23 Feb, 2016

SECOND EDITION

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2016

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Falgun 11, 1422, Jamadiul Awal 13, 1437

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Regd No DA 6238, Vol 3, No 308

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www.dhakatribune.com | 32 pages | Price: Tk10

ATM CARD FORGERY

More foreigners, bankers involved n Mohammad Jamil Khan Police yesterday arrested a foreigner and three local bank officials in Dhaka in connection with the recent ATM card forgery.

Investigators suspect that two more foreigners and several other local bankers could have also had a hand to play with the recent ATM card forgery scam.

Police’s Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Monirul Islam, head of the newly formed Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime Unit, said these in a press briefing after arresting the four suspected debit card forgers yesterday.

The other suspected bankers mainly work in the information technology (IT) or card divisions of a number of private commercial banks.

The passport seized from the foreigner’s possession shows he is Piotr Szczepan Mazurek, who came to Bangladesh with the Polish passport on business visa a year ago.

The three bank officials are Maksud, Rezaul Karim Shahin and Refaz Ahmed Roni – all from the City Bank’s card division.

They were shown arrested in the case filed by the United Commercial  PAGE 2 COLUMN 1

INSIDE JMB behind Hindu priest murder, not IS One day after the killing of a Hindu priest, police have arrested three people – two of them members of JMB and the other from Shibir.  PAGE 3

Rohingyas stay put in Myanmar camps After Husaina’s 20-year-old son boarded a boat to escape poverty and discrimination in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, she heard nothing from him for seven months.  PAGE 22

Arson attempt at the book fair

Miscreants tried to set a book stall on fire at the Amar Ekushey Book Fair in Dhaka.  PAGE 32

Detectives escort suspects of the recent ATM booth skimming to the DMP media centre on Minto Road yesterday. Third from right is a foreigner with a Polish passport and a German ID card, while two others in handcuffs beside him are bank officials. Another detained suspect, also a banker, is not in the picture MEHEDI HASAN

Police vehicle on wrong PM slams Mahfuz Anam, side kills uni student says he should quit n Kamrul Hasan A police vehicle speeding on the wrong side of the road has killed a private university student at Dhaka’s Banani.

Riaz Uddin Tipu, a BBA final-year student at ASA University, was on his motorcycle when a minibus without a number plate, requisitioned by police, hit him yesterday afternoon. He was rushed to a hospital where doctors pronounced him dead.

Tipu, 26, worked for mobile company Oppo. His colleague Bitin, who was pillion riding, was seriously injured, Banani police station’s Inspector (investigation) Waheduzzaman told the Dhaka Tribune.

They were on their way to Radisson hotel to attend a programme.

Waheduzzaman confirmed that police had requisitioned the vehicle.

“We have detained the driver and

will investigate why he was on the wrong side,” he said, declining further comment.

Witnesses faulted police. They said the minibus, rushing towards Mohakhali flyover, hit Tipu’s motorcycle when he was making space for another vehicle.

“He could have been saved had police stopped. But they sped away after running over the bike,” a witness, seeking anonymity, said.

Students of nearby private universities blocked the road for about two hours after the accident. Police briefly detained three of Tipu’s colleagues from there. The agitators left after police promised stern actions against culprits.

Several witnesses questioned police action. “How can you expect people to abide by traffic laws when police choose to drive on the wrong side of the road?” a man said. l

n UNB Coming down heavily on the Daily Star Editor Mahfuz Anam for publishing DGFI-supplied reports during the army-led caretaker government, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said he should quit after his confession if he has a little bit of self-dignity.

“This editor has confessed to making a mistake by publishing those DGFI-supplied reports, but people, Awami League leaders and activists, the business community, students and teachers, and my family and I had to pay the price for that mistake. Why didn’t he show the courage by resigning? If he has the guts, then he should resign,” she said at a meeting organised by Awami League marking Language Martyrs' Day and International Mother Language Day at Bangabandhu Interna-

tional Conference Centre (BICC) in the capital yesterday.

Hasina wanted to know why those news items provided by the DGFI were published. “A newspaper like the Daily Star should carry the news as supplied by the DGFI? Who is that mad there to believe that? The Daily Star is very much choosy about English. It proves that DGFI people are more knowledgeable than the Daily Star.”

She recalled a recent incident at the BBC which carried false news items on British MPs and ministers.

"When the report was found false, the BBC offered apology and the people involved in that story all resigned.”

Hasina said what the editor has so far written with the pretence of honesty were all fraudulences and  PAGE 2 COLUMN 1

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Video testimony to help convict Bangladeshi human trafficker Reuters n Thomson Foundation, Mumbai The video testimony of a Bangladeshi trafficking victim rescued from an Indian brothel will help convict her alleged trafficker, and such depositions should become a part of efforts by both countries to curb trafficking, activists and lawyers say.

The 24-year-old woman, who was trafficked by her husband and rescued from a Mumbai brothel in 2014, gave her deposition last week by video link from Dhaka. It is probably the first time this was done in a cross-border trafficking case, said lawyer Kalpana Heere in Mumbai.

“Typically, when the victim is from Bangladesh, she is repatriated after 21 days, and while we have her statement, it is not as powerful as a deposition in person,” said Sanjay Macwan of the non-profit International Justice Mission, which helped set up the video conference with the victim.

“The video conference is now our great hope of bringing more

convictions against traffickers in cross-border cases if we can find a way to do it cheaply and easily,” he said.

South Asia, with India at its centre, is the world’s fastest-growing and second-biggest region for human trafficking after Southeast Asia, according to the United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime (UNODC). Bangladesh is a major source and transit country, with thousands of women, girls and young men being trafficked to India and some Gulf Arab nations.

Traffickers or “agents” often take advantage of poor communities, luring victims from villages with promises of good jobs and a better life in cities, only to sell them into forced marriage or bonded work as prostitutes or maids.

More than a quarter of the women and girls who are trafficked to Mumbai, India’s financial hub, are from Bangladesh, activists say.

India signed an agreement with Bangladesh last year to strengthen cooperation and information sharing to ensure speedier investiga-

tions and prosecutions of traffickers and organised crime syndicates in either country.

Of the 5,466 trafficking cases in all of India in 2014, while charges were filed in almost 95% of cases, the conviction rate was only 45%, according to the India’s National Crime Records Bureau.

In cross-border cases, it can be hard to convict the trafficker after the victim has been repatriated, said Heere.

“The victim is the star witness, and if we can’t question her in court, then it is difficult to bring a conviction,” she said. “With a video conference, we have very good chances.”

At least 25 victims of trafficking who were repatriated to Bangladesh are willing to testify through similar video depositions if allowed, Macwan said.

“We are already using video depositions in terror cases. We want to show that trafficking is just as serious, and victims of trafficking are just as important in the eyes of the law,” he said. l

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina addresses a discussion on International Mother Language Day, organised by Awami League at the capital’s Bangabandhu International Convention Centre yesterday BSS

Non-MPO teachers go on fast unto death n UNB

Non-MPO teachers yesterday went on a fast-unto-death strike in the capital demanding that their job be brought under the Monthly Pay Order (MPO) facilities.

Under the banner of NonMPO Bangladesh Shikkhak Oikya

Parishad, the teachers were observing the indefinite hunger strike in front of National Press Club in the capital.

Pradip Chandra Roy, president of the Oikya Parishad, said although they were appointed following proper procedures five years ago, their jobs are yet to be

brought under the MPO facilities because of a circular of the Education Ministry issued on November 12, 2011.

He said they have already submitted a memorandum to the prime minister, the education minister and the education secretary requesting them to

withdraw the circular.

Pradip said non-MPO teachers and employees have been passing their days in hardship for years.

Claiming that about 15,000 nonMPO teachers appointed in different educational institutions are participating in the hunger strike, he warned that they would contin-

ue their programme until the cancellation of the circular, which creates impediment to nationalisation of their jobs.

The organisation’s General Secretary Kamal Hossain and Organising Secretary Mustafizur Rahman joined the hunger strike programme as well. l

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

PM slams Mahfuz Anam, says he should quit untrue which were aimed at destroying the country.

Hasina said truth cannot be hidden, it will ultimately surface. “The Daily Star editor’s original face has been exposed.”

Recently on a talk show, Mahfuz Anam admitted that running reports on Sheikh Hasina based on information fed by DGFI without scrutiny was his biggest mistake.

Hasina also said if the editor confessed to publishing or writing those reports out of fear, then he could not do fearless journalism. “I don’t have anything to say if you [Anam] were sold out and wrote on the basis of [your] relations,” she said.

The prime minister also said if the editors were involved in the conspiracy of prolonging their [then military-backed govt] power by killing democracy, obstructing the democratic rights of people then you will be tried one day like the trial of

war criminals. “Which path will you choose?” she asked.

Hasina recalled that Mahfuz Anam’s hectic effort was there to prove her corrupt, but the fact is that even the World Bank could not prove that.

The prime minister also sharply criticised those demanding withdrawal of the cases filed against the Daily Star editor.

She asked those who demand the withdrawal of cases to feel the pain of the solitary confinement she suffered for 11 months, when she was not even allowed to meet her relatives during the Eid time.

Praising the Awami League leaders who raised their voice against the false news of the Daily Star, she regretted that many leaders were still mum. “Why is there such a fear just to tell the truth?” she asked.

Hasina also questioned about the contributions of Mahfuz Anam to the Liberation War. “We were also

university students… our academic activities were hampered due to the Liberation War, but that editor went to Pakistan (then West Pakistan) so that his study was not hampered.”

She also said he, however, went to Kolkata and got assigned to write materials in English as he knew a bit of English. “And this is his Liberation War and this is how he is a freedom fighter.”

Chaired by Deputy Leader of the House Syeda Sajeda Chowdhury, the function was addressed, among others, by Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed, Agriculture Minister Matia Chowdhury, Public Administration Minister and AL General Secretary Syed Ashraful Islam, Mahbubul Alam Hanif, MP, Relief and Disaster Management Minister Mofazzal Hossain Chowdhury Maya, Jahangir Kabir Nanak, MP, Abu Sayeed Al Mahmud Swapan, MP, SM Kamal Hossain and Kamal Ahmed Mazumder, MP. l

More foreigners, bankers involved Bank Limited with the Banani police station in Dhaka on February 14. Later, a Dhaka court granted police six days’ remand for each of them.

Investigators also seized a German identity card from Piotr that has a different name. In primary quizzing, Piotr said two other foreign nationals were part of the racket but have left the country before the scam came to air on February 12.

Police did not give the full details of the suspected foreigners but said they were from Romania and Spain.

Piotr came to Bangladesh as a manpower businessman and has sent a number of people to the Eastern European countries. He came to Bangladesh on December 13, 2014 on a one-year business visa.

At first he used to live in a hotel

named “Holiday Planet.” A couple of months into his stay in Bangladesh, he married the receptionist of the hotel and moved in with her.

They had their first baby boy just seven days ago.

He has been involved with card forgery under the cover of his manpower business.

In the past, he has forged credit cards belonging to people living abroad. This is the first time he has forged cards belonging to local people, police said.

“An estimated Tk20 lakh is claimed to have been withdrawn using forged local cards. But we still are not sure how much cash was withdrawn using forged international cards,” said DIG Monirul.

Sources said that police had also learned that Piotr is wanted in Rumania, Russia and Bulgaria for similar crime. l

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Fakhrul himself to submit explanation on his remarks on judiciary n Ashif Islam Shaon The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court has ordered BNP acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir to submit his explanation on his recent comment on the judiciary. Tomorrow.

A five-member bench headed

by Chief Justice SK Sinha passed the order yesterday, rejecting the plea to submit the explanation by Fakhrul's lawyer.

Mirza Fakhrul, at a meeting of BNP’s Sylhet unit on February 7, said the government was trying to control the judiciary. He claimed that there was no democracy in the coun-

Police: JMB behind Hindu priest murder, not IS Jamil Khan n Mohammad in Dhaka and Sazzadur Rahman Sazzad in Panchagarh One day after the killing of a Hindu priest in Panchagarh, police have arrested three people – two of them members of JMB and the other from Shibir.

However, police have yet to be sure if they were really behind Sunday’s murder of Joggeshwar Roy, 50, priest of the Sonto Gaurio temple in Debiganj area, and injuring his neighbour Gopal Chandra Roy, 35, who tried to save the deceased.

The men arrested are: Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB)’s Khalilur Rahman, 45, and Babul Hossain, 40, both also accused in the 2005 series bomb blast cases; and Jahangir Alam, 25, member of Jamaat-e-Islami’s student front Islami Chhatra Shibir.

Local police said yesterday that they were interrogating three suspects and would show them arrested in the priest murder case if their involvement is found.

From an analysis of the crime scene, police have concluded that the murder was carried out by JMB. There are

similarities between the Hindu priest's murder and killings of Italian Cesare Tavella, and Japanese Hoshi Kunio. In all cases, unidentified assailants came on motorbikes.

Like most recent killings of liberal activists and religious preachers, militant group Islamic State (IS) has claimed responsibility for this murder as well, but police say the IS is not active in Bangladesh.

Police also questioned how the SITE Intelligence Group, the US-based portal that tracks militant activities, is always the first to report such claims.

Asked about IS’s claims, police’s Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Monirul Islam, head of the newly-formed Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime unit, said: “In previous cases, despite SITE reporting IS claims, the arrested confessed but none of them ever said they had any links with the IS.” He continued: “SITE is basically a profitable organisation who cooks up such statements.”

Meanwhile, a group of Debiganj residents yesterday formed a human chain at the Bijoy Chattar protesting the killing of the priest. l

Writ seeks ban on Justice Manik's remarks in media n Ashif Islam Shaon

A Supreme Court lawyer has sought ban on the publication or broadcasting of former Justice Shamsuddin Choudhury Manik's remarks on judiciary in the media.

SM Zulfiqure Ali, the lawyer, filed a writ petition with the High Court yesterday, seeking the ban.

On February 18, Zulfiqure wrote a letter to former Justice Manik, asking him to apologise before the nation for what he dubbed as “derogatory remarks against the chief justice and the judiciary.”

The write, filed by another apex court practitioner

Ehsanur Rahman on behalf of Zulfiqure, sought the HC's directives on the information secretary to prevent media from airing the former justice's remarks on the judiciary.

Ehsanur said that the media have the constitutional right to enjoy freedom or expression and speech but with some restrictions, which have not been followed in case of news on Justice Manik's statements.

Apart from the secretary to the Information Ministry, the writ also made the chairmen of the Bangladesh Telecom Regulatory Commission (BTRC) and Bangladesh Press Council, and the director general of Bangladesh Television defendants. l

try, nor an independent judiciary.

He further said murder, enforced disappearance and abduction had been on sharp rise since the government took the office by force. The court fixed February 22 for the submission of the written explanation.

As the court said Fakhrul should

explain his statement by himself Fakrul's lawyers then sought time.

The apex court did not hear Fakhrul's leave-to-appeal petition against the High Court ruling on his bail plea.

The High Court on November 24 granted three months’ bail to Mirza Fakhrul in three cases of violence,

filed on January 4, 5 and 6 last year, accusing him and several other party leaders and activists of vandalising and torching vehicles in the capital.

Fakhrul then filed the leave-toappeal petition with the Chamber Judge of the Supreme Court, who forwarded the petition to a regular appeal bench for hearing. l

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BCS exam to include 100 marks on Liberation War

‘Ansarullah planned attacks on major establishments’

n Tribune Report

n Arifur Rahman Rabbi

The government is working on including 100 marks on questions about the 1971 Liberation War in the BCS examination, said Liberation War Affairs Minister AKM Mozammel Huq. In reply to a query, he told the parliament yesterday that the questions would be about the struggle for independence since Pakistan’s independence from the British rule in 1947 and the ninthmonth liberation war in 1971.

BCS examination is a competitive test conducted by the Public Service Commission to recruit cadres for various government jobs.

The minister said the initiative to include questions on the war was aimed at enabling the next generation to remember the history of the war.

He said the incumbent government had stated the definition of the liberation war as no clear definition existed earlier.

Replying to another query, Mozammel said the monthly allowance of freedom fighters would be increased to Tk10,000 from the existing Tk8,000.

He said the government was considering increasing the monthly allowance for wounded freedom fighters and also those who had received awards. l

Banned militant outfit Ansarullah Bangla Team, allegedly involved in killing bloggers and secular writers, has been planning large-scale attacks on major establishments in Bangladesh, investigators claim.

Documents, outlining possible future attacks, were seized during raids on Ansarullah hideouts at Badda and Mohammadpur by newly-formed Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime Unit (CT) and the Detective Branch, CT chief Additional Commissioner Monirul Islam said.

On Friday, police arrested sus-

pected Ansarullah members Kalam alias Shahin alias Jamal, 26, and Shah Alam alias Salahuddin alias Hiron, 30, in Badda. A Dhaka court yesterday granted police five days to interrogate them.

“We have already gleaned important information from them,” Monirul said.

Based on information provided by the two, the joint team raided a flat in Nabodoy housing in Mohammadpur and recovered a huge cache of bombs and explosives.

Monirul skirted a direct reply to a specific question about the militant group’s possible targets. “Our primary investigation found that

Luggage lost is exceptional incident n Tribune Report

Civil Aviation and Tourism Minister Rashed Khan Menon yesterday told the parliament that baggage lost or damaged in the Aviation Industry is exceptional incidents.

Replying to a query, the minister said sometimes passengers luggage go into wrong destination or remain unidentified due to the limitation of handling passengers.

It is not possible to identify all those damaged or lost baggage through system, he said adding that in those cases incidents of lost or damaged baggage are resolved through compensation following International rules.

The minister also said 36 luggage have been lost over the past three months. l

the seized explosives might have been used to bring down a number of important establishments,” he told the Dhaka Tribune, without specifying.

He dubbed the joint team’s 30hour raid on Ansarullah dens in Badda and Mohammadpur “the most successful counter-terrorism drive”, claiming that it had foiled the militant outfit’s sabotage plans.

“Most of the Ansarullah leaders and members are on the run,” the police officer said. “I hope the militant outfit will never be able to carry out subversive activities.” l

Bangladesh’s deforestation rate at 0.18% n Tribune Report Bangladesh losses 0.18% of its forests annually due to environmental and human causes, parliament heard on Monday.

In reply to a query in the House, Environment and Forests Minister Anwar Hussain said the country currently has 2.3 million hectares of forest cover, of which 84% is natural forest.

Replying to another query, the minister said forests cover just 15.5% of the country’s total area.

Agriculture Minister Matia Chowdhury said according to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics some 204,366 hectares of land in Bangladesh remain uncultivated. l

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Eight fake DB police held n Tribune Report The Dhaka Metropolitan Police’s Detective Branch (DB) yesterday arrested eight members of an inter-district robber gang that specialised in posing as police detectives in order to commit acts of robbery on the highways.

Long wanted by the police, the gang faces arrest warrants at many police stations in the capital.

Members of the gang posed as DB policemen on the highways, halting vehicles, looting passengers and leaving their victims to fend for themselves on lonely stretches of the road, DMP Deputy Commissioner (Media) Maruf Hossain Sarder said.

