The New Nation - Internet Edition

Gas price hike implications

A HIGHLY placed official of the government is reported to have argued in favour of another round of gas price hike. He disclosed, the country at present is experiencing a gas shortage of about 200 million cubic feet per day (mcfd) that keeps power generation low by 700 megawatt. It is possible to extract additional seven trillion cubic feet of gas from the existing gas fields. This however, involves investment of about US$8 billion. International oil companies would not be interested to invest such a huge amount of money unless gas price was increased, the highly placed official said. The prices of fuel oil and gas were increased from the beginning of the current fiscal year in line with oil price hike in international markets.

Fresh thinking on gas price hike has come at a time when prices of fuel oil have been reduced in the wake of fall in oil prices internationally. The authorities will thus find it difficult to justify gas price hike. The argument of attracting IOCs is not likely to appeal to the people. Gas price hike would increase costs of power generation and fertiliser production and add to the cost of transportation and cause price hike of essentials. All these aspects would have to be assessed properly before taking such a decision.

The government should not yield to any pressure. BAPEX has the expertise to explore gas. It should seriously think of reducing dependence of foreign companies and start the process of strengthening the state-owned company. Increase of gas price will affect the whole economy. Thoughts on gas price hike should be backed by adequate analysis of its implications. The question of energy security should be carefully examined. Other options like coal extraction for solving power crisis should be explored.

Handloom factories threatened

ACCORDING to media reports, the survival of handloom factories in Mymensingh is at stake due to sharp rise in the prices of raw materials including cotton yarn and acute crisis of dye. A large number of handloom factories have been shut down in the last few years and many are on the verge of closure, say factory owners who are losing interest in their ancestral profession as they find it no more profitable for them. Only a decade ago, there were over 5,000 handloom factories in the district and more than 2,500 weavers worked there under the Bangladesh Handloom Board-run Basic Centre in Mymensingh. Now the number of weaving factories has now come down to only 700 with 1,000 weavers working there.

Some 2,000 out of around 2,150 handloom factories in Sadar upazila of Mymensingh district have been closed and the remaining ones may face the same fate if the government fails to provide necessary support for their survival immediately. The village of Jourampura under Haluaghat can be cited as an example for once being famous for its 'Weavers' Palli' in the district. It has lost the name and the reputation now. Most of the weavers are now frustrated as they hardly can earn livelihood by doing the handloom operation business. The price of one bale of yarn marked increase of over Tk 12,000 in the last one year, the weavers pointed out saying the government should ensure supply of yarn including the coloured yarn at fair prices for the survival of the handloom factories. It is alleged that though the government introduced a loan disbursement programme as back as in 1984 across the country to help the survival of the handloom sector, a majority of genuine weavers were deprived of the facility under the same.

Milk scandal cast shade on china’s image

Md. Masum Billah

This year China has become the centre stage of the globe for two reasons. One is for her successfully holding the twenty-ninth Summer Olympic Games . As soon as the curtain Olympic curtain draws she has invited the world attention for her tainted milk scandal. At least 53 brands of dairy products in China, plus foreign brands made with Chinese milk ingredients including cad berry chocolate and Lipton milk tea powder, have been found to contain melamine , a bringing agent used to make plastics and floor tiles. Chinese diary products found another use for the chemical adding into watered-down milk. The tainted milk found its way into yogurt, ice cream, cakes, cookies, cereals and mot unbelievably for many Chinese parents who have been ordered by the state to have just one child, powdered baby formula. Health Ministry has discovered that -melamine is limited to one part per million for infant formula and 2.5 parts per million for liquid milk, milk powder and food products that contain more than 15% milk.

Melamine has many efficient uses of industrial terms, clearly detrimental if introduced in consumed products. In fact, melamine consumption leads to Kinney stones and painful renal complications leading to kidney failure particularly in young children aged two or younger. Many experts in Asia even advise against the use of melamine dishware, as small amounts of melamine may be transferred from dish to food. Twenty seven individuals suspected of producing and introducing melamine into supply chain were arrested in Hebei province where more than 485 pounds of melamine was seized. Out of twenty- seven seventeen were managers of pastures, breeding farms and milk purchasing stations. The Sanlu Group in Shijiazhuzang, has been identified as the source of contaminated powdered milk . Moreover, individuals arrested in Hebei, claimed to be producing 'protein powder' since last year. Another individual said he was advised to lace his dairy with melamine to increase the proportion of protein and help milk pass the Sanlu test, a test which is below standard and flaw ridden.

