The New Nation - Internet Edition

Yunus urges physicians : Inform people about affordable cancer treatment

Prof Dr. Muhammad Yunus

BSS, Dhaka

Nobel laureate Prof Dr Muhammad Yunus on Friday called upon physicians to inform the common people about the affordable and cost-effective cancer treatment.

The Nobel laureate said this while addressing the opening session of the four-day international socio-scientific conference on 'Cancer (Clinical Oncology) for SAARC Region' at Radisson Hotel in the city.

Health and Family Welfare Adviser Dr AMM Shawkat Ali attended the conference as the chief guest while Secretary of the Ministry AKM Zafarullah Khan was the guest of honour. Chairman of the Oncology Club and Professor of Vrije University in Amsterdam Dr ABMF Karim gave a speech on the theme of the conference.

Prof AK Azad Khan, President of the Bangladesh Diabetic Association, presided over the opening session while Prof Dr MA Hai, Director of Bangladesh Cancer Hospital and Welfare Home, gave a welcome speech.

Draft voter list to be published by June 30: CEC

BSS, Madaripur

Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Dr ATM Shamsul Huda has said as per the roadmap, the draft voter list will be published by June 30, reiterating that the national polls will take place by December this year.

"The final voter list will be published in October," the CEC told reporters during a private visit here.

Scoffing doubts whether elections would be held on schedule, he said he finds no reasons for the polls not taking place by December this year.

The CEC's remarks came on Friday night during a visit to the residence of one of his relations here after his trip to Nagarkanda of Faridpur.

He further said already registrations for five crore voters have been completed, which was scheduled to be completed by April 2. In three months, the rest three crore voters are going to be registered at a rate of one crore per month, he added. He told a questioner elections could not be held under emergency rules.

From the Foreign Press: Letter from Washington Obama advisers grapple with a changed world

Indira Lakshmanan

Scott Gration grew up in Congo as the son of U.S. missionaries in the 1950s, fled to Kenya as a war refugee in 1964 and lived on half a glass of water a day as a hospital volunteer in Uganda during the collapse of Idi Amin's regime in 1979.

Now a retired air force major general and the veteran of 274 combat missions into Iraq, Gration, 56, is part of Barack Obama's inner circle and shares with Obama's other key advisers a worldview rooted in the traumas of failed states and transnational threats: nuclear proliferation, climate change, disease, poverty, ethnic conflict and clashes over natural resources.

His advisers are helping the U.S. presidential hopeful shape a post-Cold War foreign policy that would address these cross-border problems while helping rebuild America's global reputation and ensure its security.

"In different ways, we all have a 21st-century" concept of how U.S. power should be exercised after 9/11, said Susan Rice, a 43-year-old who was assistant secretary of state for Africa under President Bill Clinton and now advises Obama.

"We live in a world where globalisation means threats can emanate from anywhere and flow anywhere," Rice said.

Among the three leading candidates - Obama, an Illinois senator; Hillary Rodham Clinton, a fellow Democrat and a New York senator; and John McCain, a Republican senator from Arizona - Obama's team seems most attuned to "soft power," says Joseph Nye, the Harvard University professor who coined the term for the use of economic and cultural persuasion, as opposed to military force, in international diplomacy.

"The election of Obama would do more to restore American soft power than anything else," said Nye, a veteran of the Carter and Clinton administrations who is impressed by Obama and is not advising any campaign.

"We need to export hope rather than fear."

No matter how much Obama embraces a policy of confronting cross-border problems, he is likely to remain loyal to certain immutables, including support for Israel and military bases overseas. Still, Obama advocates positions that make it tough to label him a hawk or dove: While he would talk to enemies without preconditions, he also would destroy Qaeda targets in Pakistan if the U.S.-allied leadership in Islamabad refused to act.

In an April speech that laid out his foreign policy vision, Obama said that the ill-fated invasion of Iraq was "based on old ideologies and outdated strategies." He wants to shift U.S. attention to the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, target terrorists, secure nuclear arms in the former Soviet republics and rebuild alliances with the aim of arresting pandemics and containing ecological threats.

While President George W. Bush has invested billions of dollars in fighting AIDS in African nations, that initiative has been overshadowed by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Obama wants to add more than 90,000 troops to the U.S. military and envisions expanding their mission to stabilising and rebuilding nations or confronting mass atrocities, he wrote in Foreign Affairs magazine. He would double foreign aid to $50 billion by 2012.

