The New Nation - Internet Edition

Obama: Last lap of a marathon

FOR black Americans, the road to political inclusion that has allowed Democrat Barack Obama to make bid for the US presidency first time ever in the history in most expensive election for the White House has been 'long and difficult'. After the Emancipation Proclamation ended slavery in 1863, a series of laws and amendments to the US Constitution allowed Hiram Revels to be elected to the US senate in 1870 in Mississippi as the country's first African American congressman. But only a small number of black Americans have entered the US senate or become state governors since then.

According to latest media reports, ending their electrifying campaigns the 47-year-old Illinois Senator Barack Obama and his 72-year-old Republican rival Arizona senator John McCain were in their constituencies on the polling day and cast their ballots. 'Change we need' slogan against continued failures in foreign policy for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and serious domestic economic disaster during the eight-year rule of President George W Bush, undoubtedly, helped Obama to have an edge over McCain who even had to say - 'I'm not President Bush'.

The lingering impact of the racial issue was vital to decide the fate of the presidential election, particularly as Obama was far ahead of his rival because the vast majority of 73 per cent of the total US voters are white against 12 per cent black and 13 per cent Hispanics coming from Latin America besides 2 per cent Asians. Rev Jesse Jackson set his own bids in the context of a process that began in 1954 with a landmark Supreme Court decision on public school desegregation that laid the groundwork for political equality and civil rights. Obama, in fact, ran the final lap of a marathon that has lasted decades.

Protecting exclusive economic zone

BANGLADESH authorities have sharply reacted to Myanmar intruding into Bangladesh's exclusive zone (EEZ) and sent a naval flotilla to restrain the intrusion. Only last month, Myanmar and Bangladesh held talks on delimitation of their sea frontiers. The two countries are scheduled to have further talks on the issue in the current month. When this has been the situation diplomatically over the issue, Myanmar's unilateral act in Bangladesh's EEZ represents a case of intransigence on its part.

However, it must not be only gunboats but also diplomacy to sort out the confrontation. Both countries have been making good progress recently in improving bilateral economic cooperation and trade. The government in Myanmar needs to be told immediately that these positive developments for mutual benefit would be spoiled if the stand-off is allowed to linger on. The two countries must essentially talk it over and mutually agree on their respective EEZs in the Bay of Bengal. Both must realise that none can sustain a military showdown in the high seas. Thus, the best option is to engage in productive talks on the basis of give and take so that both countries can get down to make use of their EEZs.

But any violence will only scare away investors willing to take part in exploration and production of hydrocarbons in the area. The latest development should also make clear the need to give very high priority to the country's EEZ. Establishing claim to the EEZ and actually exercising control over it should be high on the agenda from now on. While there is no alternative to continuing efforts to strengthen the navy to defend the maritime boundary, conflicting claims on the EEZ between two close neighbours should better be resolved through the diplomatic channel wasting no more time.

Milk scandal: Everyone will have to come forward

Ripan Kumar Biswas

All we know that good nutrition and a balanced diet help the kids grow up healthy. As Infant's health has long been considered one of the most important indicators of the health of a nation as well as the whole world, what are we doing with our infants' year after year? We are feeding our infants with melamine-contaminated milk powder! Melamine, which is an organic base chemical and most commonly found in the form of white crystals rich in nitrogen, is widely used in plastics, adhesives, countertops, dishware, or whiteboards. Shame on us!

The '2008 melamine-contaminated milk powder' scandal broke on July 16, 2008 while 16 infants of Gansu Province in China, who had been fed on milk powder produced by Shijiazhuang-based Sanlu Group, were diagnosed with kidney stones. Four infants out of 94,000 victims died from kidney stones and other kidney damage by the end of September. The chemical appeared to have been added to milk in order to cause it to appear to have higher protein content.

Producers of milk powder add water to raw milk to increase its volume. Due to this dilution, protein concentration in the milk becomes lower. Companies using the milk for further production (e.g. of powdered infant formula) normally check the protein level through a test measuring nitrogen content. The addition of melamine increases the nitrogen content of the milk and therefore its apparent protein content. Accused companies in China did the same. Addition of melamine into food is not approved by the FAO/WHO Codex Alimentarius (food standard commission), or by any national authorities. As it is one of the largest food safety events in the world in recent years, everyone must believe that adding melamine in the milk was not an isolated accident, but a large-scale intentional activity to deceive consumers for simple, basic, short-term profits.

