The New Nation - Internet Edition

UNB, Dhaka

Chief Adviser Dr Fakhruddin Ahmed returned home this Monday morning after performing the holy hajj in Makkah.

On December 16, the Chief Advisor and Army Chief General Moeen U Ahmed left Dhaka for Jeddah en route Makkah to perform the hajj.

A regular flight of Biman Bangladesh Airlines carried the Chief Adviser and his entourage landed at the Zia International Airport at 10:40 am.

Law Adviser Barrister Mainul Hosein, Communications Adviser Maj Gen (Retd) MA Matin, Foreign Adviser Dr Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury, diplomats, the Quarter Master

General (QMG) of Army, Chiefs of Navy and Air Force and senior civil and military officials received the Chief Adviser at the VVIP tarmac of the airport.

After performing hajj, Dr Fakhruddin and his entourage went to Madinah to make ziarat at the holy Rawja Mubarak of Prophet Hazrat Mohammad (SM) and offered prayers at the Masjid-e-Nabbi.

On December 20, Chief Adviser Dr Fakhruddin exchanged greetings with Saudi King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz at a reception the King held for heads of state and government of different countries, ministers and eminent personalities who performed the hajj.

AFP, Bangkok

Business leaders voiced pessimism over the outcome of Thailand's first post-coup polls yesterday, saying it would not likely ease the political uncertainty that has plagued the economy for two years.

The People Power Party (PPP), which was overtaken by allies of deposed premier Thaksin Shinawatra, looked set to win 228 of the 480 parliamentary seats up for grabs, but fell short of a majority after Sunday's election.

Its main rival, the Democrat Party, was set to win 166 seats, with five minor parties sharing the rest. The PPP immediately began wooing potential coalition partners, but the Democrats refused to bow out and said they would set up a new government if PPP fails to.

Thai markets were closed Monday for a national holiday, but with the shape of a new government still uncertain, business leaders said they had little confidence that the country's lacklustre economy would pick up next year.

"We still have lots of political uncertainty after the election," said Pornsilp Patcharintanakul, deputy secretary- general of the Board of Trade, a major business body.

"The next coalition government will not be able to ease political uncertainty because its foundation is shaky. I believe that the new government will last no more than one year," Pornsilp said.

Thailand's economy is expected to grow by 4.5 percent this year, which ranks among the lowest in Southeast Asia, with business and consumer confidence plummeting to five-year lows due to prolonged political uncertainty.

When the military ousted Thaksin in a bloodless coup in September 2006 after months of protests against him, hopes were high that the army- backed government would lift the country from its political morass and set the economy humming. But the junta made a series of policy blunders, including tough capital controls, and has failed to restore business confidence at home and abroad over the past 15 months.

Adisak Rohitasune, vice chairman of the Federation of Thai Industries, the kingdom's largest business group, said he had little hope that the new elected government would do any better.

"Stability of a new coalition government is questionable. We don't know how well the new government can unite (a divided country) and push forward economic policies," Adisak said. Analysts have predicted the outcome of Sunday's election will be unlikely to resolve deep divisions between anti-Thaksin urban dwellers and the rural masses, who remain loyal to the deposed leader.

PPP drew most of its support from farmers, while the

Democrat Party was popular among Bangkok's middle-class, who spearheaded anti- Thaksin protests that culminated in the coup.

Supavud Saichua, a senior economist at Phatra Securities, said the economy would unlikely turn around after the election due to the country's polarised political landscape.

"It is difficult for investors to regain confidence after the election because politics will remain intense" with struggles between pro- and anti-Thaksin forces, Supavud said. Promon Suthiwong, a former executive of Thai conglomerate Siam Cement and chairman of the Board of Trade, said he saw no end to the country's political uncertainty.

"Nothing is clear at the moment in terms of who will be forming a new government. Politics has yet to stabilise due to lots of uncertainty," Promon said.

UNB, Dhaka

Elections to Rajshahi, Khulna, Sylhet and Barisal City Corporations will be held at the end of April next instead of March as the SSC examinations across the country have been advanced to March due to the recent cyclone, said Election Commissioner Brig Gen (retd) M Sakhawat Hussain on Monday.

He, however, told journalists that the Election Commission would request the government, when it deems necessary, to create an appropriate environment (lifting of emergency) for holding the local body elections.

Sakhawat said this when the reporters asked about Adviser Mainul Hosein's Sunday's remarks that the caretaker government would discuss lifting of state of emergency if the EC asks for it.

