The New Nation - Internet Edition

Staff Reporter

Speakers at a seminar in Dhaka yesterday called for a national policy to provide housing to the poor section people through collaborative efforts of the government, private developers and banks.

They said that the housing sector now contributes about 12 per cent to the gross domestic product (GDP). Its contribution could be about 25 per cent of the GDP and the national economy could also benefit immensely because the construction sector involved the production and use of as many as 200 items through backward linkage, they said.

The seminar was organised by 'Gharbari', a magazine in collaboration with the Real Estate and Housing Association of Bangladesh, several of its member organisations and the Islami Bank Bangladesh Ltd at the National Press Club.

Presided over by Alamgir Mohiuddin, Editor, the Naya Diganta, the seminar was moderated by 'Gharbari' Chief Editor, Ershad Majumder and addressed by Abdul Qayyum, Chairman, National Housing Authority, Tanvirul Huq Prodhan, general secretary, REHAB, Habibur Rahman of Islami Bank Bangladesh, Fazal M Kamal, senior journalist, Mostafa Kamal Majumder, Editor, The New Nation, Fazlul Bari, of the Daily Inqilab and Rafiq Hasan of the Daily Star among others.

The speakers felt that the market of houses of the affluent section of the society has already saturated and the housing sector should now expand to district towns, other growth centres and grow vertically instead of horizontally keeping in view the acute scarcity of land in the country.

They said that poor people were content with 250 square-feet housing units for each family and can afford to buy such units provided there are institutional credit facilities without collateral available to help them repay loans in 20 to 25 years.

Rehab members said that the government should come forward by donating land or making land available at cheap prices to build houses for low-income group people. Rehab members could help the process by cutting drastically slashing profit margin. The banks should offer mortgage loans against such housing units each costing around Taka three lakh.

In this context the speakers lauded the earmarking of Taka 300 crore by the Bangladesh Bank for extension as housing loans. But this would benefit only affluent people. Something is needed to be done for the poor section of the people, they added.

Ershad Majumder announced the introduction of some awards for quality reporting on the housing situation in Bangladesh.

UNB, Khulna

Some 30,000 people have become jobless as so far 23 big salt industries closed down in Khulna district reportedly for shortage of funds and reluctance on part of authorities concerned. The hapless people were involved directly or indirectly with those salt-refining industries. The salt factories in the coastal district are the largest in terms of production capacity and they play a major role in fulfilling demand for refined salt of different industries in the country.

Main users of salt are leather, detergent, soap, oral saline, pharmaceutical, dye chemical and textile industries. Apart from feeding those industries, the salt industries are also major contributor to the nation's programme for removing malnutrition. A total of 35 big salt iodizing industries are situated in Khulna. They used to fulfill country's 70 percent iodized salt requirement, according to the Khulna Salt Industry Owners' Association (KSIOA). When contacted, KSIOA president and vice-president of Bangladesh Salt Mill Owners Association Sheik Mahbubul Haque Peter said out of the 35, seven industries are in full production. The units are Rajapur Salt Industries, Padma Salt Industry, Madhumati Salt Industry, Purabi Salt Industry, Titas Salt Industry and Teesta Salt Industry.

The rest of the industries, including Sundarban Salt Industries, Meghna Salt Industry, Gaffar Food Products Ltd and Ramna Salt Industry, could go bust soon unless they get attention from the authorities and adequate finance, he said.

BSS, Dhaka

Foreign Secretary Touhid Hossain has called upon the developed countries to provide duty-free and quota-free market access for all products to all Least Developed Countries (LDCs) without any restrictions.

He said this while making a statement on Friday on behalf of the 50 LDCs at the debate of the Economic and Financial Committee of the United Nations General Assembly on international trade and development in New York, according to a message received here yesterday. Touhid added that LDCs were increasingly marginalized in the North-South trade as well as in the South-South trade. He urged the developing countries to open their markets for LDCs to reduce the existing trade gaps. The foreign secretary expressed his concern that despite significant efforts, the share of the 50 least developed countries in the global merchandise trade has reached only to 0.83 percent in 2006.

He reminded that export share of the LDCs was 2.5 percent in 1960. He said that the current trading system was not in favour of the LDCs. "This is, apart from other reasons, because of a wide array of harmful subsidies, non-tariff restriction, fluctuation in the terms of trade, artificial standards imposed by industrialized countries," he added.