The industrial chemical, according to investigation was produced in underground plants and then sold to breeding farm and milk purchasing station. Milk suppliers according to authorities' added melamine which is high in nitrogen to watered-down milk to deceive quality tests, since nitrogen makes products appear to have higher protein content, thus mask protein deficient products.

Some 54000 children have ended up in the hospital after drinking melamine-tainted milk formula and at least four have died. Other children have been hospitalized with kidney stones in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Still 12,900 children are in different hospitals. This melamine tainted dairy scandal which follows last years' debacle over contaminated seafood, toothpaste and tainted pet food, has stirred doubts and questions over the credibility of Chinese productions once again.

Dr. Jorgen Schlundt, Director of WHO Food Safety Department said "While breastfeeding is the ideal way of proving infants with the nutrients they need for health growth and redevelopment-it is also critical to ensure that there is an adequate supply of safe powered infant formula to meet the needs of infants who are not breastfed".

He added, "There is a need for courtiers to do major investment in strengthening the food control and food-borne disease surveillance systems as it could minimize the potential occurrence of food safety incidents like this in China"

It is critical that the industry strongly invests in food safety and adopts a food safety culture covering the food chain form raw materials through to the final product." Dr. Boutirf said. This manipulation and dishonesty not only impact on food safety and human health but also put the livelihood of hundreds and millions of dairy farmers at risk.

The global response since the scandal broke in mid-September has been swift.

More than a dozen counties have already banned some or all dairy products form the affected brands. EU slapped a ban on any baby food originating in China that has even a trace of milk. Some analysts commented that it could take until 2010 for the 20 billion Chinese dairy industry to regain what it lost its credibility and sales-and that assuming Chinese leaders get serious about a rigorous and transparent quality inspection system. China said it would cooperate with food quality inspectors of other nations to restore the crisis over tainted milk that has led countries including Malaysia to ban Chinese-made dairy products. "We fully understand the countries' concerns. The relevant Chinese authorities are ready to work with the food safety authorities of these countries to properly handle the issue"-Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Jang Yu said.

Chinese milk products including infant formula, candy, yogurt and ice cream have been banned or recalled in several Asian countries including Malaysia, Singapore, Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, Brunei and the Philippines. Two Chinese daily manufactures had also recalled baby milk power exported to Yemen, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Burundi and Gabon. Myanmar authorities have banned the import and distribution of nine Chinese dairy products found to be contaminated with the toxic industrial chemical melamine. The band comes after the country's food and drug watchdog destroyed 16 tones of imported Chinese baby formula and authorities urged people not use Chinese milk and dairy products because of the tainted milk scandal

China's government announced on October 9 that 300 million yuan (43.9 million dollars) in subsidies for the nations scandal. In order to stabilize the breeding of dairy cows and advance the breeding of dairy cows and advance the development of dairy industry, the finance and agricultural miniseries have set a provisional subsidy for farmers in hard hit areas. Farmers in China's main dairy regions of Inner Mongolia, Heber, Liaoning, Shanxi and Shandong provinces would be the main beneficiaries of the programme . 300 million yuan in funds would be handed down from central government department for local government to distribute according to conditions of the farms.

Although the tainted milk was discovered as early as March this year, industry and government cover-ups kept the scandal out of the state media until early September. Now

China is struggling to limit the damage to its food safety reputation as a growing number of countries decide to suspend imports of Chinese milk products or withdraw them from sale over the scandal. The scandal is expected to wreak billions of dollars in losses to China's dairy industry, while trust in the nation's food safety system has been greatly damaged both internationally and domestically. Many owe the problems not to just a few corrupt businessmen or officials but rather to China's quick transformation from being communist style economy to an unrestricted participant in market economy.

Since the scandal China dairy export industry has been teetering precariously on the brink of collapse. In order to curtain the public from 'truth' and curb nation's outrage over tainted milk products, China has tightened its policy on media freedom. It is also learnt that the lawyers standing beside the sufferers and affected ones have been constantly being threatened by the local governments. It's a great lesson for all the dishonest businessmen and officials of any country who commit crimes against humanity. How tremendous loss it incurs to a nation!

