The New Nation - Internet Edition

76 poll candidates loan defaulters: Another 31 under scrutiny, big party leaders among them

Staff Reporter

Bangladesh Bank (BB) has identified 76 candidates as loan-defaulters who have submitted their nomination papers to the Election Commission for participating in the forthcoming national elections slated for December 29.

Of them, most are influential political and business leaders from two major political parties, the BB sources said.

"We have received list of 2,139 candidates who have submitted their nominations to the Election Commission. The Credit Information Bureau (CIB) of the BB found that a total of 76 candidates were loan defaulters among the lot," the BB Executive Director Khandaker Mazharul Haq told the reporters at his office yesterday.

"Besides the financial data of another 31 defaulting candidates are now under scrutiny," he added. The defaulters list might be extended, according to BB sources.

The central bank executive hinted that senior political and business leaders from two major political parties are in the defaulters' list. But, he expressed his inability to disclose the name in the defaulters' list.

"Bangladesh Bank sent the defaulters' list to the Election Commission last night," the BB Executive Director said.

Of the figure, a total 35 defaulters have already received stay orders from the courts, he informed.

Replying to a question, he said that the central bank has instructed the commercial banks to ensure presence of their executives at the time of scrutiny of nomination papers today (December 3) and tomorrow (December 4) to identify the defaulters.

As per the law, the loan defaulters are ineligible to take part in the elections, but they will be given opportunity to defend themselves during the hearings. Representation by the banks during the hearings would facilitate banks to establish their points.

The BB will appoint lawyers immediately to solve the loan-default cases, according to the official.

The commercial banks should play a responsible role about the loan defaulters, he hoped.

Earlier, Bangladesh Bank instructed the commercial banks to use all possible means to realise the default loans ahead of the elections.

Thai court dissolves govt: PM Somchai banned from politics for 5 years

Reuters, Bangkok

Thai Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat was banned from politics for five years and his party disbanded on Tuesday, plunging the country deeper into chaos and raising fears of a violent backlash by government supporters.

Party members vowed to "move on" and form another government early next month.

"We will all move to a new party, Puea Thai, and seek a vote for a new prime minister on December 8," Jatuporn Prompan, a PPP member of parliament, told Reuters.

The Constitutional Court also disbanded two other parties in Somchai's six-party coalition for vote fraud in the 2007 general election and barred their leaders from politics for five years. The rulings raised the risk of clashes between red-shirted government allies, who rallied outside the court as the verdict was read out, and thousands of the yellow-shirted anti-government protesters blockading the capital's two airports.

Hours before the court decisions, one person was killed and 22 wounded after a grenade was fired at protesters besieging the domestic Don Muang airport.

There was no immediate reaction to the court verdict from the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), who invaded Bangkok's two main airports last week in a "final battle" to topple Somchai.

The PAD had refused to negotiate until Somchai was gone. They accuse Somchai of being a puppet of his brother-in-law, ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

Around 250,000 foreign tourists have been stranded by the week-long sit-ins at Don Muang and the bigger Suvarnabhumi international airport. The air cargo industry has ground to a halt, costing the country hundreds of millions of dollars. However, airport officials said they hoped to resume cargo flights from Suvarnabhumi later on Tuesday, a welcome sight for a tourist- and export-dependent economy already suffering from the global financial crisis.

Finance Minister Suchart Thada-Thamrongvech told Reuters on Monday the economy might be flat next year, or grow by just 1-2 percent, after earlier growth forecasts of between 4-5 percent.

The travel chaos worried neighbors due to attend a regional summit in Thailand in two weeks, prompting the government to postpone the meeting until March 2009, a spokesman said.

The Thai baht edged up against the dollar and the stock market rose on optimism that political unrest might subside after the ruling, but shares soon fell back again.

"It's positive short-term as the government term has ended and the PAD may stop its protest," said Nuchjarin Panarode, an economist at Capital Nomura Securities.

"But in the longer term, there is still uncertainty as we need to wait for a new government and see its policies."

