20,000MW needed to ensure power for all by 2020: Tawfiq

The country is to generate a total of 20,000 mega watts of electricity to ensure power for all within the year 2020, prime minister's energy advisor Tawfiq-E_Elahi Chowdhury said Monday.

'Our per capita energy consumption is the least in the region — one-eighth against China and one-thirtieth against developed countries. So, we would be requiring an additional 15,000MW of electricity by 2020 to ensure the service for all,' the adviser said at a seminar on energy development and management.

Tawfiq Elahi said the energy regulations need to be strengthened and more investments from public and private sectors should be poured into the energy sector so the trend of development could be retained in future. He said present government had achieved its target for 5,000MW by 2011, much ahead of the time.

The state minister for energy, Muhammad Enamul Huq, supplemented the Adviser and said, the government would provide all-out supports to the Energy Regulatory Commission to protect consumer rights. He said, the people of the country had been experiencing a better condition on power supply and hoped that it would be improved further next year.

According to the energy ministry, the country has been producing between 4,500MW and 4,900MW in peak hours and load shedding is much more less than that of the last year. The power generation on Sunday was 4,500MW. However, the government has set a target to generate 7,000 MW of electricity by 2013.

Chairman of Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission Syed Yousuf Hossain, USAID mission director Richard Greene, BERC member Salim Mahmud, chief of party of ICEA project Saeed G Barhaghi, among others spoke on the occasion, co-organised by BERC and USAID.

Source : New Age

Hafiz asks govt to shed secrecy over water talks with India

Opposition BNP leader and former water resources minister M Hafizuddin Ahmed   on Monday asked the government to boldly raise the river water issue with Indian prime minister next month to realise Bangladesh's due share.

Speaking at a news conference at the central office of the party at Naya Paltan he said that the Awami League led government was maintaining secrecy in signing various deals with India including for sharing of the Teesta waters.

He said that there could be no justification to play hide and seek over the water issue as it affects the life and livelihood of millions of farmers of Bangladesh.

He said that following a submissive approach with neighbouring India, the Awami League led government would not be able to ensure Bangladesh's due share in the waters of seven common rivers, Teesta, Dharla, Matamuhuri, Dudhkumar, Feni and Kushiyara.

He urged the Awami League led government to pull up the courage to demand Bangladesh's due share in the waters of Teesta at the talks with India.

He said that he would be happy if the Awami League led government negotiates the water issue with India better than BNP government did.

Hafiz said that when in office, BNP government had, at the joint rivers commission talks, asked for keeping 20 per cent of Teesta waters reserved and for splitting the remaining 80 per cent into equal shares for the two riparian countries.

'We would expect that the AL led government would ask for a greater share of the Teesta waters to protect the interests of lower riparian Bangladesh,' he said.

Hafiz said dams or barrage built by India on common rivers dried up the rivers in Bangladesh.

He said that none of the deals Awami League government signed, in its two terms of office since 1996, with India served the interests of the people of Bangladesh.

He said that the people of Bangladesh wondered whether the country at all has a minister for water resources.

He said that the people were puzzled by indifference of the government to the water crisis suffered by lower riparian Bangladesh.

He called it quite intriguing that the Awami League led government was maintaining silence though Indian water experts said last month that they had finalised the plan for the construction Tipaimukh Dam on the river Barak though it would dry up Surma- Kushiyara-Meghna in Bangladesh.

Hafiz said that in 1972 too the then Awami League government did not object when India had informed it about its plan to build the Tipaimukh Dam.

He said, 'Ziaur Rahman had first objected to India about its Tipaimukh Dam.

Since then, he said, BNP opposed the dam at Tipaimukh as it would dry up lower riparian Bangladesh.

BNP chairperson's adviser Shamsuzzaman Dudu, joint secretary genera Rizvi Ahmed were present.

