The New Nation - Internet Edition

For eco-friendly afforestation

BANGLADESH had once vast tracts of land covered with natural forest where wild animals thrived. But a rapid deforestation process destroyed major part of the age-old primary forests. While a country should have at least 25 percent of its land areas covered by forests for a healthy environment, Bangladesh reportedly has only 9 percent forest cover now. The mangrove forest of the Sundarbans, once spread over vast coastal regions, is now limited to the southwestern corner of the coast. As a result, the existence of many species of wild animals has been threatened.

The government has been carrying on a tree plantation drive for several decades. But this drive, according to experts in forestry and wildlife, is not suitable for ecological balance and bio-diversity and has endangered many species of wildlife. The experts aired the opinion that in the name of afforestation Bangladesh is actually carrying out plantation with the only aim of increasing number of a few species of trees. The aim has not been to develop and protect trees and plants and creepers that grow and create a particular ecology and environment. A natural forest where all sorts of bushes, herbs and creepers are also important will consist of possibly all types of local plants that used to supply food for the herbivorous animals. But the plantation programme that is being implemented hardly takes note of the species and quality of plants and the ecology into consideration. It is alleged that Bangladesh is now implementing a British plantation policy of 1873. The country's natural forests are being destroyed while exotic trees are being planted. According to media reports, 80 percent of the trees planted under this programme for more than a decade were imported from foreign countries. The wildlife has been threatened by such plantation.

The monoculture forests cannot provide diverse foods for the animals. Such types of forests destroy the ecological balance and wildlife. Animals are dependent on trees for their survival. The food habits of animals of a particular region are characterised by nature of the vegetation of that area. So, while taking up an afforestation project, the government must pay due attention to the requirement of wildlife. The people generally follow a balanced policy of plantation. They prefer local trees that would supply them not only fruits but also timber. The government should stop the monoculture afforestation policy and immediately adopt an eco-friendly one. Experts suggest reserving at least 10 percent of the country's total land for local plants to grow naturally. Exotic trees for timber and fuel wood should be planted after careful study. Arbitrary selection of trees will be disastrous for ecological balance. The afforestation programme needs to be guided by a definite policy. Its aim should be to develop such forests that would help maintain ecological balance and provide sanctuary to wildlife.

Online registration for jobseekers

FOLLOWING the recent start of the online pre-registration, Bangladeshi nationals seeking jobs in South Korea henceforth would now be recruited through the website of the state-run Bangladesh Overseas Employment and Services Ltd (BOESL). According to a recent media report, some 6,600 Bangladeshi jobseekers, who have already learnt the rudiments of the Korean language, will be selected through an examination to secure jobs in five sectors like manufacturing, construction, agriculture and livestock, offshore and coast fishing and the service sector in that Far East Asian country. South Korea for the first time included Bangladesh in its official foreign recruitment system, EPS (Employment Permit System) following an agreement signed between the two countries. Through pre-registration, the intending workers will register themselves within the scheduled dates by depositing $30 each, passports and other necessary papers. The successful candidates of the Korean language test must secure 40 marks for each department and 120 marks in total out of 200.

As reported by the media, a list of the successful candidates will be sent to South Korean private companies, which will recruit workers from the list according to their requirement. Those who will not be able to get a chance will be on the pool of skilled workers and be sent on demand. The minimum wage of a worker in the above-mentioned five sectors required in South Korea is $ 850 plus overtime. Presently around 13,000 Bangladeshis are working there. The Korean employers and their government reportedly expressed their satisfaction over the work being done by the Bangladeshi expatriates following which legal steps have been taken for proper recruitment of manpower from Bangladesh through official processes.

In this regard, the foreign affairs adviser who is also in charge of the expatriate welfare and overseas employment ministry briefing newsmen said that the Korean authorities were interested in recruiting skilled workers from Bangladesh after improvement of political relations between Dhaka and Seoul through his visit. 'We don't want to use our expatriate workers as revenue earning machines and we must take care of their welfare in foreign countries,' the adviser was quoted to have said adding that the new recruitment system will ensure Bangladeshi workers' proper pay and perks. The government is trying to explore new labour markets in Jordan, Lebanon, Poland, Romania and Canada, the adviser said adding that more than 6,00,000 Bangladeshi nationals were sent abroad.

Bangladesh has been putting more focus on sending manpower to Middle-Eastern countries from where a number of ministerial delegations visited Dhaka and signed memorandums of understanding for recruiting workers from our country. The country is getting huge remittance now as more and more expatriates send home their hard-earned money to their nearest and dearest ones. Bangladesh earned the highest remittance of $ 6.5 billion last year. The government should be cautious enough in dealing with friendly foreign countries for manpower export, particularly taking lessons from the bitter experiences gathered from Malaysia, which has always been eager to take manpower from Bangladesh.

