The New Nation - Internet Edition

Mandela's 90th birth anniversary

'Rishis' a cultural organisation, held a musical
soiree at the Shilpakala Academy auditorium yesterday on the
occasion of 90th birth anniversary of Nelson Mandela. NN
photo

Staff Reporter

The 90th birth anniversary of Nobel peace laureate and South Africa's first black president Nelson Mandela was observed across the world yesterday.

In Dhaka, Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy (BSA) and Rishij Shilpigoshthi jointly oragnised a discussion meeting at National Music and Dance Centre Auditorium of BSA yesterday to celebrate the day.

In observance of 90th birth anniversary of Mandela, the programme with full of songs, poetries and talks made the function lively and memorable.

The programme was divided into three parts. In the first part, discussion meeting was held. National Professor Kabir Chowdhury was present as chief guest at the function, while Dr Saidur Rahman, General Secretary of Afro-Asian Gano Sanghati Parishad, Bhuiyan Shafiqul Islam, Director General of BSA, Asaduzzaman Nur, media personality, Mofidul Haque, cultural activist, Golam Kuddus of Sammilita Sangskritik Jote, among others, took part in the discussion. Gano Sangeet artiste Fakir Alamgir chaired the meeting.

Country's eminent poets, litterateurs, intellectuals and secretaries of different ministries, high government and non-government officials and artistes were also present to celebrate the day.

In the second part, artistes of BSA and Rishij performed songs and poetries to celebrate the birth anniversary.

Later on the last part, a documentary on life and works of Nelson Mandela was presented at the auditorium.

Nelson Mandela, born in 1918, is a former president of South Africa. Before his presidency, he was an anti-apartheid activist and leader of the African National Congress (ANC) and its armed wing 'Umkhonto we Sizwe.' He spent 27 years in prison, much of it on Robben Island, on convictions for crimes that included sabotage committed while he spearheaded the struggle against apartheid.

Among opponents of apartheid in South Africa and internationally, he became a symbol of freedom and equality, while the apartheid government and nations sympathetic to it condemned him and the ANC as communists and terrorists.

Mandela has received more than one hundred awards over four decades, most notably the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993. He is currently a celebrated elder statesman who continues to voice his opinion on topical issues. In South Africa he is often known as 'Madiba,' an honorary title adopted by elders of Mandela's clan. The title has come to be synonymous with Nelson Mandela.

Mandela has frequently credited Mahatma Gandhi for being a major source of inspiration in his life, both for the philosophy of non-violence and for facing adversity with dignity.

High prices persist in kitchen market

A kitchen market on the city outskirt where
everything goes up falls except the prices of the
essentials. Focus Bangla

Staff Reporter

The prices of rice, soybean oil, lentils and other essential items remained high in the city's kitchen market yesterday.

The prices of different varieties of vegetables have also increased by Tk 5 to Tk 6 per kg yesterday.

The high prices of essential items have hit hard monthly budget of the middle, lower and fixed income groups as bulk of their income is spent for the purchase of rice, oil and pulses.

They said that they have already been overstressed by the price hike of essentials and urged the government to stem the escalation of food price.

If the prices of essentials continued to go, then I might not be able to manage three meals for my five-member family, said Abul Hashem, a rickshaw puller.

Abdul Khaleque, a private bank official, said he is unable to meet the expenditure of his three-member family due to high prices of essentials.

Economists said the skyrocketing prices of necessary items are eroding the purchasing power of the consumers. Poverty has reached 45.86 per cent due to food price inflation, according to them.

The common feature of the market is that if price of any essential item comes down in one week, the prices of other items marked sharp rice in a next week, they opined.

The government should monitor the volatile market situation so that no businessman could intentionally raise the prices of essential items, they suggested.

They said smooth supply of essentials item as well as maintaining rational price gap between retail and wholesale markets could ensure the prices of essential to a tolerable level.Retailers in the city markets said rainfalls were hampering production and supply.

