The New Nation - Internet Edition

No ice in North Pole

There could briefly be no ice at the North Pole this summer - an event that would mark a new stage in the melting of the Arctic ice sheets due to global warming, say experts. 'The reason here is that the North Pole area right now is covered with very thin ice … that tends to melt out in the summer,' US scientist Mark Serreze was quoted to have said. If the ice, albeit briefly, were to break up completely this summer it would be the first time this had happened in human history. If it does happen in September 'it's possible' that ships could sail from Alaska right to the North Pole.

Last summer, melting ice allowed ships through the Arctic's Northern Passage linking the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans for longer than ever before. Even if there were no ice left at the North Pole, there would be ice in other parts of the Arctic Ocean this summer. But the US scientist recognised the symbolism of an ice-free North Pole saying it was yet another indication of the environmental changes taking place because of global warming. He admitted that five years ago, he would not have imagined the situation occurring now.

In mid-September last year's Arctic summer, the surface of the ice sheet was the 'the least sea ice that has ever been seen in satellite record, probably the least in a century. The sheet melted by 23 per cent, breaking the previous record from 2005. Arctic ice begins to melt in about mid-June and reaches its thinnest level around mid-September, before beginning to freeze over again and reaching maximum around mid-March. The developed nations should help reverse this abnormal trend in polar ice melting by reducing carbon emissions.

Concern about population growth

THE World Population Day was observed on Wednesday. Unlike many other countries of the world, the size of the population or its growth rate has special significance for land short Bangladesh with its limited resources. Besides, an overpopulated country already would be in greater peril. This points to the very urgent need to reduce the population growth effectively. Even at the present growth rate at 1.48 per cent which is claimed officially, the population would bloat to 180 million only twelve years from now and to 280 million by the year 2085. But such a huge population would be simply unsustainable in all respects.

The big population and its still unbridled growth is putting very great stress on every sector such as housing, education, health and employment. For example, the unemployment situation could be better handled if the population growth rate was substantially lower. Under the present growth rate and the rise in the number of young ones and their fast becoming eligible for jobs, some 50 million young Bangladeshis could be looking for work by the year 2015.

Thus, it is imperative to better control the population growth rate. A big population need not be a burden if the members of it can be well trained and become productive. But even after admitting this, there is a limit beyond which a country should not allow its population to grow for the mismatch between resources available to meet their needs. Bangladesh appears to be headed fast towards this risk zone which creates the compulsion to control its population growth with greater effectiveness. Clearly, the officially run population control programme needs to be revamped to achieve planned targets by infusing the motivation needed for this in the people and making the support services available to them.

Indo-US deal and Muslims

Aijaz Zaka Syed

As the debate over India's nuclear deal with the United States heats up, a totally new angle has been added to the controversy: Whether the deal is 'anti-Muslim' and if the Muslims, India's largest minority and the world's largest Muslim population, support or oppose the accord with the US.

So the poor Indian Muslim, who keeps his head down and is ever grateful for the empty rhetoric and promises of calculating politicians, finds himself yet again at the heart of petty vote bank politics.

From Congress politicians like Salman Khurshed to media pundits like Barkha Dutt, just about everybody seems to be debating if the nuclear accord with Washington is acceptable to Indian Muslims or not.

Mulayam Singh Yadav, who once claimed to champion the Muslim cause and took pride in being called Maulana Mulayam, is making much song and dance about "protecting the interests" of his Muslim constituency.

Mulayam's Samajwadi Party consulted experts like the illustrious former president and father of India's nuclear-missile programme Dr APJ Kalam before coming forward to rescue the governing Congress Party. After the Left parties walked out of the coalition protesting the nuclear deal, the Samajwadis have offered their own crutches to prop up the government tottering on the brink.

What I find most amusing about this whole debate is the hypocrisy of politicians like Mulayam and the pretension that the Indian government and leaders somehow make their policies and decisions, as crucial as these, according to the wishes and concerns of the Muslim community.

Frankly speaking, who gives a damn what Indian Muslim thinks? Not this government. For that matter, no government in the past has ever lost any sleep over the concerns and sentiments of the 200-million-strong Muslim community.

The Muslim sentiments were hardly of any concern to the government of Narasimha Rao when it went ahead ignoring the community's protests - and those of others-to establish full-fledged diplomatic relations with Israel.

In any case, who are we to protest India's love affair with Israel when many Arab and Muslim countries are bending over backwards to hug our Zionist friends?

Returning to the US nuclear deal, many in the Muslim community have been alarmed by the Indian media's dangerous attempts to give a religious spin to the issue. The other day NDTV hosted a lively debate on the US deal and how Muslims look at the whole business.