What President Bush gained from ME Trip?

Md. Masum Billah

Bush closed down his eight day Middle East trip in the middle of the first month of the New Year sparkling questions concerning various issues particularly Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Iran's nuclear deal. But the most significant focus of his tour has been cast on the resumed peace process between Israel and Palestine which remained dormant for more than seven years as it received very scant importance from Bush administration. George Bush's visit to Ramallah tends to show green signal for Middle East peace process as he called for an end to Israeli 41 year's occupation of Palestinian lands and stated a commitment to forge a peace agreement before the end of his tenure in office in next January (2009). Bush said "I believe its going to happen that there's going to be a signed peace treaty by the time I leave office." He further emphasized that the Palestinian refugees to be paid compensation for the loss of homes when they had fled during establishment of Israel.

A plethora of questions peep in the minds of the political critics. Should the Middle East people believe in this promise? Are the Americans so honest in sponsoring peace deal particularly in the Middle East issue? If we cast our sight at the tour with a third view it shows that Bush wants to score a foreign policy triumph before he leaves office next January. America worries about the supposed serious threat from Iran which continues its nuclear peace process. Bush wants to set a thief to catch a thief. This is why he has offered to sell $20 billion of advance weaponry to Arab Allies including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates to bolster their defense against Iran,' a close ally of Syria. In a brief appearance with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak , Bush dealt gently with the pace of political reform in Egypt the issue that has most distanced administration from the historical partner, the first Arab state to make peace with Israel and the recipient of the most US aid except Israel. "I emphasized that the Palestinians question, of course, is the core of problems and conflict in the Middle East" Mubarak told the reporters after he and Bush met and had lunch at the Red Sea resort. Arab states are not shy enough in criticizing Bush's arms-length approach. Mubarak was among those who told Bush that he was creating a larger problem by telling the issue faster and by feeding the perception that he is too partial to Israel. Syria candidly said that the main aim of Bush's Middle East tour was to scare Persian Gulf countries into buying weapons by portraying Iran as threat.

Palatine state must be viable and contiguous whereas, the eight mile long corridor between Gaza and the West Bank belongs to Israel. Without connecting Gaza Strip with the West Bank a Palestinian state would be unstable and vulnerable. "If the corridor is handed over to the Palestinian, Palestinians would be contiguous in that case. There is no agreement between Israel and Palestinian authority for sharing water and electricity. The continued presence of some 220000 Jewish settlers in much covered West Bank remains a big question. The segregation wall of 425 miles long covering some Palestinian land particularly best cultivable is another tactic of Israeli government to grab Palestinian land in the name of Israeli security. These are the key issues of Israel including future of Jerusalem and Palestine refugees. Until and unless these issues will not find proper and true attention from Israel and its 'guru' this tour will hardly bring any tangible solution.

Question arise further has Bush administration given up their strategic goals in Asia after the sad and unexpected experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan? Actually it retains long term interest in these regions. The recent tour to the Middle East gives hints that it has far reaching plan about the Middle East, Persian Gulf and the whole of Asia. Just after the tour Prime Minister of Israel Ehud Olmert warned that Israel and Palestine might not reach a peace deal that Bush predicted with a year as both sides began discussing core issues. Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livini and former Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei met in Jerusalem.

The meeting lasted for two hours in a good and constructive environment. They discussed the core issues and agreed to continue these talks on an intensive basis." I'm not sure we can reach an agreement and I'm not sure we can reach its implementation." A senior government official said quoting the Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert." But I will be committing a sin to my duty if I didn't try." The opposition and the head of the opposition want to maintain the status quo at any price. "I say this is dangerous, adventurous and irresponsible." Olmert actually faces internal criticism over the talks, with two member of his coalition threatening quit if core issues are discussed.

In the meantime Israel has ordered all border crossings into Gaza temporarily closed. The tightening of the blockade could make life more difficult for Gaza's already impoverished residents. Palestinians have already suffered shortages of food, fuel, spare parts of car, computer, paper and other supplies since Israel imposed the siege after Hamas seized the territory in June. "It is imperative that these crossings are opened so that the dire situation in Gazans does not deteriorate further, inflicting further misery on one and half million people who live there." Christopher Genness, the spokesman for UNRWA, the UN Agency in charge of Palestinian refugees commented. Closing the crossings can only lead to the further radicalization of a depressed and demoralized people. Past experience has shown such kind of development. Tel Aviv must take into account that security of Israel is not an isolated fact rather it is related to economic situation of the Gazans and the people huddled in the refugee camps. When they have no food and drink due to this closure, they must respond to it according to their ways they have resorted so long years. Why the already inflicted people have further been infuriated? Don't they attach any importance or significance to what George Bush has said regarding the peace deal? Israelis must show restraint otherwise the world will take Bush's visit just as forging united force in the Middle East to wage war against Iran which will definitely bring irreparable loss to either side.