“The gang is suspected of in-

Bangladesh police, US to team up to curb terrorism

n Tribune Report

The country’s police department and the United States have expressed eagerness to continue their cooperation for combating terrorism.

They agreed that intelligence and technological assistance would be exchanged between them and the cooperation would be strengthened through the exchange of training, a press release of Bangladesh Police said.

According to the press release, US Ambassador to Bangladesh Marcia Stephens Bloom Bernicat said this during a meeting with Inspector General of Police AKM Shahidul Haque at Bangladesh Police headquarters yesterday morning.

The US envoy also praised the initiatives of the ongoing community policing activities.

The two countries could combat issues like cybercrimes, transnational crimes and money laundering through cooperation, she said. l

volvement in committing highway robberies over a span of eight years,” he added.

The DB impersonators were taken into custody in Matuail in the Jatrabari area of the capital as they prepared to carry out a robbery.

The arrestees have been identified as Shahidul Islam Majhi alias Shahid alias Kamrul Majhi, Yusuf Kazi, Abdul Malek, Malek Chowdhury, Jahangir Alam alias Jahangir, Yasin Miah, Badol and Abbas Ali. Lethal weapons, walkie-talkies, handcuffs, DB jackets and a micro-bus were seized by the police.

A case has been filed with Jatrabari police station and legal action is under way in this connection, police sources said. l

DMP detectives present eight DB impersonators, arrested from Jatrabari’s Matuail area, in front of the city’s Detective Branch office yesterday MEHEDI HASAN

Cabinet okays new pay scale of judges

KALIHATI POLICE SHOOTING

HC asks what actions have been taken against 13 cops n Ashif Islam Shaon

the High Court bench yesterday.

Motahar said the probe committees recommended in their reports that various departmental actions including suspension be taken against the 13 policemen.

Those who were found responsible for the incident include then acting SP of Tangail district police Sanjay Sarker, Tangail (North) Additional SP Mohammad Sharifur Rahman, constable of DSB Md Mahtab Uddin, ex-OC of Kalihati police station Md Shahidul Islam, SIs Md Abul Bashar and Md Salim Uddin, and Constables Md Aminul Islam, Ziaul Haque and Tamal Chandra Deb. Other policemen include Ghatail police station’s ex-OC Md Mokhlesur Rahman, ASI Md Harun-or-Rashid, SI Md Omar Faruk and SI Monsup Ali. l

cheons on some people demonstrating against the torture of a youth and his mother in Kalihati upazila.

On September 21, Advocate Salma Ali, executive director Bangladesh Mahila Ainjibi Samity, filed a writ petition over the incident. After hearing the petition, the court asked that all probe reports conducted in the incident be submitted before the court within 60 days.

The court also wanted to know if police had dispersed the agitating people in accordance with the law.

Deputy Attorney General Motahar Hossain Saju said the police had formed two probe committees which submitted their reports to the Police Headquarters on December 5, which were then submitted to the High Court after ten days.

The reports were placed before

The High Court has sought details on what punitive actions had been taken against 13 policemen who were found responsible for a clash at Tangail’s Kalihati upazila that left four people dead.

The inspector general of police and the DIG of Dhaka Range have been asked to submit a progress report on this regard by March 7.

Following submission of two probe reports, which were prepared on an earlier court order, the High Court bench of Justice Md Moinul Islam Chowdhury and Justice Md Iqbal Kabir passed the order yesterday.

On September 18 last year, four people were killed and 50 others were injured when police allegedly opened fire and charged trun-

n Tribune Report

IMPORT OF PETROLEUM PRODUCTS

15 days given to scrutinise tender documents n Aminur Rahman Rasel An evaluation committee has been tasked with submitting a report within 15 working days on the import of petroleum products for Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation.

The seven-member committee, led by a director of BPC, was formed yesterday to evaluate the documents submitted by the tender

bidders for the import.

BPC Director Mosleh Uddin said 12 out of the 16 international bidders have qualified. They include: Emirates National Oil Company (sin.) Pte. Ltd (ENOC), China-based Petrochina (Singapore) Pte. Ltd; Unipec Singapore Pte. Ltd, Malaysia-based PETRONAS and US-based ExxonMobil.

On February 11, the interna-

TEMPERATURE FOREC AST FOR TODAY

CLOUDY TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23

Dhaka

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Chittagong

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Rajshahi

DHAKA TODAY SUN SETS 5:58PM

BPC will procure of 9.875 million barrels [1.32 million tonnes] of import refined diesel [GASOIL] and 1.440 million barrels [180,000 tonnes] of Jet A-1 The government believes that importing oil through international tenders will lower the premium rate. State-owned BPC incurred huge losses after introducing the G2G system in 2003-04. l

tional tender was floated for the import, doing away with the government-to-government (G2G) negotiations, to make profits in the context of a slumping global oil market.

BPC Chairman AM Badrudduja told the Dhaka Tribune that the cost of import would either be covered from BPC’s fund or sourced from the state coffer.

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Rangpur

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Khulna

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Barisal

YESTERDAY’S HIGH AND LOW

TOMORROW SUN RISES 6:26AM

33.8ºC Patuakhali

16.4ºC Rajshahi

Source: Accuweather/UNB

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PRAYER TIMES

The cabinet has approved a new pay scale for the judicial service, with changes similar to the eighth pay scale for public servants.

The nod came at a regular cabinet meeting yesterday, chaired by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

Judges would get their new basic salaries from July 2015 and other allowances from July 2016 – similar to how civil servants are getting paid under the new scale, Cabinet Secretary Mohammad Shafiul Alam told reporters.

According to the new structure, the basic salary of a senior district judge will be equal to that of a secretary. Their new pay scale will be Tk78,000 from previous Tk40,000.

The basic pay of a district judge will be Tk70,925 to Tk76,350, up from Tk36,000 to Tk39,600.

The basic salary of an additional district judge will be Tk62,350 from the previous Tk32,000, and joint district judges will get Tk54,370 instead of the previous Tk28,000.

A senior assistant judge will be paid Tk44,450 from Tk23,000 and an assistant judge will get Tk30,935 from previous Tk16,000.

Basic salaries of senior district judge will see a 95% raise, district judge 97%, additional district judge 94.84%, joint district judge 94.18%, senior assistant judge 93.26% and assistant judge 93.34%, Shafiul said.

He said pension facility for the judicial service will also be raised to 90% from the previous 80% in light of the eight national pay scale.

They will also get 20% of basic as bonus for Pohela Boishakh festival and other allowances. l Sylhet

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Fajr: 5:10am | Zohr: 12:13am Asr: 4:21pm | Magrib: 6:00pm Esha: 7:28pm Source: IslamicFinder.org

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Shakila granted bail Cricketer Shahadat, wife indicted n Ashif Islam Shaon The High Court yesterday granted bail to Supreme Court lawyer Shakila Farzana in two cases filed over financing militant organisation Shaheed Hamza Brigade.

The bench of Justice Farid Ahmed and Justice AKM Zahirul Hoque passed the order, disposing a rule over the bail order.

The court granted bail to the SC lawyer until the charge in the cases are framed, Shakila’s lawyer ZI Khan Panna told the Dhaka Tribune.

Shakila was arrested on August 18 last year from outside her chamber along with two of her associates. The trio claimed that they had deposited money to an account which was taken as advance

and that they were unaware of the owner of the account.

The account is owned by Moniruzzaman Don, a top leader of militant group Shahid Hamza Brigade now in jail.

The RAB said the Chittagong-based group was formed in November 2013 by former members of Islami Chhatra Shibir, the student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami, Hefazat-e-Islam and other militant groups.

Shakila is the incumbent joint general secretary of the Supreme Court wing of Bangladesh Jatiyatabadi Ainjibi Forum, a pro-BNP lawyers’ body.

She is the daughter of Syed Wahidul Alam, a former BNP whip and lawmaker from Chittagong during 2001-06 tenure. l

n Md Sanaul Islam Tipu

A Dhaka court yesterday framed charges against former national cricketer Shahadat Hossain and his wife Jesmine Jahan Nitto in a case filed against the couple for allegedly torturing their 11-year-old domestic help.

Judge Tanjina Ismail of Dhaka Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal 5 fixed March 20 for recording deposition of witnesses in the case.

The couple, currently on bail, pleaded not guilty after the prosecution read out the charges brought against them.

On February 4, the same court accepted the charge sheet against the couple and scheduled the hearing for charge farming yesterday.

The charge sheet was submitted on December 29 last year by Mirpur Model police station OC Md Shafiqur Rahman, who is also the investigation officer of the case.

Shahadat was sent to jail by a Dhaka court after he surrendered before the court on October 6, two days after police arrested his wife Nitto.

Later, Shahadat secured bail from the High Court on December 8 on the grounds of health issues, while Nitto was granted bail by a Dhaka court on December 1.

According to the case, on September 6 last year, a journalist named Khandkar Mozammel Haque found the victim, who used to work as a housemaid at Shahadat’s residence, on a road in Sang-

badik Colony at Pallabi in the capital.

The child was covered in bruises and said she had escaped her employers’ residence unable to endure their beatings and torture anymore.

Later, Mozammel took the victim to police and filed the case against the couple with Mirpur Model police station under the Women and Children Repression Prevention Act, 2000.

On September 20, the victim gave judicial statement before Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Snigdha Rani Chakraborty on how she was abused by the cricketer and his wife.

Following the case, Shahadat was suspended from all forms of cricket by Bangladesh Cricket Board on September 13. l

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Two more placed on remand in Habiganj killing case n Our Correspondent, Habiganj A Habiganj court yesterday put two people on different terms of remand in connection with the killing of four schoolboys at Sundrateki village, Bahubal upazila.

Senior Judicial Magistrate Koushik Ahmed Khandaker placed Ha-

dibur Rahman Arju on a seven-day remand while Abdul Bashir on a five-day remand.

Earlier, police produced Arju and Bashir before the court on Friday with a 10-day remand prayer for each.

A total of six people have so far been arrested in connection with the killing of the four schoolboys.

COCAINE HAUL CASE

Khan Jahan Ali Group’s chairman sent to jail Mizanur Rahaman, n FM Chittagong A court in Chittagong yesterday sent Nur Mohammed, chairman of Khan Jahan Ali Group, to jail after rejecting his bail prayer in much-talked about cocaine haul case.

Additional Deputy Commissioner (Prosecution) of Chittagong Metropolitan Police Kazi Muttaki Ibn Minan saod: “The court of Metropolitan Abdul Kader sent accused Nur Mohammed to jail after rejection his bail petition in cocaine case”.

Earlier, Nur Mohammed was put on remand in two times after his arrest by the elite force Rapid Action Battalion on January 5.

Currently, the much talkedabout cocaine haul case being investigated by RAB 7’s Additional Superintendent of Police Mohiuddin Faruquee following a court direction.

On December 7, last year, a court in Chittagong ordered the RAB to lunch further investigation into the case rejecting charge sheet pressed

by CMP’s Detective Branch.

Accusing eight persons, including two Bangladeshi-born UK expatriates, DB’s Assistant Commissioner (AC) Mohammed Kamruzzaman had submitted the charge sheet before the court on November 19, last.

But the IO then dropped the

name of Nur Mohammed from the charge sheet saying his involvement could not be found during the investigation.

Other accused of the case are COSCO Shipping Agency’s Manager AKM Azad, Mondol Group’s Commercial Executive Atikur Rahman, Real Estate Company official’s Mostafa Kamal, Prime Hatchery Limited’s Manager Golam Mostafa Sohel, Security Company Official Mehedi, C&F Company Official Saiful Islam, UK-expatriate Fazlur Rahman and Bokul Mia. Of them, six accused of the case were arrested and two UK-expatriates were shown fugitive.

Mostafa Kamal, Golam Mostafa Sohel and his cousin Mehedi Alam gave their confessional statements before the court.

An accused of the case also admitted the involvement of Nur Mohammed in cocaine consignment during his confessional statement.

Acting on a tip-off, Directorate of Customs Intelligence and Investigation (CIID) sealed a container carrying 2,140 kilograms of liquid cocaine in 107 drums in Chittagong Port on June 6, last year.

The Chittagong Port sources said the container was loaded from Uruguay on March, 30 and it arrived at Chittagong Port on May 13, via Singapore Port. l

Three held with firearms n Tribune Report The police arrested three people in possession of firearms from Paharika re-fueling station premises, Akbarshah police station in the port city yesterday.

The arrested were identified as Md Selim, 20, Mosharraf Hossain, 42, and Jahirul Islam Manik, 25.

The police also seized two locally manufactured LGs, one single shooter gun and

two locally-manufactured one-barrel guns from their possession.

“During primary interrogation, the trio confessed to have been involved with dealing in arms trade. They also admitted that they kept the arms in their possession to sell them off. A case was lodged against the trio under the arms act,” said Sadip Kumar Das, officer-in-charge of Akbarshah police station. l

Of them, Jewel Miah and his younger brother Rubel Miah gave confessional statements before the court under section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

Meanwhile, a probe body was formed to investigate whether police personnel were reluctant to find out the boys after their missing

complaint was filed.

Habiganj police super Joydeb Kumar Bhodro told the Dhaka Tribune that the probe committee led by Additional Police Super Shahidul Islam would submit its report soon.

Four schoolboys who had gone missing from Sundrateki village in Bahubal upazila on February 12

were found buried at the village on February 17.

Police recovered the bodies of Zakaria Ahmed Shuvo, 8, son of Wahid Miah, his two cousins – Tajel Miah, 10, son of Abdul Aziz, Monir Miah, 7, son of Abdal Miah – and Ismail Hossain, 10, son of Abdul Quadir. l

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8

News

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2016

Bengali Chhatra Parishad block road protesting Azizul murder Correspondent, n Our Khagrachhari

Parbatya Bengali Chhatra Parishad (PBCP), a hill tract-based Bengali student organisation, observed a daylong road blockade in the district yesterday protesting the killing of Azizul Haque Shanta, a motorcy-

cle driver in Matiranga upazila.

The announcement came from a rally organised in Chengi Square area of the district town protesting the incident on Sunday.

Superintendent of Police Md Mazid Ali said all sorts of vehicles including passenger buses remained halt at Khagrachhari bus

Youth beaten to death Correspondent, n Our Sirajganj A youth was beaten to death allegedly by his neighbours at Kallyani village in Sadar upazila yesterday.

The deceased was Shohel Rana, 28, son of Aminul Islam.

Golam Mostofa, sub-inspector of Sadar police station, said a cow owned by Babul Mian, a neighour of Shohel entered the kitchen garden of Amiul and damaged few vegetable plants.

Aminul and his friends went to the house of Babul and informed the incident to him.

At one stage, the people from the both side got locked into altercation. Later, Babul and 20 others of his relatives beat up Shohel and his friends, leaving Shohel critically injured. They also vandalized 15 houses of his relatives and looted valuables.

Loclas rescued Shohel and admitted to Bogra Mohammad Ali Medical College and Hospital where died.

At the news of the death, people of Shohel attacked the house of Babul and his men.

On information, police went to the spot and brought the situation under control. A case was filed in this connection. l

station during the road blockade.

PBCP leaders also brought out a protest procession in the hill town in the afternoon damaging some battery run auto-rickshaws.

Two passengers Arnab Chakma and Gayetri Chakma were injured during the incident. Later, they were admitted to Khagrachhari

Adhunik Sadar Hospital. Abdul Majid, central leader of the PBCP, demanded the arrest and punishment of those involved in the killing.

Earlier, police recovered the body of Azizul Haque Shanta, son of Saleh Ahmed of Natunpara, from Richang Jharna area in Matiranga upazila on Sunday morning.

Shanto who used to run bike on hire went missing on February 18.

Agitated people blocked the Khagrachhari-Chittagong Highway following the incident. Police also arrested a suspect, Dhon Bikash Tripura, in connection with murder, said Mohammad Shahadat Hossain, officer-in-charge of Matiranga police station. l

Our heartiest felicitations to the government and the brotherly people of the state of Kuwait on the occasion of the 55th National Day and the 25th Liberation day

Saudi expatriate killed in Noakhali Correspondent, n Our Noakhali A Saudi expatriate was allegedly killed by his family members at Talua-Chandpur village under Begumganj upazila of the district yesterday.

The deceased was Abdus Zaher, 58.

Kabir Hossain, younger brother of the victim, said Zaher came to Bangladesh two months ago. He used to quarrel with his wife regarding the money he sent from Saudi Arabia.

Quoting locals, Kabir said on Thursday night, Zaher had a serious quarrel with his wife.

Soon after the incident he went missing.

Kabir then filed a general diary with Begumganj police station.

Golam Kabir, officer-incharge of the police station, said the police arrested Zaher's wife Rehana Begum, 42, and son Abdul Hannan.

After interrogation, they admitted that they had killed Zaher.

Based on their confessional statement, police recovered the body of Zaher from a pit under a canal just beside their house, the OC added.

The body was sent to Noakhali General Hospital. l

UP chairman sent to jail Correspondent, n Our Naraymnganj Chairman of a union parishad (UP) in the district was sent to jail yesterday after he surrendered before the court in a case.

Police sources said Zakir Hossain, chairman of Alirtech union parishad, surrendered before the Narayanganj court in the morning.

SI Golam Hossain at the

court, said Zakir and his men attacked a meeting on January 25, arranged by the Adarsha High School committee in the area, leaving over 100 people injured.

Later, a case was filed with Narayanganj police station against the chairman.

The court, led by Judge Syduzzaman Sharif sent him to jail after examining the records and witnesses. l

COURTESY BY

GAMCA-DHAKA House # 4/A, Road # 94, Gulshan-2, Dhaka, Bangladesh

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DT

Feature

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2016

Tripooly: Travel simplified Finding the right deals has never been easier

I n

Features Desk

magine not having to go from one travel agency to another to find a travel deal or the cheapest airfare. Wouldn’t it be great to have a single platform where you can find jawdropping tour packages, airfare, visa assistance, cruise deals, medical tourism, corporate travel deals, leisure and honeymoon deals or even customised deals at affordable prices? That’s where Tripooly comes in - it aims to be your one-stop-travel shop. You can compare and discover mindblowing travel deals from multiple travel agencies, easily pay online with your credit or debit card, mobile banking or pay in cash.

The idea of creating such a platform for Bangladeshi travellers first came to Rafi Mustafa, one of the co-founders of Bangladesh’s premium fashion e-commerce site ZuumZuum.com. It has been identified as one of the top 10 start-ups in Bangladesh by Tech In Asia (Asia’s largest tech/startup news portal). Having lived in Australia and Europe most of his life, Rafi has travelled around the globe (62 cities and counting) and would like to inspire others to do the same. Upon returning to Bangladesh, two years ago, Rafi realised, one still had to go through the age-old method of going from agency to agency or search multiple Facebook pages for the best deal.

Rafi’s family has been involved in the travel industry for the past 28 years. During his time as a director in his family business, Rafi has learned the ins-and-outs of this business. And, it was time for Rafi to combine his passion for travelling with his experience and create a single platform – Tripooly. com!

So, how will Tripooly simplify travelling?