And everyone involved obsessed over the so-called Muslim stance on the issue as if it was crucial to the success or failure of nuclear arrangement with the US. No wonder the Muslims are concerned. Given the long history of such innocuous issues turning into explosives in the hands of militant anti-Muslim organisations such as Shiv Sena and RSS-VHP-BJP combine, their concern is not unjustified.

Alarmed by the dangerous direction the whole debate has taken, and even as the Congress-led government fights for survival, Muslim organisations and groups are trying hard to distance themselves from the issue.

Jamiat-e-Ulema Hind, a staunch Congress ally, has passed a resolution dissociating the Muslim community from the controversy. The organisation, which played a leading role in the independence struggle, has condemned politicians for using the issue for Muslim vote bank.

The party has reasonably argued that the decision if the deal is in national interest or not is for the politicians and scientists to decide. A party functionary, Kalimullah Khan Quasmi, has complained that there is a concerted effort to link the deal with the Muslim vote bank. "This is not a religious issue," pointed out Quasmi.

Exactly! What has a nuclear agreement between India and the US got to do with the Muslims and their religious convictions? And why those opposed to the deal are doing so in the name of Muslims?

That said, I believe the Muslims as well as other communities in India must oppose this unholy nuclear alliance with the neocons. Not because this accord is against the Muslims, as some of our politician friends in their excessive enthusiasm seem to suggest, but because this is against India's long-term interests. I am no expert on nuclear energy or finer points of strategic cooperation between the two nuclear weapons states like India and US. I don't know and I don't care if this will help India meet its growing energy needs, as some enthusiastic supporters of the arrangement claim.

All I know is this is a well-calibrated plot by big powers to ensnare and use the world's largest democracy to promote their own agenda. The enterprising Muslim community does not have to withdraw itself into its defensive shell if it is being dragged into this debate. Indian Muslim does NOT have to be apologetic in opposing this deal because this country belongs to him as much as it does to the next Indian.

In fact, anyone who cares for this great country should and would oppose this dubious deal.

We must oppose this arrangement for two reasons:

First and foremost, this deal will undermine and compromise India's historical independence and political sovereignty. I am not suggesting that by inking this pact, India will become a US colony and White House will station its viceroy in Delhi.

But by offering this carrot, the reigning superpower is seeking to enlist Gandhi's nation as a client state and as a junior cop to police this part of the world.

Having given up on an increasingly unpredictable Pakistan, the US badly needs India to contain emerging China on the one hand and the Islamists of Iran and Central Asia on the other.

More importantly, there's now evidence to suggest that the US neocons and the Zionists are trying to form an axis of the US, Israel and India to check the rising force of Islam.

It's a grand conspiracy against the Muslim world as well as India. I call it a conspiracy because India and Muslim world have been historically close allies and friends. These are ties that are as old as Islam. In fact, they go way back in time-long before the advent of Islam. And India has been a home of Islam and Muslims for more than a millennium.

This is why the inimitable Iqbal called India 'saare jahaan se achha' (best in the whole world). And the neocons and Zionists want to sabotage this historical relationship.

Secondly, this opportunistic alliance goes against everything that secular and democratic India has believed in and championed; ideals like peace, non-violence, non-alignment and always, always standing with the disadvantaged, oppressed and the vulnerable people everywhere.

This is why the world looked to India for leadership even when it was not a nuclear power and half of its population lived below the poverty line. Which is why it's a tragic irony that the party that once led the independence struggle should now be seeking to enslave this great land once again.

It is time for the Indians to decide whether they want to continue leading the world as a peaceful and progressive nation of Gandhi and Nehru or want to end up as yet another Third world colony of Pax Americana.

Economic crises may dampen poll enthusiasm

Sheikh Rakib Uddin

To live or to poll - to have bread or to go for ballot - the questions obviously cross the mind of the entire nation except some quarters who most probably close their eyes intending not to see the reality or are quiet ignorant of minimum knowledge required to realize what is happening ? Skyrocketed prices of essential commodities, atrocious priced menus in restaurants, exuberant high prices of life saving drugs and unthinkable higher fares of bus, rickshaw auto - rickshaw, launch and other river vehicles.

The untold hardships , never experienced in any time in the past, has not only hard hit the entire nation particularly the middle class but also has caused to continue unabated sufferings of masses The price hike which continued to increase from January in 2007 has been moving up towards sky in rocket speed and no body knows when it will halt. Suddenly increase of oil prices by about 40 percent in an executive order added fuel to the flame as it helped have further Long jump in price hike, transport fare and living costs of the people from all walks of life.