For many U.S. allies and adversaries, the perspective of a biracial, half-Kenyan American who spent years as a child in Indonesia holds the promise of a departure from what they see as Bush's unilateral policies. Obama's approach is pragmatic, non-ideological and open to critical voices, his advisers say.

"The idea of an African-American president who grew up playing in rice paddies," Nye said, "who transcends some differences we have, who has relatives in Africa - that gives a very different image to the world than a preppie from Texas who had been abroad only a few times."

Obama and his advisers will not deal only with "Brussels and Moscow - while that's very important - but are also looking to Djibouti and Indonesia," said Ben Rhodes, Obama's foreign-policy speechwriter, for help in rooting out terrorism and building bridges to Muslim nations.

Obama's core team ranges in age from Rhodes, 30, to Anthony Lake, 68 and a former national security adviser to President Clinton. Lake is credited with laying the groundwork for peace deals in Bosnia and in the Eritrean-Ethiopian civil war. And until she resigned over critical comments she had made about Hillary Rodham Clinton, one of Obama's closest advisers was Samantha Power, a 37-year-old Harvard professor whose focus is genocide.

The foreign policy teams for Clinton and McCain include many whose frame of reference was shaped by debates over deterrence and superpower struggles, including former UN ambassador Richard Holbrooke for Clinton, and the former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft for McCain. Most of them supported the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Obama's circle includes people who cut their teeth on post-Cold War problems like ethnic conflict, humanitarian interventions and Islamic extremism. A thread that unites them is their opposition to the Iraq invasion and support for withdrawing most forces.

In policy deliberations, outsiders, including Republican graybeards, are sometimes asked to offer opposing views. The senator comes to his opinion and then, true to his training as a constitutional law professor, "argues the other side," to see if his position holds up, Rhodes says.

One Obama adviser, Greg Craig, a former director of policy planning at the State Department, says that style provides insight into how the candidate would act as president: "He would listen to the world."

- International Herald Tribune

Govt to finalise coal policy soon: Tamim: Experts stress exploration of coal potential as gas will exhaust soon

Staff Reporter

Energy experts urged the Government body to take decision to ensure maximum utilisation of locally explored coal to replace natural gas as a source of power generation.

As local gas reserve is going to exhaust fast in coming future and the country sees no early chance to get new source, locally extracted coal should be the most preferred source of power, said energy experts in a discussion meeting on Friday, organised by the Sheba Bangladesh Foundation in the city. "The existing gas reserves will start exhausting if we fail to make any new discovery in the recent future," said Dr Eunuse Akan of Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission at a roundtable.

BUET Prof Dr. Izaz Hossain presided over the function while Prof Abdur Rahim moderated. Dhaka University Geology Department Chairman Prof Kamrul Hasan also spoke at the function.

Chief Advisor's Special Assistant for Power and Energy Ministry Dr Tamim, who was chief guest at the function, said the caretaker government would take policy decision on coal extraction after the national coal policy is in place.

A few months back, a technical expert committee submitted a draft coal policy to the government for final approval.

Dr Tamim said the Government would form another committee to review the draft policy and finalise it for Government's approval.

He said the ongoing debate on the methods of coal extraction should come to an end in view of the country's energy crisis.

"We should take a decision on coal on a consensus basis for the sake of our energy security without any more delay. Everybody should realise the crisis," he told the meet.

He observed that 80 percent of the National Energy Policy was not implemented as of today.

He said the country needs foreign investment in power and energy sectors for three reasons, which are to arrange funds, to attain technology and to establish a good management.

Appreciating the government move for floating international tender for oil and gas exploration, Dr Izaz Hossain said the country should have gone for such move much earlier.

Mentioning the debate on Phulbari Coal Mine, he said the Government should have an independent survey on the potential, benefits and damage to the local community.

Dhaka University Proferssor Mustafizur Rahman said the issue of Phulbari coal mining has become a political issue in the country. But it should be considered from economic and energy point of view.

Mining specialist Dr Mushfiqur Rahman said the optimum extraction of coal and its proper utilization should be the main objective of the coal-extraction debate.

He said in the open-pit mining, 85 per cent coal extraction is possible while in the underground, only 15 per cent is possible.