Source : New Age

Lynching, crimes against women mark sharp rise

Lynching and crimes against women have marked a sharp rise in July compared the previous months, with 20 people lynched and 70 incidents of rape, 60 of sexual harassment, and 55 of dowry-related violence taking place in the month.

The rights group Odhikar also recorded seven people being killed and 1,247 injured in political violence and five incidents of acid violence taking place between July 1 and July 31. 

According to Odhikar, there were eight incidents of lynching, 51 of rape, 34 of sexual harassment, and another 34 of dowry-related violence in the previous month.

The number of extrajudicial killings marked a significant fall in July, with one incident of death in 'cross-fire'.

The month saw nine prisoners dying in jails.

Three Bangladeshis were killed and one was injured by Indian border guards at frontiers in July, an Odhikar report said. 

The statistics of July show 13 newspersons were injured, three received threats, and three were assaulted in the month.

The Odhikar in its report also condemned the arrest of Ekramul Huq, editor of sheershanews.com, an online news agency, on July 31.

The report specially decried the arrest of Dhaka University student Abdul Kader, torturing him in police custody, and lodging three 'false' cases against him.

Odhikar expressed concern at the clauses of the 15th amendment to the constitution, particularly at what it termed the biased changes made to the constitution in an imposing and non-transparent manner, disregarding the need for any democratic consensus or referendum.

'The engagement and opinions of the opposition and those who were called on by the constitution amendment committee were neglected as well. Odhikar believes that the amendment will push the country into a legal and constitutional crisis and trigger severe political instability,' the report said.

The organisation urged all the political parties to take initiative to resolve the present constitutional crisis through discussions and to ensure people's mandate for any resolution of the crisis.

It also demanded that the gas exploration and extraction agreements signed with Conoco-Philips should be made public.

'The state-owned company BAPEX should be strengthened and engaged in lifting oil [and] gas. Parliament discussions are vital before the signing of any kind of agreement and a complete draft agreement should be uploaded [on] the government website for [gathering] public opinion,' it said.

In order to put an end to lynching, Odhikar recommended strengthening the police and the judiciary and making them free of political influence, so that people get back their confidence in the police and the administration of justice.

Source : New Age

Housewife hacked to death in Chuadanga

Housewife was hacked to death by unidentified assailants at Barogangni village in Alamdanga upazila of Chuadanga early Monday.

The deceased was Shaheda Khatun, 35, wife of late Nabisuddin Mandal of Sardarpara of Barogangni village.

Source : New Age

Libya rebels round up Gaddafi militia, lose village

Rebels said they arrested dozens of militiamen loyal to Muammar Gaddafi in their eastern bastion but suffered a blow Monday in Libya's west, losing a village at the foot of a key mountain range.

At least 63 people were rounded up in an ongoing bid to tighten security in the eastern city of Benghazi, following an hours-long battle with Gaddafi loyalists in the opposition stronghold.

But in western Libya, pro-Gaddafi forces wrested back control of the village of Josh at the foot of the strategic Nafusa mountains, AFP journalists at the scene said.

Josh had been emptied of its residents, the rebels said.

The rebels captured the village on Sunday but said they were forced to retreat to the east, half-way along the road to the town of Shakshuka, after several hours of fighting.

The Nafusa region has seen heavy fighting between rebels and forces loyal to Gaddafi since the insurgents launched a major offensive this month in a drive on the capital Tripoli.

An AFP correspondent in Tripoli, meanwhile, said at least eight powerful explosions rocked the eastern suburbs of the Libyan capital on Monday, sending up a plume of black smoke over the Tajura district.

In Benghazi, opposition forces patrolled the streets overnight in a bid to track down more members of the pro-Gaddafi group, a rebel spokesman said, as shoppers stocked up for Ramadan, the Muslim holy month of fasting.

'We caught about 38 and later today more than 25,' the spokesman, Mustafa al-Sagazly, said late on Sunday.

'Some of them ran away and we are trying to catch them all over the city,' he said. 'We are arresting them.'

