BANGLADESH

Bangladesh is most vulnerable to climate change, junior minister for environment and forests has said calling upon the developed nations to swing into action from dialogues on mitigation.

"We've repeated wake-up calls from nature through floods, droughts etc. But still we're busy talking," Hasan Mahmud told a dialogue in the capital on Tuesday.

He expects that the Nov Durban climate talks will help make substantial progress in this regard.

He also sought 'transparency' in global climate change fund disbursement.

International NGO Oxfam and Campaign for Sustainable Rural Livelihoods (CSRL) organised the dialogue titled 'Expectations from Durban: UK and Bangladesh Perspectives' in cooperation with the European Union (EU) at CIRDAP auditorium.

Portraying Bangladesh's extra strain from climate change, the junior minister said a meter rise of the sea due to global warming would inundate a fifth of Bangladesh's landmass displacing over 30 million people.

He said: "Climate change is on us and we cannot afford wasting time."

"Developed nations should take quick mitigation actions to face climate change impacts. And there should be transparency in releasing climate change fund."

Mahmud said Bangladesh has been successful in establishing climate change fund. "We've established two funds - Bangladesh Climate Change Trust Fund and Bangladesh Climate Change Resilience Fund on our own."

Extolling the role of the UK, Mahmud said the European country was the biggest donor of Bangladesh last year. "The UK and Bangladesh should work together in climate change-related areas."

Visiting UK MP of Bangladeshi origin Rushanara Ali, speaking at the dialogue, expressed her eagerness to work together with Bangladesh and suggested public pressure on government to raise climate fund.

She said her opposition Labour Party would be pushing the British government to play a proactive role in pressurising the international community for releasing the climate change fund as per their commitments.

Rushanara, who immigrated to East End of London with her family when she was 7 years of age in 1982, said she had a powerful memory about and strong connection with Bangladesh.

"In 1997, when the Labour Party was in power, we campaigned for increasing aid for Bangladesh.

"We committed more support for Bangladesh, but it's not being followed through [by the present government]," she said and pledged her party's full support to Bangladesh in climate change issues.

Chairman of all-party parliamentary group on agriculture and rural development Hasanul Haq Inu demanded pledges from the developed world in the upcoming Durban meet to rehabilitate climate refuges.

Putting forward an idea of three-tier planning for Bangladesh – global, regional and country-level – to face the climate change impacts, Inu also asked the advanced world to set up a climate change adaptation research institution in the country.

He said the global climate change fund should be given directly to the affected countries.

"We don't want it through the World Bank or the IMF [International Monetary Fund]. At least 70 percent of the total fund should be given to the LDCs."

Climate scientist Dr Ahsan Uddin Ahmed said the UK had committed 60 million pound for Bangladesh after a 2008 signing between the two countries.

"But delay in releasing the funds make its use less effective," he said urging the UK to play a strong role in supporting Bangladesh by providing financial support.

Campaign for Sustainable Rural Livelihoods' convener and former adviser to the caretaker government Dr C S Karim moderated the dialogue, also attended by Oxfam's country director in Bangladesh Gareth Price Jones.

The government will cap immigration cost within three months to facilitate more Bangladeshi people's going abroad for employment, a top official has said.

Expatriates' welfare and overseas employment secretary Zafar Ahmed Khan told at a press conference in the city on Tuesday that the cost would be fixed after holding discussions with the ministry concerned and manpower exporter association.

"The immigration costs of the neighbouring countries will be reviewed… the cost should not be more than three months' earnings of an expatriate," he said.

Jafar said: "The cost is being higher for visa trade. Money amounting to 2-3 times the real cost is being taken from the immigrants. It's very inhuman. This can't be a business rule. It should be banned.

The press conference was organised on the closing day of a two-day international workshop at Hotel Ruposhi Bangla.

Bangladesh and Switzerland organised the workshop to reduce the immigration costs through discussions with the manpower recruiting countries and prepare a model agreement.

Fifty representatives from 27 countries, including the 11 of the Colombo Process -- a regional consultative process on the management of overseas employment and contractual labour for countries of origins in Asia -- and 17 international and non-government organisations took part in the workshop.

Representatives of International Organisation for Migration (IOM), International Labour Organisation (ILO), United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Asian Development Bank (ADB) and World Bank participated in the workshop.

Representatives from Welfare Association of Repatriated Bangladeshi (WARBE), BMDF, BRAC, CARAM Asia, IMA Foundation, Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies (BAIRA) and GFMD (Switzerland) also took part in it.