"We don't want to call it state of emergency… We'll request the government, whenever it'll be necessary, to create a suitable atmosphere for facilitating the local body elections," he said.

About the delay in holding the local body election he said, "We were always determined to hold city corporation elections in March (2008). But due to Sidr, the SSC examinations have been advanced to March, which will conclude on April 22. So, our schedule has also been delayed naturally," Sakhawat told the journalists.

He was briefing the newsmen after visiting voter-listing centres at Kakoli High School and Dhanmondi Govt Girls' High School in Dhanmondi.

Sakhawat said schools and schoolteachers are needed to set up polling stations and make polling officials. "So, the EC has planned to hold RCC, KCC, SCC and BCC elections in March 2008."

The tenures of Rajshahi and Khulna City Corporations already expired on June 16 and 26 this year respectively while that of Sylhet and Barisal would expired on May 5 and 9 next year respectively.

According to rules, City Corporation elections have to be held 180 days ahead of expiry of the tenure and if not held in time, the incumbent mayors and commissioners would perform the duties until the first meeting of the next corporation.

"Holding of Dhaka City Corporation election won't be possible in April. We'll hold it separately," Sakhawat said when asked if the EC would also hold the DCC election in April.

The tenure of DCC expired on May 14 this year, but the field- level task of its voter listing is still going on while the voter lists of RCC, KCC, SCC and BCC are almost at the final stage.

Meanwhile, 1.74 crore voters have been registered across the country as of December 19.

Sakhawat said there is no direct involvement of political parties in local body elections, "but in our country the practice is still on. "That's why we'll ask the government so that the parties can run their activities."

Staff Reporter

The number of abject poor rose by 35 per cent in five years despite over 400 non- governmental organisations (NGOs) are working for poverty reduction and their model has been imported by many countries of the world.

According to a survey conducted by Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), the number of abject poor in the country is 27 million in 2005, while the figure in the year 2000 was 20 million.

The latest survey also pointed out that the number of poor people in the country increased by about 3 million. The number of poor people in 2005 was around 94 million, while it was 91 million in the year 2000.

As the number of abject poor is on the rise, regional disparity rose as well. The survey said although poverty reduced in Chittagong and Sylhet districts, the situation aggravated in Barisal and Khulna regions.

Prof. Dr Mahbub Ali, an economist, said it is clear that the rise in number of abject poor meant disparity in income increased.

The economist considers immediate steps should be taken to eliminate the uncertainty of income of poor. He said the government should take programmes on maintaining minimum standard in life, otherwise Bangladesh will turn to be a nation of economic disparity, he added.

BSS, Rangpur

Prices of potato start falling following arrival of huge quantity of the newly harvested early variety of potato in the local markets everywhere in the 16 northern districts of the country, market sources said.

Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE) has fixed a target of producing 44,07,936 tonnes of potato from 2,49,600 hectares during the current Rabi season in the northern region where the crop is now growing well everywhere, officials said yesterday.

The farmers still continue sowing of the late variety of potato seeds at many places after harvesting their T-Aman paddy and more land is expected to bring under potato cultivation with a huge possibility of bumper production of the major crop this season.

DAE sources yesterday said that the farmers have already completed sowing potato seeds in almost every area and the process of sowing late variety potato seeds will continue by the end of the next month throughout the region.

Farmers are expected to cultivate the major crop in more land than the fixed target for recouping the huge losses they had suffered in the agri-sector during the recent floods and vast tract of the char lands has been brought under farming of the crop this season.

Government departments including the DAE, Bangladesh Agriculture Development Corporation, Bangla-desh Agriculture Research Institute and a number of NGOs had also taken steps for providing potato seeds among the farmers to make the programme a success, officials said.

The concerned departments and administration have taken adequate steps for ensuring smooth supply of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, technical assistances and other inputs to the potato growers for potato farming programme.

The early variety potato has already appeared in plenty in the local markets as farmers cultivated those much ahead than that of the traditional periods in the region this year, sources said.

BSS, Dhaka

The Ambassador of Vietnam to Bangladesh Nguen Van That yesterday called on Foreign Affairs Adviser Dr. Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury at his office here.

The adviser expressed his happiness over the growth of trade by 15 percent between Bangladesh and Vietnam this year with the current volume being approximately US dollar 75 million, according to a press release.

"Internationally it has been a good year for Vietnam, having obtained membership of the UN Security Council and WTO, and in both cases Bangladesh supported them," the adviser said.

Dr. Chowdhury expressed Bangladesh's keenness to join the Ganges-Mekong Cooperation Initiative comprising India, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, the press release added.