In Bangladesh, regardless – if you plan to travel internally or go overseas, one usually has to go through the agonising process of finding the right deal from multiple travel agencies. The whole process is pretty timeconsuming and painful in nature.

Moreover, most online travel deals

are non-customisable. Tripooly wants to simplify that process by curating the most amazing online deals for you on its platform. All you have to do is tell Tripooly your budget and the places you want to visit, and let Tripooly take care of your worries.

For example let’s say you have Tk30,000 and craving to travel somewhere within Bangladesh or abroad - think of St Martins or Bhutan. With Tripooly, all you have to do is mention your budget and the duration of your stay.

Tripooly will act as your personal travel concierge and find the right deal for you! Your “Tripooly Travel Consultant” will search through their pool of amazing deals and recommend the right travel deal.

So, is Tripooly a competitor to the existing travel agencies?

Not at all. Tripooly is basically another sales platform for existing travel agencies. Travel agencies in Bangladesh have been developing this market for the last 40+ years and Tripooly wants to be part of that exciting market. Any existing

Travelling introduces you to new cultures, amazing food, wonderful people, but most importantly it inflames your passion of living a life full of adventure

travel agency in Bangladesh or abroad are welcome to showcase their travel deals on Tripooly’s platform.

“Seeing this beautiful world” is in everyone’s bucket list.

Tripooly aims to inspire us – to travel. And they want to do this by simplifying travelling! There are incredible places around the world and travelling will only deepen your understanding of the world as a whole. Travelling introduces you to new cultures, amazing food, wonderful people, but most importantly it inflames your passion of living a life full of adventure. So, start your adventure with Tripooly and let them take care of your next holiday. l

“In Bangladesh, everybody looks for travel packages, which are often not customisable and poorly-priced.”

“I realised the importance of creating travel packages that are in line with people’s need.

For example cruise trips, which are normally assumed to be very expensive, are actually not that pricey! There’s a tiny unexplored customer base for it but the package needs to be presented in the right way.”

“Travelling should be available for everyone. It doesn’t matter if you are a student, or a businessman, or a seasoned traveller, as long as you have the passion for travelling, you are a Tripooly customer.”

“We don’t see the existing travel agencies as our competitors; we see them more as our business partners.”

– Rafi Mustafa

Content provided by SD Asia.

DT

10

Tech

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2016

Huawei launches MateBook at MWC 2016 At the Mobile World Congress 2016, recently held in Barcelona, Spain, Huawei launched the HUAWEI MateBook, a 2-in-1 device designed to meet the evolving demands of today’s modern corporate users. Building on Huawei’s success in delivering beautiful and powerful highend mobile consumer devices, the MateBook defines itself as a mobile productivity tool that seamlessly integrates mobility, high efficiency, work and entertainment.

The MateBook is answering the demand for portable, stylish smart devices that allow users to stay connected in any setting. Designed as a total solution for consumers who enjoy the flexibility of a convertible device, the MateBook is a premium product that perfectly balances mobility, productivity and design.

“With this landmark device, Huawei is demonstrating our industry-leading design and manufacturing expertise by bringing a beautifully crafted flagship product to the market that is redefining the new style of business – connected computing across all devices in almost every scenario,” said Richard Yu, CEO, Huawei Consumer Business Group. “Huawei has successfully channelled its comprehensive experience and excellence in building premium mobile products into the needs of the modern business environment by introducing a highly efficient device, seamlessly capable of integrating work and

entertainment functions.”

With the MateBook, Huawei is continuing its strategy of partnering with the most innovative market leaders. The device features a 6th Generation Intel® Core™ m-series processor to handle the most rigorous business demands in a stylish, thin and lightweight fan-less design.

“This is an exciting time for Huawei to enter the market with its powerful new MateBook,” said Kirk Skaugen, senior vice president and general manager, Client Computing Group, Intel Corporation.

Built to operate on Windows 10, the MateBook also delivers the best of the legendary productivity tools and features offered by Microsoft Corp, including its latest browser, Microsoft Edge and the Cortana digital personal assistant.

Ultra slim Combining the mobility of a smartphone with the power and productivity of a laptop, the MateBook is designed with simplicity in mind. With minimal embellishment and a sleek appearance, the device is made of high-quality aluminum unibody that is both elegant and sophisticated. The MateBook features a strong protective body to withstand the rigors of an on-the-go lifestyle, and its slim profile and ultra-low weight of just 640g makes it ideal to carry it around.

Casing, keyboard and touchpad The MateBook keyboard case is

Photos: COURTESY

made of environmentally friendly, soft PU leather, the perfect choice to match style with functionality.

The durability of the keyboard case also provides an ideal level of protection. The keyboard features a 1.5mm keystroke and chiclet keycap design, which allow for larger key surfaces to minimise typing errors. The builtin touchpad uses multi-touch technology that supports smooth and precise finger movements, combining comfort and utility.

enough power for nine hours of work, nine consecutive hours of Internet use and 29 hours of music playback. The device also features Huawei’s exclusive power-saving technology to meet the needs of business users. The MateBook’s battery can attain a full charge in just two and a half hours. When there is not enough time for a full charge, the device can power up to 60% battery strength in just one hour.

The screen The MateBook’s 12-inch IPS multitouch screen is further enhanced by an ultra-narrow frame and a screen-to-body ratio of 84%.

The screen boasts a resolution of 2160x1440 and a 160-degree wide angle for an immersive experience.

The color gamut reaches an impressive 85 percent, capable of displaying true-to-life colors.

The processor The MateBook runs on Windows 10 and is powered by a 6th Generation Intel® Core™ m-series processor, putting high-speed processing power and the most essential business productivity tools, including Microsoft Office, at users’ fingertips. The device offers up to 8GB of LPDDR3 memory and a solid-state hard drive with capacity up to 512GB.

Long-lasting battery The MateBook’s 33.7Wh highdensity lithium battery provides

The MatePen When only a hand-written note will do, the accompanying

MatePen stylus offers 2,048 levels of sensitivity, perfectly capturing users’ subtle and diverse pen-tip actions with zero delay. For advanced business functions, MatePen supports graphics and mathematical functions, and can be used as a laser pointer for delivering presentations.

Fingerprint recognition The MateBook provides security while maintaining quick access through the fingerprint recognition feature that supports 360-degree sensitive identification for fewer authentication failures.

It takes only one touch to unlock the MateBook’s screen – the fastest fingerprint recognition in the industry.

The MateBook will be available in Asia, Europe and North America in the coming months and will be available in grey and golden.

Starting from approximately Tk55,000 up to Tk118,000, consumers will be able to buy Huawei Matebook. l

DT

Editorial 11

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2016

INSIDE

Heretic pride When it comes to not allowing an individual to say what he wishes to, what he thinks, then we are in fact murdering that person as he wishes to be. We are forcefully choking the ideas out of a man who thinks different from us PAGE 12

How to keep RMG alive The Bangladesh government must work on the RMG brand image to enter the US market with duty benefits like Vietnam.

We must move away from solely being suppliers to branded retailers, and focus on establishing our fashion industry as a brand in itself PAGE 13

A nation as entrenched in the global financial system as China can only stand to lose by discouraging independent and transparent communications between its central bank, currency institutions, equity market entities, and the rest of the world PAGE 14

Write to Dhaka Tribune FR Tower, 8/C Panthapath, Shukrabad, Dhaka-1207 Send us your Op-Ed articles: opinion.dt@dhakatribune.com www.dhakatribune.com Join our Facebook community: https://www.facebook.com/ DhakaTribune.

The views expressed in Opinion articles are those of the authors alone. They do not purport to be the official view of Dhaka Tribune or its publisher.

Don’t let religious extremists divide society

T

Communication breakdown

Be heard

BIGSTOCK

he murder of Jagneshwar Roy, the Hindu priest of the Santo Gaurio temple who was stabbed to death in Panchagarh on Sunday, was a despicable act designed to spread fear and divide communities.

Police have detained two JMB men and a Shibir activist for their suspected involvement in the murder.

Every effort must be made to ensure this leads to all the murderers being found and brought to justice.

Sadly, this is not an isolated incident. In the past year, religiously motivated militants bombed a Shia religious procession and carried out more vicious targeted murders of secular writers.

The threat posed from such terrorism must be taken seriously.

Recent disclosures by law enforcement officials indicate that militants have been actively planning attacks on public gatherings.

Bangladesh needs to stand firm against all groups and individuals, from whatever quarter or organisation, who seek to divide communities and spread violence.

It needs to be a top priority for authorities to make more progress in identifying and catching all the perpetrators involved in carrying out and organising the earlier killing cases. The longer such individuals remain at large, the more likely it is that they or others will be emboldened to strike again.

There is no excuse or justification for murder. The government cannot allow impunity. It must act unequivocally to show zero tolerance for those who commit murder and seek to spread hatred and violence.

The government needs to provide more reassurance that every effort will and is being made to protect the public. It must ensure sufficient support for law enforcement authorities to help them both track down the perpetrators responsible and to improve intelligence to guard against groups that plan to harm the fabric of our society.

Zero tolerance for those who commit murder and seek to spread hatred and violence

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Opinion

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2016

Heretic pride Words are powerful tools -- can we not wield them to teach tolerance?

Shouldn’t we be changing the common man instead?

BIGSTOCK

When it comes to not allowing an individual to say what he wishes to, what he thinks, then we are in fact murdering that person as he wishes to be. We are forcefully choking the ideas out of a man who thinks different from us. And a person who is different is never wrong, but crucial to the continued existence of a society, because they show us what we ourselves were never able to see

n SN Rasul

W

hen a book stall gets shut down by the police for having literature that may hurt religious sentiments, I think we all should be worried.

The age-old issue of free speech rears its ugly head again, and those of us on this side of the argument can do little to not sound too much like a broken record.

Yes, I repeat, the right to free speech is crucial. Yes, we cannot live in a democracy, a secular nation, without the free exchange of ideas. Yes, it is not right to oppress the dissenting viewpoints of the few to cater to the so-called sentiments of the many.

Those on the other side of the argument aren’t much better off either.

But shouldn’t there be a limit

to how “free” free speech should be? Shouldn’t we try and keep the delicate nature of religious sentiments in mind when writing/ talking about the issue?

If free speech is allowed to be so free, wouldn’t that lead to hate speech (and we certainly quell and ban when Islamic clerics are found to be haranguing on about being off with the heads of apostates and Jews)?

Shouldn’t we strike down any speech that is attempting to, intentionally or unintentionally, provoke certain members of the populace?

With regards to the incident itself, there really isn’t much to say. Last time this happened, as some of us may well know, the fair’s organisers, Bangla Academy, had shut down a stall because they had predicted some sort of incident.

This time, however, it was the police themselves who, without due process or the proper channels, came down on a stall, going by the name of Badwip Prakashan.

But, seriously, who cares?

Whether or not it was shut down through proper channels because it might offend someone is a red herring at best. But the outcome is still the same, someone wrote something, someone else might take issue with it, so why not pretend like that something never even existed?

That is taking the spotlight off of the real issue.

Words are powerful tools. They can move a man to tears, shake mountains, start revolutions, and end wars. Or so the romantic in me says.

Which is exactly why we cannot continue to bow down

to extremists or the “sensitively challenged” every time a word is written or said that might rub them the wrong way.

Tell me: Where does the responsibility lie? Someone will always be offended by something and there is no way we can create a false cocoon of pretence where every single utterance is a mere capitulation to a more violent breed.

Is it not up to the consumer, the public, the common man to decide whether or not they wish to avail the words published in a book?

Or are we giving so little respect to the whimsies of the common man that we do not trust them with deciding for himself?

And it is also up to the common man whether or not he is provoked to such an extent that he has to resort to violence to carry out the will of an omnipotent god.

Does the responsibility not lie on him? Or her? Or them?

Those that continue to blame the wielders of freedom? Even if it is in their very faces?

If such a situation does exist (and sadly, it very much does), why do we continue to persist in the endeavour of trying to oppress the publishers?

In a conflict in which one is peaceful and the other violent, why are we bowing down to the latter? Isn’t peace the better option? Shouldn’t we turn the violent not quite so?

If the common man is so

susceptible to provocation and lack of judgment, shouldn’t we be changing the common man?

And considering publishing like this, even ones which are so ostensibly offensive such as Charlie Hebdo, as being hate speech, is a mistake of the highest order.

Tell me, does Charlie Hebdo ask you to hate your fellow human beings? Did The Satanic Verses tell you to wage a war on a particular people? Did Avijit Roy attempt to bring about an apostate coup?

On the other hand, certain books within the religious cannon do attempt to do all of these things, mostly against apostates, people of other faiths, women, children, and sometimes, nations.

Should we now ban these Abrahamic texts because they incite hatred? Because they say “kill,” even though they preach so-called peace?

To be part of a society, a group, a people, we must follow laws and rules, maintain certain etiquettes, so that we can function united, as a whole.

And that is why, no freedom, no matter how instrumental it may seem to individual existence, can be practiced fully. We must follow traffic rules, we must not harm others, we must pay for services exchanged.

But when it comes to not allowing an individual to say what he wishes to, what he thinks, then we are in fact murdering that person as he wishes to be.

We are forcefully choking the ideas out of a man who thinks different from us. And a person who is different is never wrong, but crucial to the continued existence of a society, because they show us what we ourselves were never able to see.

For each of us, God is in the details. You may find your God up in the sky and in the intricacies of the universe and be proud of it.

But someone else -- be it a heretic, a Hindu, a Buddhist -- find it in other details, and see each detail differently, and they too can be proud of it.

Neither has to cancel out the other.

In the history of the universe, censorship has never led to anywhere but oppression and subsequent resistance.

If we do wish to practice it though, the only kind of censorship that is acceptable is self-censorship. l SN Rasul is a journalist and academic.

Follow him @snrasul.

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Opinion

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2016

How to keep RMG alive Is the Trans-Pacific Partnership deal a threat to Bangladeshi industries?

Our RMG sector needs new deals to survive and thrive

n Md Harunur Rashid

O

ne of Bangladesh’s biggest competitors, Vietnam, has already entered into a TransPacific Partnership (TPP) agreement (at Auckland on February 2016) with some other countries including the US. According to economists, that’s why our country most likely stands to suffer from the effects of the US-led TPP trade deal, especially in terms of export earnings, such as from RMG. The matter of concern at hand is that Vietnam is the only garment-producing country that has been included in the TPP. With the implementation of TPP, Vietnam will become a more attractive source for imported apparels, if and when it gets dutyfree access to the US. The RMG sector’s capacity to take a bigger share of the US market is hindered by the high tariff rates levied on Bangladeshi apparels.

Surprisingly, Vietnam’s apparel export to the US increased by a massive 244% during the period between 2005 and 2014, unmatched by any other

substantial exporter, whereas apparel export from Bangladesh to the US increased by 108% during this period.

Moreover, Vietnam is leagues ahead of Bangladesh in terms of investment, compliance, and environment affairs.

Bangladesh may meet challenges in the short run, but in the long run the deal will affect it adversely, according to the former vice-president of BKMEA, Mohammad Hatem.

Meanwhile, many economists are thinking that, not only RMG but non-RMG exports from Bangladesh will also be affected by the TPP deal.

Another misfortune for the RMG sector was the US government’s extention of the general system of preferences (GSP) for 122 countries -- the only caveat being (you guessed it) Bangladesh being left out of the list.

The US government have said that there was “no improvement” in working conditions, workers’ rights, and social compliance in the RMG sector, even though social compliance had already been established after the Rana Plaza building collapse at Savar, Dhaka in 2013.

RAJIB DHAR

The Bangladesh government must work on the RMG brand image to enter the US market with duty benefits like Vietnam. We must move away from solely being suppliers to branded retailers, and focus on establishing our fashion industry as a brand in itself

Mohammad Hatem suggested that the external factors are also at play, such as getting lower prices from buyers of major RMG-importing countries even after meeting social compliance standards.

During the period between January-July 2015, the price of RMG products imported by the US fell by 2.45% and the price of RMG products imported by the EU fell by 1.41%, in spite of the fact that every factory had to spend Tk5 crore to Tk20cr to upgrade infrastructural, fire safety, and electrical safety facilities to meet international standards.

Such a large investment would be rather risky if these internal and

external issues are not sorted out as soon as possible.

Doing business and earning foreign revenue through export is becoming harder for Bangladeshi RMG entrepreneurs, not only due to disruptive internal factors that are more than enough to render the trade uncompetitive.

For example, the recent price hike of gas by 15% for industrial units and 100% for captive power producers.

Apparel manufacturers and exporters have also urged the government to maintain a smooth gas supply to their production plants in order for them to have a greater global market share.

Finally, the Bangladesh

government must work on the nation’s RMG brand image to enter the US market with duty benefits, just like Vietnam.

We must move away from solely being suppliers to branded retailers, and focus on establishing our fashion industry as a brand in itself.

In addition, Bangladesh should consider following the Chinese strategy of enhancing productivity and manufacturing high value-added products to increase its market share in the US and other markets. l Md Harunur Rashid is Assistant Deputy Secretary, Green Industry Development Cell, BKMEA.

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DT

Opinion

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2016

Communication breakdown China’s opaque economic policies are doing the nation more harm than good

n Refayat Mosaowir Haque

T

he Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) -- the country’s central bank -- recently admitted the existence of a serious gap in their communications strategy. Sadly, the fundamental opacity of the CCP makes this an insurmountable challenge.

Exacerbating this issue further is the fact the PBoC is de facto an advisory board accountable to Premier Li Keqiang’s State Council. This results in the PBoC, akin to the Federal Reserve or the ECB (European Central Bank), remaining near to powerless and submissive to the whims of the State Council.

Adding to the woes is the fact that what the world needs from China, now more than ever, China does not possess. China needs a central bank governor similar in poise and authority to Ben Bernanke (now Janet Yellen) or Mario Draghi. It is safe to assume we are more or less being kept in the dark with regards to key Chinese economic and financial data, and policies mandated by Beijing.

Let’s take the example of the currency adjustment last August.

Beijing decided to depeg the renminbi to the US dollar to make it more flexible. The move was promising, as it aimed to offer greater exchange rate flexibility with 2% devaluation relative to the US dollar, and to make the currency more market-driven in order to satisfy one of the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) requirements for official reserve currency status.

For this reason, world markets were left utterly perplexed in August. What Beijing sought as a positive policy step was misinterpreted as the government’s first shot in a new currency war. Such instances compel us to sit and pull our hair out trying to make sense of it all.

Beijing’s motive was not clearly communicated, and this culminated in negative speculation and, eventually, widespread apprehension.

Markets saw the devaluation as Beijing’s desperate response to rescue a sinking economy. It was widely perceived that the move to a more flexible currency reflected the abysmal state of the economy, something official figures concealed. Poor communications surrounding the move not only sent world markets into a state of

The second largest economy in the world cannot afford to remain incommunicado

REUTERS

A nation as entrenched in the global financial system as China can only stand to lose by discouraging independent and transparent communications between its central bank, currency institutions, equity market entities, and the rest of the world. The CCP must restrain itself from being complacent and negligent about fabricating information

hysteria but also cost the country $320 billion of its foreign exchange reserves from August till now as Beijing frantically attempted to limit a free fall of the currency.