All six parties in the coalition government vowed to stick together and seek a parliamentary vote for a new prime minister on December 8, setting the stage for another potentially violent confrontation in the country's three-year-old political crisis.

Lawmakers who escaped the political ban would move to new "shell" parties to form another ruling coalition, a former minister said.

"The verdict comes as no surprise to all of us," said Jakrapob Penkair, a close associate of Thaksin, who was removed in a bloodless 2006 coup and is now in exile.

"But our members are determined to move on and we will form a government again out of the majority that we believe we still have," he told Reuters.

Such talk is likely to harden the PAD's resolve, a day after they began reinforcing their airport blockades with thousands of supporters from Government House, ending a three-month occupation of the prime minister's offices.

Only a handful of PAD members remained at Government House on Tuesday, as a crane removed the shells of six buses used to barricade surrounding roads.

Bunkers of sandbags and car tires stacked two meters (six feet) high were everywhere, beside lines of makeshift tarpaulin tents. The carefully manicured lawns and gardens were invisible beneath a sea of wooden pallets and cardboard sleeping mats.

PAD supporters left with no hint of remorse or regret.

"I feel very proud and am very glad to have done all this," said Tae Saekuay, a toothless, hunchbacked 67-year-old as he carried a small plastic sack of clothes and bedding through the mess toward the barricades.

"We need a new, clean government. We don't want corruption," he said.

S Asian militants threat to US: Obama

Reuters, Chicago

US President-elect Barack Obama said on Monday militants based in South Asia represented the biggest threat to the United States and he was "absolutely committed" to eliminating the threat of terrorism.

"We cannot tolerate a world where innocents are killed by extremists based on twisted ideologies," Obama, who takes office on Jan. 20, told reporters after naming his national security team.

"We're going to have to bring the full force of our power-not only military but also diplomatic, economic and political-to deal with those threats. Not only to keep America safe but also to ensure that peace and prosperity continue around the world."

With the world shocked by the deadly Islamic militant attack on India's financial center of Mumbai that killed 183 people, Obama pointed to South Asia as the area of greatest concern.

"The situation in Afghanistan has been worsening. The situation in South Asia as a whole and the safe havens for terrorists that have been established there, represent the single most important threat against the American people," he said.

"We're going to have to mobilize our resources and focus our attention on defeating al Qaeda, (Osama) bin Laden, and any other extremists groups that intend to target American citizens."

Obama offered American support when he spoke to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh after the Mumbai attacks.

India has blamed the attacks on militants from Pakistan. Obama said that while sovereign nations "obviously have the right to defend themselves", he did not want to comment on the specifics surrounding the Mumbai attack.

"I am confident that India's great democracy is more resilient than killers who would tear it down," Obama said.

"I can tell you that my administration will remain steadfast in support of India's efforts to catch the perpetrators of this terrible act and bring them to justice. And I expect that the world community will feel the same way."

India asks Pakistan to hand over 21 fugitives

AP, Mumbai

India picked up intelligence in recent months that Pakistan-based terrorists were plotting attacks against Mumbai targets, an official said Tuesday, as the government demanded that Islamabad hand over suspected terrorists believed living in Pakistan.

A list of people - including India's most-wanted man - was submitted to Pakistan's high commissioner to India on Monday night, said India's foreign minister, Pranab Mukherjee.

India has already demanded Pakistan take "strong action" against those responsible for the attacks, and the U.S. has pressured Islamabad to cooperate in the investigation. America's chief diplomat, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, will visit India on Wednesday. The Indian government faces widespread accusations of security and intelligence failures after suspected Muslim militants carried out a three-day attack across India's financial capital, killing 172 people and wounding 239.

Also Tuesday, Israelis began burying the six Jews killed in one of those attacks, the assault on a Jewish center run by the ultra-Orthodox Chabad Lubavitch movement. Several thousand ultra-Orthodox mourners gathered in Jerusalem for the first funeral, that of Leibish Teitelbaum, an American who lived in Jerusalem.