AP, Alaska

Federal marine mammal experts in Alaska studying the effects of global warming on walrus, polar bears and ice seals warn there are limit to the protections they can provide.

They can restrict hunters, ship traffic and offshore petroleum activity, but that may not be enough if the animals' basic habitat - sea ice - disappears every summer.

"Ultimately it's beyond my scope," said Joel Garlich-Miller, a walrus expert for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Anchorage. "I can't make ice cubes out there."

Garlich-Miller said 3,000 to 4,000 mostly young walrus died this year in stampedes on land on the Russian side of the Chukchi Sea, the body of water touching Alaska and Russia just north of the Bering Strait. Instead of spending the summer spread over sea ice, thousands of walruses were stranded on land in unprecedented numbers for up to three months.

Anatoly Kochnev, who conducts walrus research for Russia's Pacific Institute of Fisheries and Oceanography, said the loss of 3,000 to 4,000 animals this year from mostly one demographic could be disastrous.

If current ice trends continue, and walrus have to stay on coastlines every summer, they may put too much pressure on nearby foraging areas instead of feeding in the rich waters offshore, said U.S. Geological Survey biologist Tony Fischbach.

AP, Sukkur

Former Pakistan premier Nawaz Sharif, back from exile for next month's parliamentary elections, blasted President Pervez Musharraf as a failed leader largely under US control.

With just two weeks to go in what has been a bitter campaign, Sharif told around 3,000 supporters that he had ignored five phone calls from then US president Bill Clinton after Pakistan tested an atom bomb in 1998. "But Musharraf prostrates himself after just one phone from Washington," he said-an apparent reference to Musharraf's decision to join the US "war on terror" after the September 11 attacks on the United States.

"We have become a laughing stock all over the world," said Sharif, who was ousted as prime minister by Musharraf, his army chief at the time, in a 1999 coup. Pakistan had been one of only three countries to recognise the hardline militant Taliban as the legitimate government in neighbouring Afghanistan, which sheltered Al-Qaeda and its militant training camps.

After September 11, according to many reports, the United States telephoned Musharraf and told him he had to immediately decide whether to cooperate with the "war on terror" and stop backing the Taliban. He did so.

Musharraf has since become a pivotal US ally in the fight against Islamic militants, who are waging an increasingly violent insurgency in Pakistan.

BSS, Dhaka

The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) yesterday cautioned people against an unscrupulous section involved in serving false notices and letters on different persons and organizations in the name of the commission.

Talking to reporters at his office here, ACC Director General Col Hanif Iqbal requested people to be confirmed about the identity of notice servers before receiving any notice of the ACC.

He suggested for communicating with the head office or divisional and coordinated district offices and talking to officers not below the rank of assistant director to be confirmed about the veracity of the notice.

The DG said the commission preliminarily suspected three employees of the now defunct Bureau of Anti-Corruption (BAC) on charges of unlawful activities and already launched investigation to this end.

He said the commission did not give the authority to any employee or official to serve notice on a person or an organization without prior approval of the commission.

Besides, only the designated persons have the power to serve notice or summons on anybody to give deposition or submit evidence before the commission. Moreover, the ACC does not inquire or investigate any matter out of its specific schedule, he said.

Most dangerous place to work as journalist

MANILA: Two gunmen riding motorcycles shot dead a radio journalist in the southern Philippines on Monday, the fifth reporter to be killed this year in the country. Ferdie Lintuan was driving in Davao City along with two other radio reporters when the men drove up beside the vehicle and fired at him around 9:50 a.m. (0150 GMT) on Christmas Eve. "I pretended to be dead. I was at the front passenger seat. The car window beside me was also hit," Lucio Ceniza, a passenger in the car, told local media. The Philippines is one of the most dangerous places in the world to work as a journalist. Since President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was swept into power in 2001, 54 reporters have been killed.

Xmas speech

BBC Online: The Queen will mark the 50th anniversary of her first televised Christmas message by urging people to care for the vulnerable in society. The broadcast will feature archive footage from the 1957 speech in which she talks about "the speed at which things are changing all around us". George V began the tradition of a Christmas speech on the radio in 1932. In 1957, the Queen took the tradition a stage further by delivering the broadcast on television for the first time. In that live broadcast from her desk at Sandringham, she said she hoped the new medium would make her message more personal and direct. This year's speech, produced by the BBC and available in high-definition for the first time, will be aired on TV and radio as usual at 1500 GMT on Christmas Day. The Queen has also launched her own channel on video-sharing website YouTube, which will feature the message.