In 2007, melamine was found in wheat gluten and rice protein concentrate exported from China and used in the manufacture of pet food in the United States. This caused the death of a large number of dogs and cats due to kidney failure. But the present event is more inhuman as melamine contamination has been found in a number of different brands of powdered infant formula, in one brand of a frozen yogurt dessert and in one brand of canned coffee drink. All these products were most probably manufactured using ingredients made from melamine-contaminated milk.

Although there have been no reports so far of sickness attributed to melamine in milk powder in Bangladesh as three of the eight brands of infant milk powder are now being imported from China while the rest are coming from Denmark, Australia and New Zealand, but the BSTI (Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institute), the Department of Chemistry of Dhaka University and Plasma Plus, a private testing laboratory, found presence of toxic melamine in those brands. On September 21, 2008, government first decided to ban procurement, sale and stocking of powdered milk of three Chinese brands milk contaminated with melamine - San Lu, Sun Care and Yashili - following reports of chemical contamination that caused four deaths in China. But later, it hesitated to follow the HC order to stop the sale and display of those eight baby formula brands-- Diploma, Red Cow, Dano, Yashili-1, Yashili-2, Sweet Baby-2, Nido Fortified Instant, and Anlene.

The general people came to know about the horror only a couple of days before, but the producers of those known brand of milk powders might know the adverse effect of the presence of melamine in the milk as melamine can form crystals that can block the small tubes in the kidney potentially stopping the production of urine, causing kidney failure and, in some cases, death.

Observing the adverse situation, WHO again has recommended breastfeeding as the ideal way of providing young infants with the nutrients they need for healthy growth and development. But most of us whether rich or poor, have a mindset that the tinned milk definitely has enough nutrition. Breast milk is the best and safest form of nutrition for infants. Infants and breast milk are designed for each other. Infant formulas have been developed to substitute for breast milk when nursing is impractical or in the unusual instances when it is physically impossible or contraindicated. The goal for infant formulas is to match as closely as possible the composition of human breast milk.

According to Prof Sufia Khatoon of the Institute of Child and Mother Health (IMCH), tinned milk can do nothing here and there is nothing equivalent to breast milk which should be provided uninterruptedly for six months. But only 43 percent of the children fewer than three years were exclusively breastfed, said Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey 2007. And the rate of infant mortality can be reduced by 13 percent in the country if the rate of exclusive breastfeeding can reach 100 percent. The present infant mortality of Bangladesh is 52.5 percent by the survey of the United Nations Population Division and 57.45 by the CIA World Fact book. The experts stressed that breastfeeding at the first hour of birth could reduce the death of at least 30,000 newborns in the country a year. Around 80 percent of mothers in urban areas feed their infants artificial milk (powder or infant formula) besides breastfeeding, said Dr Fatima Parveen Chowdhury of the Institute of Public Health and Nutrition.

One should encourage mothers to breastfeed their babies because of the multiple benefits to the child, to herself, to her family and to society. We should be kind and supportive to them. Various authorities in government or in public sector should realize the need of neonates as well as the mothers.

Under the new proposals in UK on July 20, 2008, the government stated that a mother, breastfeeding a child of six months or less would now be more rigorously protected by law from discrimination. Breastfeeding mothers are also protected in law under the provision of goods, services and facilities.

Starting July 1, 2008, a new law in Indiana, USA is protecting breastfeeding in the workplace. The law applies to businesses with 25 or more employees, as well as the state and political subdivisions of the state. The new law requires employers to provide a private location, other than a toilet stall, where an employee can pump breast milk in privacy. In addition, the employer must either provide a refrigerator (or other cold storage space), or allow the employee to provide their own portable cold storage device, for keeping milk that has been pumped until the end of the employee's work day. Bangladesh can think some of the provision like this.

Bangladesh imports milk products worth million dollars every year. To meet the demand, local liquid milk dairy firms should be encouraged. Research published in 2000 reported that there was a 41.2 ml/day per capita availability of milk compared to the daily requirement of 250 ml in Bangladesh. This means milk production needs to grow by 4.2 5.6% per annum if is to meet the increased demand of an expected 1.6% population growth by 2010. Given the prospect of such a high growth rate in the dairy industry, there is an opportunity for recruitment of many smallholder producers and others involved in milk processing and marketing. In the present situation, a few numbers of liquid milk outlets and small backyard dairy farms are failing to cater to the sudden surge in demand with their limited supplies as melamine scare is sending more and more anxious customers to them.

