The New Nation - Internet Edition

UNB, Dhaka

President Professor Dr Iajuddin Ahmed called upon the conscious sections of society to come forward to wage social movement in favour of cornea donation among the mass people for restoring sight of the blind.

"Eye professionals, community opinion leaders and people from all sections of society, including religious leaders, can play important roles in building mass awareness about corneal donation," he said.

The President was addressing the inaugural ceremony of an international Eye Bank Symposium as chief guest at Hotel Sheraton here Saturday.

Health Secretary AKM Zafarullah Khan attended the programme as special guest while President of the International Agencies for Prevention of Blindness (IAPB) Dr GN Rao presented the keynote. Present among others were Country Director of ORBIS International Dr Abu Raihan and General Secretary of Sandhani National Eye Donation Society Prof Abul Kalam Azad.

The President thanked ORBIS International for providing technical and financial support to local organizations and institutions in establishing eye-care facilities, which will play vital roles in reducing blindness in the country. He mentioned that although the ultimate treatment of corneal transplant may help in restoring vision in many corneal patients, it is more important to prevent corneal diseases that lead to blindness. "I think the organizers would consider these aspects of blindness prevention as well," he said.

The President termed the Eye Bank a strong social movement and said, "Accordingly, people at all levels can play an important role in establishing and running eye bank, too".

He expressed his satisfaction as Sandhani National Eye Donation Society has established a modern and high- standard eye bank in the country with the support from ORBIS International. He hoped that this experience and success would inspire others to establish more eye banks in Bangladesh as well as in other countries. The President said access to eye-health information and education needs to be expanded for all in order to preserve and save sight for those who are suffering from avoidable blindness. Media, both electronic and print, can play very effective role in this regard. He also stressed the need for reduction of sight restoration by corneal transplant through taking appropriate measures that include public health education and early treatment of eye diseases and infection.

Staff Reporter

Computer accessories and office stationeries worth several crores of taka were gutted in a devastating fire at a commercial building at Motijheel, the city's business area yesterday morning. However, no casualty was reported till writing this report last night.

Witness said the fire erupted at about 9:30am on the second floor of the three-storied Aligarh House building at 144, Motijheel Commercial Area, adjacent to the BIWTA Bhaban, where a godown of Janata Bank was situated. Soon the blaze spread to the two nearby commercial buildings--Gaus-e-Pak Biponi Bitan and Saleha Bhaban. Witnessing their goods being gutted by the fire in front of their eyes, the shop owners became frustrated. People at the nearby buildings also became panic-stricken and started to shifting their belongings to safer places.

Receiving information, 11 units of firefighters, including from the headquarters, went to the spot after an hour and put out the blaze at about 12:30pm after about three hours of frantic efforts.

Besides, army and police took part in controlling the surrounding situation and rescuing the people.

Fire-brigade sources said six godowns of six commercial companies, including a storeroom for air-freshener, were situated at the second floor of the three-storied building. Members of the army of Sabujbagh, Paltan and Dhalpur army camps led by Major Mahbub took part in the rescue operations. The army also urged people not to be panic-stricken through microphones.

The shop owners of stationary goods at Aligarh Bhaban built up a godown on the second floor, comprising 2,500 sq ft area, where huge quantities of paper, computer accessories, fax machines and other stationary items were kept stockpiled. Goods of more than 30 shops, including Prime Enterprise, Kamal Enterprise, JSJ Enterprise, Siddique Enterprise, Jyoti Enterprise and M Rahman Enterprise were kept in the godown.

Fire brigade sources said the fire spread "rapidly in the entire floor due to presence of volatile chemicals" following the explosion of a number of canisters of air-freshener. "People in the area panicked as the air-freshener canisters blasted with a huge sound," said a Fire Brigade official.

Reasons behind the fire could not be ascertained immediately. The fire fighters who were engaged in dousing the blaze said there was no fire-extinguishing system at any of the buildings which were affected by the fire. Even, there was no emergency landing ladders on any floor of the affected buildings.

The affected shop owners claimed that valuables worth over Tk 5 crore were gutted in the fire.