As a result, the prices of vegetables are increasing in the markets. "We are bound to sell it at high rate as we have to purchase those at high prices form the wholesalers," said a vegetable seller at Shantinagar Bazar.

The coarse variety of rice 'lata' was sold at Tk 34 to Tk 35, 'minicate' between Tk 42 and Tk 44, 'nazirshail' (depending on variety) from Tk 40 to Tk 44, BR-28 at Tk 37 to Tk 38 and BR-29 at Tk 36 to Tk 37 per kg yesterday in the retail markets. Per packet of 2 kg ata (flour) was sold at Tk 78 yesterday.

Per kg of soyabean oil was sold at Tk 122 to Tk 124 and palm oil was sold from Tk 110 to Tk 112 yesterday. Different brands of five litre-canned soyabean oil were selling Tk 610.

Per kg of local variety of lentil (masur) was selling from Tk 108 to Tk 110 and imported one was at 98 to 102. Potato was sold at Tk 16 to Tk 17, papaya was between 16 and Tk 18 korola at Tk 28 to Tk 30 and barbati Tk 20 to Tk 24 per kg in the retail markets. The price of chicken was sold at Tk 100 to Tk 110 per kg.

Sugar was at Tk 35 and Tk 36 per kg. Per hali (4-pieces) of eggs was between Tk 24 and Tk 28.

The price of different types of fish still remain high as Ruhi was selling from Tk 150 to Tk 180, medium size Hilsha from Tk 280 and Tk 350. Prices of beef were at Tk 190 and Tk 200 and while mutton from Tk 260 to Tk 280 per kg.

Water once widespread on Mars

BBC Online

Water was once widespread on Mars, data from a NASA spacecraft shows, raising the prospect that the Red Planet could have supported life.

Researchers found evidence of vast lakes, flowing rivers and deltas on early Mars, all of which were potential habitats for microbes.

They also discovered that wet conditions probably persisted for a long time on the Red Planet.

Details appear in the journals Nature and Natur Geoscience.

One study shows that vast regions of Mars' ancient highlands, which cover about half the planet, contain clay minerals - which can form only in the presence of water.

Volcanic lavas buried the clay-rich regions during subsequent, drier periods of the planet's history, but impact craters later exposed them at thousands of locations across Mars.

The data comes from the CRISM (Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars) instrument on the US space agency's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft.

CRISM works by "reading" over 500 colours in reflected sunlight to detect particular minerals on the Martian surface - including those that formed in the presence of water.

"The big surprise from these new results is how pervasive and long-lasting Mars' water was, and how diverse the wet environments were," said CRISM'S chief scientist Scott Murchie, from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland.

The clay minerals, known as phyllosilicates, preserve a record of the interaction of water with rocks dating back to the Noachian period of Martian history, which lasted from about 4.6 billion years ago to 3.8 billion years ago.

This was a time in which the Earth, the Moon and Mars were being pummelled by comets and asteroids.

Rocks of this age have largely been destroyed on Earth by plate tectonics. They are preserved on the Moon, but were never exposed to liquid water.

So rocks containing phyllosilicates on Mars preserve a unique record of watery environments in the early Solar System, some of which could have been stable long enough for life to get started.

Importantly, CRISM detected hydrated silicates - so called because they contain water in their crystalline structure - within sediments that had been clearly deposited by water.

The clay minerals were found in fans and deltas within the Holden, Eberswalde and Jezero craters on Mars.

"In most locations the rocks are lightly altered by liquid water, but in a few locations they have been so altered that a great deal of water must have flushed though the rocks and soil," said Jack Mustard, Professor of Planetary Geology at Brown University in Rhode Island.

"This is really exciting because we're finding dozens of sites where future missions can land to understand if Mars was ever habitable and if so, to look for signs of past life."

The European and US space agencies have targeted several phyllosilicate-rich regions as potential landing sites for their next Rover missions to Mars.

