milk powder and food products containing at least 15 per cent milk.
   The US Food and Drug Administration said earlier this month that no amount of melamine was safe in baby formula.

Riding the crest of the longest defence buildup in its history, the US military is heading into a funding crunch that will force wrenching change no matter who is elected president in November, analysts say.
   Doubts about how the military will meet a range of challenges — from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to preparing for different kinds of conflicts in the future — have intensified with the upheaval on Wall Street.
   Even before the world financial crisis, though, the defence department was bracing for shrinking budgets as the war in Iraq winds down and competing claims on the federal budget swell, analysts say.
   ‘The DoD (department of defence) is no longer going to have the luxury of not having to make choices,’ said Travis Sharp, an analyst with the Centre for Arms Control Policy.
   ‘They are going to have to start making some real decisions about what are the core missions for the United States military and the world, where are American interests fundamentally threatened, where do we need to be operating,’ he said.
   How the new administration and the Pentagon handle those pressures are certain to be closely watched by US allies as well as potential adversaries.
   A key question for them will be whether the US military can continue to play the same post-Second World War role as a guarantor of international security. And if not, how should they respond?
   The theme of scaled down expectations has surfaced in speeches by senior defence officials in recent weeks.
   US defence secretary Robert Gates warned Europeans last month in a speech in England that they had gone too far in demilitarising, suggesting that they needed to assume greater responsibility for NATO defences.
   In the United States, he has warned Americans about the limits of US military power, and argued for more effective use of diplomacy and other non-military tools.
   ‘Be modest about what military force can accomplish, and what technology can accomplish,’ Gates told rising officers in a recent speech to the National Defence University.
   Gates said growth in US military spending is ‘probably a thing of the past’ and the Pentagon will be fortunate if it keeps pace with inflation.
   In real terms, the 612 billion dollar defence authorisation signed last month by president George W Bush is the largest since the Second World War and, analysts say, probably the high water mark of a seven year buildup, the longest ever.
   It includes 487.7 billion dollars for the base defence budget, more than 54 billion dollars for national security programmes in the department of energy, and 70 billion dollars as a down payment on war costs that could ultimately total 170 billion dollars for the year.
   ‘The military’s daily task list is not getting shorter,’ wrote RAND analysts Bruce Held and James Quinlivan in a recent paper.
   ‘But it is unreasonable to expect that the military can do more with less, so the question will become: What things should no longer be done?’
   That debate is already underway within the military, which is struggling to strike a balance between the demands of counter-insurgency warfare in places like Iraq and Afghanistan and the need to prepare for high-intensity conventional warfare as a hedge against rising powers like China.
   The defence department is in the process of expanding its ground forces by nearly 100,000 troops at a huge expense to ease strains on the force.
   The Air Force and Navy meanwhile have cut back their troop strength to preserve funding for costly new aircraft and warships.
   ‘I’m not sure at this point that we can really predict who is going to win this intellectual battle that is going on right now in the Pentagon. But it certainly is a battle,’ said Sharp.
   ‘On one side are the counter-insurgents, the Petraeus school, the Gates school, these people who really want to increase the size of the ground forces and want the United States to focus on stabilisation, reconstruction.’
   ‘On the other side you’ve got ... the people who think all this counter-insurgency stuff is great but really we need to be prepared for the next big one,’ he said, referring to possible future conflict with China or Russia.

The University of Rajshahi and the Rajshahi Medical College will reopen tomorrow. The university residence halls and the college hostel reopen today.
   The university remained closed for about a month and a half over clashes between the students and local residents at Binodpur and the college remained closed for a month over clashes between student groups.
   Sources in the university campus said security measures on the university campus had been tightened to ward off further trouble.
   The authorities closed the university on August 20 for an indefinite period over clashes between students and traders of Binodpur on August 19. Sixty were injured in the clashes.
   The authorities suspended all the classes and examinations and asked the students to vacate the residence halls.
   Three cases were filed against the students and the local traders of Binodpur with the Motihar police in this connection.
   Motihar police subinspector Masud Pervez filed a case against 400 to 500 unnamed students and local residents of Binodpur for creating obstacles to government works and attacking the lawmen.
   Hanif Paribahan manager Mahbubul Alam Kanak filed a case with the same police station against 400 to 500 unnamed students.
   Another case was filed by the university registrar, Mohammed Shafi, against 400 to 500 unnamed local residents of Binodpur as they vandalised the university property.
   The Rajshahi Medical College was closed over clashes between the activists of the Awami League student front Chhatra League and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party student wing Chhatra Dal at Shaheed Shah Mainul Ahsan Pinku Hostel on September 11.