Mark Weisbrot

Finance ministers, bankers and businessmen are gathering in Washington this week for the annual fall meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. As is customary, the IMF is presenting its analysis of the world economy, and this year it is releasing some research that is sure to cause controversy and provide fuel for its critics.

Specifically, the IMF has found that foreign investment and technology (but not trade) are associated with an increase in inequality in developing countries.

There is much less here than meets the eye. What the Fund has missed - and has pretended not to notice for the last quarter century - is a much more profound change in the world economy that has accompanied the set of economic reforms, including globalization, that the Fund has forcefully advocated.

Over the past 26 years there has been a sharp slowdown in the growth of income per person in the vast majority of low- and middle-income countries.

As would be expected when growth rates fall off, these countries have also seen substantially reduced progress on major social indicators, including life expectancy and infant and child mortality.

The Fund is taking advantage of the generalized lack of knowledge of economics and economic trends in its audience. Although the distribution of income gains is an important determinant of economic and social well-being, if income does not grow, then there is nothing to distribute.

In a country as rich as the United States, one could argue about how much we might reduce poverty and unemployment, and improve the quality of life through redistribution and policy changes such as universal health care.

But for the poorest countries, increasing productivity is a matter of survival, and for developing countries it is a necessity if they are going to be able to provide education and health care to their citizens. Especially in these days, as countering global climate disruption takes its rightful place as an urgent priority, economic growth is often seen as a problem rather than a solution.

But increasing productivity - and that is basically what we are talking about when economists refer to growth in income or GDP per person - is not inherently environmentally destructive.

The Internet, for example, has increased productivity while expanding the potential for environmentally-positive outcomes through telecommuting and reduced paper usage. At a more basic level, technical, organizational and distributional changes - including land reform and the provision of credit and seeds - that allow poor farmers to produce more food per acre and per labor hour are also not necessarily environmentally destructive.

Growth is also what the IMF and its affiliated institutions have promised their policies would deliver - not redistribution. All the pain and "creative destruction" associated with privatizations, indiscriminate opening to trade and capital flows, more restrictive monetary and fiscal policies and other generally unpopular reforms were supposed to increase economic growth.

But the typical country in the middle quintile of the world income distribution (per capita income only $2364-$4031 in 2000 dollars) in 1960 could expect its income per person to increase by 67 percent in two decades. A similarly situated country in 1980 could expect an increase of only 22 percent over the same time period. This growth collapse has had a vastly greater effect on most people in the countries affected than any measurable impact of globalization on inequality.

There are a handful of countries that actually did grow faster in the post-1980 era of globalization. But these countries - China, India, Vietnam - did not follow the policies prescribed by the IMF.

Fortunately, most countries have voted with their feet and have paid off the IMF, thus avoiding having to take its advice. The Fund's loan portfolio has shrunk from $105 billion in 2003 to just $17 billion today, with most of this owed by Turkey and Pakistan.

This has freed most middle-income countries, but the poorest countries remain under the tutelage of the Fund and its allied institutions. These countries, too, will have to become more independent if they are to reach their development potential.

AFP, Yangon

Military-run Myanmar was under renewed pressure Saturday after the United States announced a new round of sanctions following the junta's bloody crackdown on dissent here.

The new penalties targeted the country's military leaders Friday and US President George W. Bush also urged China and India, Myanmar's neighbours and main allies, to step up pressure on the military government.

It is the second time in four weeks that Washington, a vocal critic of the junta, has increased sanctions on Myanmar following its clampdown on protests, which killed at least 13 people and jailed about 3,000. State media in Yangon has yet to speak about the latest US action, while detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi's opposition party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), also declined to comment.

However, a Yangon-based diplomat voiced scepticism over the impact of the latest sanctions designed to pressure the junta into ending its repression of pro-democracy activists. "The junta leaders may feel nervous because the United States was stepping up pressure very quickly," said the diplomat, who declined to be named.

"But the impact of the latest US sanctions is limited at best. I don't think Myanmar's top leaders still hold vast assets in the United States," he said. Apart from the asset freeze, the United States blacklisted seven companies and five individuals allegedly linked to those companies and the regime. The seven firms included Myanmar's privately owned Air Bagan, which recently launched daily flights to Singapore, the airline's second international destination after Thailand.