The arrests came hot on the heels of a five-hour raid by the rebel-backed February 17 brigade on a Benghazi factory, leaving four rebels and five Gaddafi loyalists dead.

The fierce shootout erupted at around dawn on Sunday during a raid on the cell holed up inside a licence plate-making factory.

Rebel spokesman Mahmud Shammam said the group had been rounded up for its role in organising a prison break in Benghazi last week when about 300 prisoners escaped, including high ranking prisoners of war.

The rebels' National Transition Council vice chairman Abdel Hafiz Ghoga said 'only a minority' of the prisoners remained at large and that they 'posed no serious threat.'

But the pro-Gaddafi cell was found in possession of explosives and had 'plans to plant car bombs in Benghazi,' according to Sagazly, deputy chief of the February 17 brigade.

He added the 'very same group' — the Katiba Yussef Shakir — was suspected in the assassination of General Abdel Fatah Yunis, a right-hand man to Gaddafi before his defection to rebel ranks.

NTC member Ali Tarhuni has said that those who killed Yunis after he was summoned back to Benghazi from the front by the council for questioning over military issues were members of another shadowy group with suspected Islamist tendencies, Obaidah ibn al-Jarah.

Source : New Age

Three-wheelers still running on highways

Three-wheelers are still operating on the highways throughout the country, and the police feel helpless to enforce the instructions of the government or the inspector general of the police to stop them from doing so.

The government on February 9 ordered law enforcement agencies not to allow unregistered three-wheelers on national highways to lower the level of fatal accidents.

Inspector General of Police Hasan Mahmud Khandaker told New Age on Monday that there was a tendency in the owners of the three-wheelers, including the Nasimon and Karimon vehicles which use shallow tube-well engines, to operate them on highways despite the police's stringent orders not to do so.

He said that he had again asked the superintendents of police of concerned districts to arrest the owners of the vehicles who allow them to operate on the highways in violation of the government's directive.

Police and other sources told New Age that the owners were able to operate such vehicles on highways as they had 'managed' the local police administration and leaders of the ruling party.

Visits to southern districts such as Barisal, Jhalakathi, Faridpur and Patuakhali showed that non-motorised vehicles were running on highways with the full knowledge of the police.

The superintendent of police in Barisal, Devdas Bhattacharya, told New Age that all the police could do was to seize the manpowered vehicles and hold them for a few days.

'The police cannot prevent the running of such non-motorised vehicles on highways as the number of policemen is too limited to cope with the large highway network. We can only seize the vehicles, but once they are released the owners again start running them on the highways,' he told New Age.

He also said that police cannot even file cases against the vehicle owners as these vehicles are made locally and are completely unregistered. 'Our only option is to destroy them but we can't do that on humanitarian grounds,' he added.

Habibur Rahman, a resident of Gournadi in Barisal who owns a battery-run three-wheeler, said that they ran the vehicles on highways by 'managing' the local administration.

Such vehicles are plying the highways in the south-west part of the country, especially on the Jhenaidah-Kushtia, Jhenaidah-Jessore, Jhenaidah-Magura and Jhenaidah-Chuadanga routes.

The superintendent of police in Jhenaidah, Rezaul Karim, said that the police were conducting enforcement operations every day and were seizing a large number of non-motorised vehicles.

They will gear up their activities in keeping with the government's instruction, said the police superintendent. 'When we seize such vehicles, ruling party leaders order us to release them by giving us undertakings that the owners of those vehicles will not run them on highways,' he said.

He said that highway police should take the responsibility of compelling the owners of the vehicles not to run them on highways in order to curb fatal road accidents.

Source : New Age

Press charges against Jamaat quartet by Nov 1: ICT

The International Crimes Tribunal on Monday ordered the prosecution to submit the formal charges against the four detained leaders of the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami by November 1.

The tribunal of Justice Nizamul Huq, Justice ATM Fazle Kabir and Judge AKM Zahir Ahmed asked the prosecution to submit by October 4 the report of the investigation against the Bangladesh Nationalist Party's standing committee member, Salauddin Quader Chowdhury MP, on charge of committing war crimes.