The increasing violence has clouded Israeli-Palestinian peace talks resumed after a Middle East Conference in Annapolis Conference and the ray of hope which emanated from the recent tour of Bush to the Middle East. Should it be allowed to happen? In Annapolis Conference Bush claimed, "The foundation for establishment of a new nation a democratic Palestinian state that will live side by side with Israel in peace and security." Let this tour be considered as a part of this claim clouding the other presumption.

Bridging the divide

Nigar Ataulla

IT WAS a winter afternoon, way back on 6 December, 1992. Balancing my handbag and an armful of art works, I was walking to my office - an advertising agency in Bangalore. My mind was preoccupied with the deadline my client had set to present a campaign for him.

As I chalked out the plan of action for this, I felt a gloomy silence around: Little groups of people huddled together whispering and murmuring among themselves, panic writ large on their faces. The latest news doing the rounds was that a mob had demolished a mosque in Ayodhya. Anxious parents were picking their children back from school earlier than the usual time. I got a call from my frantic parents to reach home soon. I told them that I would wind up my work at office at once and rush back.

Almost 15 years after this incident, by a sheer stroke of luck, I went to the town of Ayodhya with my husband, whom I have nicknamed the Second Ibn Batuta for the irrepressible travel bug that drives him. I was very eager to see Ayodhya. The name itself conjured up numerous memories. In the heydays of Doordarshan and its monopoly over the air waves, the Ramayana was the most popular serial. I would promptly glue myself on Sunday mornings to the TV watch the fascinating graphics used in the serial - the arrows flying from one end to the other and getting stuck in mid-air, the strong characters that people the epic, each with their own vivid and striking personalities, the numerous beings ruling the skies and the land. And then, from the 1980s, Ayodhya had been constantly in the news for less harmless reasons, as political lines and communal divides were drawn over a little shrine atop a mound in the town, claimed by both Hindus and Muslims as their own.

We walked around the centre of the town, which had many temples all around. Somebody told us there were 7,000 in all. Another insisted that the figure was somewhere near 12,000. Who knows? A man spotted us and offered to guide us around for eleven rupees. As we walked through the town, heaps of marigold flowers, boxes of sweets of various colours and flavours, echoes of temple bells

and saffron-clad Is walking around presented a picture of an archetypical temple town. Shops sold CDs and cassettes of Ram bhajans (devotional songs). Our garrulous guide rattled off the names of various temples in Ayodhya. Of the disputed Babri Masjid he was unusually, though not unexpectedly, eloquent: "Teen ghante mein, Babri Masjid ka naam o nishan mita diya December 6, 1992 ko. Aap ne TV par dekha hoga (In just three hours, the Babri mosque was wiped out on December 6, 1992. You must have watched it on TV.)," he said. We listened with straight faces, while squirming at the thought of that day and the violence that followed, killing thousands of innocent people.

From Ayodhya to Faizabad, it is a 20-minute journey by rickshaw. A major landmark in the town is the sprawling, and now rapidly crumbling, Bibi Ka Makbara, which houses the tomb of a queen of one of the Nawabs of Awadh. A narrow path leads from the backyard of this edifice down to a vegetable patch that borders a lake now choked with water hyacinth. In the dusk, as the sun retreats, through thick clouds of fog one can trace at the edge of the patch the outlines of an ancient mosque, called the Jinnati Masjid, its minarets freshly whitewashed and ancient brickwork peeping out from its low-level walls. People of all faiths throng the place to seek blessings and in the hope of cures to various ailments.

Here I met a teenaged lad, Raj Kumar, a resident of Faizabad. His strong faith in shrines like this has brought him here. He visits this place every day to offer respects. He said that his sister was cured of her ailment after coming here. He is a Hindu, he says, but that does not stop him from visiting the shrine. 'God is every where,' he muses philosophically.

I ponder carefully on what he says. My mind races to Ayodhya. In between the clash of the azan and the temple bells, a clash of communal egos, where is God in all this? I wonder if the Almighty is going to ask us in the Hereafter if we fought for a place of worship for Him or if we spent our energies worshipping Him alone and serving His creatures. The latter, I am sure. I observe how Raj Kumar sits in the mosque meditatively, his eyes closed and his lips muttering a chant, while a Muslim woman spreads her prayer-mat and starts praying.