The team also found phyllosilicate deposits in thousands of places in and around craters, including the pointed peaks located at the centres of some impact depressions.

This example suggests that water was present 4-5km below the ancient Martian surface, the researchers said.

Crater-causing collisions are thought to have excavated underground minerals that were then exposed on the crater peaks.

"Water must have been creating minerals at depth to get the signatures we see," Professor Mustard explained.

The clay minerals must have been formed at relatively low temperatures.

"What does this mean for habitability? It's very strong," explained Professor Mustard.

"It wasn't this hot, boiling cauldron. It was a benign, water-rich environment for a long period of time."

In a separate study published in the journal Nature Geoscience, a team led by Bethany Ehlmann, from Brown University, analysed sedimentary deposits in two deltas within Mars' Jezero crater - which once hosted a body of water measuring some 40km (25 miles) across.

The deltas suggest a river transported clay minerals into the basin from a watershed.

"Not only was water active in this region to weather the rocks, but there was enough of it to run through the beds, transport the clays and run into the lake and form the delta," said Ms Ehlmann.

She added that the deltas appeared to be excellent candidates for finding stored organic matter, because the clays brought in from the watershed and deposited in the lake would have trapped any organisms, leaving a "cemetery of microbes".

NASA will send a robotic rover, Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), to the planet in September 2009 to look for signs of past or present life.

The European Space Agency (ESA) also plans to send a rover to investigate Mars' habitability. This mission, called ExoMars, is scheduled to launch in 2013.

From the Foreign Press: France on amphetamines

Roger Cohen

A few decades back, when we were young, Joni Mitchell sang of "sitting in a park in Paris, France" but dreaming of California because "I wouldn't want to stay here, it's too old and cold and settled in its ways here."

Through the big sleep of the Mitterrand and Chirac years, Joni could have come back and written the same lines. France changed, because everything and everyone does, but a remote, monarchical president continued to preside over a country more alarmed than charmed by modernity.

That was before Nicolas Sarkozy, who never saw a habit he didn't want to overturn, became president 14 months ago. Now we have another beautiful singer, who happens to be his wife, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, strumming these lines to him on her new album:

"I gave you my body, my soul and my chrysanthemum/ For I am yours/ you are my lord, you are my darling/ you are my orgy/ you are my folly."

Old and settled in its ways? I think not. America's first lady may love her man, but not like this. France has stepped out of hibernation on amphetamines.

Now I know there's a view of Sarkozy as a Bonapartist Caligula, consumed with himself, brooking no dissent, petulant to the point of puerility, and governing in such perpetual motion that he will only see the wall he's condemned to hit when it's too late.True, Sarkozy is not Saint Augustine, Gandhi or the Dalai Lama. I don't like his attempt to subjugate the media - Le Figaro now fawns to a point that's cloying and his control-the-message TV machinations are shameful. I also think the president should open his mind to Turkish membership of the European Union.

But this man is a tonic to his country and the most important European leader of his time.

In the space of a year, he has transformed France's relations with the United States, Israel, its North African neighbours and NATO. On the domestic front, he has got a Socialist leader to confess he's also a liberal, a word long so taboo to the French Left because of its free-market associations that embracing it was worse than admitting incest.

Let's take international matters first. Sarkozy's Mediterranean Union summit - a kind of Club Med Bastille Day bash - had its share of vapid ostentation, but was significant for several reasons.

It got the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, and the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, in the same room, drew the latter out of isolation, and signaled a new European awareness of how its identity has become inseparable from societies across the "mother sea" that have sent so many of their Muslim sons and daughters northward.

At a deeper level, here was the European Union taking the initiative in its neighbourhood rather than in the familiar fallback reactive mode where critiquing the United States masquerades as policy. The Union for the Mediterranean is a near-empty shell but an important impulse for Europe to think big.

I was gratified that a communiqué said this new venture will be independent from the EU enlargement "accession negotiations." That was a message to Turkey. Thinking big and excluding Turkey from the EU is oxymoronic.