Eight recommendations were placed at the workshop by different non-government organisations (NGOs), government representatives and international organisations and seven recommendations by the manpower recruiting countries.

The recommendations will be placed in the annual conference of Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD), formed under the supervision of the UN, at Geneva in Switzerland on Dec 1-2.

"The final decision will be made in the conference in presence of the high-level representatives. There will be obligation on the countries concerned to comply with the decisions made in the conference," Khan added.

He also said the issued would be discussed in the 'Abu Dhabi Dialogue' – talks between the 11 Colombo Process countries and 9 other countries – at Manila in the Philippines in April next year.

Nation's internet service providers have urged the government to restrict international terrestrial cable (ITC) services from providing services other than transmission.

At a press conference on Tuesday, Internet Service Providers Association of Bangladesh (ISPAB) said the information communication technology (ICT) industry would lose its balance if the companies were allowed provide other services as well.

The government on Sep 13 permitted six companies, Novocom Limited, Asis-AHL JV, BD Link Communication Ltd, Mango Teleservices Ltd, Summit Communications Ltd and Fibre@Home Ltd, for laying terrestrial cables in Bangladesh.

Under the licence, the companies will be able to connect with the neighbouring countries through terrestrial fibre-optic cables. The country currently has only one connection to be with the international internet gateway.

Under a licencing guideline published on Mar 31, the telecom regulatory body had announced it would issue three licences at most. Later, however, it cleared six companies, saying a healthy competition would keep bandwidth prices low.

ISPAB president Akhteruzzaman Manju said the vital initiative of issuing ITC licences may fail if the policy is not corrected immediately.

The ISPs also demanded that Bangladesh be connected to a second submarine cable with delay.

They recommended that ITC companies should provide connections to divisional headquarters and Dhaka, and be required to connect all district headquarters within a given time.

The providers also suggested that they be allowed to take ITC connections directly, since IIGs (International Internet Gateway) are situated in Dhaka and Chittagong.

Manju also said the ILTDS policy introduced during the last caretaker government should be amended as it was full of confusions. The policy concerns VoIP services.

The process to reform the Election Commission (EC) has begun by promoting 56 officials of the EC Secretariat after around eight years.

The EC issued the promotion order on Tuesday.

The promoted officials will now be transferred to field offices.

Those promoted include two joint secretaries, nine deputy secretaries/directors and 45 senior assistant secretaries/additional regional election officers/district election officers/deputy directors.

Returning officer Jesmin Tuli who has been promoted as a joint secretary told  that the promoted officials had joined the EC Secretariat as per a decision of the commission.

"The EC will soon issue an order to depute them in field offices," she added.

As per the Election Commission (Officers and Staff) Rules 1979, there was no provision to transfer an official to field offices once s/he was deputed to the EC Secretariat at Agargoan in the city. But initiatives were taken to reform the EC after A T M Shamsul Huda was made its chief.

As a part of the initiative, the Election Commission Secretariat Ordinance was formulated in 2009. The EC also initiated to prepare new manpower structure by amending the rule book.

The EC Ordinance 2008 separated the secretariat of the constitutional body from the Prime Minister's Office.

A woman has committed suicide following her husband's denial to go to a Durga Puja marquee, the husband says.

Police detained Meghnad Roy when he brought Krishna Rani Roy, whom she married seven months back, to the Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) on Tuesday evening.

She was pronounced dead later.

Meghnad, a tailor in the New Market area, told reporters, "Rani asked me to go to worship Durga in the noon. She tried to commit suicide by hanging herself when I denied going as I had many works to be done."

DMCH police camp sub-inspector Mozammel Haque told that he informed a police station after detaining Meghnad.

The Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) has found Azizul Haque College former principal's and Bangladesh Chattra League (BCL) leaders' involvement in misappropriation of college fund worth Tk 3.4 million.

ACC Bogra office deputy director Mohammad Kamrul Ahsan submitted charge-sheets in 2 misappropriation cases to the court on Tuesday.

He told journalists that he pressed charges against former principal Sultan Ali and 21 others.

The accused student leaders are Chattra League college committee convenor Mahmudunnabi Russell and two joint convenors Kamrul Huda Ujjal and Kamrul Hasan Dalim.