In case of failure to complete the investigation against Salauddin, the prosecution will have to submit a report detailing the progress of the investigation on October 4, ordered the tribunal.

As Salauddin was not produced before the tribunal, it ordered its office to send him the copy of the order and the report submitted by the prosecution detailing the progress of the investigation.

The tribunal also rejected for the fourth time the applications filed by the four top Jamaat leaders — its amir Matiur Rahman Nizami, secretary general Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed and assistant secretaries general Mohammad Kamruzzaman and Abdul Quader Molla — to seek bail.

On July 12 the tribunal, instituted on 25 March, 2010 for the trial of war crimes committed during the War of Independence in 1971, ordered the prosecution to submit the report of the investigation against the four detained Jamaat-e-Islami leaders by August 1.

The chief prosecutor, Golam Arif Tipu, on Monday submitted a report to the tribunal, detailing the progress of the investigation, and sought 90 more days for the submission of formal charges after completing the investigation.

'The investigation is at the fag end but we need some more time to complete it and prepare the formal charges after examining the documents and evidences,' Tipu told the court.

The tribunal asked him whether the prosecution would submit one formal charge against the four Jamaat leaders or four separate formal charges against each of them.

The chief prosecutor replied that separate formal charges would be submitted against each of the four.

Defence counsels Tajul Islam, Munshi Ahsanul Kabir and Fariduddin Ahmed moved the application filed by the four Jamaat leaders to seek bail.

They argued that the accused should be granted bail as the prosecution has failed to submit the formal charges against them even one year after their detention.

They referred to Rule 9 of the International Crimes Tribunal's Rules of Procedure, which says, 'If an accused is in custody during the investigation period, the investigation officer shall conclude the investigation within one year of his arrest under the rules. In case of failure to complete the investigation as specified above, the accused may be released on bail, subject to fulfilment of some conditions imposed by the tribunal. But, in exceptional circumstances, the tribunal, by showing reasons to be recorded in writing, may extend the period of investigation and also the order detaining the accused in custody for a further period of six months.'

The prosecution has also failed to point out and substantiate any 'exceptional circumstances' that may require the continued detention of the accused persons, argued the defence counsels.

They also argued that the accused were religious people and they should be granted bail to facilitate them to fast and perform 'itteqaf' (a religious ritual for which a Muslim devotee sits isolated in prayers) in the Ramadan, which begins today.

They also argued that the accused persons were aged people and needed regular treatment, which is not possible in the prisons.

Opposing the bail prayers, prosecutor Syed Hyder Ali argued that they should not be granted bail as the investigation was at the fag end and as the tribunal had already extended the time for the completion of the investigation.

The investigator has found that a number of people had gone into hiding after the liberation of the country, and the accused persons might do the same if they were granted bail, he argued.

He also argued that the tribunal had earlier rejected their bail prayers and ordered proper medical treatment for them, which can be ensured in jail.

They can also fast and perform itteqaf in the prison, argued the counsel.

Rejecting the bail prayers, the tribunal asked the prison authorities to accord every facility to the four Jamaat leader to enable them to fast and perform itteqaf, if possible.

It also asked the defence counsels to take the help of the prosecutors for ensuring the proper treatment of the accused persons, if necessary.

Source : New Age

Ramadan begins today

The month of Ramadan begins in Bangladesh today as the Ramadan moon was sighted in the country Monday.

The decision was taken at a meeting of the National Moon Sighting Committee held in the conference room of the Islamic Foundation in Dhaka Monday evening.  The state minister for religious affairs and president of the committee, Md Shahjahan Mian, chaired the meeting.

The president, M Zillur Rahman, and the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, greeted the countrymen and all Muslims across the world on the advent of the month of Ramadan.