A case of classic encounter

Aijaz Zaka Syed

This is perhaps one of the most hackneyed lines in English poetry. But as is usually the case with all clichés, Rudyard Kipling's dictum, "East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet," may be rooted in reality. After all, as an Englishman who was born and spent most of his life in India, Kipling knew what he was talking about.

Although we all love his works like The Jungle Book and Kim, the man Orwell called the 'prophet of British imperialism' had his fair share of warts and prejudice against 'the natives'. But then all of us are all products of our environment. And Kipling, a gifted writer and poet that he undoubtedly was, too had been conditioned by his times.

So even though the first English writer to get Nobel Prize for Literature gave us such immortal characters as Kim and the absolutely lovable Mogli, he just couldn't help occasional bouts of good, ol' fashioned racism.

The two Britons, who were caught doing it in July on Dubai's Jumeirah beach, too were the product of their environment. Heavily inebriated and obviously oblivious to the rest of the world, they were caught by a cop while they were trying to devour each other. The couple was picked up when they abused and assaulted the cop for his effrontery to remind them that the beach was not their bedroom.

Michelle Palmer and Vince Acors, both in their 30s, had met at an all-you-can-drink champagne brunch before their romp on the beach, were arrested and later charged with "sex outside of marriage, public indecency and drunkenness."

This week, a Dubai court gave them three months behind the bars. Frankly, many of us in Dubai expected a far more stringent retribution given the serious nature of the crime.

However, most people in Britain and the West would see it as a 'harsh' punishment for what they think is a minor offence. In fact, many of them wouldn't see it as an offence at all. For them, this is something that should be left to two consenting adults.

Predictably, the British tabloids, invariably loud and in-your-face, have gone to town screaming how two of "our perfectly innocent and civilized" people are being victimized by a "conservative society run according to Sharia law."

Even news agency Reuters couldn't help end its Dubai-datelined report on the sentencing of the beach sex couple without editorialising that Dubai is an emirate that is governed according to "conservative legal code based on Islamic laws and tribal rules."

I wonder how many of the British commentators and reporters have actually been to Dubai or the UAE before coming up with such claptrap.

As anyone who has lived and worked in the Middle East or even stopped over in Dubai for a couple of hours would know, this is easily the most liberal and friendliest place in the region.

Dubai and the UAE have worked hard to create this oasis of peace, prosperity and stability in a region that has been at the heart of most global conflicts over the past hundred years or so.

Which is why you are welcomed with smiles wherever you go when you introduce yourself as a Dubai resident. Trust me, there are few more welcoming and genuinely friendly places in the Middle East -- and the world.

However, there are some things that Dubai and the UAE have not been able to develop a taste for the kind of shameless and licentious behavior that our two British friends have demonstrated.

Doubtless, Dubai is an incredibly tolerant emirate. But all said and done, this is an Arab and Muslim country in the heartland of Islamic world. And everyone, both residents and visitors, should respect its values, beliefs and culture.

In fact, why should we single out Dubai and UAE? I am sure this kind of slutty behavior wouldn't be acceptable anywhere in the world. Not even in the liberal Western societies.

The West may have made great progress in doing away with pretences like social decorum and moral values. But not even in the UK, Europe and Americas where no eyebrows are raised over a regulation French kiss and other exchange of intimacies in public, the degeneracy of Michelle Palmer and Vince Acors would be acceptable.

And why is it so hard for visitors and Western expats to see that this is just not done here? Is this only a culture thing? I find it hard to believe the Britons were not aware of the serious nature of their shenanigans at one of the most popular holiday spots and often crowded tourist attractions in Dubai.

Truth is, they just don't care. All they want is to have a 'good time'. They don't give two hoots about the cultural and religious sensitivities of the local people and how their actions would hurt them.

No wonder Britain is considered the most 'liberated' and sexually active society in the whole of Europe. Binge drinking and lax social norms and mores are only fuelling this sexual freedom.

This permissiveness and sexualization of everything has resulted in broken families, unwanted children and a general state of decadence and strife in Western societies. TS Eliot's epic The Wasteland in last century was a powerful protest against this corruption.

Personally, I don't have any issues with this 'freedom.' Who am I anyway? After all, as they say, it's their life.

Trouble arises only when they try to export this freedom model to countries like UAE that are not used to it. They abuse the generous hospitality of this magnificent country and its amazing people, bringing disgrace to their own country and all expatriates.