The other alleged are retired chief assistant Jashim Uddin, acting chief assistant Abu Ershad Mohammad Mizanur Rahman, accounts executives S M Abdul Mannan and Rafiqul Islam, office assistant Abul Hossain, cashier Golum Azam, electrician Mohammad Montezar Rahman, assistant electrician Azharul Islam, cash assistant Mehedy Hassan, peons M A Hannan, Mohammad Shahinur Islam Shaheen, Zahidur Rahman, Harunur Rashid, Mohammad Alamgir, Mohammad Abdul Baset, Delwar Hossain, Sahadat Hossain and Moynul Haque.

ACC filed three cases with Bogra Sadar police station on Oct 4 last year against 23 charging them with embezzlement of Tk 6,870,140 between Nov 18 and Dec 31 2010.

The ACC investigators found proves of misappropriation of Tk 3.4 million.

Former assistant general secretary of the college student council Aminul Islam Dablu was exonerated from the charge as his involvement was not found.

The ACC had made 45 witnesses including incumbent principal A K M Salamat Ullah in the case.

The plaintiff of the three cases, ACC assistant director Birkanta Roy told that the charge-sheet of another case of embezzling Tk 3.4 million would be submitted shortly.

An election commissioner has urged political parties not to associate themselves with the forthcoming Narayanganj City Corporation (NCC) elections.

"According to local government law, city corporation elections are non-political. A political party cannot nominate a candidate in this election," M Shakhawat Hossain told the press on Tuesday.

"That is illegal," he said.

He, however, added that they were not banned from supporting any candidate.

The Election Commission on Tuesday approved all the eight nomination papers submitted for the polls scheduled for Oct 30.

Former Awami League MP Shamim Osman and former Narayanganj municipality mayor Selina Hayat Ivy are among the candidates.

A late-night meeting at the prime minister's residence went on for hours attempting to decide which of the two gets the party back-up.

After the meeting, prime minister's adviser H T Imam told reporters, "The party president will decide on the matter."

Senior Awami League leaders and cabinet members were present at the meeting.

"We hope political parties will refrain from associating themselves with the nomination of candidates," Shakhawat said apparently pointing at this meeting.

In reply to a question, he said the EC would take all necessary measures to ensure a free environment during the election.

"Law enforcement agencies will be deployed ahead of the polls. But there is no situation as of now to deploy the army," he added.

The deadline for withdrawing nomination papers in the election is Oct 12.

Foreign ministry will seek clarification from other government agencies whether any subsidy is being provided for carrying goods under transshipment arrangement.

"I will ask other agencies to let me know if any subsidy is being given or not and if any subsidy is given, have they taken the exemption into consideration," foreign ministry Dipu Moni said at a press briefing at the ministry Tuesday.

She said BIWTA informed her that all regular charges applicable to domestic vessels are also applicable to transshipment carrier.

Earlier, an expert on transit issue Debapriya Bhattacharya told that all domestic vessels enjoy certain subsidy including fuel or no charge on pollution.

The trial run of transshipments was agreed upon at the renewal meeting of Protocol on Inland Water Transit and Trade in Goa, India and it would continue until March 2012.

Passage of Indian goods from Kolkata to Tripura through Ashuganj started from Sep 28.

The foreign minister said so far, four vessels have been permitted to carry transshipment goods through Ashuganj river port and owners of the three of them are Bangladeshis.

"We need many legal instruments to bring full transit and transshipment framework into operation and many things are related to it," she said without elaborating.

Bangladesh during the visit of prime minister Sheikh Hasina to India in 2010 agreed that Ashuganj would be declared a port of call, but Dhaka not only declared the river port as port of call but also the second transshipment point.

TEESTA AGREEMENT

The foreign minister said Teesta agreement would be signed during the tenure of the incumbent Awami League government but she did not give any date.

"Both the governments were ready to sign the Teesta interim agreement but we all know why it was not signed," she said.

When asked, before the visit of Indian premier Manmohan Singh to Dhaka why she said Teesta agreement would be signed, Moni said, "You all have record of my interview. I said I hope that the agreement would be signed."

"Both of us were ready to sign it and I did not have any official confirmation otherwise," she said.

Before any VVIP visit, lots of negotiations take place and many agreements are discussed, she said.

"Not necessarily all agreements are signed."

Asked why Bangladesh did not sign letter of exchange on transit, she said a country does not sign any particular agreement for strategic or any other reason.

JOINT BASIN MANAGEMENT

The minister said Bangladesh has requested China to have an agreement on joint management of river basin.

"We share some rivers including Brahmaputra with China, and I requested my Chinese counterpart on several occasions to consider the issue," she said.

China is positive about it and both the countries are likely to sign an agreement in future, she added.