Sarkozy has reached across oceans as well as seas. By breaking political taboos about America, and burying Gaullist posturing by announcing France's return to NATO's military command, he has given France greater room for manoeuvre. The new French diplomatic mantra is: Join the club to gain more independence.

U.S. mistrust of France is now in eerie abeyance: Universalist France has its day in the sun.

Because you can't build a Europe that's divided toward the United States, as Iraq illustrated, his pro-Americanism has aided EU cohesiveness.

In the same way, his warmth toward Israel has given France the room to emerge as a credible Middle Eastern intermediary.

At home, where he's unpopular in the polls but less so around the dinner table, Sarkozy has circumvented the 35-hour week by slashing taxes on overtime, freed up universities, downsized the state functionary community (and mentality), spurred small businesses, cut public spending, and set in motion a radical reform aimed at creating a 21st-century army.

By comparison, Gordon Brown in Britain, he of Heathcliffian moodiness, and Angela Merkel in Germany, she of grand coalition paralysis, look second-tier.

As for the Socialist pretender and Paris mayor, Bertrand Delanoë, he put "Audacity" in the title of his recent book, nodding to Barack Obama, and called himself a Socialist liberal, nodding to Sarkozy's transformation of the French debate: an interesting trans-Atlantic ideological conflation.

"Will you take me as I am?" Joni also sang. Faced by non-stop Sarko, the world and France have little choice. Overall, that's a good thing. Lovely Joni should check out unsettled France. It's a blast. Ask the première dame.

Readers are invited to comment at my blog: www.iht.com/passages

Oil, gas body slams foreign 'handovers'

Bdnews24.com, Dhaka

A national committee for the protection of natural resources criticised the government yesterday for 'handing over' the country's offshore oil and gas blocks to foreign firms without people's consent.

Member secretary of the national committee for protection of oil, gas, mineral resources, power and port, Anu Muhammad, said that this government had no right to lease out oil and gas without people's consent

Speaking at a press conference, at Mukti Bhaban in the capital, he said: "All attempts to hand over oil and gas to foreign companies keeping the sea unprotected must be stopped immediately."

Petrobangla has recently selected two foreign firms-US company ConcoPhilips and Ireland's Tullow-for gas extraction in nine offshore blocks.

"If such attempts inside and outside the government regarding national resources continue, we will be forced to wage a movement mobilising experts from different professions and classes alongside the public," Anu Muhammad said.

Rallies, meetings and discussion meetings will be held in five districts from July 26 to 30, the committees meber secretary said. "If the government does not make its position clear by then, a protest rally will be held at Muktangon on July 30."

Convenor of the committee, engineer Sheikh Md Shahidullah, also addressed the press conference: "Tenders cannot be floated under the present PSC (Production Sharing Contract) model. If it is done, people have to be informed about it."

Cautioning the chief adviser's special assistant in charge of power and energy, he said: "If any agreement is signed under the PSC model, we will file case against (M.) Tamim."

The present un-elected caretaker government had no right to finalise the coal policy, he added.

Dhaka University economics professor MM Akash and Chittagong University of Engineering and Technology lecturer Shamsul Alam were among those present.

Petrobangla-PDB’s move to identify inefficient power units

UNB, Dhaka

Petrobangla and Power Development Board (PDB) will conduct a joint survey across the country to identify the least-efficient power plants to divert gas supply to new plants.

Official sources said the two state-owned entities have moved to take such an initiative following an instruction from the Chief Adviser to ensure an efficient and justified use of natural gas.

Petrobangla also put forward a gas rationing proposal at a high-profile recent meeting at the Chief Adviser's office in his presence arguing that it is unable to ensure adequate gas supply in the present situation due to insufficient production.

But, the CA outright rejected the proposal and instructed Petrobangla not to take any initiative that might hamper industrial production.

He also instructed both Petrobangla and PDB to ensure efficient and justified use of the natural gas as the country is suffering from a severe crisis of non-liquefied fossil fuel.