The Jamaat-e-Islami has said it will apply for registration with the Election Commission, tentatively by October 15.
   The party is likely to amend its constitution if required for fulfilling the criteria set by the EC for registration, according to party leaders.
   ‘There is a move to keep us out of election. But we will not let anyone do so on technical ground…’, Jamaat amir Matiur Rahman Nizami reportedly said Thursday.
   Asked if the party would amend its constitution for registration, he said, ‘We have amended our constitution several times before, and will do so again if needed.’
   Jamaat sources said the party would consult with its ally BNP, which is expected to attend a formal dialogue with the interim government, before applying for registration.
   The BNP will make a decision on the issue of registration with the Election Commission after holding dialogues with the government and its allies, expected later this week.
   The BNP on Friday asked the Election Commission to extend the deadline for registration of the parties.

The postponed examinations of Masters classes of drama and dramatics department of Jahangirnagar University will begin from October 30, a JU news release said.
   As per schedule, the examinations of drama criticism and research method will be held on October 30, history of drama writing and drama direction in different media on November 3, drama writing strategy on November 6, history of acting arts on November 9, acting strategy and method on November 12 and history of drama direction on November 15.

The South Korean authorities are expected to employ 5,100 more Bangladeshis to be selected from the overseas job seekers who have already appeared in the second Korean language test.
   As many as 14,812 Bangladeshi job seekers appeared in the test held in 14 centres in Dhaka on Friday, a foreign office news release said.
   Earlier, 1,465 job offers were received from South Korea with 5,400 having been examined. Of them, 858 workers have already left for Korea and another 168 are expected to depart by the end of this month, it said.
   Foreign adviser Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury, also in-charge of the eExpatriates’ welfare and overseas employment, ministry, expressed his satisfaction over such developments.
   ‘During my visit there last year, Korea expressed interest in recruiting more Bangladeshis. It is now developing into a serious market,’ he said.

Villagers on Friday burnt and loot five houses of two local leaders of BNP in Patkelghata upazila of Satkhira as a sequel to Wednesday’s killing of a local union parishad chairman.
   The houses that came under the arson attack belong to Dhandia union Juba Dal president Ruhul Quddus and BNP leader Abdul Malek Lalu, also a member of Dhandia.
   Robbers killed Dhandia UP chairman Arifuzzaman Chanchal, after looting his residence early Wednesday and the police arrested four persons - Shawkat, Humayun, Rabiul and Jobeda — in connection with the killing.
   As Shawkat and Jobeda gave confessional statements before the court on Thursday, rumour spread that Ruhul and Lalu had masterminded the killing, the police and locals said.
   More than 100 people of different villages under the union attacked the house of Lalu at Senergati at around 6:30am and reportedly looted valuables before setting fire to it. The inmates managed to flee.
   The police rushed to the spot, about 10 kilometres off the upazila headquarters and they informed fire brigade, but the mob did not allow fire fighting vehicles to enter the village.
   In another incident, four houses of Ruhul’s family at Krishnakathi came under attack at about 10:00am. The attackers looted and set ablaze the houses, the police and locals said. The attackers also took away 10 cattle heads.
   The superintendent of police, Abu Sufian, who visited the spots, said some vested interest groups might have influenced people against Ruhul and Lalu using people’s emotion against the killers of the popular chairman.

Former BNP secretary general Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan has said he would run general elections for the sake of the people of his home constituency Shibpur in Narsingdi.
   ‘I am a son of Narsingdi. I was always by their side in their good and bad times and will remain so in future. I will contest the next election for their sake,’ he said, flanked by leaders of the Narsingdi BNP and front organisations. The remarks set to rest speculations that he was retiring from politics.
   People of different wards of Shibpur and Sadar Char unions exchanged Eid greetings with him.
   Bhuiyan, expelled by BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia before her arrest on September 3, 2007, did not say whether he would run for the BNP or independently.
   He maintained silence since the expulsion.