Lapses in the CCP’s communications strategy have also impacted global perceptions of the credibility surrounding official figures, especially concerning growth.

Many Western economists do not give much credence to official GDP growth rates, some expressing their distrust by going as far as referring to them as “purely figments of official imagination.”

In fact, recent figures on electricity consumption, bank lending, and freight volumes allude to increasingly weaker growth than what the official quarter-to-quarter composite data suggests. Power output as a metric is also a reliable indicator of growth. Effects of supplying exaggerated and misrepresented data for the benefit of the CCP is continuously being felt globally in the form of a looming global crisis, with some predicting it to

induce more dreadful and punitive repercussions than the sub-prime mortgage crisis of 2008.

Misguided and harmful policy choices can be attributed to last summer’s collapse of the local equity market, during which we witnessed a fall of 40% peak. In 2014, the CCP devised a scantly thought-out strategy talking-up equity prices to allow stateowned enterprises (SOEs) to float shares for raising funds needed in paying off their excessive debts.

No amount of intervention could avert the collapse that resulted from the ensuing bubble.

Complicating matters for the CCP even more is the onslaught of issues they are having to face as consequences of their misguided and poorly-communicated policies, and manipulated economic and financial statistics.

This is further widening the communications gap as more salient long-term matters such as addressing distortions in the real economy are being side-lined.

What is absolutely essential for the CCP to do at this present moment is to sustain a transparent

communications strategy that effectively elucidates the government’s short-term and longterm plans for the currency and equity markets.

Thankfully, Zhou Xiaochuan, PBoC governor, emerged out of oblivion on February 16, vindicating his institution’s communications strategy by saying: “The central bank is neither God nor a magician who can turn uncertainties into certainties.” Mr Zhou’s statement was needlessly demoralising and his analogy fatuous at best.

A nation as entrenched in the global financial system as China can only stand to lose by discouraging independent and transparent communications between its central bank, currency institutions, equity market entities, and the rest of the world.

The CCP must restrain itself from being complacent and negligent about fabricating information. Whatever the policy intentions are, the CCP must be assiduous about disclosing them lucidly and in a thoroughly detailed manner, as this is

necessary to reduce the scope for misinterpretation. Manipulating domestic economic data won’t help its case either.

As is being seen in multiple cases, the CCP’s unorthodox and arcane policies are ineffectively communicated to the outside world. This leaves speculators and analysts completely bewildered and incapable of making educated predictions, and steers world markets towards chaos. But maybe that’s their strategy, to deliberately restrict the flow of information to the outside world.

The bottom line is if China is to maintain its growth trajectory of 7%, it ought to respect the norms and conventions of global financial communities and play by their rules.

They could start by not being reticent about their indispensable economic information. Reworking the communications strategy could be the first step in ameliorating the bedridden financial status quo plaguing the second largest economy in the world.

However, it won’t be all uphill once this issue is addressed, debilitating effects of the global slowdown and other macropressures exerting themselves on the nation will be difficult to subdue. China’s hardships will only increase, as the country carries on its transition from the secondary to the tertiary sector in the wake of a global recession affecting everything from commodity prices to currencies. l Refayat Mosaowir Haque writes from Washington DC and works for Deshee FM (Operator of ‘Radio Masti’ and ‘Radio Amar’ on Mediacorp’s XFM 96.3).

DT

Business 15

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2016

INSIDE Tofail: Corporate tax cut on RMG decided in principle Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed said the government has decided in principle to lower corporate tax on the readymade garment sector which is now 35%. PAGE 18

IEA: Oil price to start slow recovery in 2017 World oil prices are unlikely to rise from current levels before 2017, and even then their recovery will be slow as massive oil stocks feed into the market, the IEA said Monday. PAGE 16

Capital market snapshot: Monday DSE Broad Index

4,577.6

-0.2% ▼

Index

1,128.6

0.3% ▲

30 Index

1,773.7

0.4% ▲

Turnover in Mn Tk

4,686.9

6.3% ▲

Turnover in Mn Vol

111.3

3.9% ▲

All Share Index 14,149.0

-0.1% ▼

30 Index

12,672.5

-0.5% ▼

CSE

Selected Index

8,599.1

-0.1% ▼

Turnover in Mn Tk

297.8

-1.0% ▼

Turnover in Mn Vol

9.1

3.9% ▲

14% IPOs traded below issue prices n Kayes Sohel Around 14% of the initial public offers (IPOs) in the country’s prime bourse listed since 1984 are currently being traded below their issue prices.

Of the 341 companies that have raised money via the primary market, shares of 45 companies are being traded below their issue prices presently.

Weakest IPOs hit in 2012 when six firms were listed as they gave negative return.

Regent Textile, listed in 2015, is the latest example of dismal performance. Its share price is currently traded at nearly Tk20 a share, down from its offer value of Tk25 a share.

The worst performing IPOs since

NUMBER OF IPOS BELOW ISSUE PRICE

Listing year

No. of IPOs

2015

2

2014

4

2013

4

2012

6

2011

3

2010

2

2009

0

2008

1

2007

4 Source: DSE

1984 are United Airways (BD), Zeal Bangla, Meghna Pet, Meghna Condescend Milk, Dulamia Cotton, ICB Islamic Bank and Shyampur Sugar.

Former Bangladesh Securities

and Exchange Commission Chairman Faruq Ahmad Siddiqi said, “Unjustified IPO price or misreporting on financial statements might be the reasons behind going down from issue price.”

He said share prices might erode after adjustment with the bonus share issued by the firms. “Regulator needs to be very careful on the quality of companies those come to tap the market,” he said.

Another analyst said overall the market valuation is lower now than what was in 2010 when the market was in its pick.

Of the 45 companies, there is no specific sector downfall in IPO price, but most IPOs traded below issue prices took place after 2010.

Out of those companies having

their current stock price below the issue price, two was listed in 2015, four in 2014, four in 2013, six in 2012, three in 2011, two in 2010, one in 2008 and four in 2007.

Most of the companies listed in 2011 and 2012 witnessed fall in their earnings per shares immediately after their listings.

Some of the companies included Deshbandhu Polymer, Rangpur Dairy & Food Products, Zahintex Industries, Saiham Cotton Mills, Generation Next Fashions, GBB Power and Unique Hotel & Resorts.

These track records, according to some analysts, reflects weak due diligence not only on the part of regulator but also investment bankers, said an analyst on anonymity. l

Farmers Bank apologises to BB for loan irregularities n Jebun Nesa Alo Farmers Bank has finally confessed that it had committed loan irregularities and pleaded with Bangladesh Bank to spare it from paying the penalty of Tk10 lakh.

The bank has recently sent a letter of appology to the central bank, stating that it has in line with the BB’s instruction corrected the loan amount of Tk38.26 crore disbursed to six institutions.

Earlier, the bank marked the amount as investment, violating rules. As the bank complied with the instruction of Bangladesh Bank, the bank should be freed from the penalty, reads the letter.

The BB has decided to place the Farmers Bank’s appeal before its board meeting scheduled today.

“The bank’s application will be placed before the board for consideration as the governor has no authority to forgive,” said a senior executive of BB. Earlier on January 11, the bank filed a writ with the High Court against the penalty imposed by the central bank which drew a huge criticism from every corner.

Farmers Bank is the first bank that went to the court against the central bank’s action. BB also moved to the court to defend its action and got verdict in its favour.

An investigation carried out by

‘The bank’s application will be placed before the BB board scheduled today’ the central bank found that the bank marked its loans of Tk38.26 crore as investment.

The loans were given to six institutions including EBL Securities, International Securities, Prime Islami Securities, Kazi Equities, BD Securities and Union Capital.

But loans and investment were totally different according to the

bank company law which states that no loans can be shown as investment.

The bank concealed the loans as it failed to bring down the credit-deposit rate to an acceptable level within a certain period set by the BB. On January 20 of 2015, the central bank asked the bank to stop aggressive lending by bringing down its credit-deposit rate to 85% by March of the year and gradually between 70% and 75%.

The bank failed to achieve the credit-deposit target and transferred the loans of Tk38.26 crore to investment segment on June 29 last year, violating rules. l

16

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2016

55th National Day of

KUWAIT

Message from the Ambassador

His Highness Sheikh Sabah His Highness Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad His Highness Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak Al-Ahmed Al-Jaber Al-Sabah Al-Jaber Al-Sabah Al-Hamad Al-Sabah

Kuwait Assistance In Bangladesh An itemized breakdown of the total assistance provided by Kuwait to Bangladesh is given below:

Year

Amount in KD (1KD=US $ 3.40)

Status

01 Manu River Project

1975

2,300,000.00

Completed

02 Power supply for Irrigation schemes Stage-1

1975

6,376,025.74

Completed

03 East West Electrical Interconnected project

1978

6,750,000.00

Completed

04 East West Electrical Interconnected Project

1980

3,306,744.63

Completed

05 Eight Rural Areas Electrification

1981

7,825,349.98

Completed

06 Deep Tube wells (North Western Region)

1981

4,618,943.72

Completed

07 Ashuganj Thermal Power Project

1982

7,907,147.81

Completed

08 The North West Tube well project

1990

5,000,000.00

Cancelled

09 Four Rural Areas Electrification project

1993

9,920,173.61

Completed

10 Sylhet-Tamabil-Jaflong Road

1996

7,000,000.00

Completed

11 Rural Electrification Project in Nilphamari District

1997

2,125,353.45

Completed

12 Rural Electrification Project in Shariatpur District

1998

1,707,315.05

Completed

13 Shikarpur and Doarika Bridges and Access Road

1998

6,040,436.25

Completed

14 Shahji Bazar Power Station Project

1999

4,748,497.81

Completed

Rajshahi Power Transmission and 15 Greater Distribution Project

1999

3,066,700.57

Completed

Chittagong Power Transmission and 16 Greater Distribution Development Project

2000

11,199,939.62

Completed

17 Dapdapia Bridge

2001

10,000,000.00

Active

18 Sylhet-Jakershipur Road

2003

8,333,378.37

Completed

19 The Three Bridges Project

2004

8,600,000.00

Active

Karnaphuli Bridge Project and approach 20 Third road

2005

15,500,000.00

Active

21 Greater Chittagong Power Transmission

2007

4,000,000.00

Active

Baha 225 MW Dual Fuel Power Plant 22 Shikal Project

2011

15,000,000.00

Active

5.

23 Lebukhali Bridge

2012

14,000,000.00

Active

6.

of Roads Dhaka North City 24 Improvement Corporation

Tk. 2.79 billion

Pipeline

administrative and related expenses.

Most of these loans go in infrastructural development projects that when completed will impact the socio-economic life of the people in particular and the country in general. The projects when completed will promote inter-district connectivity within Bangladesh and on a broader perspective, it will lead to regional connectivity as a result of which

Bangladesh stands to reap substantial economic gain. The underlying goal of the projects is to achieve regional peace, harmony and prosperity through greater economic cooperation through connectivity.

The Fund also extended three technical assistance totaling about KD 423,000.00 that is equivalent to US $ 1.44 million for financing feasibility studies of

7.

8.

9.

10.

Sl

I Mr. Adel Mohammed A H Hayat Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullah wa barakatuh.

Dear Friends, As we get together to celebrate the twin occasions of the National Day and Liberation Day of the State of Kuwait, I would like to pay special tribute to our leadership and the people.

My Friends, it is because of the pragmatic leadership that Kuwait is endowed with, so fortunate to have, we have successfully made our presence appreciated in the global arena.

Today, Kuwait is poised to play an active role in the Gulf region by harnessing its resources to promote peace and stability.

In light of the Quranic teaching, the Kuwaiti society has been in the forefront when it comes to sharing its wealth and resources. This benevolent policy is effected in three ways: through Kuwait Fund, through Kuwaiti NGOs and by private philanthropists. Kuwait’s philanthropism has aptly been recognized in the International comity. I am happy to note that Kuwait is a proud partner in this country’s endeavor to attain economic growth and social justice. Since the time Kuwait established diplomatic ties with Bangladesh in 1973, Kuwait Fund has been very keen in providing necessary loans and grants in 24 core infrastructural development areas like energy, communications, and electrification. The Kuwaiti NGOs in collaboration with local administrations in the rural areas, have played commendable roles in reducing poverty and ensuring social justice. A number of Kuwaiti philanthropists have set up educational institutes in some parts of Bangladesh to make education affordable and accessible for underprivileged children.

Friends, I feel honored to recall once again on this momentous day the principled stand of Bangladesh during Kuwait’s ordeal in 1990. This role will remain emblazoned in the annals of Kuwait’s history. I am happy to see that this cooperation and coordination of our resources and skills are continuing till today.

Friends, our two countries are strategically placed to play a cooperative role in global issues in general and regional issues in particular. Thus, I take satisfaction in the fact that our two countries have shared perceptions and views and commonality of approach on most matters of International and regional significance. As members of the UNO, OIC and the non-Aligned Movement, our two friendly countries have forged a unified stand and lent a unanimous voice on various issues and problems.

Friends, one of the cornerstones of Kuwait’s foreign policy is to promote International peace and stability by building bridges of friendship and cooperation. His Highness the Amir, Sheikh Sabah AlAhmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah who is the architect of Kuwait’s foreign policy, envisions a World of peace, cooperation, friendship and fraternity. It is this lofted perception that serves as the impetus in shaping Kuwait’s relation with its neighbors in particular and the world at large.

Friends, the vision of the dynamic Kuwaiti leadership is backed by a responsible sharing of Kuwait’s resources with its friends globally without differentiating among the recipients. This practice has been persistently adhered to by successive Kuwaiti leadership and the people of Kuwait since time immemorial. This is indeed a reflection of the globally acknowledged philanthropic principle and practice imbued in the Kuwaiti society.

Friends, this balanced approach of Kuwait in its pursuit of a proactive foreign policy is based on rationality and practicality and like Bangladesh, it believes in the principles of territorial integrity, sovereignty of all countries irrespective of their size, location, religion and race. Kuwait like Bangladesh, has taken a principled stand against terrorism and violent extremism.

Friends, I would like to avail myself of this joyous occasion to specifically convey the profound feelings of my country and its people for the friendly people of Bangladesh and for the highly commendable performance of the Bangladeshi diaspora in Kuwait. There are close to 3,00,000 Bangladeshis involved in different trades in Kuwait. Their concerted endeavour in different sectors is deeply appreciated in Kuwait.

The strong and growing presence of the Bangladeshi community in Kuwait is a reflection of the wisdom, pragmatism and foresight of the successive leaderships of the two countries that have been developed and nurtured over four decades of relationship between the two countries.

Friends, an important step in foreign and consolidating further our friendly relations, is to encourage and initiate fruitful interaction in the form of exchange of visits of Government officials, political leaders, businessmen and scholars.

I would be happy to facilitate socio-economic interaction between the two countries. I see bright scope for Bangladesh to improve the two way trade in its favour by diversifying its export basket that may help increase the revenue earning by Bangladesh from Kuwait.

Friends, I am highly optimistic that our friendly relations will further be deepened, expanded and consolidated in the years to come under the sagacious leaderships of our two countries.

Long live Kuwait-Bangladesh friendship.

t is the cardinal policy of Kuwait to stand by its friends throughout the world.

The late Amir of the State of Kuwait Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber AlSabah, highlighted Kuwait’s global outreach strategy in 1961 when he remarked during the establishment of Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development, ‘Here we are embarking on the tides of change but we will never forget our friends’.

This support comes in the forms of loans and grants that go into the recipient country’s development of infrastructure, strengthening of socio-economic status and different sectoral advancement.

With the establishment of diplomatic relations between Kuwait and Bangladesh in 1973, Kuwait evinced keen interest in providing soft loans to the newly independent country.

All forms of Kuwaiti official assistance to Bangladesh is channeled through Kuwait Fund.

Kuwait attaches special importance to all requests from the Bangladesh Government with regard to financing partly or wholly, any development project.

The main thrust of Kuwait Fund’s operation in Bangladesh is in three core sectors. Financial loans have been provided for projects that have been identified as priority projects by the Government of Bangladesh. The sectors where Kuwaiti assistance has been extended are power and energy, communications and agriculture.

So far, Kuwait has provided loans for twenty four (24) development projects amounting to US $ 519.60 million over a three decade period. One project was terminated while one another will be implemented in 2017. These loans have been provided as soft loans with highly flexible terms and conditions and carry about 3 percent or less rate of interest to cover

projects in the transport sector.

In addition to these loans, the Government of Kuwait also provided a grant equivalent to US $ 10 million to Palli Karma Sahayak Foundation (PKSF) from its Goodwill Fund to promote food security in Bangladesh.

Kuwait is committed to bring about a qualitative change in the socio-economic life of the people of Bangladesh through implementation of vital projects in different sectors.

Complementing the Kuwait Government’s assistance program in Bangladesh, a number of Kuwaiti Non-Government Organizations have been working hand in hand with different socio-economic Organizations in Bangladesh to ameliorate the suffering of the poverty stricken people.

In an effort to eradicate poverty in targeted areas, these organizations have initiated social welfare projects that go way beyond the original policy of building mosques, financing madrasas and sponsoring orphans. These Organizations have invested around US $ 380 million on different projects. Some of the major areas where the fundings were channeled are given below:

Name of Project

1.

2.

3.

4.

Hospital and Clinics Students Dormitory Clustered Villages Income generating Schemes like supply of cattle, goats, setting small shops, providing sewing machines, providing rickshaws, vans and carts.

Supplying seeds, and water pumps to farmers Sinking tube wells for providing safe drinking water Madrasas and libraries Vocational Training Centres Mosques Orphanages and orphan sponsorship

The concerted efforts by the Government and NGOs of Kuwait have served significantly as building bridges of friendship and cooperation between Kuwait and Bangladesh.

Kuwait takes great pride in its role as a partner and facilitator in the development stride of Bangladesh. l

Media in Kuwait

K

uwait’s media is one of the most open in the Middle East. It is a vibrant media that is fully conscious about its roles and responsibilities. Press in Kuwait originated in the 1920s and gradually evolved over the years as one of the most important pillars of democracy. Kuwaitis take pride in the Press which they regard as a democratic form of the freedom of expression. Freedom of speech and the press is enshrined under Articles 36 and 37 of the Constitution of Kuwait. The Press and publication Law revised in 2006, extends important protection to the media but prohibits publication of materials that hurt the religious sentiments of the people or directed against other countries or their leaders that may create a misunderstanding between Kuwait and the other country, or attack the very basis of Kuwait’s existence.

Press in Kuwait plays the role of a national watchman, constantly proposing reforms, calling for enlightenment and independence and creating a wider political and national awareness. In practice, the State does not actively interfere with or restrict access to news and the Kuwaiti media are known to be more critical and outspoken than those in the region. More indepth reporting and a greater diversity of opinions appear in newspapers. This freedom of expression ensures that the State system remains answerable to its people. Both the print and electronic media reach out to the entire nation and are an effective medium in mounding public opinion through their well informed and objective reporting. Kuwait boosts of a score of privately owned daily newspapers, 14

in Arabic and 3 in English which are all privately owned, largely independent and diverse in their reporting.