After the CA's directive, the Power and Energy Ministry has instructed Petrobangla and PDB to conduct a joint survey to identify the least efficient power plants that consume more gas but produce less electricity, according to the sources.

PDB officials said normally the old power plants which have already expired their official lifetime but still remained in operation to meet the emergency need of power supply are the most inefficient plants.

"We've more than 15 generation units at different places which are 30-40 years' old and they have lost more than 50 percent of their original generation capacity," a senior PDB official told UNB.

A top Petrobangla official said there is a PDB-Petrobangla standing committee to look after all sorts of bilateral issues between the two entities in the power and energy sector.

"That committee will conduct the joint survey and identify the least efficient or inefficient power plants and finally make a recommendation for their shutdown and divert gas supply to new power plants," he said.

He pointed out that the main motive behind the joint survey is to divert gas supply to most efficient and new power plants which produce more electricity with less consumption of natural gas.

"If we're successful in our move, we can have more electricity with the existing gas supply through its efficient and proper use," the official said on condition of anonymity.

In recent months, the caretaker government moved to install a number of rental power plants to get a quick remedy to the chronic power crisis.

But that move has failed to yield the expected result due to gas crisis. However, the government has been able to installed only 6 rental power plants having the total capacity of about 250 MW.

It is expected that the latest Ptrobangla-PDB move will facilitate gas supply to the newly installed plants to generate electricity.

Media relations training for police officers begins

BSS, Dhaka

A three-day media relations training for police officers began here on Friday with a call for increased cooperation and partnership between police and media to help prevent crimes in the country.

"Cooperation and partnership between the police and the media are very important for prevention of crime," said Additional Inspector General of Police and National Project Director of the Police Reform Programme (PRP) N B K Tripura while addressing inaugural session of the training on "Effective Media Relations."

Juvenile crime on rise in Ctg

Bdnews24.com, Chittagong

Incidents of juvenile crime have risen alarmingly in the port city of Chittagong.

Ataur Rahman, senior superintendent of Chittagong jail, told bdnews24.com that 47 children under 18 years of age were imprisoned in the past one and half months alone on a variety of criminal charges.

Every gang busted by police or RAB in the last three months had juvenile members, the jail official said. Law enforcers say criminal gangs use children and adolescents as they are able to reach their targets easily.

RAB staff officer Sheikh Shariful Islam, however, said many children formed their own gangs, getting involved in criminal activities as their families failed to meet their needs in one way or another.

Apart from street children, boys from lower middle-class families were also increasingly common among the young offenders, law enforcers said.

Rapid Action Battalion, on July 9, arrested four juveniles on charges of looting gold ornaments from a house in Potenga. They allegedly entered the house of a businessman pretending to distribute invitation cards for a wedding.

The four boys were between 14 and 18 years of age.

On July 8, three suspected muggers, aged between 17 and 20, were lynched in Olongker Crossing. Law enforcement agencies later arrested some other members of the gang, including five children.

Kotwali police last week arrested seven adolescent boys on charges of robbery. The boys told reporters that robbed for a living.

Assistant police commissioner of Kotwali Zone, Babul Akter said young offenders did not always understand the impact of these criminal acts.

They were usually interested in mugging, though some were involved in more serious crimes, he added.

Afzal Hossain, who teaches psychology at Chittagong University, said poverty and the rise in drug use were the key reasons behind the involvement of these young people in criminal activities.

But a yearning for 'fancy goods', family feuds and depression, due to any or all of these factors, were also triggers for adolescent crime, he said.

Chittagong metropolitan police commissioner M Akbar Ali said spiralling prices and unemployment might in addition be leading more young people towards a criminal path.

Psychologist Afzal Hossain said family and society have a greater duty in preventing juvenile crime than law enforcement agencies.

Suspected criminal held in city

UNB, Narayanganj

Rapid Action Battalion handed over suspected top terror Hasan Ahmed Hasan to police yesterday, a day after he was arrested in Dhaka.