After going thorough the event, everyone including the government or the private sector should learn the lessons, properly deal with the incidents, bring or change necessary provisions, improve the inspection and supervision systems and strengthen the local dairy industries.

How to win a war when losing?

Debbie Menon

No, dialogue is not a solution! It is merely another, quite common, much overused, abused, and never quite successful method of attempting, or pretending to attempt, to find or describe a solution; and it is usually compromised by bad-faith on the part of one, two or all parties!

Furthermore, it takes the bad-faith of but one participant to thoroughly compromise it, and turn it into a strategic tool for forestalling the search for a solution, and perpetuating the status quo!History has demonstrated this!

A shooting match, with my men in one trench, yours in another, or me in my airplane dropping bombs on you while you run or shoot back at me in the sky, is also a form of dialogue; the most common form, in which one side applies its most forceful and persuasive arguments to prove to the other that their argument is the best and their solution is the best, to which the other side must accede.

Dialogue, 'in this sense' two or more parties battering their heads against each other across a table, is no different and no more of a solution than two armies battering heads across a battlefield. I can name too many examples with which you are already familiar! The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict for instance.

It is part of the problem, and usually just a tool to forestay the solution, which lies in the proposition that both parties should return home and 'stop it'!

If everyone would stay at home, then there would be no invaders to fight, and no reason to fight them. Everything we see which is happening in Iraq, Palestine, Israel, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Syria, the Middle East, in the diplomatic quarters throughout the world, are symptoms. And, by fighting symptoms, we become part of the problem; No one is becoming part of a solution. And, that is the strategy of the offender, to keep everyone's eye off the target!

Whether we stay or leave Afghanistan is simply a band-aid. Let us refocus! Find the real target! Let's get to the heart of the problem.

Let's get quit of band-aids and affect a cure! As the Australian editorialist Mahir Ali says, "to repeat myself, we must stop fighting the symptoms and attack the causes." When I define the problem, I come up with proxy guns in the hands of Corporate Business, all marching under false banners of Defence, Patriotism, Nation, Religion, Freedom, Democracy, Necessity and an endless list of other lies. All Pied Pipers of Hamlin!

Soldiers, as Smedley Butler has said in "War is a Racket" clearly, are simply the hired hands of businessmen who carry the guns. One possible solution would be to disarm businessmen! Take the armies out of the picture. This is something, which would have to begin "at home," in all houses.

The question should be asked, what are all those American forces doing in foreign places as it were? Why are they still in nearly two hundred other foreign countries, most of whom they are not at war with?

The Anglo-Saxon Press and Military has this strange misunderstanding that they are the rightful native people wherever they go in the world.

And that everyone else is the foreigner. They talk about "foreign fighters" coming into Iraq or Afghanistan. It just happened last week. The US attacked a town in Syria decimating a civilian family of five, to prevent foreign fighters from interfering in Iraq.

You once had in India what is described in Western History as a "Rebellion." I ask, how can a bunch of brown skin people, all of whom were born in the land, and from families who had lived in the land for centuries, conduct a "rebellion" against masses of foreign soldiers who do not even look like them, worship the same gods or speak the same language and none of whom were born there, but all of whom had arrived on the boat? In all guerrilla wars, the guerrillas do not have to win a single battle. They only need not give up resisting. That was the strategy of the American War of Independence. George Washington lost almost every battle he was in. His heroic feat was to keep an army intact until the British eventually got tired of war and went home. And ran out of money! Taliban? Schmaliban? Fatah? Hamas? A people's choice, an imposition by force, religious persuasion, or whatever means or whatever they will tolerate from their own people in the name of government is, to my mind, as long as it is domestic in nature, always preferable to that imposed by some outside power.

Because of the diversity of cultures in the world, all people may not choose the same methods or principles, in government, sex, family values, prayer, war or peace, commerce, theft or criminality. What is good for the goose is not always acceptable for a gander. First, you must define the problem, and what may constitute a solution. And then apply the moral principle of who decides it, who applies it, how, and to whom! You?