Touhid also underscored the importance of reversing these restrictions.

The foreign secretary said that service sector had huge potentials in the international trade, but the least developed countries could not reap the benefits. He called upon the developed countries to liberalize their markets for all categories of service providers of the LDCs, in particular under mode 4 of GATS.

Staff Reporter

Under the supervision and leadership of the Advancing Public Interest Trust (APIT), 15 non-governmental development organisations at a press briefing in the city warned that after passing more than half-way of the time span of the government's secondary Primary Education Development Programme (PEDP-II), the reality is somewhat shocking. "If the present situation continues, the target to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is not at all possible by 2015," they said.

The drop out rate has increased to 47 per cent in 2006 from the base of 33 per cent in 2002. Still the survival rate is 52.9 per cent, coefficient efficiency was 61.8 per cent, transition rate of primary to secondary education declined from 92.4 per cent in 2003 from 83.3 in 2004, they added.

Based on grassroots review jointly organised by the 15 development organisations working in the area of primary education, some micro-level findings were presented in the briefing on 'Grassroots Review on PEDP-II Implementation' held at Dhaka Reporters Unity auditorium yesterday.

Speakers criticised the PEDP's dependence on the foreign consultants on whom US $16.6 million is to be spent.

They emphasised on incorporating Bangladeshi expertise in this regard.

They pointed out that the quality education outcome of learners is not measured yet. Primary school quality level and key performance indicators have missed this. They urged the government for involving civil society and multi-stakeholders in the processes like planning the Mid Term Review (MTR), framing the terms of reference and it's endorsing.

Sabbir Bin Shams, Executive Director of APIT, Jibon Dey Shyamal, Coordinator of Advocacy for Quality Primary Education of Sabalamby Unnayan Samity (SUS), Mohammad Rayhan Sharif, Policy Analyst and Maliha Shahjahan, Director, Research and Policy Audit of APIT, among others, spoke, while Rezaul Karim Chowdhury, Executive Director of COAST, moderated the briefing.

In the context, speakers put forward an open appeal to the PEDP-II, implementing agencies for the sake of free, high quality and relevant education for all children in the country based on the needs and experiences of the children, their families and communities.

Speakers underscored the need for learners' perspective that should be reflected more in the PEDP-II planning, review mechanism and implementation processes.

Advancing Public Interest Trust (APIT), AOSED, BACE, Bottola Foundation, Coastal Association for Social Transformation Trust (COAST), Esho Desh Gori, The Innovators, Interaction, National Forum of Organisations Working with Disabled (NFOWD), NRDS, Other Vision Communication (OVC), SUS, Solidarity Uttaran, Wave Foundation and Zabarang Kalyan Samity jointly organised the briefing.

Staff Reporter

Different political parties yesterday strongly demanded of the caretaker government to try the leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh for their role during the War of Liberation in 1971.

Awami League presidium member Suranjit Sen Gupta called upon the government to try the anti-independence elements and war criminals according to the War Criminal Act 1972.

He also urged the government to put the lists of the names of Razakars, Al-Badars and Al-Shams at National Mausoleum at Savar.

Talking to reporters at his residence in the city yesterday, Suranjit Sen Gupta said the Election Commission and the caretaker government were carrying on reforms in different sectors. In this context, the government might impose a ban on the participation of anti-independence elements and war criminals in the elections.

"Newspapers of that time can be used as evidence to prove who were the war criminals during the War of Liberation of 1971, and collecting information and photographs from the newspapers can be put at the National Mausoleum," he said. He said it is the right time to stop the politics of anti-independence elements and war criminals forever. After holding a dialogue with the Chief Election Commissioner and Election Commissioners at the EC Secretariat on Thursday, Jamaat secretary general Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid told reporters that there was no existence of war criminals and anti-independence elements in the country. "Even there was no war criminals in the past," he said and added that Jamaat leaders were not 'war criminals.'

Mujahid's comments triggered the demand for trials of war criminals and anti-independence elements.

Workers Party president Rashed Khan Menon termed Mujahid's remarks as 'a conspiracy like that of 1971.'

Speaking at a condolence meeting of slain Jubo Moitree leader Abdul Alim Khan at the city's East Badda yesterday morning, Menon alleged that Jamaat-Shibir cadres were behind the killing of Abdul Alim Khan.