There are 220 periodicals and magazines specializing in political, economic, social, medical, sports, educational, literary, technical, scientific, oil, agricultural, legal, juvenile, and a range of other fields. The Al-Arabi, A Kuwaiti magazine is widely read throughout the Arab World for its rich publication. The Kuwaiti print media for decades, played a major role in the political debate and reflects a tradition of diversity and outspokenness.

Radio broadcasting originated in 1951 and the radio medium grew in 1961. There are 9 local radio stations.

The Electronic media got a boost with the setting up of Kuwait Television in 1957. There are 16 privately owned television stations.

Kuwait’s official media follows an open and flexible policy domestically and internationally. It is based on mutual cooperation, respect and non-interference in the affairs of other countries. The policy is planned collectively with emphasis on intellectual, social, political and economic development. KUNA, the official Kuwait news agency, is an autonomous institution, established in 1976.

Just as Kuwait is geographically sandwiched triangularly among Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the freedom of the sea, likewise, the Kuwaiti mass media seems to be sociologically sandwiched triangularly among Kuwait’s political and economic loyalty to its citizens, its religious loyalty to Islam and its dedication to the concept of freedom of speech, fundamental to democracy. l

Diwaniyas in kuwait

S

ocial interaction is an important aspect of Kuwaiti society and it is intertwined with Kuwait culture, hospitality and tradition.

These interactions commonly take place in social gatherings commemorating special events and occasions that may be religious functions, wedding receptions or family get-togethers.

Other than such gatherings, Kuwaiti men in particular, quite often get together in the evenings in a diwaniya usually at week ends or on weekdays after work.

The diwaniya may be private, public or family. The private is just for close friends who usually gather daily. The public diwaniyas are generally held on a fixed day and is open for all. The family diwaniyas are restricted to family clans where members of the clan can come and meet the prominent and elderly family members.

Indeed, the family Dewaniya was the original form of the diwaniya that has existed since time immemorial.

The term originally referred to the section of a Beduin tent where the men folk and their visitors sat apart from the family.

In the olden time, it was the reception area where a man entertained his business colleagues and other male guests. Today, the term refers both to a reception hall and the gathering held in it, and visiting or hosting a deewania is an indispensable feature of a Kuwaiti’s social life. As a social event, a Deewania takes place in. Special room or annex which is usually separate from the main house of the host. The deewania is frequented by men who sit around on soft benches or cushion, conversing casually smoking or puffing hubble bubble (sheesha), nibbling snacks and drinking shots of Arabic coffee, popularly known as Gahwa.

The political or public Dewaniya is a recent development of the 20th century which serves as a platform for Kuwaitis as they started exercising political rights and seeking more representation in the political system.

Another form of Dewaniya is the casual Dewania which is organized by groups of friends of the same age group on one member’s property. This type is usually the most relaxed with participants playing cards, smoking Shisha or watching football and other games.

Our heartiest felicitations to the government and the brotherly people of the state of Kuwait on the occasion of the 55th National Day and the 25th Liberation day

DT

18

Business

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2016

Tofail: Corporate tax cut on IEA: Oil price to start RMG decided in principle slow recovery in 2017 n Tribune Report

Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed said the government has decided in principle to lower corporate tax on the readymade garment sector which is now 35%.

He also said the Seventh Five Year Plan targetted to raise the country’s biggest industry’s contribution to gross domestic product to 33% from the present 29%.

Tofail Ahmed was speaking as the chief guest at a certificate giving and employment letter handing over ceremony organised in Dhaka yesterday for 29 former exclave dwellers who received training under the Skills for Employment

USAID funded projects get VAT exemption

n Tribune Report The National Board of Revenue (NBR) has exempted Value Added Tax (VAT) on different projects, funded by USAID. The VAT wing of revenue authorities on February 7 issued an order offering VAT exemption on supply of products or services required for the projects, according to the order signed by NBR first secretary Faizur Rahman.

The exemption comes into effect from February 7, 2016, the order reads. As of November 2015, there were 71 projects in Bangladesh funded by USAID, officials said adding that all the projects will enjoy the benefit. l

Investment Programme (SEIP). The certificate recipients have been given jobs in three garment factories.

The former exclave dwellers were from Panchagarh, the country’s northern-most district bordering with India.

“As a business-friendly government, we are providing all-out cooperation to the business community so that they can do business and contribute to the national development and the economy,” he said.

Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) President Siddiqur Rahman said the RMG industry would need 3m skilled workers to increase annual export volume to $50bn

Central Anti Smuggling Task-force reconstituted n Tribune Report The government yesterday reconstituted the Central Anti-Smuggling Task-Force with National Board of Revenue (NBR) Chairman as head of the committee.

NBR Chairman Nojibur Rahman will lead the high powered task force while Customs Intelligence and Investigation Directorate Director General Moinul Khan will act as the member secretary, confirmed officials sources.

A 19-member committee will have representatives from different government offices, and law enforcement and intelligence agencies including all the division-

Pound takes hit in Asia on ‘Brexit’ fears n AFP, Tokyo The pound dropped in Asian trading yesterday, after news the mayor of London will campaign for Britain to leave the EU added to uncertainty over the country’s future in the bloc.

European leaders finally sealed a deal Friday on reforms demanded by British Prime Minister David Cameron after hours of haggling in Brussels, paving the way for a referendum on whether Britain will stay in the EU. The deal sets the stage for campaigning to start in earnest over a so-called “Brexit” ahead of a referendum on June 23.

Cameron is calling for Britain to stay after the deal, but the “In” camp took a blow when London

from $25bn now in next five years.

“The RMG sector needs 3m skilled workers to achieve the $50bn export target by 2021.” He hoped the newly recruited workers would make contribution to reaching the export target.

Siddiqur Rahman said as the country’s apparel sector currently face a shortage of around 25% workers, they have a plan to train 43,000 workers. BGMEA is collaborating with the SEIP in training workers.

Earlier, at a meeting at the commerce ministry, Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association demanded corporate tax be slashed for the apparel sector. l

mayor Boris Johnson on Sunday said he would support leaving the 28-member bloc.

Six members of Cameron’s cabinet announced they would support leaving on Saturday, highlighting rifts in the ruling Tory Party.

In Tokyo, the pound weakened to $1.4279 from $1.4392 in New York while it also lost ground against the yen and other major currencies.

The euro edged down to $1.1112 from $1.1131 in US trading, while it ticked up to 125.47 yen against 125.36 yen.

“Even if an exit isn’t likely, uncertainty and concerns about it will continue and weigh on sterling,” Kengo Suzuki, chief currency strategist at Mizuho Securities, told Bloomberg News. l

al commissioners, NBR member (customs and intelligence), director generals of Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) and Narcotics Control Department, Police, Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), Ansar and VDP. In addition, representatives from ministries of home and shipping, Civil Aviation Authority, National Security Intelligence, Bangladesh Coast Guard, Directorate General of Forces Intelligence, Bangladesh Bank, and Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI) will also be in the committee as members. The existing anti-smuggling committee was earlier formed in 1988. l

n AFP, Paris

World oil prices are unlikely to rise from current levels before 2017, and even then their recovery will be slow as massive oil stocks feed into the market, the IEA said Monday.

“We must say that today’s oil market conditions do not suggest that prices can recover sharply in the immediate future - unless, of course, there is a major geopolitical event,” the International Energy Agency said in its medium-term report, which looks five years ahead.

“Only in 2017 will we finally see oil supply and demand aligned but the enormous stocks being accumulated will act as a dampener on the pace of recovery in oil prices when the market, having balanced, then starts to draw down those stocks,” it said.

“While oil prices should start to rise gradually once the market begins rebalancing, the availability of resources that can be easily and quickly tapped will limit the scope of rallies,” the report said.

The IEA acknowledged that predicting the oil market “is today a task of enormous complexity”, saying experts were still grappling with the implications of a dramatic drop in the oil price from over $100 per barrel in July 2014 to around $30 today.

A year ago, analysts predicted that oil oversupply would end by late 2015, “but that view has proved very wide of the mark”, it admitted.

The IEA’s view is that supply will eventually be curtailed as investment cuts prompted by low

prices translate into lower output.

Spending on oil exploration and equipment is projected to drop by 17% this year after a 24% cut in 2015 “which would be the first time since 1986 that upstream investment has fallen for two consecutive years”, the IEA noted.

Demand for oil, meanwhile, will continue to increase, but at a weaker pace amid financial market turmoil and clear signs that “almost any economy you care to look at could see its GDP growth prospects downgraded”.

Bottlenecks ahead

Global annual average demand growth over the next five years is expected at 1.2 million barrels per day (mb/d), down from a 1.6 mb/d increase seen in 2015 when demand received an initial boost from oil price falls.

But while the current supply/demand mix is keeping a lid on prices, the current slashing of investment in oil producing facilities may well hit the market with bottlenecks further down the road, possibly leading to abrupt price spikes, the IEA warned.

Only Saudi Arabia and Iran have any spare production capacity left, and other countries are not investing enough even to keep current production going, let alone meet demand growth over coming years.

“The risk of a sharp oil price rise towards the later part of our forecast (around 2021) arising from insufficient investment is as potentially de-stabilising as the sharp oil price fall has proved to be,” the IEA warned. l

CORPORATE NEWS

MTB Capital Limited (MTBCL), a subsidiary of Mutual Trust Bank Ltd. (MTB) has recently signed an agreement with Sikder Apparel Hosiery Limited to act as its issue manager and corporate adviser for capital issue of Tk600mn including IPO of Tk300mn. Managing director of Sikder Group of Companies Limited, Shahidul Haq Sikder and Khairul Bashar Abu Taher Mohammed, CEO of MTBCL have signed the agreement

| summit |

Seminar on Climate Change

Every year BRAC University Earth and Environment Forum (BUEEF) organises seminars emphasising on different environmental issues and their possible solutions, on account of the increasing concerns about the present status of our environment. Recently this club arranged a seminar on “Climate Change” in Dhaka which was held in BRAC University. There were three honourable speakers at the seminar who are Professor Dr Ainun Nishat, water resource and climate change specialist, Asif Zaman, environmental engineer and Quamrul Islam Chowdhury, chairman of the Forum of Environment Journalist.

The first speaker of the event was Professor Ainun Nishat who talked about how the condition of the climate has degraded over time. Basically he talked about two agreements - Sustainable Agreement and Paris Agreement.

| food |

He said that recently some people have been attacked by zika virus and culex is responsible for transmitting this virus. This also creates a negative impact on our environment. He concluded his speech by saying that we can save our environment by cutting down on waste, reducing, reusing and recycling them. Asif Zaman talked about rainfall changes, drainage infrastructure and sea- level rise estimates. Kamrul Islam Chowdhury mentioned about Kyoto Protocol. The Kyoto Protocol is an international treaty, which extends the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that commits State Parties to reduce greenhouse gases emissions. He said that 5% of carbon emission is man-made which is not good for climate. He pointed out some measures which should be taken by the government. l

Valentine Foodfie contest at Meat Lovers Meat Lovers is an international standard fast food and take away shop. Their first and only outlet is at Bashundhara Residential Area.

Meat Lovers is hosting a Valentine Foodfie contest 2016 that started from February 13 and will conclude on February 24.

The winners will receive coupons for candle-light dinner, first class movie tickets at Bashundhara Cineplex, and a lot of other surprise gifts. l

19

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TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2016

| tribute |

‘Amar Ekushey’ at Daffodil International University With great enthusiasm, Daffodil International University (DIU) observed February 21, the “Shahid Dibash” and “International Mother Language Day” and paid tribute to the martyrs of the language movement. To mark the day, Daffodil International University chalked out an elaborate program including seminar on “Inclusive Education through and with language - language matters,” discussion, a photo exhibition, cultural program at their university campus in Ashulia, following which a rally was held marching towards Central Shaheed Minar. l

Prof Rafiqul Islam, dean, Faculty of Business and Economics accompanied by librarian Milan Khan and other high officials of Daffodil International University placing floral wreaths at the Central Shahid Minar of Daffodil International University at their campus at Ashulia

| event |

Bangla school in Singapore observe International Mother Language Day

Bangladesh Language and Cultural Foundation (BLCF), a Bangla school in Singapore has been in operation for more than 15 years, providing international standard education to around 600 children of the diaspora of Bangladeshi parents living there.

To observe International Mother Language Day all the children of the school gathered at their school premises early that morning. Two separate events were held in this regard, one at Zhangdi Primary School at 8:30am, and the other at Jhuying Primary School at 11am.

All students, accompanied by their teachers and guardians marched over to a makeshift Shaheed Minar and paid homage to the language martyrs by laying down flowers brought by the children.

This was followed by a cultural show where children sang and recited Bengali poems and members of the staff and guardians also sang songs.

Principal of BLCF, the largest Bangla school in Singapore, and

noted singer Milia Islam Sabed said, “All the future heroes showed up with the willingness to be an integral part of this initiative, connecting them to their forefathers’ thousand year old custom and culture.” l

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TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2016

CROSSWORD ACROSS 1 Bludgeon (4) 3 Confronts (5) 8 Bird (4) 9 Ink spot (4) 11 Worked into a fabric (5) 12 Fish (4) 14 Conclude (3) 15 Start (5) 18 Falter (5) 19 Greek letter (3) 21 Prepare for publication (4) 24 Waterway (5) 26 Airtight grain store (4) 27 Turn away (4) 28 Composition (5) 29 Male deer (4)

DOWN 1 Country (4) 2 Black deposit (4) 4 Fuss (3) 5 Gathering of witches (5) 6 Level (4) 7 Transmits (5) 10 Musical instrument (4) 11 Carried on, as war (5) 13 At no time (5) 16 Rainbow goddess (4) 17 Enthusiasm (5) 18 Undulates (5) 20 Neck-wear (4) 22 Incline (4) 23 Instrument of summons (4) 25 Period of time (3)

Downtime CODE-CRACKER How to solve: Each number in our CODECRACKER grid represents a different letter of the alphabet. For example, today 9 represents P so fill P every time the figure 9 appears.

You have two letters in the control grid to start you off. Enter them in the appropriate squares in the main grid, then use your knowledge of words to work out which letters go in the missing squares.

Some letters of the alphabet may not be used.

As you get the letters, fill in the other squares with the same number in the main grid, and the control grid. Check off the list of alphabetical letters as you identify them.

A B C DE FG H I J K L MN O P Q RST UVWXYZ

CALVIN AND HOBBES

SUDOKU How to solve: Fill in the blank spaces with the numbers 1 – 9. Every row, column and 3 x 3 box must contain all nine digits with no number repeating.

PEANUTS

YESTERDAY’S SOLUTIONS CODE-CRACKER

CROSSWORD

DILBERT

SUDOKU

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TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2016

INSIDE INSIGHT

Haryana Jats call off protests after winning jobs promise Leaders of the Jat community reached a deal late with the government on Monday to end protests that paralysed Haryana state and cut water supplies to Delhi’s 20 million residents, after winning a pledge of more government jobs.

PAGE 23

US dominates arms trade, Asia, Mid-East boost imports The global transfer of major arms has risen in recent years, with the US increasing its dominance of the trade while the flow of weaponry to Africa, Asia and the Middle East has increased, a new study published Monday showed.

PAGE 23

Italy PM threatens House confidence vote over same-sex civil unions Italian Premier Matteo Renzi on Sunday warned he could call a high-stakes confidence vote in his government in a bid to unlock a parliamentary deadlock over gay civil unions.

PAGE 24

Million dollar question: Where US will put suspected terrorists after Gitmo shuts down? n Tribune Desk US President Barack Obama has refused to send any suspected terrorists captured overseas to the American detention centre at Guantanamo Bay. But if the US starts seizing more militants in expanded military operations, where will they go, who will hold them and where will they be tried?

Those are questions that worry legal experts, lawmakers and others as US special operations forces deploy in larger numbers to Iraq, Syria and, maybe soon, Libya, with the Dae’sh group and affiliated organisations in their sights.

Throughout Obama’s presidency, suspects have been killed in drone strikes or raids, or captured and interrogated, sometimes aboard Navy ships. After that, they are either prosecuted in US courts and military commissions or handed over to other nations.

This policy has been enough, experts say — at least for now.

“If you’re going to be doing counter-terrorism operations that bring in detainees, you have to think through what you are going to do with them,” said Phillip Carter, former deputy assistant defence secretary for detainee policy. “If the US is going to conduct large-scale combat operations or large-scale special ops and bring in more detainees, it needs a different solution.”

Obama has not sent a single suspected terrorist to the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where many have been detained for years without being charged or tried — something the president says is a “recruitment tool” for militant extremists.

He is to report to Congress this month on how he wants to close Guantanamo and possibly transfer some of the remaining detainees to the United States. That report also is supposed to address the question of future detainees.

Republican candidates who want to succeed Obama are telling voters that they would keep Guantanamo open.

“Law enforcement is about gathering evidence to take someone to trial, and convict them,” said Florida Senator Marco Rubio.

“Anti-terrorism is about finding

A US military guard stands in a cell block at the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay US Naval Base in this 2009 file photo REUTERS

out information to prevent a future attack so the same tactics do not apply. ... But, here’s the bigger problem with all this: We’re not interrogating anybody right now.”

That’s not true, said Frazier Thompson, director of the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group. The tight-lipped team of interrogators from the FBI, Defence Department, the CIA and other intelligence agencies gleans intelligence from top suspected terrorists in the US and overseas.

“We were created to interrogate high-value terrorists and we are interrogating high-value terrorists,” Thompson said in a recent interview.

Since it was established in 2009, that team has been deployed 34 times, Thompson said, adding that other government agencies conduct independent interrogations as well. “We are designed to deploy on the highest-value terrorist. We are not going out to interrogate everybody,” he said.

Thompson would not disclose details of the cases his team has worked or speculate on whether he expects more interrogation requests as the battle against Dae’sh

GUANTANAMO BAY 107 current detainees Annual costs of detention $150m a year or $900k /year per Guantanamo detainee Compare with $60k/year per inmate at federal ‘supermax’ prison $25k/year per average federal inmate

Personnel

2,000

members Sources: US Department of Defence, Congressional Research Service, Christian Science Monitor, Urban Institute, CNN reporting

heats up.

The US has deployed about 200 new special operations forces to Iraq, and they are preparing to work with the Iraqis to begin going after Dae’sh fighters and commanders, “killing or capturing them wherever we find them, along with other key targets,” Defence Secretary Ash Carter said.

In May last year, a Delta Force raid in Syria killed Dae’sh financier Abu Sayyaf, yielding intelligence about the group’s structure and finances. his wife, known as Umm Sayyaf, was captured Her case illustrates how the Obama administration is prosecuting some terrorist suspects in

federal courts or military commissions or leaving them in the custody of other nations.

Umm Sayyaf, a 25-year-old Iraqi, is being held in Iraq and facing prosecution by authorities there.

She also was charged February 9 in US federal court with holding Kayla Mueller and contributing to her death in February 2015.