Miladunnabi observed

A procession was brought out in the city marking the
Eid-e-Miladunnabi on Friday. NN photo

BSS, Dhaka

Millions of Muslims on Friday across the country joined special prayers and staged colorful street marches celebrating the holy Eid-e-Miladunnabi, the advent of Prophet Hazrat Muhammad (SM) 1,438 years ago on this day of the month of Rabiul Awal with divine blessings for the mankind.

Eid-e-Miladunnabi was observed throughout the country with reverence and religious fervor.

Different religious, socio-political and cultural organizations chalked out programmes in the capital and elsewhere in the country.

In one of the day's major programmes, several thousand people joined the Maizbhandaria's colourful Miladunnabi procession in the city carrying colourful banners and green flags and singing hymns in praise of Allah and Prophet Muhammad (SM).

Leading spiritual personality and chief patron of World Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat Alhaj Syed Moinuddin Ahmed Al Hasani Maizbhandari led the march following a grand milad mahfil and mass prayer at Maizbhandar Manjil at Mirpur seeking eternal blessings for people in distress in Bangladesh and elsewhere in the world.

In separate messages, President Prof Dr Iajuddin Ahmed and Chief Adviser Dr Fakhruddin Ahmed offered 'darud' and 'salam' with due respect to Prophet Mohammad (SM) and greeted countrymen and the Muslim Ummah on the occasion.

In a message on the eve of the day, the chief adviser said, Almighty Allah sent Hazrat Muhammad (SM) to the earth on that day as a guide of human being for their welfare and freedom in eternal life.

The Dhaka city Awami League arranged a milad mahfil on the occasion of the holy Miladdunabi at party office at Bangabandhu Avenue. Central and city AL leaders joined the milad mahfil. The Deanbag Sharif arranged an Asheke-Rasul (SM) conference at Motijheel Babe Rahmat after Asr prayers on the occasion of the Eid-e-Miladunnabi.

The National Press Club organized a milad mahfil to mark the day. Club President Shawkat Mahmud, General Secretary Kamal Uddin Sabuj, other members, leaders of the journalist unions and mediamen attended the milad.

Different newspapers published special supplements highlighting the significance of the day. The electronic media including the Bangladesh Television and Bangladesh Betar broadcast special programmes on the occasion.

The day is a national holiday, and the offices of all newspapers are also closed, so no newspaper will be published tomorrow.

DCCI observes golden jubilee

Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry brought out a
rally in the city yesterday marking the golden jubilee
celebration. Focus Bangla

Staff Reporter

Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industries (DCCI) yesterday took out a procession as a part of its programme to celebrate the 50th founding anniversary of the organisation and 400 years of Dhaka city as capital city.

Commerce Secretary Feroze Ahmed inaugurated the rally while the President of DCCI gave the welcome speech.

The colourful rally with traditional masks, costumes, fans, replicas of historical forts and traditional objects, traditional horse carriage and Rickshaws were brought out in the street. The rally started in the morning from Armanitola, the first office site of DCCI, after touching few parts of the city it rounded off at the present DCCI office. Upon arrival of the rally at the present office premises, the President of DCCI unveiled a Mnemonic.

Ahmed Yayha Bawany, Former president, DCCI, Alhaj Md Anwar Hossain, Chairman, Anwar Group of Industries, Annisul Huq, President of FBCCI, noted business personalities of the city and other officials of DCCI among others were present.

Panel-free SCBA polls begin tomorrow

Staff Reporter

The Supreme Court Bar Association election is scheduled to be held tomorrow and the day after.

The election, restoring the association's 10-year-old tradition, is being held without panel. A total of 40 individual candidates are contesting the election for 14 posts of the executive committee of the association.

Of them six candidates are contesting for the post of the president. They are Khandaker Mahbub Hossain, Shafiq Ahmed, AK Mojibur Rahman, Humayun Hossain Khan, Md Sirajul Islam Khan Masud, and Saifur Reza. A total of seven candidates are contesting for the post of the secretary. The candidates are: Abdullah Al Mamun, ABM Bayezid, AKM Zahirul Haque, Md Badruddoza Badal, Md Nurul Islam Sujan, Sheikh Awsafur Rahman Bulu and SM Abul Hossain.

Besides, six candidates are contesting for two vice president posts while two for the treasurer, five for assistant secretary and 14 for eight executive member posts.

Earlier, the projection meeting of the candidates of the Supreme Court Bar election was held on Thursday. The candidates were introduced to the members of the association. Later, the candidates made their statements.