Demanding the stern action against Jamaat-e-Islami, he said Jamaat killed the country's intellectuals in 1971. "Jamaat's Ameer Maulana Motiur Rahman Nizami and secretary general Ali Ahsan Mohamamd Mujahid were directly involved in the killing of the intellectuals," he said.

Meanwhile, Jatiya Party (JP) Acting Chairman Barrister Anisul Islam Mahmud yesterday said everyone knows what was the role of Jamaat-e-Islami during the Liberation War in 1971.

"They opposed our independence and killed our intellectuals. It is the universal fact of history. They can be tried according to the existing laws of the country. Since Jamaat-e-Islami leaders are war criminals, Jatiya Party would not accept their participation in the coming general elections in any way," he said.

BNP leader and Sector Commander during the War of Liberation in 1971 Lt Gen (Retd) Mir Shawkat Ali said the war criminals could easily be tried according to the existing laws of the country.

He said the war criminals are now saying that there was no war criminals in the past. "Perhaps, one day they will say there is no independence, there was no war of liberation, and there was no history of the War of Liberation," he said.

"Evidences against the war criminals are available in every village of Bangladesh. Let December 16 to come and you may witness a process of trial of the war criminals of 1971 starts," he said.

Noted lawyer Dr Zahir said the war criminals could be tried through setting up a commission. "The present government can constitute a commission to try the war criminals," he suggested.

Meanwhile, American News Agency (ANA) from New York reports: A rally of freedom fighters and expatriate Bangladeshis will be held at Bangla Garden at Astoria in New York City on November 11 demanding the trials of the killers of 1971. Swadhinata Chetona Muncha has declared the programme in protest against the remarks of Jamaat secretary general Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid.

Swadhinata Chetona Muncha president Engr Khondaker Gias Uddin and secretary Helal Mahmud in a joint statement said it was the appropriate time to try the killers of 1971. "Only the caretaker government can materialize the dreams of people by trying the war criminals as it has been working for establishing the rule of law in Bangladesh," they said.

BSS, Dhaka

Chief Election Commissioner Dr ATM Shamsul Huda yesterday sought cooperation of Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) ward commissioners in the preparation of voter lists with photographs and national identity cards (NICs) in the metropolis.

The CEC made the appeal during an exchange of opinion meeting at Nagar Bhaban auditorium in the city with DDC Mayor Sadeque Hossain Khoka in the chair.

Election Commissioners Mohammed Sohul Hossain and Brig (retd) M Shakhawat Hossain, Army Headquarters Military Secretary Maj Gen Shafiqul Islam and Election Commission Secretary Mohammad Humayun Kabir were present in the meeting.

The meeting was told that the number of voters in 90 wards of the DCC is 36,36,092 as per the previous list. Of them, 21,28,380 are men and 15,7,712 women. A total of 15,855 officers and employees will be working in the DCC area for preparing voter lists with photographs. In the DCC area, the enumerators will go from door to door to collect information and fill up form No. 2 from November 21 to 28.

BSS, Dhaka

The country's film industry seems to have started regaining a healthy scenario as the authorities launched a tough campaign to stamp out obscenity, a menace that dominated the arena for over one decade.

After years of strong campaign against gangsters and militants, elite anti-crime Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) of late has been tasked with an extra assignment to carryout the cleansing drive raiding production houses and movie halls as scrapping of censor certificates alone appeared "not enough" in over the past years.

RAB officials said they seized tonnes of posters and reels of vulgar movies in the past one week as the authorities in emergency-ruled Bangladesh earlier this month ordered the campaign mandating them with all out authorities to fight obscenity and video piracy. "We will create a healthy environment in the movie industry so that good films can stage a comeback," Information Secretary Didarul Anwar, who is also the chairman of the Film Censor Board, told BSS.

Staff Reporter

Leaders of Bangladesh Association of Pharmaceuticals Industry (BAPI) at a discussion in the city said there are no substandard ingredients in the Ceftriaxone antibiotic injection.

Ceftriaxone injection is manufactured and controlled by the USP Pharmacopoeia and approved by the Drugs Administration Department. According to the USP, there is no level of impurity in the raw materials or in the finished Ceftriaxone. So there is no harmful chemical used in manufacturing the antibiotic injection. As a result, there is no reason for non-acceptance of the antibiotic injection available in the market, they said.