Four Israelis and a Mexican Jewish woman were also killed. A memorial ceremony was scheduled for later Wednesday for the 29-year-old rabbi who ran the Jewish center, Gavriel Holtzberg, and his 28-year-old wife, Rivkah.

Indian officials continued to interrogate the only surviving attacker, who reportedly told police that he and the other nine gunmen had trained for months in camps in Pakistan operated by the banned Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba.

India's foreign intelligence agency received information as recently as September that Pakistan-based terrorists were plotting attacks against Mumbai targets, according to a government intelligence official familiar with the matter.

The information was then relayed to domestic security authorities, said the official, who was not authorized to talk publicly about the details and spoke on condition of anonymity. But it's unclear whether the government acted on the intelligence.

The famous Taj Mahal hotel, scene of much of the bloodshed, had tightened security with metal detectors and other measures in the weeks before the attacks, after being warned of a possible threat.

But the precautions "could not have stopped what took place," Ratan Tata, chairman of the company that owns the hotel, told CNN. "They (the gunmen) didn't come through that entrance. They came from somewhere in the back."

A day after soldiers finishing removed the last bodies from the hotel, where the standoff finally ended Saturday morning, wood boards covered its marble latticework and seafront entrance as plain-clothes police searched for evidence.

The building was the last to be cleared, following the five-star Oberoi hotel, the Jewish center, and other sites struck in this city of 18 million.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who has promised to strengthen maritime and air security and look into creating a new federal investigative agency, met Tuesday with top security aides to review any government lapses.

Among those sought by India is fugitive Dawood Ibrahim - a powerful gangster, the alleged mastermind of 1993 Mumbai bombings, and India's most-wanted man.

Also included is Masood Azhar, a terror suspect freed from an Indian prison in exchange for the release of hostages aboard an Indian Airlines aircraft hijacked on Christmas Day 1999.

In the past, Pakistan has denied harboring the men. However, Pakistan said it would consider India's request and respond after receiving the list.

"We must try to dampen down the discourse of conflict and work toward regional peace," said Pakistani Information Minister Sherry Rehman.

While the cross-border rhetoric between Pakistan and India has increased since the attacks, both countries - by their often-bellicose standards - carefully refrained from making statements that could quickly lead to a buildup of troops along their already militarized frontier.

Mohajote virtually nonexistent

Pulack Ghatack

The much talked about electoral tie of Awami League with Jatiya Party is going to be costly, though not in the arithmetic of casting, but in terms of ethical legitimacy, as most of its traditional allies are taking their own course leaving the alliance leader.

National Awami Party (NAP) yesterday announced its "no relation" with Awami League fielding 23 candidates to contest in the ensuing election on December 29 alone, while Gonotontri Party is also on the way to do the same.

The JP will have to face opposition in many constituencies from united left, progressive and pro-Awami League quarters, as the left leaning parties will continue their fights in association with defiant AL candidates, it is learnt.

Marking sharp contrasts, unity and disunity are coexisting among the political parties in the so-called grand alliance or "Mohajote."

The "Mohajote" virtually does not exist as other than AL and JP, none in the 14-party alliance were ready to recognize themselves as components of the grand alliance.

The leftists are not bothering JP, while the JP is also not interested about them and both the sides are ready to fight each other even maintaining seat arrangements with AL. Exactly, the parties are maintaining bilateral ties with Awami League to ensure a comfortable position fighting against BNP-Jamaat led 4-party alliance.

They are also disgruntled with AL "defamatory offers" in seat sharing, it is learnt. NAP President Prof Mozaffer Ahmed was categorical to say, "I do not recognize any jote. Primarily, we went beside Awami

League in the interest of rearing an unhindered and neutral election.

But, Awami League brought some more parties and announced jotes."

"We did not discuss with any party over seat sharing, we did not even think of that. We have fielded 25 candidates and we will continue our fights," the told the New Nation.