Ali Soufan, a former FBI agent who investigated and supervised international terrorism cases, including the US embassy bombings in East Africa and the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen the 1990s, said sending suspected terrorists through the American criminal justice system works. He said the courts are more effective than military commissions used at Guantanamo that have been slow in trying detainees who violate the laws of war.

But it’s hard to evaluate the effectiveness of the system.

The Justice Department declined to provide the number of foreign terrorist suspects who have been prosecuted or the number handed over to other countries, or their status. Reports on how other countries handle the suspects are classified. l

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TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2016

INSIGHT

Scarred by trafficking abuses, Rohingyas stay put in Myanmar camps Reuters n Thomson Foundation, Thet Kel Pyin After Husaina’s 20-year-old son boarded a boat to escape poverty and discrimination in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, she heard nothing from him for seven months.

Then, in a shocking phone call, she was told the young Rohingya Muslim was in the hands of people smugglers in Thailand, and had fallen severely ill. The only way for him to be released was to somehow find the money to pay a ransom.

“The man said: ‘If you don’t pay money, he will die ... I was so upset. How did he get into the hands of the brokers? How did he become so ill?’” she said, sitting in her dank and crumbling one-room temporary

home in Thet Kel Pyin displacement camp, a few kilometres from the Rakhine state capital of Sittwe.

They found an employer in Malaysia willing to pay about $1,600 in exchange for Mamed Rohim’s labour.

That was over a year ago and Rohim is still working to repay the debt.

He only manages to send home about $50 every two or three months, which the family uses to repay their own debts - run up since they fled communal violence and their home in Sittwe for the camp.

Now barred from returning home, the family - seven other children and an asthmatic husband - is struggling to make ends meet. But Husaina says Rohim’s plight continues to haunt her.

“Even though I want to send

other children on the boat so they could find jobs, I’m really worried about the brokers so I dare not,” she told Myanmar Now, an independent news service supported by the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Waves of Rohingya Muslims have fled sectarian violence and apartheid-like conditions in Myanmar in recent years, many of them swept up in trafficking rings, some of which hold men like Rohim for ransom, making threats to their impoverished families that their loved ones will be killed.

But human rights groups say there has been a dramatic drop in the number of Rohingya leaving Myanmar this year. They attribute this to a crackdown on human trafficking by countries such as Thai-

land and Malaysia.

Experiences such as Rohim’s are common among the Rohingya, confined to the squalid displacement camps outside Sittwe. The stories are shared among residents, making many fearful of the multi-day journey.

Matthew Smith, executive director of Thailand-based human rights group Fortify Rights, agrees numbers leaving Rakhine have dropped, even though it is difficult to quantify the decrease in departures due to the clandestine nature of the voyages.

Since 2012 - when communal violence between Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya displaced some 140,000 people, an overwhelming majority of them Muslims - tens of

thousands have left Rakhine State by boat.

What began decades ago as a journey that would take weeks on rickety boats, has in recent years become a mass people trafficking and smuggling business. The trafficking grew to such a scale that it lead to a crackdown by Thai and Malaysian authorities last year.

Despite continued government restrictions, some Rohingya have not left because they are holding out hope for the new government led by Aung San Suu Kyi’s NLD. The NLD, however, did not field a single Muslim candidate in the November elections and has remained quiet on the persecution faced by the Rohingya, who are viewed with suspicion by many in Myanmar. l

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TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2016

Haryana Jats call off protests after winning jobs promise Bahadurgarh/New n Reuters, Delhi Leaders of the Jat community reached a deal late with the government on Monday to end protests that paralysed Haryana state and cut water supplies to Delhi’s 20 million residents, after winning a pledge of more government jobs.

A Jat leader said protesters had reached a deal with state and federal leaders to end their mobilisation, in which 16 people have been killed and more than 150 injured.

“The government has promised to meet our demands and we have promised our full cooperation,” Ramesh Dalal, convener of the Jat Arakshan Andolan (Jat Reservation Movement), said.

Thousands of troops were deployed to quell the protests, which had flared again on Monday near Sonipat when a freight train was torched. In neighbouring Rajasthan, Jats attacked and burned buses.

Disruption has been huge, with

Demonstrators from the Jat community shout slogans as they block the DelhiHaryana national highway on Monday REUTERS 850 trains cancelled, 500 factories closed and business losses estimated at as much as $5bn by one regional lobby group.

Dalal said he had appealed to the entire Jat community, which makes up a quarter of the population of Haryana, to return home. A senior officer said state police still faced a challenge to maintain law and order.

The army earlier on Monday

retook control of a canal that supplies three-fifths of the capital’s water. Water was expected to reach the metropolis by early Tuesday.

Order slowly returns

The Haryana government put the death toll at 16 while police said earlier that there were tensions in some towns as Jats tried to prevent other communities from reo-

pening their shops.

Many Jats, who number more than 80m across north India, are farmers whose livelihoods have suffered as families divide farms among their children. Two years of drought have harmed crops, and they are also missing out on urban jobs.

Their demands for government jobs and student places are based on affirmative action policies that are typically reserved for deprived groups.

The Supreme Court has previously struck down an attempt to classify the Jats as an Other Backward Caste, or OBC, which would formally entitle them to a quota of jobs and student places.

Although many of the state’s chief ministers have been Jats, the current minister is not. Commentators have faulted him and other BJP leaders for failing to read the social mood and devoting too much attention to issues like cow protection that are a core part of the party’s pro-Hindu agenda. l

US dominates arms trade, Asia, Mid-East boost imports n AFP, Stockholm The global transfer of major arms has risen in recent years, with the US increasing its dominance of the trade while the flow of weaponry to Africa, Asia and the Middle East has increased, a new study published Monday showed.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) report, the volume of international transfers of major weapons -- including sales and donations -- was 14% higher in 2011–2015 than over the five previous years, with the US and Russia doing most of the exporting.

The biggest importers were India, Saudi Arabia, China and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The authors of the report singled out the conflict in Yemen, where a Saudi-led coalition is backing the government against Iran-supported Shia Huthi rebels.

World’s largest exporters and importers of weapons 2011-2015

Exports Imports

Germany

4.7

Netherlands

2.0

Russia

25

Turkey

3.4

Pakistan

South Korea 2.6

3.3

France

5.6

Italy United States

33 / 2.9

Percent of market

China 5.9 / 4.7

2.7

UAE Spain

4.6

3.5

‘US arms went to 96 states’ The US has sold or donated major arms to a diverse range of recipients across the globe, the report said.

“The USA has sold or donated major arms to at least 96 states in the past five years, and the US arms industry has large outstanding export orders,” including for over 600 F-35 combat aircraft, said Aude Fleurant, director of the SIPRI Arms and Military Expenditure Programme.

The biggest chunk of US major arms, 41%, went into Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Middle East.

Ukraine 2.6

Britain 4.5

Source : Stockholm International Peace Research Institute

Russia remains in second place on the SIPRI exporters list, with its share of the total up three points to 25%, though the levels dropped in 2014 and 2015 -- coinciding with Western sanctions against Moscow over the Ukraine conflict.

India took the largest chunk of Russian weaponry and SIPRI also listed pro-Moscow rebels in Ukraine among the recipients.

While the flows of weapons to Af-

Vietnam India

14

Saudi Arabia

7.0

rica, Asia and Oceania and the Middle East all increased between 2006–10 and 2011–15, there had been a sharp fall in the flow to Europe and a minor decrease in the volume heading to the Americas, according to SIPRI. The overall transfer of arms has been upwards this century after a relative drop in the previous 20 years.

China leapfrogged both France and Germany over the past five years

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SOUTH ASIA

Taliban suicide bomb kills at least 13 A suicide bomb targeting a police commander killed at least 13 people on Monday, including 9 civilians, in Afghanistan’s northern Parwan province, an official said. The attack happened near a clinic and a bazaar, said Gen Zaman Mamozai, the provincial police chief. 4 local police were among those killed, and another 19 people, including 17 civilians, were wounded, he added.

-AP

INDIA

Gunbattle in Kashmir ends with 9 dead Troops and police on Monday killed 3 militants holed up in a government building in Indian Kashmir, ending a three-day gunbattle in which 5 soldiers and a civilian also died, police said. The fighting broke out when rebels ambushed a paramilitary convoy on Saturday, killing two troopers before taking refuge in the building on the outskirts of the state capital Srinagar.

-REUTERS

CHINA

China’s foreign minister to visit US China’s foreign minister Wang Yi will visit the US from Tuesday, his ministry said, as the two powers grapple over weapons systems on the Korean peninsula and in the South China Sea. The threeday trip comes with Beijing and Washington at loggerheads over militarisation in the South China Sea, while at the same time trying to find common ground on how to deal with North Korea’s nuclear and missile programmes.

-AFP

ASIA PACIFIC

Australia warns of terror threat to Malaysia Australia has warned of a possible terror attack in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur, urging travellers to be vigilant after a number of arrests. Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said in its latest advice issued late Sunday that terrorists might be planning attacks in and around Kuala Lumpur -AFP

MIDDLE EAST

Australia

3.6

to become the third-largest source of major arms globally, with an 88% rise in exports.

Most of the Chinese weapons went to other Asian countries, with Pakistan the main recipient.

India remains by far the biggest importer of major arms, accounting for 14% of the total; twice as much as second-placed Saudi Arabia and three times as much as China. l

Saudi: War games will boost military ties The Middle East’s largest ever war games are now underway and will boost military cooperation between the 20 Muslim nations taking part, host country Saudi Arabia said on Monday, as it seeks to check the growing influence of arch rival Iran.

The Northern Thunder exercises, which began on February 14 and will run until March 10, involve more than 150,000 troops from the Gulf Arab nations, Egypt, Morocco, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Jordan, Sudan and Senegal.

REUTERS

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TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2016

USA

Poll: Majority of Democrats say socialism has positive impact The term ‘socialist’ once was used as an epithet in American politics.

Perhaps no more. In a year in which Bernie Sanders, a self-described Democratic Socialist, is running a competitive primary campaign for the White House, a new survey finds that nearly sixin-ten Democratic primary voters believe socialism has a positive impact on society.

-POLITICO

THE AMERICAS

Morales set to lose Bolivia referendum on 4th term Bolivian President Evo Morales looked headed for defeat in a referendum on whether the leftist leader can seek a fourth term in office, according to exit polls and early results on Sunday. Morales, 56, now serving his third term, was trying to change the constitution so he could run for re-election in 2019, potentially allowing the former coca grower to remain president until 2025.

-REUTERS

UK

New newspaper to launch despite declining readership A British publisher says it is launching the country’s first new national paper in 30 years - despite rapidly declining newspaper sales and readers switching to online websites. Trinity Mirror says The New Day will stand out from other British newspapers because it will be politically neutral and will not have an op-ed column.

-AP

EUROPE

Closing borders to cost EU €470bn over 10 years Ending Europe’s Schengen agreement would cost EU economies at least €470bn over a decade, according to a German study published Monday. The impact on trade flows would also cost major trade partners the US and China tens of billions of euros each, said the study. The study was published as several European countries have reintroduced provisional border controls to stem a mass influx of refugees, the greatest wave of people seeking asylum since World War II. -AFP

AFRICA

Ugandan opposition leader arrested Police arrested Uganda’s main opposition leader, Kizza Besigye, for the 4th time in eight days on Monday, after an election that the US and EU have criticised and the opposition reject as fraudulent. Police also stormed Besigye’s Forum for Democratic Change party headquarters and arrested 8 member.

-REUTERS

INSIGHT

Many US Catholics unfazed by pope’s clash with Trump n Reuters, New York US Catholics voiced support for Pope Francis on Sunday after he criticised Donald Trump’s immigration stance as “not Christian,” but many interviewed said the controversy would not necessarily sour them on the Republican presidential contender.

The pontiff injected himself into the US campaign during a conversation with reporters on his flight home from Mexico on Thursday. In his comments, Francis disparaged Trump’s vow to build a wall along the southern US border to keep out illegal immigrants.

A sampling of opinion from people before and after Sunday Mass suggested that many Catholics saw the pope’s comments as well-intentioned and grounded in a moral worldview.

Many said Francis, who has become a champion of inclusion in his three-year tenure as head of the Roman Catholic Church, was right to insist on the humane

treatment of all immigrants.

Even so, most of those interviewed in Boston and New York would not rule out voting for Trump based on what Francis said. About 21% of the US population identifies as Catholic.

Many churchgoers said the media unfairly whipped up the controversy to goad the pope and Trump into a fight days before Saturday’s South Carolina Republican primary. Trump’s victory there made the billionaire real estate mogul the clear front-runner for his party’s nomination for the November 8 election to succeed Democratic President Barack Obama.

‘Analogy’

Francis never directly criticised Trump or mentioned him by name when he told reporters: “A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian.”

A spokesman for Francis sought on Friday to tone down the controversy, insisting the pontiff was not making a personal attack on Trump or any statement about the US election.

Catholics in the United States Around 70 million American Catholics North Dakota 26

Illinois 28

Nevada 25 % of adults who are Catholics 2014 0-10

California 28

11-20 21-30

Massachusetts 34 New York 31 Rhode Island 42 Connecticut 33

New Mexico 34 Texas 23

Lousiana 26

New Jersey 34 Pennsylvania 24

31-40 41 + Source : Pew Research Centre

After initially saying it was “disgraceful” for the pope to judge another’s faith in God, the blunt-spoken Trump said Francis was “a nice man” who was probably misinterpreted by the media.

But from the pulpit of St Paul’s, the Reverend James Flavin did not shy away from the issue. In his Sunday sermon, he linked the pope’s remarks about “walls” to many of the social justice themes

he has sounded since his papacy began in March 2013.

“The pope denounced a world divided by walls,” Flavin said.

“He’s challenging us to change the world through our imitation of Christ.”

How much the pope’s views will influence US Catholics in the voting booth is an open question, but parishioners suggested a muted impact at best. l

Italy PM threatens House confidence vote over same-sex civil unions n AFP, Rome Italian Premier Matteo Renzi on Sunday warned he could call a high-stakes confidence vote in his government in a bid to unlock a parliamentary deadlock over gay civil unions.

“We are at a crossroads,” Renzi told a national assembly of his centre-left Democratic Party (PD). “I am ready to call a confidence vote.”

In an unexpected direct intervention in a debate he has largely stayed out of, Renzi said he regarded the legislation to give gay couples legal recognition and protection for the first time as important as his other reforms of the labour market and the parliamentary decision-making process.

Opinion polls suggest most Italians favour the principle of allowing gay civil unions but that a majority are reluctant to extend adoption rights to same sex couples.

The Catholic Church has been extremely active in lobbying politicians on the question to the

Ruling Democratic Party Senator Monica Cirinna holds a placard as she poses with supporters of gay civil unions outside the Italian Senate in Rome on January 28 REUTERS point of being publicly rebuked for interfering by Renzi earlier this month.

If he did call a confidence vote, Renzi would run the risk of losing it and having to go to the polls just as he enters his third year since becoming premier via an internal

party coup.

But with the PD well placed in opinion polls, that would be a less daunting prospect for Renzi than for some of his political rivals.

The civil unions bill is currently stalled in the Italian Senate after the opposition Five Star Move-

ment (M5S) last week scuppered a bid by the PD to accelerate its approval.

The second chamber of Italy’s parliament is due to resume discussion of it on Wednesday, by which time Renzi’s party managers hope to have secured enough cross-party backing to put it back on track.

At issue is whether the bill contains provisions allowing a partner in a same sex relationship to adopt the biological child of the other partner.

Italy’s second biggest party, M5S has faced a significant backlash from its own supporters over its tactics in the Senate.

Gay rights groups, some of whom demonstrated in Milan on Sunday, have expressed dismay over the deadlock, insisting that the draft legislation will be worth little without equal adoption rights.

Opponents of the bill in the Senate have filed hundreds of wrecking amendments, most of which aim to remove the adoption provisions. l

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TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2016

INSIDE

Mahmudullah wants title for Mash The main round of the Asia Cup Twenty20 2016 will begin at Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium tomorrow. The tournament, being played in this format for the first time, is being seen as the preparation ground to the Asian sides for the ICC World Twenty20 2016 in India next month. PAGE 26

Advantage Barca as Real, Atletico held

Cristiano Ronaldo missed a penalty as Real Madrid’s hopes of catching La Liga leaders Barcelona were all but ended with a 1-1 draw at Malaga on Sunday. PAGE 27

Bangladesh cricketers play football during their practice session prior to the Asia Cup Twenty20 at the BCB academy ground yesterday

Rubel loses central contract Buzz gone for good as Aussies scent win Brendon McCullum drew the curtain on his illustrious batting career as a typically pugnacious but short-lived innings Monday was unable to loosen Australia’s firm grip on the second Test in Christchurch. PAGE 28

Argentina, Chile face rematch after draw Lionel Messi and Argentina were given a chance for revenge on Sunday after being drawn against reigning Copa America champions Chile in the group stage for this summer’s special centenary edition of the tournament. PAGE 29

Nadir Shah cleared to officiate domestic league match committee. We did it as a part of the had earlier chaired the BCB crickn Minhaz Uddin Khan regular reshuffling process, which et operation before the later took Bangladesh pacer Rubel Hossain has been left out from the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) central contract. The board in its 13th meeting yesterday, decided not to renew the contract to the rightarm spearhead after he failed to follow BCB instructions during his rehabilitation from injury.

The BCB president Nazmul Hasan said Rubel had failed to follow the rehabilitation program given by the BCB physiotherapist while recovering from his injury.

The pacer will be handed a showcause letter now and only a justified reason could get him his central contract back.

The board also decided to shuffle few chairman’s post in the standing committee. Nazmul said the move will create competitiveness amongst the directors and also gives equal opportunities to proven one’s capability as a board director.

BCB tournament committee chairman Akram Khan will now take care of the cricket operations replacing Naimur Rahman. Akram

over the post. Naimur, the first Bangladesh Test captain, was not assigned to any committee. Saiful Islam Swapan was appointed as the chairman of tournament committee.

BCB tournament committee chairman Akram Khan will now take care of the cricket operations replacing Naimur Rahman One of BCB’s influential directors IH Mallick, who headed Facilities Committee, was also removed from his post. Sheikh Sohel will replace Mallick in the facilities committee. BCB vice-president AZM Nasir Uddin was appointed as the chairman of disciplinary committee taking over from Sohel.

“We did not make these changes to assess the development of the

we are doing after every four or six months,” said the BCB boss.

The BCB also appointed two junior selectors.

“The three selectors couldn’t go all over the country at a time. That’s why we will appoint two junior selectors to assist and keeping them updated about the new players.”

On the other hand, the board removed the 10-year suspension on umpire Nadir Shah. The Bangladesh umpire will now be able to officiate matches in the domestic league. Nadir was suspended after he expressed his desire to alter the match in exchange of money in an Indian TV sting operation.

Along with that, the board has decided to sign a three-year deal with an Indian software company for sophisticated software for match analysis. Top-ranked teams are now using this modern and sophisticated software.