They protested the news of harmful Ceftriaxone injections marketed by 17 pharmaceutical companies in the country. The discussion on 'Current situation on Pharmaceu-ticals' was organised by BAPI at its office in the city yesterday.

President of BAPI SM Shafiuzzaman, Secretary General Nazmul Hassan, advisers Samson H Chowdhury and Dr Momenul Haq, members of the executive committee Harunur Rashid, Md Halimuzzaman and Syed S Kaisar Kabir, among others, were present at the meeting.

It is mentioned that recently in the market, the price of the injection ranged between Tk 60 and Tk 320 for one gm, 500 mg and 250 mg Ceftriaxone antibiotic injections. The important antibiotic injections were being sold by different pharmaceutical companies at various rates.

Anne-Marie Slaughter

Here we go again. That is my numbed but no longer disbelieving reaction to reports that even after Abu Ghraib and the official rejection of the "torture memo" penned by John Yoo that authorised any kind of force as long as it did not cause death or major organ failure, the Bush administration turned around and secretly authorised CIA interrogations using head-slapping, exposure to cold and water-boarding, even when used in combination.

And here come the semantics from a president who once prided himself on plain talk - "This government does not torture." No, because head-slapping, exposure to cold and convincing suspects that they are about to drown in a technique that even America's strongest soldiers cannot withstand for more than two minutes does not, in his view, constitute torture. Indeed, truly incredibly, according to one of the newly leaked opinions, these techniques do not even constitute "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment."

Solzhenitsyn's reports of the Soviet gulag in the 1970s did not feature the horrifically creative torture techniques practiced in places like Argentina and Chile during the dirty war. Most of what he talked about was being beaten and exposed to the frigid temperatures of Siberia. In those days we Americans did not dance around trying to decide whether such treatment constituted torture. We just knew it was wrong. And as has often been reported, many of the techniques our CIA agents are using now come from the ways we condition our soldiers to resist torture by lawless enemies if they are captured. We now seem to have no trouble accepting the moral equivalence of what they do to us and what we do to them.

We've had these debates before. The difference this time, supposedly, is that we are not asking our soldiers to implement these "interrogation practices," but rather experienced CIA interrogators, who willingly signed up for the job and have a proven track record of extracting information. This is the world of shadowy terrorist networks and equally shadowy intelligence networks; normal rules don't apply.

Back in the 1960s, we used to provide CIA officers with a free pass for attempted assassinations of rulers we didn't like, until the American people recoiled and ventures like the effort to blow up Fidel Castro via his cigar made us a laughing stock.

The CIA represents America just as much as any other arm of government. Indeed, individual CIA officers are determined not to do anything that is not explicitly legally authorised, which is precisely why the administration has had to issue official legal opinions specifying that techniques like waterboarding are permissible in the first place.

Enough. In the spring of 2004, I wrote on this page of my anguish traveling through airports with the pictures of Abu Ghraib staring out at me from every newstand, showing the blue passport of which I have always been proud and knowing that the customs official, the immigration officer, even the airline clerk was connecting that passport with torture.

Three years later, after men like Senator John McCain, a former prisoner of war, led the fight against these techniques, joined by scores of former generals and admirals, indeed after Congress finally banned them for military interrogations, we are still engaging in them. The only difference is that we don't have pictures of prisoners being nearly drowned, slapped around or sitting naked in icy cells. Such pictures would be less dramatic than the twisted escapades of Abu Ghraib, but even more shameful, because they would represent the official policy of America as a nation.

I can argue why ruling out torture and humiliating and degrading treatment is strongly in American interests, how interrogation of this sort rarely works. I can explain how the damage it does to us in the world far outweighs any specific information that we get. Indeed, even if we get information that actually succeeds in stopping a particular attack today, we are breeding legions of new terrorists tomorrow. I can also point out how seriously we endanger our own soldiers when they are captured abroad. I can talk about how fundamentally we degrade ourselves, beginning with the men and women ordered to carry out such treatment and ending with our very identity as a nation. As President Theodore Roosevelt said in his 1906 State of the Union address, "No man can take part in the torture of a human being without having his own moral nature permanently lowered."

I can make those arguments. I believe them. But what I really want is an America that will simply stand up and say, as President George W. Bush did when he saw the Abu Ghraib photographs, that this is not who we are. It is time for a president who means it.