My mind then goes back to Ayodhya again. The disputed site, I propose to myself, ought to be made into a hospital or an orphanage open to people of all communities, or perhaps a shrine where people like Raj Kumar and the woman who is still bent in prayers can glorify God, irrespective of caste and creed.

The next day we get to Agra. We arrive at the Taj Mahal and I gaze at this monument of love in wonder. The Mughal Emperor Shahjahan enshrined his love for Mumtaz in marble. Why do we want to bind our love for each other or for God in monuments, as in Ayodhya, and mansions, as in Agra, I ask myself? God is eternal, all around us. He is within us and everywhere. The whole world is a believer's prayer-mat. So why are we fighting over mandirs (temples) or masjids (mosques), I ask, my mind going back to Ayodhya.

Why do we want to bind our love for God only in structures of mud and stone? Let our love for God be manifest in our love for all human beings irrespective of their caste, creed or community. So Raj Kumar had said to me in the Jinnati Masjid in Faizabad, while the Muslim woman in the mosque had nodded vigorously in approval.

This piece is dedicated to my parents who inculcated in me the values of tolerance for other faiths, my husband, Yoginder Sikand, whose adventurous spirit and courage is incomparable and my school teachers who taught me the value of peace.

Opinion: US Poll 2008: Focus on change

Dr.Abdul Ruff

Presdient George W. Bush will leave his office in 2009 February and the debates in the current US elction primaries revolve around a few issues, the need for new policies to accelerate development and progress being one of the most important. One of the most frequently heard mantras on the presidential campaign trail this year, therefore, has been the call for "change." Several of the leading presidential candidates have adopted "change" as a campaign theme and have rushed to claim that they themselves are the candidates for change. Barack Obama has made change the central motif of his campaign from the beginning, saying he is for "real" change in Washington that got him through in Iowa primary. Former President Bill Clinton responded to Obama's claim to own the "change" theme by saying Obama is the "establishment" candidate and would engender only the "feeling of change." Republican Mitt Romney put out a press release entitled, "Governor Mitt Romney Calls for Change."

It's abundantly clear that Americans want a change from the presidency of George W. Bush, at a time when Bush's job approval rating has been stuck in the 30% to 35% range for many months. But exactly what form that "change" should take has been a little murky. Change is such a broad concept that-like a Rorschach inkblot test-an individual can read into it what he or she wants. One can seek a change from the way in which the Bush administration (and/or Congress) operates, a change in specific policy decisions, or perhaps just a more general change in the type of inspirational leadership the country has. A recent news story about Republican hopeful John McCain also calls himself 'Agent of Change". Given Americans' low levels of satisfaction with the way things are going in the United States, their very low ratings of government, Congress, and the president, and their low satisfaction level with the way the government system works, the desire for change is not surprising.

The top four problems Americans mention in our January "most important problem" update are Iraq; the economy, healthcare, and immigration, the specific areas in which Americans want to see "change" take place. But there is very little discussion in these open-ends of a desire to bring about more fundamental changes in the way Washington operates, in the process of governing, and so forth.

Threat perceptions make the peole in the USA think well of the government and it works. Back in 2001, before the 9/11 terrorist attacks, satisfaction with the government was at 68%. That rose in January 2002 to 76%, but has been declining ever since, to the current 53%.

The latest findings continue a trend of declining satisfaction in recent years. This finding is significant. First and foremost, it is clear when Americans look ahead to the "change" the next president could bring about, they think very topically and specifically about problems and concerns, not about more general changes in the structure or systems of government.

It suggests that when Americans say they want the next president to bring about change, they mainly are thinking about solving what they perceive to be the nation's significant problems. End of Iraqi war, withdrawal of troups to USA, health care reforms, fix economy, creat more jobs, secure boraders, address illegal immigrations, change in tax laws, change US freeingn policy and improve US image abroad, better honesty and ethics in government, tranparancy in government dealings, etc.

True, Bush won't continue upon completing his second term now, and the onus lies on the next presdeint to change the overall perspective of the US polcies and the Neo-cons would have to leave the matter to another set of strategists to formualte polcies and strategies for the future USA. Only that would help the USA overcome its problems.

Teeorism plank cannot go on endlessly and collective security could be the best option for a secure world. Hence the heated discussion now taking place in the USA on change, but they should also discuss threadbare the deficiences of the governing system plugged by ramphant corruption and neoptism at all levesls of governance.