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ELECTIONEERING GATHERS MOMENTUM
Poll can solve crisis, says Hasina
Abdur Rahman Khan
Awami League (AL) chief Sheikh Hasina said yesterday only an elected government can save the country from difficulties, adding that elections should be held as per schedule.
“The poll should be held on 18 December. It cannot be deferred by means of conspiracy,” Hasina told a crowded press conference yesterday morning at Zia International Airport soon after arrival from US via London. The former prime minister said she was “against politics that is full of violence. We want peace and want to remain united...[ FULL STORY ]
ALLEGED DOUBLE STANDARDS OF GOVT.
Conspiracy to bring Awami League to power?
Faruque Ahmed
With two distinctly dissimilar facades the country seems to be rolling on the so-called ‘highway’ to election. One is the reactivation of Speedy Trial Courts (STCs) to take major political leaders of BNP and Jamat-e-Islami to face new court action and possible detention, and the other is relaxation of the emergency rule to facilitate poll...[ FULL STORY ]
OBAMA’S LANDSLIDE VICTORY
Changes in despised world order likely
M. Shahidul Islam
Many say Barack Obama has made history by winning the just concluded US election. We say the vicissitudes of history has gifted to the mankind this charismatic leader to put a brake to the mad pursuance of the domination and the hegemony the US sought through wars and destructions by using ethnic and religious bigotry as weapons of choice...[ FULL STORY ]
Khaleda Zia’s mass contact starts from Chittagong
Holiday Report
BNP Chairperson Begum Khelda visting Chittagong today (Friday) to address a public gathering at Laldighir Maidan in Chittagong. This is going to be her first public contact program outside Dhaka after she was released from prison last month.
BNP workers see it as an initiation of election campaign. But traditionally, Begum Zia launches her election campaign by offering special prayer at the Mazar of Shah Jalal in Sylhet...[ FULL STORY ]
MUDSLINGING, SMEAR CAMPAIGN FAIL
Obama first black US President
Moinuddin Naser in New York
Mr Barack Hussein Obama was elected the 44th president of the United States on Tuesday, sweeping away the last racial barrier in American politics with ease as the country chose him as its first black chief executive.
Obama, 47, the son of a Kenyan father and a white mother from Kansas, led a tide of Democratic victories across the nation in defeating Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, a 26-year veteran of Washington who could not overcome his connections to President Bush’s increasingly unpopular administration...[ FULL STORY ]
BANGLADESH ELECTION
Can we make it to a smooth transition?
Sadeq Khan
Obama soundwave is now reverberating along all information highways around the world. Internationally, friends and foes of the Bush administration have all raised their antennae to detect early signals and characteristics of the “mandate for change” in sole superpower conduct.
President-elect Barack Hossain Obama had appealed to the electorate telling them it was a “defining moment in America” and the challenges facing the nation “were the greatest of our time.” He assured the American people that the United States, despite global financial meltdown caused by its systems failure and loss of face from barbaric episodes in its overstretch of war on terror, still remains and will continue to be the strongest nation on earth economically, militarily and socially in human development, if it can correct its global image and behave as a benevolent world leader, not a bully. To Obama’s campaign slogan “change we need”, the US electorate responded overwhelmingly by the “timeless creed of people: Yes, we can...[ FULL STORY ]
ANALYSIS
Braving all the odds, Obama sweeps to victory
Dr. A. H. Jaffor Ullah in New Orleans
Conquering some insurmountable odds Obama beat Senator John McCain on November 4, 2008. It was definitely a history making event in America. Barack Obama, a virtually unknown entity in American politics who came to Washington in 2006 as a senator, had rapidly ascended to the highest position beating all the odds. He would be sworn as the 44th president of America on January 20, 2009...[ FULL STORY ]
Obama regime to engage others constructively
Fazle Rashid in New York
Barack Hossain Obama has made history. His immediate predecessor, George W. Bush, also made history. Obama became the first African-American to become President of the United States breaking all barriers and shackles of racial discriminations. George Bush is the first president to hold office by courtesy of a split Supreme Court verdict. So he did not have the people’s mandate to become president in his first term...[ FULL STORY ]
US Presidential poll: Is there a lesson to be learnt?
Nasreen Zaman in Toronto
Yes, Barack Obama has made history! It was a defining moment in American history when Obama won the 44th U.S. presidential election. It was a historic moment indeed not only for the American people but also for people around the globe as Obama, the 47-year old African-American, addressed the crowd at his victory rally at Chicago’s Grant Park. Over $100,000 (CNN reported about 200,000) supporters cheered Obama as they witnessed history in the making...[ FULL STORY ]
REGISTRATION OF POLITICAL PARTIES
Most political parties don’t have offices outside Dhaka
Shamsuddin Ahmed
It may sound incredible. Existence of a political party poised for contesting the upcoming parliamentary election has been found in a motor garage and another in a student mess.
This shows how ill organized and personalized are most of our political parties. The parties grew up over the years like the mushrooms. As many as 107 political parties applied for registration with the Election Commission when it is made mandatory by amending the relevant law recently for taking part in the national election...[ FULL STORY ]
GLIMPSES OF THE GREAT
Alan Greenspan
K. Z. Islam
Alan Greenspan (born March 6, 1926 in New York City) is an American economist and was the Chairman of the Federal Reserve of the United States from 1987 to 2006. He currently works as a private advisor, making speeches and providing consulting for firms through his company, Greenspan Associates LLC.
First appointed Fed chairman by President Ronald Reagan in August 1987, he was reappointed at successive four-year intervals until retiring on January 31, 2006 after the second-longest tenure in the position. He was lauded for his handling of the Black Monday October 19, 1987 stock market crash, which occurred very shortly after he first became the Fed Chairman, as well as for his stewardship of the Internet-driven, “dot-com” economic boom of the 1990s. This expansion eventually ended in a burst in March 2000 leading to an economic downturn, including negative GDP growth in the first quarter of 2001...[ FULL STORY ]
SWEDEN HAILS OBAMA
New era of transatlantic cooperation to begin
Anisur Rahman in Stockholm
Swedish politicians welcomed the election of Barack Obama as president of the United States, following the Democratic candidate’s defeat of rival John McCain, on Wednesday online newspaper The Local reported.
Per Schlingmann, secretary of Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt’s Moderate Party, said Obama’s election would provide ‘new possibilities for US-Swedish cooperation and for the relationship between the EU and Europe.
‘But his biggest challenge will be meeting the high expectations placed on him’, he added...[ FULL STORY ]
PDB is being run with controversial and inadequate manpower
Holiday report
The Power Development Board (PDB) is running with manifold problems that affect the service to the consumers. Appointment of controversial persons in key-positions is also creating dissatisfaction in the organization.
A case in point is the post of Member Planning and Development remains vacant since June 2006. Meanwhile, Member Generation has been authorised to hold the charge of the post of Member Planning and Development. It is alleged that the Member Generation has too demanding a job and therefore he can not do justice to his new job. As a result, the office of Member Planning and Development is not being able to function...[ FULL STORY ]
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