The board also inked a deal with UNICEF to use their logo in collar and hand of players’ jersey as charity logo from now on. l

MAINOOR ISLAM MANIK

Mashrafe named UN ambassador n Tribune Report Bangladesh captain Mashrafe bin Mortaza has been nominated as the youth goodwill ambassador of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Bangladesh.

Mashrafe is the first Bangladeshi cricketer to become the Goodwill Ambassador of UNDP however former captains Habibul Bashar, Mohammad Ashraful and Shakib Al Hasan were also chosen as the ambassador of UNICEF's other programs previously.

UNDP informed through a press release however the official contracts will be signed on a suitable day before the upcoming Asia Cup. It was under Mashrafe, Bangladesh have reached to a new height in world cricket and his leadership quality and reception on and off the field made him as one of the biggest personality in Bangladesh.

“I have been informed from the UNICEF's local office that I have been nominated as their Goodwill Ambassador however I am yet to receive any official papers. It's a huge responsibility and obviously a proud moment for me and for my country,” Mashrafe said. l

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TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2016

Cricket Board to reward SA Games heroes n Minhaz Uddin Khan

Bangladesh allrounder Mahmudullah stretches his legs during a practice session in Mirpur yesterday

MAINOOR ISLAM MANIK

The Bangladesh Cricket Board in its 13th board meeting yesterday decided to reward the national gold medalists in the recently concluded 12th South Asian Games in Guwahati, India. BCB also decided to aid the Bangladesh Hockey Federation to sign a quality foreign coach for the national team.

Swimmer Mahfuza Akter Shila ended Bangladesh’s 10-year wait by winning gold medal in 100m breaststroke and went onto bag her second gold in the competition in 50-metre breaststroke. BCB has decided to reward her with Tk10Lac for her two gold medals. The other gold medalist, Mabia Akter Simanata will be awarded Tk5Lac for winning in 63kg (women) weightlifting event and make history.

Shooter Shakil Ahmed had got Bangladesh the fourth gold in the games and is also part of the reward list. l

morrow. The two nations maintain an exciting on-field rivalry. Bangladesh have often pulled up good results against India and the nation expects an exciting encounter. When quarried if the Tigers be charged up for the game, Mahmudullah said, “There is nothing extra to it (the game). We are relaxed and have pretty well with our skill and fitness.”

“India have been playing good cricket recently so we will also need to play well for a good result.

We are thinking of ourselves only to be honest. Starting with confidence will give us a kick start. With momentum we will be able to do well match by match I believe,” the

30-year-old explained.

Bangladesh are yet to master the shortest version of international cricket. There has been significant improvement in one-day international and in Test the Tigers are getting in shape. But in Twenty20, Bangladesh lack behind, they are the 10th nation in the ICC rankings.

Mahmudullah believes Bangladesh will be able to come-out of the shakiness in the format through this Asia Cup. The former Bangladesh vice-captain also expects to erase the bitter memory of horrific performance in the last Asia Cup and try to go closer to the final match of the tournament. l

Mahmudullah wants title for Mash n Minhaz Uddin Khan The main round of the Asia Cup Twenty20 2016 will begin at Shere-Bangla National Stadium tomorrow. The tournament, being played in this format for the first time, is being seen as the preparation ground to the Asian sides for the ICC World Twenty20 2016 in India next month. However this will not down the importance of the tournament said Bangladesh all-rounder Mahmudullah.

One of the senior members in the Bangladesh squad, Mahmudllah said the Tigers will like to perform well in the tournament and if possi-

ble win the trophy for their captain Mashrafe Bin Mortaza. The veteran pacer has been a key to Bangladesh’s success in limited over cricket and Shakib-Mushfiq will be delighted to honour him with the trophy.

The right-handed batsman cum spinner believes the participating teams will give out their best and so will hosts Bangladesh.

Bangladesh is hosting the tournament for the third consecutive time and following Tigers’ good run of form in limited over cricket in the recent past, they will try everything in order to fetch a good result from the tournament said Mahmudullah.

“This tournament is not just for

preparation. We will fight for the championship. There is no option to take things lightly. A good start is important for our team and we are preparing keeping that in mind. We will carry the boost throughout the competition if we can get a good start,” said Mahmudullah to the media at SBNS yesterday.

“There is no bigger trophy than the Asia Cup and World Cup. We will try our best to get a good result for Mashrafe. He has been an inspiration to the team and we will like to give him back something,” Mahmudullah added.

Hosts Bangladesh will start their campaign taking on giants India to-

Solid Afghans beat Hong Kong n Mazhar Uddin

Afghanistan kept their hopes alive for the solitary place of the Asia Cup 2016 main round as they beat Hong Kong by 66 runs in a mustwin encounter of the Asia Cup qualifier at the Sher-e-Bangla National stadium yesterday.

However, Asghar Stanikzai and his team will be hoping UAE to lose their last match of the qualifier against Oman later on the day.

Despite a good start, Hong Kong lose their last seven wickets in just 25 runs and eventually bundled out on 112 in 17.1 overs after Najibullah Zadran of Afghanistan struck an unbeaten fifty to post a challenging

total of 178/7 in twenty overs.

Earlier, after being asked to bat, Afghanistan started positively and kept scoring quick runs where opener Mohammad Shahzad scored

BRIEF SCORE Afghanistan 178/7 in 20 overs Najibullah 60*, Stanikzai 49, Aizaz 3-38 Hong Kong 112 in 17.1 overs Rath 41, Nabi 4-17 Afghanistan won by 66 runs MoM - Mohammad Nabi (Afghanistan) 25 off 14 balls with three fours and a six. Skipper Stanikzai also struck a quick-fire 49 off 35 balls with three sixes and four boundaries.

But Najibullah carried on and smashed some big blows as Afghanistan took 94 runs in the last nine overs when the 22-year-old remained not out on sixty off just 35 balls featuring four sixes and three fours.

Hong Kong replied well and added fifty runs in the opening stand. Opener Kinchit Shah added 29 off 19 balls while his partner Anshuman Rath top scored with 41 runs facing 38 balls with four boundaries.

But Afghanistan came back brilliantly to dismiss seven of the opposition batters on single digit as Hong Kong were eventually all-out with seventeen balls to spare. l

Afghanistan players celebrate a wicket during their Asia Cup qualifier against Hong Kong in Mirpur yesterday MAINOOR ISLAM MANIK

27

DT

Sport

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2016

QUICK BYTES

LA LIGA Rayo Vallecano

2-2

Sevilla

Strootman happy to return from injury

Manucho 43, Miku 62 N’Zonzi 10, Iborra 20

Dutch midfielder Kevin Strootman revealed his joy at becoming a “footballer again” after ending a 13-month injury lay-off for Roma in a 5-0 rout of Palermo on Sunday. Strootman, 26, missed the 2014 World Cup in Brazil and dozens of Serie A and Champions League games because he has undergone three operations on his knee since joining the Serie A club in 2013. Having made only a handful of appearances last season, Strootman was given a standing ovation when he came off the bench to replace Douglas Maicon with 13 minutes left .

– AFP

Athletic Bilbao

0-1

Real Sociedad Jonathas 17

Granada

1-2

Valencia

Malaga

1-1

Albentosa 66

Ronaldo 33)

Edgar Mendez 90+1

Atletico

Real Madrid

0-0

Parejo 55, Mina 90

Villarreal

Querrey wins Delray Beach title American Sam Querrey won his first ATP World Tour title in four years when he defeated fellow countryman Rajeev Ram 6-4 7-6(6) at the Delray Beach Open on Sunday. The 28-year-old Querrey had not won since Los Angeles in 2012 and had to overcome a break in both sets to claim his eighth career title. “We were both a little nervous today, it wasn’t the cleanest match,” Querrey said. ” –REUTERS

Cuevas outlasts Pella for Rio trophy Uruguay’s Pablo Cuevas, coming off an upset of Rafael Nadal, won his fourth career ATP title on Sunday, defeating Argentina’s Guido Pella 6-4, 6-7 (5/7), 6-4 in the Rio Open final. Cuevas smashed a forehand winner on the final point, the only break point either player managed in the last two sets, to claim the crown after two hours and 16 minutes at the clay court event.

–AFP

Player sent off for showing referee red card Trabzonspor’s Salih Dursun was sent off for showing the referee a red card during his team’s 2-1 defeat

by Galatasaray in a fractious Turkish league encounter on Sunday.

The flashpoint occurred in the 86th minute after referee Deniz Bitnel showed a straight red to Dursun’s team mate Luis Cavanda for a foul inside the penalty area.

Trabzonspor’s players surrounded the official to protest and, in the resulting melee, Dursun snatched the card out of Bitnel’s hand and waved it in the official’s direction, earning himself a sending off and reducing his team to seven men.

–REUTERS

Malaga goalkeeper Carlos Kameni (R) helps Real Madrid forward Cristiano Ronaldo to stand up during their Spanish league match at La Rosaleda stadium in Malaga on Sunday AFP

Advantage Barca as Real, Atletico held n AFP Cristiano Ronaldo missed a penalty as Real Madrid’s hopes of catching La Liga leaders Barcelona were all but ended with a 1-1 draw at Malaga on Sunday.

Madrid remain nine points behind Barca with 13 games to go after Raul Albentosa cancelled out Ronaldo’s opener.

Atletico Madrid also failed to gain significant ground on Barca as they were held 0-0 at home by Vil-

larreal to move eight points behind in second.

However, Gary Neville’s upturn in fortunes as Valencia boss continued with a third win in a week, 2-1 at Granada.

Zinedine Zidane’s men were left to rue Ronaldo’s miss from the spot to make it 2-0 before the break when Carlos Kameni dived to his left to parry the three-time World Player of the Year’s effort.

“It is obviously going to be difficult because we have dropped two

points, but we won’t give up,” said Zidane.

Chances were far harder to come by at the Vicente Calderon as the two best defences in the league stood firm. A point consolidates Villarreal’s position in fourth, five points adrift of Real Madrid.

Elsewhere, Neville’s Valencia again rode their luck, but recorded back-to-back league wins for just the second time this season as Granada passed up a wave of second-half opportunities. l

AB de Villiers plundered 71 runs off 29 balls to lead South Africa to a nine-wicket victory over England and wrap up a 2-0 series win in the second Twenty20 International at the Wanderers on Sunday.

The tourists were bowled out for 171 in their last over and South Africa reached 172 with 32 balls to spare, wrapping up a comfortable win that stood in contrast to their narrow victory in Friday’s first encounter in Cape Town.

De Villiers broke his own record for the fastest half-century by a South African in a T20 international, trimming the mark from 23 to 21 balls.

Together with Hashim Amla, he enjoyed a first-wicket partnership of 125 to effectively seal victory before he was caught out on the boundary.

Amla finished unbeaten on 69.

England were their own worst enemies when Eoin Morgan ran out in-form batsman Alex Hales with the score on 61, but a 96-run partnership between the England captain and Jos Buttler had guided the tourists to 157-3 in the 17th over.

They fell apart, however, when they then lost their last seven wickets for just 14 runs to leave South Africa with a modest target to chase at a ground where high scoring is the norm. l

BRIEF SCORES England 171 (Buttler 54, Abbott 3-26)

South Africa 172 for 1 (de Villiers 71, Amla 69*) South Africa won by 9 wickets

n AFP

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang scored his 21st league goal in Borussia Dortmund’s 1-0 win at Bayer Leverkusen on Sunday after the referee made Bundesliga history by briefly stopping play when the home coach refused to go to the stands.

Confusion reigned for nine second-half minutes at Leverkusen’s BayArena when Bayer coach Roger Schmidt refused match official Felix Zwayer’s order to leave the sidelines which led to the game being halted.

Schmidt can expect heavy sanctions from the German FA (DFB), but later apologised for his behaviour. The 48-year-old was furious that Dortmund were allowed to take a quick free kick in the build up to Aubameyang’s 64th-minute winner and stood his ground.

The controversy was triggered when Leverkusen striker Stefan Kiessling pushed over Dortmund’s Sven Bender in the Borussia half.

Later Schalke were held to a 1-1 draw at home to Stuttgart while South Korea’s Koo Ja-Cheol scored for Augsburg in their 1-0 win at bottom side Hanover. l

BUNDESLIGA

Leverkusen

0-1

Dortmund

Aubameyang 64

Schalke

1-1

Belhanda 14

Hanover 96

VfB Stuttgart Harnik 74

0-0

Augsburg Koo 14

Watson claims second Riviera title in 3 years n AFP

De Villiers smacks South Africa to easy T20 win n Reuters

Coach’s protest halts play as ‘Auba’ seals Dortmund win

South Africa batsman AB de Villiers, plays a shot during their second and the final T20 against England at the Wanderers Stadium in Johannesburg on Sunday AP

Bubba Watson captured the Northern Trust Open for the second time in three years on Sunday, emerging from a crowded leaderboard to win by just one stroke.

The two-time Masters winner now heads to the first major championship of the season at Augusta National in seven weeks looking for his third green jacket. The 37-year-old American, who also won at Pacific Palisades in 2014, birdied two of his final three holes en route to a three-under 68 for a 15-under 269 total.

Watson’s playing partner, Jason Kokrak, fell just short in his quest for his first PGA title, closing with a 68 to finish at 14 under and share second with Adam Scott.

Rory McIlroy’s hopes of launching his Masters preparations with a victory fell apart after the world number three from Northern Ireland fired a final round 75. l

DT

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Sport

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2016

McCullum gone for good as Aussies scent victory

SCORECARD, DAY 3 Australia (Overnight 363-4) AUSTRALIA 1ST INNINGS Voges c Latham b Wagner Lyon c McCullum b Williamson Marsh c Nicholls b Wagner Nevill c Watling b Wagner Pattinson c Boult b Anderson Hazlewood c McCullum b Wagner Bird not out Extras (b9, lb10)

R 60 33 18 13 1 13 4 19

B 127 75 40 26 8 12 7

n AFP

Total (10 wickets, 153.1 overs) 505 Fall of wickets: 1-25 (Warner), 2-67 (Khawaja), 3-356 (Burns), 4-357 (Smith), 5-438 (Lyon) 6-464 (Voges), 7-483 (Marsh), 8-484 (Pattinson), 9-496 (Nevill), 10-505 (Hazlewood) Bowling Southee 25-4-85-0, Boult 31-5-108-2, Henry 32-8-101-0, Anderson 22-2-66-1, Wagner 32.1-6-106-6, Williamson 7-0-17-1, McCullum 4-2-3-0 NEW ZEALAND 2ND INNINGS Latham c Nevill b Pattinson Guptill c Nevill b Pattinson Williamson not out Nicholls c Smith b Pattinson McCullum c Warner b Hazlewood Anderson not out Extras: (nb1)

39 71 0 12 45 114 2 10 25 27 9 31

1

Total (4 wickets; 44 overs) 121 Fall of wicket: 1-8 (Guptill), 2-66 (Latham), 3-72 (Nicholls), 4-105 (McCullum) Bowling Hazlewood 15-5-40-1, Pattinson 12-5-29-3, Bird 7-1-26-0, Lyon 2-0-8-0, Marsh 8-2-180 (nb1)

Brendon McCullum drew the curtain on his illustrious batting career as a typically pugnacious but shortlived innings Monday was unable to loosen Australia’s firm grip on the second Test in Christchurch.

On an emotional day when players and fans marked the fifth anniversary of the devastating Christchurch earthquake, the captain’s departure in his 101st and final Test left New Zealand staring down the barrel.

At the end of the third day New Zealand were 121-4, needing a further 14 to make Australia bat again, but refusing to concede.

“It’s 1-0 in the series and we’ve got to go out there and try and win this Test match,” BJ Watling said.

“We’ve just got to try and get a total on the board that we can win the game (with); that’s the ultimate goal.”

McCullum arrived for his farewell innings at 72-3 but after 25 off 27 deliveries, the man who hit the fastest ever Test century in the first innings was out.

Atalanta

SERIE A 2-3

Conti 84, Pinilla 90+1

Genoa

2-1

(Cerci 57-pen, Laxalt 70)

Sassuolo

3-2

Berardi 41, Defrel 48, 50

Fiorentina

Fernandez 67, Tello 81, Kalinic 87

Udinese (Ali Adnan 33)

Empoli Zielinski 36, Maccarone 70-pen

Torino

0-0

Carpi

Frosinone

0-0

Lazio

Roma

5-0

Palermo

Dzeko 30, 89, Keita 52, Salah 60, 62

AS Roma fan holds a banner reading 'I'm with Totti' in support to forward Francesco Totti during their italian Serie A match against Palermo in Rome on Sunday AFP

Roma legend Totti dropped after interview n Reuters Francesco Totti was left out of AS Roma’s squad for Sunday’s Serie A match against Palermo after the talismanic playmaker complained about a lack of playing time in a television interview.

Coach Luciano Spalletti said he had been left with no option but to drop Totti after his comments on Saturday and Totti was left to watch Roma’s 5-0 win, from the stands.

“It was just a moment of anger on his part, but I have to manage a group and maintain order,” Spalletti told after the game.

“He’s a great champion and deserves respect but so does everyone else, otherwise anyone can say what they want at any time.”

Spalletti said the episode would be forgotten and Totti would be back in training from Monday.

Totti has missed three months of the season with a thigh muscle injury but told Rai television on Saturday that he had recovered and was ready to play.

“I don’t like being on the bench, I understand that I have to play less at my age but to finish my career like this is tough for someone who has given so much to Roma.” l

His second-to-last whack sent Josh Hazlewood for a record-extending 107th six over square leg.

But when he danced down the wicket for a repeat performance off the next ball he was caught by David Warner.

After Australian captain Steve Smith ran over to shake McCullum’s hand and acknowledge the New Zealand captain’s contribution to the game, he was gone for the last time.

It had been a memorable Test for McCullum with a rollicking 145 in the first innings, reaching his century in a record 54 balls, when he defied the accepted rules of cricket by lashing out on a seaming wicket.

After that innings he said what mattered most was winning the Test, but that now seems unlikely.

A magical spell from James Pattinson to rip through New Zealand’s top order gave Australia a sight of victory and a return to the number one world ranking.

Kane Williamson was not out 45 at stumps with Corey Anderson on nine. l

Brendon McCullum salutes the crowd as he leaves the field for the last time for New Zealand after being dismissed for 25 by Australia’s Josh Hazelwood on the third day of their second Test at Hagley Park Oval in Christchurch yesterday AFP

Wenger demands bite against Barca as Juve host Bayern n AFP

Champions League holders Barcelona arrive at the Emirates on Tuesday to tackle an Arsenal side seeking to rediscover the ruthless streak which deserted them in a tame weekend goalless FA Cup tie.

The clash headlines a week of European action that sees Bayern Munich at Juventus, PSV Eindhoven hosting Atletico Madrid and Manchester City at Dynamo Kiev.

Barca and Arsenal are no strangers in this arena, the pair having fought out the 2006 final, with the Catalans prevailing over

Wenger’s ‘Invincibles’ 2-1 in Paris.

Lionel Messi then scored four times when Barca dished out a 4-1 drubbing to the Gunners in a 2010 quarter-final.

And the Argentine superstar inspired a Barca second leg fightback after Arsenal edged the last 16, first leg home tie 2-1 in 2011.