The situation, tragic and strange, is neither expected nor wanted. In the month of January in 2007 the rice was selling at Taka 17 per kilograms soybean at taka 52 per liter, Dal at taka 36 per kilograms, beef at taka 80 per kilograms, eggs taka 40 per dozen, white taka 14 per kilograms and potatoes at taka 9 per kilo. Now those items are settling in the markets at taka 37, 125, 190, and 22 per kilo.

Eggs are selling at Taka 80 per dozen. In such a prices of other essentials have been raised by more than 100 percent in last one and half a year. Prices of important items like milks, condensed milks, floor and floor products and spices have been increased in a rate even an abnormal position generally could hardly admit. The present situation is more strange to see that prices of those essentials are continuing to rise as no check and no resistance in their ways that has not only concerned but also has puzzled all. Even the situation has upset the demand and supply theory.

There is no dearth of supply of the essentials in the market but the price continues to go up .Nobody knows when it will end? Why such abnormally abnormal situation arises creating anarchy in economic sectors as markets of the essentials are now totally unmanageable and uncontrollable. Who are responsible for this unhappy and unwanted state of affairs ? A section of economists claiming themselves as the top experts on the subjects defended the price hike saying that prices of the essentials suddenly had gone up in the international markets.

Those experts have been branded by various quarters as the agents of certain international monetary agencies whose common agenda is to create flexible economic bases in the developing countries dependable on them. Syndicates, profiteers, black marketers , smugglers and other unscrupulous traders and anti social elements are blamed for the intolerable situation.

A particular quarter in defense of the high prices of the commodities claim natural calamities like cyclone, Sidr, Nargis and flood that hit the country had shattered the country's economy. The clear answer of the defense is that such natural phenomenon and exercise of the anti social elements are not new development in the society.

Anti social elements which began their motivated activities immediately after the society began its journey in the planet are continuing unabated. It is one of the duties of those circles enjoying state powers to restrict the enemies of the society. Despite presence of such odds and obstacles by and large in all times the country never experienced such holocaust in the economic sectors. Inefficient hands, unrealistic approaches and dearth of proper knowledge are responsible for the tragedy. This was stated by the experts, observers and political leaders in their speeches in seminars, symposium and discussions .

They made the comments that even the national budget for the current fiscal year utterly failed to give minimum relief to the common masses strongly hart hit by price hike .of the essential commodities.

Other financial measures so far undertaken by the present care taker government also went in vain in yielding in any fruitful results to mitigate the sufferings of the people .

The experts who monitor the developments closely had observed that irresponsible utterances from persons sitting on the citadel of powers had contributed largely to aggravating the situation. None now a days even dreamt of purchasing eight mounds rice paying taka one which a person had to pay to get same quantity of the item during the reign of Mughal Subedar Shahesta Khan in the middle of the seventeenth century in Bengal.

But at least the people now could expect from him to reduce price of rice to taka 17 per kilo which was prevailing in the second week of January in 2007. It is now an established fact the government will have to pay more attention to the economic affairs in this age of globalization than any time in the past.

The preparations are underway to hold the national and the local government elections in phases with a view to transferring powers to the people government. Above all, people's interest and benefits are supreme .Now the people cry for breads at a cheaper and fair price for survival, The delay will cause more hardships and problems .The situation will further deteriorate.

American public information or disinformation system

Debbie Menon

Walter Russell Mead, is Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow for US Foreign Policy. In his essay in the July/Aug issue of Foreign Affairs, The New Israel and the Old: Why Gentile Americans Back the Jewish State, Mead builds his entire lovely canvass on a frame and a canvass well treated with truth before he applies his colour.

That lovely canvass of "An Old Woman", is actually a piece of heavy textile, stretched over a wooden frame, treated with some stabilising chemical base and daubed all over with coloured "paint" compounds. And another artist or informed aficionado of the art may perceive it as such, before he suspends imagination, and the image of a gentle and content old woman and her smile emerges. A simple critique of the writing and the style, exposing the brush strokes of the artificial colouring is one way, my way.

Mead's use of the term 'Jewish State', is biased and misleading writing and, in this case deliberately incorrect, and intentionally misleading. While the UN was still meeting in special session, Clark Clifford got Eliahu Eilat (Epstein) who was representing the Jewish state, to send a note informing the President that a Jewish state had been declared (see Israeli Declaration of Independence) and asking for recognition. Lovett, informed by Clifford of the President's intentions, asked that the President wait until 10 PM, when the UN would no longer be in session. However Truman signed the letter of recognition shortly after 6 PM, giving de facto recognition to the new state and its government. In the prepared statement, written before the name of the state was announced, he crossed out the words "the Jewish State" and wrote "Israel." Likewise, he inserted the word "provisional" before the word "government.")