The function was held at Shaheed Shafiur Rahman Auditorium of the Supreme Court Bar Association with Advocate Md Nizamul Haque Nasim, convenor of the election sub committee in the chair.

The meeting was attended, among others, by President of Supreme Court Bar Association Barrister Amir-ul-Islam and Secretary Advocate AM Amin Uddin.

Call to amend draft of information rights law

Staff Reporter

The proposed Information Rights Act should be amended extensively so that it may really benefit the masses, said the speakers at a roundtable yesterday.

Sushaner Jonno Nagorik (SUJAN) organised the roundtable titled "Proposed Information Rights Act and Thoughts of Citizens" in the National Press Club.

Prof Muzaffar Ahmed said, In many countries the information disclosing law are enacted under different titles. In India the title of the law is Freedom to Information Act. The urban people especially the bureaucrats who have are retired use the law mostly.

About the proposed Information Rights Act he said the structure of the commission is not mentioned in the draft. He urged the government to make it specific and to place the draft to people through media to elicit their opinion.

Suranjit Sen Gupta, Presidium Member of Bangladesh Awami League, said the Government should discuss with politicians, media and other responsible sections about the philosophy under the law before drafting it. The policymaker should draw the attention of both the beneficiary and the sufferers.

Dr Badiul Alam said if the draft was turned into an act, it might be a barrier to the flow of information. The draft is not acceptable to all because it has some basic problems. The disclosing of annual budget that is allocated for the Armed Force should come under this act.

Barrister Amirul Islam said the prerequisite of drafting information law is to form an information commission. The government should show the draft in the web site for ensuring accountability and transparency.

Barrister Harun-Ar-Rashid, said the people have the right to receive information as the government is run by their taxes. But the draft does not preserve the right completely.

Shamol Dutta, editor of Bhorer Kagaj, said the draft has been completed in the light of the bureaucratic viewpoint not keeping in mind the masses.

Sayed Abul Maksud, Md Jahangir Alam, Asis Shaikat, Prof Kamal Ataur Rahman, among others, were present.

Taslima Nasreen forced to leave India: Publisher

Staff Reporter

Exiled Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen arrived in Europe on Wednesday after leaving India for security reasons, the Swedish PEN Club source reported.

"She has landed in Europe. I don't want to say where. But she feels safe and doctors will examine her. She doesn't want to say anything about her plan for the time being," the PEN Club spokesmen said.

However, the publisher and supporters of Taslima Nasreen accused the Indian Government of forcing her out of the country because of fears of a Muslim backlash.

Nasreen left mainly Hindu but officially secular India on Wednesday after accusing the Indian Government of forcing her to quit the country.

"The government is no better than religious fundamentalists," she said.

She said the Government refused her timely medical treatment and called the safe house where she was kept under federal protection a "chamber of death."

"It beggars the description meted out to her and was inhuman. She was suffering in severe hypertension and as a result severe heart and eye problems," said Shivani Mukherji, publisher of Nasreen's books in India.

"It's shameful for a so-called secular country to behave this way. They should have stood up to the people who opposed her," she said.

According to PEN Club spokesman, Nasreen, who holds a Swedish passport and has been suffering from health complaints, would probably reveal her whereabouts at some point but "that will depend on a security assessment".

The writer was forced to flee Bangladesh in 1994 to live in exile, in Sweden among other countries, after radical Muslims accused her of blasphemy over her novel "Lajja" -- or "Shame" -- which depicts the life of a Hindu family persecuted by Muslims in Bangladesh.

She has lived in exile since then, in Europe and the United States.

Breaches of passport privacy: Rice apologises to Obama

Barack Obama and Rice

Agency, Washington

The US Department of State has launched an investigation into repeated breaches of passport files compiled on the three main presidential candidates. State department contractors viewed the files of Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama, while a trainee accessed Hillary Clinton's file.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has apologised to all three candidates. US passport files include data such as age and place of birth, foreign travel records, and a Social Security number. That number can be used to obtain credit records and other personal information.

Two state department contractors have been fired and a third disciplined.

The case has raised suspicions that someone was digging for information that could be damaging to the candidates.

However, with breaches concerning all three contenders, the likelihood of political motivation is somewhat diminished, the BBC's Kim Ghattas reports from Washington.