The military government has been under international pressure since it violently put down peaceful protests, led by Buddhist monks, in Yangon in September.

In the wake of the violence, the United States ordered a freeze on the assets of 14 top officials including Myanmar's junta leader General Than Shwe.

Staff Reporter

Interest within Bangladesh's industrial sector for GE Energy's Jenbacher gas engines continues to grow as more companies are seeking to install on-site power systems to meet production targets, lower operational costs and improve their competitive positions in a rapidly changing global economy, says a press release.

Textile companies Parity Fashion, R.K. Spinning and the Sinha Group, and the food and beverage division of the Akij Group, have ordered a combined total of about 30 of GE's natural gas-fuelled Jenbacher gas engine systems for on-site cogeneration or electricity production. Overall, GE Energy currently has an installed base of about 100 Jenbacher engines in Bangladesh, producing a total of more than 100 megawatts (MW) of power.

GE's Jenbacher gas engines solutions are an increasingly attractive option in Bangladesh, given the lack of reliable, cost-effective service from the public grid, combined with the low cost and abundant supply of natural gas in the region.

GE supplied the Jenbacher units to these customers, with prompt and efficient customer service assured by GE's local authorised distributor for Jenbacher gas engines, Orient Energy Systems. "These projects in Bangladesh demonstrate the reliability and flexibility of GE's Jenbacher gas engine technology to address a broad array of industrial requirements," said Prady Iyyanki, CEO of GE Energy's Jenbacher gas engine business.

"We are pleased to support the efforts of our customers to expand economic development in their communities while they become more competitive within the global export business."

Staff Reporter

The rate of abortion has increased in some areas of the country though the abortion related maternal deaths have decreased.

A report of ICDDR,B revealed this recently after collecting data from Matlab upazila of Chandpur and Mirersarai upazila of Chittagong to explore abortion ratios and total abortion rates among married women from 1982 to 2004.

The report also said that while the abortion ratio among married women in Mirersarai has remained fairly constant since the middle of 1990, at just below 60 per 1,000 live births, the ratio in Abhoynagar has approximately doubled during the period from close to 40 per 1,000 live births to over 100 abortions against the same number.

In both the ICDDR,B and government service areas of Matlab ratios among married women have also increased but in the government area, the increase has been fairly steady since the 1980s, whereas in the ICDDR,B area the increase took place mainly after 1998.

Meanwhile, in one hand, over time, ratios have been consistently higher in the government area. On the other, the study said that during 1976 to 2005 in the ICDDR,B area substantial reduction took place in all causes of maternal deaths including abortion. Abortion related deaths consistently decreased from 99 to 12 per 100,000 pregnancies between 1976 and 2005 in the ICDDR,B area.

Besides, in the government area, abortion related deaths also decreased from a peak of 107 per 100,000 pregnancies between 1981 and 1985 to 24 per same pregnancies between 2001 and 2005. From 2001 to 2005, twice as many women died from abortion per 100,000 pregnancies in the government area as in the ICDDR,B area.

The proportion of maternal deaths attributable to abortion decreased from 24 per cent to 11 per cent in the ICDDR,B area from 1976 to 1985 and 1996 to 2005, the report said.

Meanwhile, the trend is not consistent in the government area, where 17 per cent of maternal deaths were attributable to abortion from 1976 to 1985, 22 per cent from 1986 to 1995 and 15 per cent from 1996 to 2006.

The most recent rates in both areas are comparable to rates from developing countries in Asia for 2000, which is 13 per cent, and lower than earlier reported rates in Bangladesh. It concluded that levels of Menstrual Regulation (MR) and abortion as measured using both abortion ratios and abortion rates, appear to be increasing, at least in some areas of the country. It means that a pregnancy will end in abortions or MRs and probability that a pregnancy will end in an abortion or MR are increasing.

The study stressed the need for providing all women with access to safe means to avoid unwanted pregnancy and unsafe abortion and also to ensure adequate treatment for women who have abortion complications.