When Harry Truman signed the document recognizing Israel as a State, he deliberately crossed out (and initialed) the words "Jewish State" and inserted the word "Israel" As a major historian, I must assume Mead knows this, and is therefore deliberately misleading his readers! As a leading teacher of history, he also knows that most Americans would not know this, and assume the facts to be, on his authority, as he describes them, or implies that Israel was created with the intentions of the US government to be a Jewish State. "It was not!"

He noted, "The United States and Israel also have in common their status as "settler states" - countries formed by peoples who came to control their current lands after displacing the original populations. Both states have been powerfully shaped by a history of conflict and confrontation with those they displaced, and both have sought justifications for their behaviour from similar sources. Both the Americans and the Israelis have turned primarily to the Old Testament, whose hallowed pages tell the story of the conflict between the ancient Hebrews and the Canaanites, the former inhabitants of what the Hebrews believed was their Promised Land."

I like the use of "displacing," a much more acceptable term than "genocide," "killing,' "slaughter," or some of the descriptions coming more into vogue only of late, when the displacement of so many people worldwide is becoming difficult to ignore. Mead, I suppose, is innocent, well meaning, highly educated, ill-informed and extremely intelligent but Jewish! Like a Catholic priest whom I have met and known, who was highly intelligent, well educated, ill informed, and solidly Catholic! An innocent dupe who believed he was serving some higher cause. That is what makes them, and their work, so dangerous. They are believers in what they do!

Mead, as I mentioned, is an expert. He has style and class, and probably does it all without much thought. Including the "little" misleading inaccuracies, which creep in and colour his history.

He is NOT a liar that is the first problem. He does use facts; he just colours them delicately with this word instead of that one, etc., the subtle differences which are not apparent to the uninformed or educated eye as would be the slight, subtle differences in tone and value to the painter's or the graphic editor's eye.

Although it is what he does daily in academia, adding tone and colour to "history" to give it special appeal, it may have been of timely essence because of waning powers of influence.

At least, as I see it; popular support is either slowly decreasing, or more Americans are beginning to question; which is a difference only of where we stand on the slope of Israel losing support totally. We are still near the bottom of the curve, but there is a definite trend, and the Zionist movement sees it, because it is one of the key factors they monitor and worry about.

He affirms, "Widespread gentile support for Israel is one of the most potent political forces in US foreign policy, and in the last 60 years, there has never been a Gallup poll showing more Americans sympathising with the Arabs or the Palestinians than with the Israelis."

True, and we, are supposed to ignore the fact that popular American public opinion trends had little or nothing to do with who controlled, and still controls, the largest and most effective American public opinion molding industry in America, the Hollywood entertainment industry, to which today, they have added the rest of the entertainment industry, plus the TV and print media infotainment industries?

Need I say much more about the effects of years of concentrated propaganda and its effects on the public psyche and opinion? Read the paragraphs in his article, describing the intensive and effective "information" and media sources he cites, such as the "Niles' Weekly Register, the leading American news and opinion periodical through much of the first half of the nineteenth centuryt," and, if you have any doubts about its editorial sources, try to look up the ownership of these media. Arabs and Palestinians have played a comparatively small part in the American Public Information, or disinformation system, if any part at all! After 60 years, some of the depredations of Israel have become so egregious, outrageous, and offensive, that even the most effective propaganda and cover scheme fails to hide it, or dress it up presentably for the ballroom.

In the first global opinion poll about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict released recently, "Americans overwhelmingly said their government should not take sides - a finding that goes against the common assumption that Americans overwhelmingly support Israel. Seven out of ten Americans said they thought their country should not take sides in the conflict." Steven Kull, director of WorldOpinion.org, told Dubai's Al Arabiya TV in an interview. Americans, said Kull, are unequivocal that US policy needs to be even handed in dealing with the situation. "There is a discrepancy in this sense between the public and government foreign policy," he added.

Confronted by the outrages of Israel, which run so contrary to the mythical ideals upon which Americans were raised to believe America is founded, they are beginning to sicken and react. Churchill was right, "Americans will eventually do the right thing, after all else has failed."

Their original myth was, and still remains, superior and preferable to the most recent myths and shams with which Zion and now American/Israeli neocons have tried to replace it.

(Debbie Menon is an independent writer based in Dubai and can be reached at debbie.menon@yahoo.com )