So what happened on the Dubai beach was a classic encounter between the East and the West. Which is rather unfortunate. Because if there's any place that truly challenges Kipling's claim that the East and West can never come together, it's Dubai.

By adopting best practices and initiatives from around the world and adapting them to its own peculiar needs, Dubai has demonstrated that the twain can indeed meet. While it has enthusiastically embraced the best of everything from the West, it has not let go of its rich Islamic and Arab values and traditions.

In fact, thanks to its unique geographical location, at the crossroads of great civilizations and cultures and the confluence of three continents -- Asia, Europe and Africa -- the East and West indeed embrace each other in Dubai. Don't let this degenerate into a carnal encounter on the beach.

Opinion: The same old demand

M.T. Hussain

Airing rhetoric for reviving the 1972 Constitution of Bangladesh is nothing new in Bangladesh from a section of the political leaders that has, in reality, turned a cliché. But fresh airing of the issue at this stage could be somewhat unusual for the fact that the present Caretaker Government (CG) has nothing to in the matter, and if anything to be done that might be pursued only in the next 9th Parliament hopefully in 2009 not automatically but subject to many conditions and provisions laid down in the post 1975 Constitution amended on many accounts and as has been in force since then.

If one would be serious about the proposed revival, issues to be tackled and settled constitutionally in the matter are not one but many.

First, the 1972 Constitution was framed in 1972 that took a few months and ended by the end of 1972 officially by the first Parliament members of Bangladesh. The members, it is well known, belonged to the lone party, Bangladesh Awami League, not elected in independent Bangladesh but elected in pre- independence period in East Pakistan under the Pakistan Legal Framework Order (LFO) for framing the Federal Constitution of united Pakistan. But due to failure of the members to do their assigned task in midst and confusion of the war of independence of 1971, post independence government turned from provincial one to central entity constituted all those members as the members of Bangladesh Legislative Assembly. There was thus an inherent lapse in that the members had not been given any clear mandate by the people to frame the Constitution of independent Bangladesh, much less the four principles, Bangali nationalism, socialism, democracy and secularism included therein.

Secondly, from the previous lacunae emanated another issue, that is, the four principles had no clear consent of the people as no such mandate had been attained through popular participation as that could be done through referendum on the specific issues of the four principles or mandate in matters of people's real genuine wish and real aspirations. As nothing of the mandate taking was done, the people continued to suspect that they had been imposed through the officially known native framers by Delhi for their own axe to grind in perpetuity that they had been in a secured firm position to take full advantage of through the power India had for directly helping in the 1971 war to win and establish Bangladesh in the soil of East Pakistan outside the framework of one Pakistan. In fact, it was an open secret that Delhi wished to keep in perpetuity Bangladesh into their all round firm grip in all matters, the four constitutional principles being the start of their all embracing design for hegemony in the region and around.

Thirdly, fortunately for Bangladesh, the patriotic freedom fighters of Bangladesh did not take long time to discover Delhi's evil design on Bangladesh's identity, sovereignty and independence that led to the August and November 1975 putsch that ultimately led to the Fifth Amendment of the 1972 Constitution changing radically three of the four principles abandoning, secularism for Islamic basic beliefs, Socialism to social justice obviously based on Islamic beliefs and norms and Bangali nationalism to Bangladeshi nationalism to take the whole nation off from narrow ethnicity to broad geographical entity.

Fourthly, the Fifth Amendment did not come about arbitrarily but through normal constitutional process and by the required two-third majority in the duly elected Parliament of Bangladesh in early April 1979 following soon after the 1975 revolutionary changes. As it is today in late 2008, the country is run by the force of the Fifth Amendment, and no government of three shades since 1980s did dare to change the Fifth Amendment for the simple reason that popular aspirations of the people would not accede or respond to such romanticism.

The above realities should not, however, mean that some would not go for the romanticism. Contrarily some are heard to do the political rhetoric, no matter though as cliché one. Albeit they could go on doing so for they have constitutional right in freedom of expression. But reverting back to the 1972 Constitution so far as the basic four principles are concerned, there is no way to do so but only one in that the same constitutional process as it was done in early April 1979. Whether such romantic attempt would be acceptable to the overwhelming majority people of Bangladesh would remain to be seen as another matter.