To prevent a similar scenario this time around, Gunners coach Arsene Wenger has told his team to bare its teeth on Tuesday after Saturday’s 0-0 stalemate against second-tier Hull.

The Frenchman knows a similarly toothless display against

(L-R) Arsenal players Calum Chambers, Aaron Ramsey, Olivier Giroud, Mathieu Flamini, Mesut Ozil and Francis Coquelin jog during training at the Arsenal Training Ground on the eve of their Champions League match against Barcelona REUTERS

free-scoring Luis Suarez and Neymar will leave his men on the back foot for next month’s last 16, return leg at the Camp Nou. Mesut Ozil, one of nine changes against Hull, will return to face Barcelona after recovering from a cold.

Barca turn up seemingly firing on all cylinders and eight points clear in La Liga after Suarez and Neymar teamed up in the weekend’s 2-1 win at Las Palmas.

Barca boss Luis Enrique rested only Gerard Pique, whilst Sergio Busquets was also suspended from the side that is expected to start in north London.

Bayern head to Turin to face last season’s runners-up Juve with the German giants having Thomas Mueller to thank for digging them out of trouble in a 3-1 home comeback win over Darmstadt over the weekend.

Mueller warned that Bayern cannot expect to enjoy the same 81 percent possession in Turin which allowed them to pepper in 36 shots on Darmstadt’s goal.

Juve are on a 16-match unbeaten home run in European competition, their last defeat coming in 2013 to Bayern in the Germans’ title-winning season.

Juventus striker Mario Mandzukic is expected to return from a three-week injury lay-off to come up against his old side. l

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TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2016

DAY’S WATCH

FA CUP, 5TH ROUND

Blackburn

1-5

West Ham

Marshall 20

Moses 26, Payet 36, 90+2, Emenike 64, 85

Chelsea

5-1

FOOTBALL

Manchester City

TEN SPORTS

Costa 35, Willian 48, Cahill 53, Hazard 67, Traore 89 Faupala 37

Tottenham

0-1

1:45AM

Crystal Palace

UEFA Champions League

Kelly 45

Juventus v Bayern

Ten ACTION Eden Hazard scores Chelsea's fourth goal from a free kick against Manchester City during their FA Cup Fifth Round match at Stamford Bridge on Sunday

UEFA Youth League 9:00PM Chelsea v Valencia 11:00PM

REUTERS

Chelsea crush weakened City, Spurs knocked out n Reuters, London

Chelsea exploited Manchester City’s decision to field a weakened team by romping to a 5-1 win in the FA Cup fifth round on Sunday as they joined London rivals West Ham United and Crystal Palace in the quarter-finals.

Second-half goals by Willian,

Gary Cahill, Eden Hazard and Bertrand Traore, after the teams went into the break level at 1-1, underlined Chelsea’s dominance over a side keeping their powder dry for Wednesday’s Champions League tie at Dinamo Kiev.

City, who play Liverpool in the League Cup final at Wembley next Sunday, have now lost three

Former football star Alexi Lalas pulls a draw as former star Carlos Valderrama looks onduring the 2016 Copa America Centenario draw event at Hammerstein Ballroom at New York on Sunday REUTERS

Argentina, Chile face rematch after Copa draw n AFP

Lionel Messi and Argentina were given a chance for revenge on Sunday after being drawn against reigning Copa America champions Chile in the group stage for this summer’s special centenary edition of the tournament.

Argentina suffered an agonizing defeat to Chile in the climax of last June’s tournament in Santiago as their major championship drought continued.

However, Messi and his teammates have the opportunity to strike back at Chile after being drawn alongside their South American rivals in Group D here Sunday. The Copa America Centenario is taking place outside South America for the first time this year to mark 100 years of the world’s oldest international football tournament. l

GROUP A USA Colombia Costa Rica Paraguay GROUP B Brazil Ecuador Haiti Peru GROUP C Mexico Uruguay Jamaica Venezuela GROUP D Argentina Chile Panama Bolivia

matches in a row.

Chelsea face a stiffer task in the next round away to Everton who they beat in the 2009 FA Cup final.

Crystal Palace’s reward for a 1-0 win at Premier League title-chasers Tottenham Hotspur was a plumb away tie with second-tier Reading who shocked top flight visitors West Bromwich Albion 3-1 on Saturday.

Manchester City boss Manuel Pellegrini had threatened to sacrifice the FA Cup by making multiple changes.

Five players -- Manu Garcia, Aleix Garcia, Tosin Adarabiyo, Bersant Celina and David Faupala -made debuts as the likes of Sergio Aguero, Yaya Toure and Raheem Sterling were rested. l

Real Madrid v Manchester City 1:45AM UEFA Champions League Arsenal v Barcelona

KABADDI Star SPORTS 2 Pro Kabaddi League 8:30PM Kolkata v Mumbai 9:30PM Jaipur v Patna

DT

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Showtime

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2016

Fire at Sea wins Golden Bear at Berlin fest n Showtime Desk

malnourished and traumatised new arrivals for a quarter-century.

In chilling footage, Rosi accompanied coastguard rescue missions answering the terrified SOS calls of people on boats, most of them arriving from Libya. Many of the vessels are packed with corpses of people who suffocated from diesel fumes.

The best director award went to Mia Hansen for Love for Things to Come.

Tunisian actor Majd Mastoura won best actor for his role in the love story Inhebbek Hedi, while the Silver Bear for best actress went to Denmark’s Trine Dyrholm for her role as a wronged wife in Thomas Vinterberg’s The Commune, a semiautobiographical take on his 1970s childhood.

Majd Mastoura said, “I give this gift to the great Tunisian people, all the martyrs of the revolution, everyone who contributed to the revolution. I hope we will continue on being free, being happy, producing good art.”

The Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize was awarded to Death in Sarajevo and its director Danis Tanovic.

In other prizes, France’s Mia Hansen-Love won the Silver Bear for best director for her drama Things to Come, starring Isabelle Huppert as a philosophy teacher whose marriage falls apart just as

Fire at Sea, a documentary about Europe’s migrant crisis, has won the Golden Bear award for best movie at the Berlin Film Festival, which came to an end on February 21.

Gianfranco Rosi’s harrowing movie clinched the top prize from a jury led by three-time Oscarwinner Meryl Streep.

Fire at Sea (Fuocoammare) depicts life on the Mediterranean island of Lampedusa. The Eritrean-born Rosi, who spent several months on Italy’s Lampedusa making the film, dedicated the prize to its residents, “who open their hearts to other people.”

“I hope to bring awareness.

It’s not acceptable that people die crossing the sea to escape from tragedies,” he said.

Streep said her seven-member jury was “swept away” by Fire at Sea. She said, “It’s a daring hybrid of captured footage and deliberate storytelling that allows us to consider what a documentary can do. It is urgent, imaginative and necessary filmmaking.”

The picture is told through the eyes of a 12-year-old local boy, Samuele Pucillo and a doctor, Pietro Bartolo, who has been tending to the dehydrated,

her elderly mother dies.

The festival, now in its 66th year, had placed a special spotlight on the refugee issue, after Germany let in more than 1.1 million asylum seekers last year.

Donation boxes to support charities helping torture survivors were placed at cinema venues, and festival internships and free tickets were reserved for migrants.

George Clooney, whose Hail, Caesar! opened the event, even met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel with his wife Amal “to talk about how best we can help.”

A more than eight-hour-long historical epic by Filipino director Lav Diaz, A lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery, claimed the Alfred Bauer Prize for a feature film that opens new perspectives in cinema.

Best screenplay went to Polish filmmaker Tomasz Wasilewski, his portrait of the pivotal 198990 period in his country as told through four women, played by some of Poland’s best-known theatre actresses, at crossroads in their lives.

Last year’s Golden Bear went to Iranian dissident director Jafar Panahi’s Taxi.

The 11-day festival ended with screenings of the most popular featured films. l Sources: BBC, AFP

Dhaka Tribune Oscar prediction contest: last call n Showtime Desk A reminder for the ultimate award extravaganza of the year, the 88th Academy Awards is all set to take place on February 28. The Showtime team is hosting an Oscar Prediction Contest for the readers.

The Dhaka Tribune Oscar Prediction Contest is a competition in which participants compete to guess the 2016 Academy Award winners in selected 12 categories of nominations. The selected categories are Best Picture, Actor in a Leading Role, Actress in a Leading Role, Actor in a Supporting Role, Actress in a Supporting Role, Animated Feature Film, Cinematography, Directing, Documentary Feature, Foreign Language Film, Music Original Score and Writing Original Screenplay.

Exciting packages of prize are awaiting for the top three winners.

Name an individual nominee from each category and mail us at showtime.dt@dhakatribune. com

Official Rules

Contestants must provide their name and email address (phone number optional).

Contestants may only check one (1) nominee per category.

Any categories left blank or with multiple nominees checked will be counted as incorrect and the participant will be disqualified.

Individuals must be 18 years of age or older to participate.

Prizes are determined by the number of correct answers.

Contestants will be notified of prizes won via email by March 3, 2016. Winners will be announced on Showtime and Dhaka Tribune’s website.

Contest Time Frame

The Contest begins on Sunday, January 26, 2016 and ENDS on Sunday, February 27, 2016. All participants must submit their list of predictions by the deadline on February 27, 2016 to qualify.

Here is the list of nominees in selected 12 categories,

BEST PICTURE

The Big Short Bridge of Spies Brooklyn Mad Max: Fury Road The Martian The Revenant Room Spotlight

Sylvester Stallone, Creed ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE Jennifer Jason Leigh, The Hateful Eight Rooney Mara, Carol Rachel McAdams, Spotlight Alicia Vikander, The Danish Girl Kate Winslet, Steve Jobs

ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE

ANIMATED FEATURE FILM

ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE

CINEMATOGRAPHY

ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

DIRECTING

Bryan Cranston, Trumbo Matt Damon, The Martian Leonardo DiCaprio, The Revenant Michael Fassbender, Steve Jobs Eddie Redmayne, The Danish Girl Cate Blanchett, Carol Brie Larson, Room Jennifer Lawrence, Joy Charlotte Rampling, 45 Years Saoirse Ronan, Brooklyn

Christian Bale, The Big Short Tom Hardy, The Revenant Mark Ruffalo, Spotlight Mark Rylance, Bridge of Spies

Anomalisa Boy and the World Inside Out Shaun the Sheep Movie When Marnie Was There Carol The Hateful Eight Mad Max: Fury Road The Revenant Sicario The Big Short Mad Max: Fury Road The Revenant Room Spotlight

DOCUMENTARY (FEATURE)

Amy Cartel Land The Look of Silence What Happened, Miss Simone?

Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM Embrace of the Serpent Mustang Son of Saul Theeb A War

MUSIC (ORIGINAL SCORE) Bridge of Spies Carol The Hateful Eight Sicario Star Wars: The Force Awakens

WRITING (ORIGINAL

SCREENPLAY) Bridge of Spies Ex Machina Inside Out Spotlight Straight Outta Compton

‘Bapjaner Bioscope’ returns

n Showtime Desk Bapjaner Bioscope, presented by Karukaj Films, has been reported to go for alternative screening at a yet-to-be-specified area within the country. Sanjida Tanmoy, Shahiduzzaman Selim and Shatabdi Wadud shall be starring in the film, which was previously released in theaters on December 18 last year, but for unknown circumstances, it was taken out again a day later.

The campaign for the film

commenced in Chittagong and is currently screening in Kushtia from February 21 to 23. The film’s cast and crew were present on the occasion.

A directorial debut for Reazul Rezu, the film is written by Masum Reza, who expressed: “We tried to make a real Bangladeshi film, ones we used to watch with our parents and family when we were kids.

Simultaneously, we made an effort to make it intriguing to contemporary viewers as well.”

The director complained that

when his film was first released across 42 theaters, it was taken out just a day after. This resulted from a catalyst being stirred by a group of conspirators who were against the film. Ultimately, audiences from all over the country missed an opportunity to watch it.

The director said that he had no other option but to go for an alternative screening for Bapjaner Bioscope, which shall take place in Dhaka after the campaigns in Khulna and Tangail. l

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WHAT TO WATCH Save With Jamie: Paella TLC 9:30pm Jam-packed with bold flavours, money-saving tips and showstopping recipes, Jamie Oliver is back to demonstrate how to create tasty, nutritious food without busting the bank. Each episode features five colourful dishes, crafted carefully to make them affordable without compromising on flavour. Let Jamie show you some nifty tips, and discover how you can eat like a king, whatever the budget.

Host: Jamie Oliver Parker HBO 2:40pm A thief with a unique code of professional ethics is doublecrossed by his crew and left for dead. Assuming a new disguise and forming an unlikely alliance with a woman on the inside, he looks to hijack the score of the crew’s latest heist.

Cast: Jason Statham, Jennifer Lopez, Michael Chiklis, Wendell Pierce, Clifton Collins Jr, Bobby Cannavale 61st Filmfare Awards 2015 (cutdown) Sony Entertainment TV 10pm The 61st Filmfare Awards were held to honour the best films of 2015 from the Hindi-language film industry on January 15,

2016 at the Yash Raj Studio in Mumbai. The ceremony was hosted by Shah Rukh Khan and comedian Kapil Sharma.

Hosts: Shah Rukh Khan, Kapil Sharma Yeh Rishta Kya Kehlata Hai Star World 10pm Yeh Rishta Kya Kehlata Hai is a story of love finding its way after an arranged marriage and how two people bond and blossom together after entering into sacred ties of matrimony. The story revolves around Akshara a shy, demure, obedient daughter who has been brought up like a princess in a traditional Marwari family.

Soon comes the desired moment of marriage for Akshara and she experiences emotions beyond those that she is familiar with. The story is her journey from being the ideal daughter to a person striving hard to understand her new situation to ultimately move towards falling in love with her husband.

Top Chef AXN 9:30pm Twelve Aspiring Chef Compete for the coveted Title of Top Chef as they Creatively whip up a storm to escape elimination.

Host: Katie Lee Joel

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14% IPOS TRADED BELOW MAHMUDULLAH WANTS FIRE AT SEA WINS GOLDEN ISSUE PRICES PAGE 15 TITLE FOR MASH PAGE 26 BEAR AT BERLIN FEST PAGE 30

AMAR EKUSHEY

BOOK FAIR 2016

Classics remain readers’ favourite n Nure Alam Durjoy More than 2,500 new books have been published at Amar Ekushey Boi Mela 2016 so far, yet classics seem to be high on demand among avid readers.

It is not only classic Bangla literature that the readers look for; translation of foreign classics are also popular, according to many book stall attendants and publishers at the fair.

They said the demand for classics have never really diminished; rather, it had increased over the years – more so in the past decade.

So to meet the demand, publishers have been bringing in reprints and new editions of the literary classics at the fair every year.

“We have brought an 11-volume set of the works of Syed Mujtaba Ali, which has proven to be very popular among readers and earned us their praise,” said Tahir M Asif, in-charge of Bishwo Shahitto Kendro stall. “It is perhaps one of our best sales at the fair this year.”

“Classics are timeless. They retain their glory through generations of readers. These books are useful to understand society, culture and literature as well,” said renowned writer and Dhaka University professor Syed Manzoorul Islam.

Shammi Soha, a student at

Arson attempt at the book fair

Miscreants attempted to set fire to the stall of Platform Publications on Ekushey Book Fair premises yesterday. They used paper and fuel to ignite the blaze just outside the stall on Suhrawardy Udyan, but quick action from those nearby prevented any serious damage DHAKA TRIBUNE Buet, said she had bought books of Syed Mujtaba Ali and Shawkat Osman. “I like the works of these two writers. I have been planning to collect some other classics too.”

Of the foreign literature, the translation of Iliad, an ancient Greek

epic by Homer, was one of the most sought-after classic, said attendants of Pathak Samabesh stall.

Attendants at the stalls of different publishing houses said other Bangali authors whose works are among the most popu-

lar choices include literary greats like Rabindranath Tagore, Kazi Nazrul Islam, Michael Madhusudan Dutt, Mir Mosharraf Hossain, Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, Tarashankar Bandopadhyay and Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay.

Second Nasa Space Apps hackathon in Bangladesh announced n

Tribune Report

For the second consecutive year, world’s largest hackathon Nasa Space Apps Challenge 2016 organised by USA’s space agency National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) is coming to Bangladesh.

Along with over a hundred cities around the world, the competition is going to be held on April 22-24 in Dhaka, Chittagong and Sylhet. The winners will get the opportunity to participate in the final.

Like last year, Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS) is hosting the event.

BASIS President Shameem Ahsan announced this year’s hackathon at a press conference held its office in the capital yesterday.

He said: “We hope to get solutions to global challenges involving information technology and science though this challenge.

“It will open the door to employment and engagement in Nasa and other international agencies for Bangladeshis. Someday technologies invented by Bangladeshis will be used on the Mars, moon and in space.”

Ariful Hasan Opu, BASIS director and convener of the Nasa Space

Apps Challenge 2016, said this year boot camps will be organised on a large scale in three divisions and six teams – two teams from each – will be selected to compete in the final challenge at Nasa.

To spread this competition countrywide BASIS Students’ Forum will organise seminars in 100 universities of 64 districts. The participants will be guided by the leading mentors of the country.

This year participants will design solutions to mission-related challenges broken into six categories: Aeronautics, International Space Station, Solar System and

Beyond, Technology, Earth, and Journey to Mars.

The participants will be able to take part in this challenge by registering alone or as a team at http:// studentsforum.basis.org.bd/ before March 20. Details about the competition can be found at http:// spaceappschallenge.org.

The competition will be supported by BASIS Students’ Forum and CloudCamp Bangladesh, and sponsored by Pbazaar.com and Bagdoom.com. Academic partners are Rajshahi University, Independent University of Bangladesh, and Chittagong Independent University. l

Miscreants tried to set a book stall on fire yesterday at Amar Ekushey Book Fair in Dhaka.

Prasenjit Roy, salesman of Platform Publication’s stall No 492, said some miscreants torched papers and threw them at the stall around 6pm yesterday.

Soon after the incident, the fire was doused before it could cause any damage to the stall, he continued.

Later, Jalal Ahmed, secretary of Amar Ekushey Book Fair Committee, visited the book stall and found the smell of kerosene on the spot.

Analysing CCTV footage, police found two youths suspiciously moving around the stall at the time of the incident, he added. l In children’s literature, works of Sukumar Ray, Dakshinaranjan Mitra Majumder and Upendrokishore Ray are most on demand.

Yesterday saw at least 64 new books published, raising the number of new arrivals at 2,670. l

Ekushey book fair in the Hague n Tribune Report An event reflecting the Ekushey National Book Fair of Bangladesh was held at the Hague, Netherlands on Sunday in solidarity with exiled and threatened Bangladeshi intellectuals, writers and bloggers.

The event featured talks and panel discussions on the threats faced by bloggers, writers and publishers in Bangladesh from extremists, and wider issues around freedom of thought and expression, a press note said.

The event, hosted at the Humanity House museum, was organised by the Hague Peace Projects and much-talked-about secularist community blog Mukto-Mona. l

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