A solution for whom? You? Me? The United States and the Kingdom of Israel? Abu Ali, or Abu Basha? Abu Frick,or Abu Frack? Gospodin Putin? The people and tribes who call themselves or are identified as "Afghanis?" Not all people may vote the same as you, but will you allow them to vote their way if it is not your way?

Whatever solution to whatever question you come up with, is it one, which you would like to see applied in the country that you call "home?"

No, America should stop meddling in foreign affairs. They have entirely too many foreign, corporate and personal interests in influencing their government policies, in both foreign and domestic affairs.

For example, how many hundreds, if not thousands, of years of meddling in the affairs of the Afghan tribes? How many decades of persecution and enslavement of the Palestinian people?

Go figure! We must find a more humane way. Education? Persuasion? Debate or argument? But that would work only if some impartial, neutral body would set geographical limits (the United Nations did) and enforce them (no one has). All of which makes the UN a toothless paper tiger. Why?

Opinion: Almighty God fulfils His promises

Dr. M. S. Haq

Almighty God - our Lord promised, among other things, in Holy Quran: He will protect Holy Quran. The event that reportedly took place recently in Hyderabad, India, bears inter alia testimony to the fact: how Almighty God has - once again - set a clear example with regard to fulfilment of His above promise before all His creatures, enabling them to witness it or to know about it or to internalize it otherwise, to take lesson from it, and to use it in pursuits of say, strengthening their trust in Him, to mention a few. A description of the event given by one, Mr. Naseer Ahmad Mughal via a google website posting has been presented below:

"In a house of one Mr. Mohammad Farooq of Tappachabutra, Hyderabad (India) termite eat up a 100 year old Quran. All the cover was damaged and box was damaged and even the Urdu translation was damaged but the termite did not touch the Arabic words of Holy Quran. This shows that the words of almighty ALLAH are always preserved by almighty ALLAH even the termites did not damage the Arabic verses. This Quran is kept for public display for 3 days at Majlish Bachao Tahreek (MBT) office at Chanchalguda, Hyderabad.

Below photos shows that Maulana Sayed Shah Badur u Din Qadri al Gillani and Dr Khayam Khan, Mr.Amjad Ullah Khan and others seeing the Miracle of Quran. The Salar Jung Museum administration has examined and given the certificate also."

The photographs mentioned above could not be reproduced here due to a technological limitation. The title of above story was Miracle of Quran.

Interesting though, Almighty God set in the past - at a place in Turkey - another example (as per my knowledge, so far) pertaining to His promise with regard to the protection of Holy Quran. I heard about it - a few years ago - from the then Navy Commodore Sarwar Jahan Nizam, at present Vice Admiral Sarwar Jahan Nizam - Chief of Naval Staff, Bangladesh Navy.

I believe, findings of a brief analysis of above protection related developments would inter alia be instrumental in reinforcing or renewing or activating or reactivating or creating or recreating things, like:

1. The existence of Almighty God, and truth behind His Holy Utterances that have been communicated to humans, jiins and others via say, Holy Books to Jews, Christians, Muslims, and others.

2. The need for gearing up - to a humanly or otherwise possible extent and in a sustainable manner - research, development and engineering (RDE) pertaining to everything Almighty God has created so far - for promoting and sustaining individual, collective and other benefits of all concerned - for example.

3. Motivations for, attempts towards, for say, re-visiting Almighty God's creation in pursuits of unearthing, understanding and internalizing - by all concerned - further mysteries associated with uncertainties, known things, unknown things and other things within and beyond universe, per se.

4. Desires and efforts associated with praising our Lord in a manner that has got potentials for acceptance by Him as per hopes and expectations.

5. Initiatives and activities that could hopefully lead to ever improving friendships between Almighty God and His creatures at various levels of interaction - known or unknown or otherwise, conscious, subconscious or otherwise - within and beyond ongoing time, as well as space, among other things.

6. Efforts towards hunting successes for everyone - whether retroactive or otherwise - for time that has already passed, and for time that will come to pass up to the Day of Destruction, per se. In a deeper sense, there exists hardly anything that can be defined as present.

7. Thanks giving opportunities.

The last word: let us accelerate efforts towards understanding Almighty God in a more meaningful and better fashion than that at present and implementing His instructions in say, our life, living and continuity in a way that could facilitate and sustain progress and prosperity for all through infinity and beyond.