"We did not forge any alliance with any party. We will fight with our own symbol kure ghar' (hut)," he added.

About seat sharing with AL, he said, "We have fielded 21 seats and we are not in bargaining. If they (AL) want they will have to move forward accepting these (candidates)."

"I have fought for the country during the Liberation War. If they give Ershad 10 seats, they will have to give us 60 seats," the former adviser of Mujibnagar Government added.

"If Hasina phones me, that will just be a social courtesy, - I will not give up my political dignity anyhow," he said in reply to a question.

"We will sure fight with Ershad and his Jatiya Party even if any seat sharing is arranged with Awami League," he said.

The seasoned politician was emphatic to express doubt about holding the election on December 25.

"There are serious conspiracies to foil the election. National and internal elements are involved in this conspiracy. Even Dr Fakhruddin may be unaware about the thinks that I know."

Gias Uddin Haider, General Secretary of Gonotantri Party, said that they were not in the grant alliance and would not forge alliance with Ershad or Jatiya Party.

"We have has clear resolution in our party forums against forging ties with corrupt, communal and autocratic persons or parties. So the question of forging ties with former military ruler Ershad cannot be raised," he said.

"You can write it quoting me that we are not in the 'Mohajote' and we will also not join it. Even if we reach any agreement with Awami League over seat sharing our candidates against Jatiya Party-men will not withdraw," Haider said.

Haider also added that the Gonotontri Party would break up with AL also and contest individually, if the party was not satisfied with at least four seats against their almost countrywide support to AL candidates.

Gonotanri Party will formally announce its decision after holding a presidium meeting shortly, he said.

The leaders of Workers Party, JSD, Sammobadi Dal and Communits Kendra have also expressed the same view.

Dr Wajed Ali, Convener of Communist Kendra, who have no candidate to contest the parliamentary election said, "we don't support any immoral alliance."

AL may not lose a huge in arithmetic of vote, but it is going to suffer another ideological and ethical crisis, it is observed.

The party is becoming alone to face the question on its pro-liberation and pro-democratic identity, which is valued tenderly by a huge in Bangladesh.

Welcome McCain

Staff Reporter

US Senator John McCain, who lost the November 4 US Presidential Election to Barack Obama, arrived in the capital late last night.

Adviser for Foreign Affairs Dr Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury received the distinguished guest and his fellow senators, Joseph Lieberman and Lindsey Graham, at Zia International Airport (ZIA) at around 10.30pm.

McCain will be in Bangladesh for some 11 hours, according to a press release issued by the local American Centre.

During their brief visit, the US senators were expected to meet Chief Adviser Dr Fakhruddin Ahmed, top political leaders of the BNP and Awami League and members of the civil society.

However, sources in the Awami League and BNP could not confirm whether there is any programme of meeting their party leaders with the US senators.

Before departing from Dhaka at 9.00am, John McCain is scheduled to brief journalists at the ZIA at 8:30am today.

The Foreign Adviser is expected to see the three US senators off at the airport.

McCain and his wife Cindy have a Bangladesh-born 17-year old adopted daughter.

McCain was elected to the US Senate from Arizona in 1986, and was 2008's Republican presidential candidate.

Senator Joseph Lieberman has represented Connecticut in the Senate since 1988. He was the Democratic nominee for vice president in 2000.

Senator Lindsey Graham has been US Senator for South Carolina since 2002.

The three senators are members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, with Senator McCain serving as its Ranking Member.

The foreign relations experts and analysts termed McCain's visit to Dhaka significant in the backdrop of the Indo-US nuclear deal and US strategic relation with South Asian countries.

Political alliances start informal poll campaign

Talha Bin Habib

After submitting nomination on Sunday most of the political alliances, parties and individuals have started informal electoral campaigns in their respective constituencies for registering success in the forthcoming parliamentary elections on December 29.

The BNP led four-party and Awami League led 14- party alliances would start their formal electoral campaigns after the Eid-ul- Azha, sources said.