The battalion officials arrested him Thursday after his return from hideouts in India.

Hasan, 39, is listed by police as a top suspected criminal in Narayanganj area. He used to reign in Narayanganj as a leader of Jubo Dal, the youth wing of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party. Badda police Friday received him from the battalion.

Police said the man was wanted in nine criminal cases, including murder and extortion.

A team of RAB-11, led by Captain Kazi Kawser Jahan, Thursday raided Kuril area under Badda Police Station after being informed that Hasan recently took shelter in the area on his return from India.

RAB said they had information that Hasan was on a mission to reorganise his criminal gang.

Release of Koko a positive gesture: Delwar

Staff Reporter

BNP Secretary General Khandaker Delwar Hossain said yesterday the government has shown its good intention by releasing Arafat Rahman Koko on parole for his medical treatment. He said though delayed it was a positive sign of the government.

The BNP Secretary General urged the government to withdraw all cases filed against Koko for his permanent release instead of conditional release on parole.

Delwar hoped that the government will also response positively by releasing Tarique Rahman soon in the same process for his better medical treatment abroad.

He also hoped that the government will show its good intention by releasing former Prime Minister and BNP chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia immediately without any condition, said a press release issued by BNP Publication Secretary Ruhul Kabir Rizvi

BNP’s Ashraf Hossain paroled for 6 hours

Ashraf Hossain

Bdnews24.com, Dhaka

The government released former BNP whip Ashraf Hossain for six hours on parole yesterday to attend the janaza of his mother. Deputy inspector general of prisons Shamsul Haider Siddiqui told bdnews24.com: "Ashraf Hossain has been released on parole for six hours from noon to allow him to pay his last respects to his mother. He will have to return by 6pm."

"My grandma died suddenly of cardiac arrest," Ashraf's son Mainuddin Ashraf told bdnews24.com.

"Her first janaza will be held at Comilla Noor Mosque after asr prayers. The second janaza will be held at our village home, Lalla in Brahmanpara, and the body will be buried at the family graveyard yesterday."

Ashraf was arrested in a case filed by the Anticorruption CFommission on charges of tax evasion in the purchase of a car.

The former joint secretary general of BNP, Ashraf was taken in a prison van from Dhaka central jail to Comilla at around 1pm yesterday.

Majeda Begum left behind six sons, four daughters and grandchildren.

2 human traffickers held, girl rescued

UNB, Sherpur

BDR personnel rescued a girl and held two traffickers at border Khalchanda village in Nalitabari upazila early yesterday.

Two arrested were identified as Julhas Mia of district town, and Parameshwar Coach of Nalitabari upazila.

Acting on a tip-off, the border guards raided the area and rescued Parveen Akhter, 16, of Bakshiganj in Jamalpur, and held two the men when they were trafficking the girl to India at about 3am.

They were later handed over to local police station.

In another raid, police arrested Anwar Mia, 28, along with a ganja plant at Marichpuran Purbapara village in Nalitabari upazila Thursday night.

50 people injured falling from tin-roof in Kishoreganj

UNB, Kishoreganj

At least 50 people were injured falling from a tin-roof of a school building at Kotiadi here yesterday.

The conditions of seven victims were stated to be serious.

The incident took place at the opening of Kotiadi Upazila Inter-Union Kabaddi competition between Bongram Union and Lohazuri Union. The Zilla Parishad organised the challenge.

Inspector General of Police Noor Mohammad inaugurated the competition as chief guest at the Manikkhali Mia Chand Shah High School ground where some 20,000 spectators gathered to witness the match.

Many of the enthusiasts took shelter on the tin-roof of the school building after failing to get rooms on the ground, witnesses said.

No sooner had the IGP inaugurated the meet releasing balloons and pigeons, the tin-roof of the building collapsed under weight of some 200 visitors.

The other supporters with minor injuries were given first aid.