In separate messages on the eve of the fasting month, the president and the prime minister prayed for continued peace and progress of the country and welfare of the Muslim nations.

The president, in his message, said the Ramadan was the greatest gift for mankind as it comes every year with the opportunity of self-rectification and forgiveness.

'This month is open for all to get closer to Allah and attain His mercy, blessings and forgiveness,' he added.

The president wished that the teachings of the holy month be reflected in the lives of all.

In her message, the prime minister said Ramadan was the month of self-restraint, compassion and forgiveness. 'This month is for purification of souls through sacrifices and it creates the scope for getting closer to Allah,' she said.

Hasina called upon all to be inspired with the teachings of Ramadan and establish peace, amity and fraternity in personal and social lives, shunning luxury, malice, violence and conflicts.

'Let us help one another to establish peace by shunning all ills,' she said and called for maintaining sanctity of Ramadan by exhibiting a sense of proportion, patience and restraint in all spheres.

The opposition leader, Khaleda Zia, in a similar message, greeted the countrymen and the Muslims across the world on the occasion of Ramadan and prayed for peace and prosperity of them.

Source : New Age

Fakhrul’s motorcade attacked

Unknown miscreants attacked a motorcade carrying Bangladesh Nationalist Party's acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir and party activists in Laxmipur town on Monday afternoon leaving at least 15 injured. Fakhrul escaped unhurt as the car carrying him was not damaged but several others, including three journalists, were injured in the attack which took place in front of the house of Awami League leader Abu Taher.

The BNP chairperson, Khaleda Zia, has condemned the attack. BNP and its associate bodies staged protests in Dhaka.

The BNP accused goons of Awami League for the attack and said the incident proved that local 'crime bosses' backed by AL had unleashed a reign of terror.

Witnesses said Fakhrul was going to meet BNP lawmaker Shahiduddin Chowdhury Annie after attending a rally at a local community centre, when a group of youths attacked the motorcade and smashed the windshields of a microbus.

They also dragged some of its passengers out and beat them up, they said.

Tareq Salman, a reporter of Dhaka daily Amader Somoy, who was in the motorcade said the youths had forced them out of the car and started striking them with sticks. 'When I gave them my identity, they spared me after striking me twice,' he said.

A senior reporter of Radio Today, Shahabuddin Chowdhury, and Mohammad Mohsin of barta24.com also sustained injuries in the attack.

The attackers vandalised five vehicles – two cars and three motorbikes – during the attack.

Earlier at the conference at the community centre, Mirz Fakhrul said the movement to topple the government would begin from Laxmipur claiming that the Awami goons had killed 32 leaders and activists of BNP there.  

He said the president had created the worst instance of politicisation by awarding clemency to a convicted killer of BNP leader Nurul Islam. 'The people of Laxmipur have been denied justice by the president's act,' he said.

Fakhrul said the BNP would wage a vigorous movement after Eid to unseat the government.

He asked the president to withdraw the clemency to the killers of Nurul Islam.

Source : New Age

Cabinet gives Russia deal go-ahead

The cabinet on Monday approved a proposal for signing a cooperation treaty with the Russian government for construction of Rooppur nuclear power plant.

The science and ICT ministry placed the proposal at the weekly cabinet meeting with the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, in the chair.

'The cabinet has approved the proposal for signing a cooperation treaty with the Russian government to set up the Rooppur nuclear power plant,' the prime minister's press secretary Abul Kalam Azad told reporters after the meeting.

He said the initiative was originally taken by the country's founding president Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in 1974. 

The meeting also approved in principle the draft of the Bangabandhu Poverty Alleviation and Rural Development Academy Bill, 2011.

The academy, to be operated under the Bangladesh Rural Development Board, would be established in Gopalganj, Abul Kalam added.

On February 24, Bangladesh signed a framework agreement with Russia for setting up a 2,000megawatts power plant at Rooppur in Pabna, after parliament approved it on December 9, 2010. The work on the project is expected to start by 2012.

Source : New Age