The two big electoral alliances have all possibilities to declare their respective 'election manifesto' before the Eid they added.

But many candidates of these alliances and other parties as well as individuals have started their mass campaigning for election.

They said as the election is knocking at the door so they got involved in mass mobilisation campaigns for election in nook and cranny of their constituencies.

The campaign in long awaited national polls would reach its highest peak and get full momentum after lifting of the emergency rules from the country and withdrawal of nomination papers on December 11, political analysts said.

Talking to the New Nation many individuals and different party nominees vying for the coming polls are now moving towards their respective constituencies to enjoy the great religious festival of Eid-ul- Ajha with their constituents.

They hoped that the government would lift the state of emergency soon to facilitate the electoral campaign in a free atmosphere. The people of the country cannot exercise their franchise under the emergency rules, they added.

BNP as the vital partner of the four-party alliance has decided to start campaign just after the Eid holidays.

BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia will start election campaign after performing Ziarat at the shrine of Hazrat Shahjalal (R) at Sylhet on December 12 or 13.

On the other hand the Awami League- led 14 party alliance also plans to start election campaign within a couple of days, insiders informed.

Hasina for task force to establish regional peace

Staff Reporter

Awami League (AL) chief Sheikh Hasina yesterday claimed that the jail authority insisted her several times to identify the rivals within her party who had misbehaved or insulted her in the past to punish them.

"They asked me to name any offender who might have slighted me. They told me that the offenders would be punished," she said.

Sheikh Hasina disclosed this while talking to newsmen after a meeting with a faction of the Islami Oikkyo Jote (IOJ) leaders at the Dhanmondi Party office.

Describing her life in detention she became emotional and said, "While the jail authority was continuously asking me to name anyone who had tried to pull my legs in the past at any stage of my political career, I said, Allah would punish them." "Having failed to convince me the authority applied the same strategy to my neighbour (BNP chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia) and they succeeded there. The law enforcement agencies started to nab the persons according to the list provided by her," she said.

She informed that succeeding there the authorities came up to her again and continuously pressed her for names. " But I never lost my hope and patience and thought that all the crisis would be resolved one day by the grace of Allah," she added.

Criticising the brutality of militants she said some ill-motivated groups were conducting destructive activities in the name of Islam. It must be resisted jointly.

She also placed a plan for the formation of a taskforce with the participation of all our neighbouring countries aiming to establish peace in South Asia.

She called on the Muslim Ummah to take steps to curb terrorism in the name of Islam

She assured that the price of daily essentials would be within the buying capacity of the mass, if AL was voted to power.

She also assured to promote education and employment through modernisation of traditional religion-based madrasa education.

" The unemployment problem should be addressed urgently, as unemployed youths are being misguided to engage in all kinds of anti-social and criminal activities. The socio-economic condition of Bangladesh must be developed in line with regaining its identity as a secular democratic state,"

Asked to comment on the recent destruction of the Balaka sculpture by Islamist militants, Hasina said, "I do not understand why those religiously blind and misguided people desecrated a beautiful sculpture."

The IOJ Chairman Misbahur Rahman Chowdhury and Secretary general Muniruzzaman Rabbani and a number of AL leader Begum Motia Chowdhury and Mohiuddin Khan Alamgir, among others, were present in the meeting.

Madrasa student's writ HC stays DU 'Kha, Gha’ units admission process

DU Correspondent

The High Court yesterday stayed for four weeks Dhaka University admission process for 'Kha' and 'Gha' units for the current 2008-09 session, as madrasah students put up legal fight.

A division bench comprising Justice Mir Hassmat Ali and Justice Shamim Hasnain passed the order following a supplementary application moved by the counsel for the writ petitioner who had challenged the legality of new DU admission rules.

Meanwhile, the admission tests of the units have already been held. On October 26, the High Court upon a writ petition issued a rule asking DU authorities to explain why the impugned rules debarring Alim-passed madrasa students from admission test in seven departments "should not be declared illegal and void".