BBC Sanglap: Barrage on Gorai must to protect SW region

Kushtia Correspondent

Experts at the special edition of BBC Bangladesh Sanglap titled 'Farakka and Environment' here in the district yesterday suggested the government to take immediate steps to construct an alternative Ganges Barrage in the river Gorai to protect country's southwestern region, its environment and livelihoods.

They also observed that poverty level is being increased in the region day by day as agricultural production and fisheries has been badly affected due to bad effect of Farakka Barrage in Indian Territory.

In addition to these, unemployment, criminal specially outlawed activities and human trafficking has increased and people have begun migration to other areas in the country due to bad effect of the barrage, observed the speakers as well as the audiences.

"We need to construct an alternative barrage in the Gorai immediately to protect the area, its people," said former member of Joint River Commission (JRC) Touhidul Anwar Khan.

The barrage should be constructed for uniform water distribution in different rivers across the southwestern region also, said the JRC former member. He alleged that barrages in almost all rivers towards Bangladesh have been constructed in the Indian Territory to divert water.

For which country's rivers have been getting dry gradually, he opined fearing that the future generation would fall into great danger if people of all walks of life do not raise their voice for rational water's demand.

Editor of New Nation Mostafa Kamal Majumder, Coordinator of Padma-Gorai Area Water Partnership Dr Anwarul Karim and former Jatiya Party lawmaker Badruddoza Gama also took part in the sanglap as panelists.

BBC's guest presenter Gawhar Nayeem Wahra, convenor of Disaster Forum of Bangladesh moderated the Sanglap held on the Renwick Embankment. BBC Bangla Service in conjunction with the BBC World Service Trust organised the event.

Responding to a query, Dr Karim said if the alternative barrage is built the prevailing problem might be resolved.

Touhidul Anwar said India is not following water-sharing treaty, which resulted severe water crisis in the country. He observed that if the country would have got due water from India, there could be possible to produce at least four to five million different kinds of crops in the areas.

Mostafa Kamal said due to water crisis for over years its level has gone very deep and for this there is severe arsenic problems in the drinkable water in the southwestern areas.

Dr Karim said salinity has been increased in the rivers across the region that is badly affecting Sundarbans, agriculture, fisheries and livelihoods.

Gama said number of poor farmers at the areas have been increased day by day as agricultural production has been badly affected due to water crisis.

He said pressure would have to be mounted on India to press home the demand for proper sharing of water.

And for this the government must overcome its weakness in its foreign policy, said former lawmaker adding, "To press home our demand we will have to raise the issue in different international forum including the United Nation."

Anti reform BNP MPs demand release of Khaleda, Hasina before March 26

Staff Reporter

Demanding the release of two detained former Prime Ministers-Begum Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina before the Independent Day (March 26), a number of former MPs yesterday in a joint statement alleged that the two top political leaders of the country were implicated in 'false cases' only because they lead two major political parties.

BNP Chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia and Awami League President (AL) Sheikh Hasina, who alternatively held the office of the Prime Minister since the restoration of multi-party democracy and introduction of the constitutional provision to hold parliamentary elections under a non-party Caretaker Government in 1991, were facing trial on a number of separate corruption charges. BNP Joint Secretary General Begum Selima Rahman, who readout the statement at a press conference at BNP Secretary General Khandaker Delwar Hossain NAM Flat residence, claimed that it was signed by as many 118 former MPs and leaders of the party. However, only 32 former BNP MPs were present at the press conference.

The statement also demanded of the Government and the Election Commission to hold election to Parliament before polls to the local government institutions, including that of the upazilas.

When asked, one of the many Organising Secretaries of the party Mohammad Shajahan, a former legislator from greater Noakhali district, said the reunification of BNP now depends on its reformist leaders, including Acting Chairman M Saifur Rahman and Acting Secretary General Maj (retd) Hafizuddin Ahmed.

BNP Secretary General Khandkar Delwar Hossain, who leads the anti-reform group of the party, is now undergoing treatment in the US.

However, the absence of three most senior leaders after Delwar Hossain of the anti-reform faction of the BNP-Advisory Council member Brig Gen (retd) ASM Hannan Shah, Joint Secretary General and BNP Spokesman Nazrul Islam Khan and Joint Secretary General Gayeswar Chandra Roy created confusions at the press conference, which, its organisers claimed to have been representing the party's mainstream led by Begum Zia.

Earlier on Friday night BNP reformist group held a meeting with Acting Chairman M Saifur Rahman at his Gulshan residence in the city.