UNB, Dhaka

Diarrhoea that broke out in an alarming proportion in Chapainawabganj and Kurigram districts claimed seven lives and affected around 2,000 people in last one week till Friday. Sources said in Chapainawabganj, five people died and 1500 were affected by the waterborne disease during the period. Diarrhoea that broke out in Sadar and Bholahat upazilas one month back has been spreading in other parts of the district. Sixty-four medical teams of Health Department are working there at present. Hospital sources said the doctors and nurses are facing problems to tackle the situation as a number of new diarrhoea-affected people are coming to the hospitals for treatment everyday.

While contacted the patients have expressed satisfaction over the hospital service as the authorities are supplying sufficient medicine to them.

Acting Civil Surgeon Dr Rabiul Islam said people of the district usually drink pond or river water due to arsenic in the tubewell water.

"But the pond and river water has become more contaminated due to the recent flood and that might be the reason behind the outbreak of the waterborne disease," he added.

In Kurigram, two people died and 500 affected by diarrhoea in the district, the sources said. The deceased were identified as Laily Begum, 35, of Digrir Char in Roumari upazila and Khadiza Begum, 18, of Pashchim Sukhati village in Nageshwar upazila.

Of the affected people, 71 admitted to different hospitals of the district, civil surgeon office sources said.

Besides, pneumonia has claimed life of one in the district during the period, the sources added.

UNB, Dhaka

Bangladesh and Laos on Saturday agreed to strengthen cooperation in trade, investment and tourism sectors. The broad-based agreement came at a meeting between visiting Laotian First Vice-Foreign Minister Phongsavath Boupa and Foreign Secretary Touhid Hossain at state guesthouse Padma.

This is the first high-level official contact between the two countries since the establishment of diplomatic ties in 1988. "We discussed how to develop our cooperation in trade, investment and tourism and increase people-to-people contact," Bouph told reporters. He said the two sides agreed in principle to ease the visa regime by offering on-arrival visa for officials and businessmen and exempt visa for holders of diplomatic passport.

Boupa hinted that Laotian businessmen might be interested in buying medicine from Bangladesh considering its quality and price as Laos imports medicines.

The bilateral trade between Bangladesh and Laos is very insignificant to be mentioned as both sides stressed the need for exchange of visits by the businessmen to explore cooperation in promising sectors. The two sides also discussed how to improve connectivity between Bangladesh and Laos, the only landlocked country in Southeast Asia with a six million population.

Habibullah Mizan

Former president Prof Dr Badruddoza Chowdhury is pursuing Gano Forum president Dr Kamal Hossain for his support to the proposal of a government of national consensus for the ten years after the next general election.

Prof B Chowdhury recently floated the idea at an Iftar party he hosted for the top politicians, diplomats and representatives of the civil society at Dhaka Sheraton Hotel. The proposal triggered mixed reactions in political circles, as BNP Secretary General Khondhakar Delwar Hossain and Awami League Acting President Zillur Rahman opposed the idea, while BNP reformist leader Mannan Bhuyian supported it.

Dr Kamal Hossain, who had a by-party contract with Bikalpadhara , did not join in the Iftar party as former president Hossain Mohammad Ershad attended it.

When contracted last night Bikalpadhara Organising Secretary Mahi B Chowdhury told The New Nation,'' Informal talks with Dr Kamal Hossain are going on.''

A joint meeting of Bikalpadhara, scheduled for September 22 at KC Memorial Clinic, will decide the issues to be discussed with Gano Forum president, he added.

It may be mentioned that the joint meeting of Bikalpadhara presidium members and advisers will coincide with a meeting of AL Central Working Committee on the same day. Bikalpadhara was a component of Al-led grand alliance before January 11 this year.

Chittagong Correspondent

Academic activities here at Chittagong University (CU) will reopen on October 24 after a long closure following a violent clash on the campus including Eid and Puja vacation.

Meanwhile, the university management has decided to open its all dormitories both male and female on Monday next.

The decision has come from an emergency meeting that held at the office of Vice Chancellor (VC) on the campus on Saturday morning. The VC of the university Professor M Badiul Alam presided over the meeting while syndicate members, members of law enforcing agencies, representatives of detective branches and Bangladesh Railway (eastern zone) attended in the meeting.

The meeting decided that none would be allowed to enter the respective dorms without any temporary pass.

Meanwhile, police will be allowed to search any dorm at anytime, if necessary, without prior notice, officials said.