Ibrahim Khalil and four other Alim students filed the writ petition against the backdrop of recent campus violence on the issue.

As per the disputed new admission rules, an admission-seeker must study English and Bangla courses of 200 marks each in Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) or equivalent examinations to be eligible for admission into the departments of Economics, English, Bengali, Mass Communications and Journalism, International Relations, Women and Gender Studies and Linguistics of the university.

Barrister Abdur Razzaq appeared for the petitioners.

27th BCS crisis deepens: PSC office gheraoed, 20 agitators held

Staff Reporter

Twenty agitators were rounded up on charge of vandalising the Public Service Commission (PSC) office yesterday, as agitation deepens over the crisis-ridden 27th BSC examination continued.

Source said some 60 ex-candidates locked the main gate of the entrance and smashed windowpanes of the building at around 9:00am, leaving the office staff stranded inside the building. The demonstrators, mostly first round 27th BCS examination qualifiers, who failed to pass in the second-round results, held a rally outside the building

Witnesses and police said the qualifiers of the first round started assembling in front of the PSC office since morning and went on the rampage at about 10:00am, demanding that the BCS results be reversed and PSC Chairman Dr Saadat Hussain sacked.

The demonstrators stoned and damaged windowpanes of the PSC office, the sources said.

"At one stage of the demonstration, the protestors staged sit-in after locking the collapsible gate and confining its employees inside the building for almost four hours," says a spot account of the trouble.

On information, police arrived in the afternoon but failed to pacify the demonstrators. Then the riot police picked up twenty odd protestors onto the police van.

In protest against the high handedness of police, others courted arrest in a defiant move.

Among the arrested persons, five were relatives of some of those qualifiers and two others were unidentified. They were taken to Kafrul police station where a case was filed against them.

Shortly afterwards, the protestors staged a sit-in demonstration in front of the Teacher-Student Center (TSC) of Dhaka University demanding "unconditional release" of their colleagues and others by midnight Tuesday night, resignation of the PSC chairman and upholding the first-round results of the 27th BCS examination.

The left-out BCS examinees have been agitating for many days demanding that the results of the second-phase examination be scrapped. They had observed fast unto death at the Central Shaheed Minar last month.

They withdrew following the assurance of Education Adviser Dr Hossain Zillur Rahman on November 20 after a meeting with DU Vice-Chancellor Prof SMA Faiz, university teachers and the unsuccessful candidates at the VC's official residence.

Manjur Hossain, personal secretary to the PSC chairman, handed the reporters a handout that stated that a number of enraged ex-candidates, who failed to qualify in the 27th BCS retakes, filed a writ petition with the High Court against the government and the PSC.

The commission said it would not make any statement as the court was considering the petition. It also hoped that all involved with the examinations would not deliver any statements or comments on the sub judice matter.

Physiotherapy College demanded

DU Correspondent

Bangladesh Physiotherapy Student's Union (BPSU) urged the government to establish a full-fledged Physiotherapy College soon for ensuring orthopedic patients health service.

The leaders of the organisation alleged at a press conference at Dhaka University Journalists` Association on Monday, that a vested quarter is hatching conspiracy to cancel the Physiotherapy College project, which has been passed by health department in 1998 and the present Caretaker Government allotted necessary funds.

But a senior official of the Orthopedic Hospital being dissatisfied with the government decision ordered his hospital employees to attack physiotherapy students and filed several false cases against the students on September 4. Since the clash, the students of the physiotherapy course have been agitating to meet their demands and later, government assured the agitators that they would fulfill their four-point-demand by December 4.

But the students doubted that the project would be cancelled if the work of the college did not begin by December.

"If the demands are not met by December 4, they will hold tougher movement like fast unto death," said Sohel Rana, convener of the organisation.

He said the government had not implemented a single point of their demand yet though the officials of the health department decided to select a location for building the Physiotherapy College on September 16.

Physiotherapy students Arifur Rahman, Anwarul Islam Sajib and Saidur Rahman were present in the press conference.