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BB TO PROCESS FDI PROPOSALS DIRECTLY
BOI may be useless, but Akbar says no
Faruque Ahmed
The Board of Investment (BOI) may face severe demoralisation to slow extinction if a recommendation of the Regulatory Reform Commission (RRC) it adopted last week is implemented by the Government. On the other hand, the Bangladesh Bank (BB) may also face the growing credibility question and become overstressed if it takes over the major BOI function of receiving foreign investment proposals directly from parties as the RRC has suggested. Thus a single decision may seriously affect the country's two major institutions instead of bolstering any one of them, as critics say.
The issue arises from the RRC decision to ask the Government to allow foreign parties to put their investment proposals direct to Bangladesh Bank through their local bank. "It aims at simplifying the process of giving approval to foreign investment proposals," said the RRC chairman Dr Akbar Ali Khan last week at a press briefing after the meeting of the commission in the city.
Under the existing procedure, the BOI receives such proposals while the Bangladesh Bank retains the authority to make financial appraisal and give final approval to them. The BOI involvement kills a lot of time and the recommendation, if approved by the Government, will make the system simple and easier. It will take less time to carry out all assessments to give decision on such proposals, here lies the merit of the recommendation, Akbar Ali Khan asserted.
To a question whether such a decision involving basic policy issues to impute BOI in one hand and make the central bank controversial on the other, will bring sharp criticism, Ali said he does not think it so. Moreover, the Government has the right to accept it or reject it; it is just a recommendation, he said. The BOI representative will also attend the meetings at Bangladesh Bank; he said explaining how the agency will remain attached to the process.
The RRC has been formed several months ago by the caretaker government to identify old, unsuitable rules and regulations affecting trade, investment, environmental management and such other issues with a view to making them up-to-date and supportive to better business and governance. It can suggest changes in the rules and sub-rules only but not the change of existing laws.
A retired bureaucrat having access to all such institutions while in office said in fact both the institutions are having hand in dealing with foreign investment proposals. He said the BOI harness investments, register proposals, make initial appraisal and promote them as facilitator to the government. It sees whether the proposals are consistent with the existing national policies and work with other agencies including the Bangladesh Bank to get approval for them.
The Bangladesh Bank, on the other hand, carries out the financial part of the appraisal, how much foreign currency inflow will take place and income repatriation will result, what will be its economic and financial rate of returns, income and employment multipliers and accelerators and such other things. These are the basic issues that the Bangladesh Bank deals with relating to giving final approval to foreign investments.
So the demarcation has been clear. Sources said, the BOI was in fact set up as a special agency under the prime minister's office with an executive chairman having the status of a state minister directly responsible to PM office, to bolster the Government's efforts to attract foreign and local investment. It has a clear mandate. Some of its executive chairmen also made outstanding contributions to exploit its position in promoting investment, specially the foreign direct investment.
The very recent example referred to the innovative role of Mahmudur Rahman who also served concurrently as the energy adviser to the BNP government. The FDI was hitting the billion dollar mark in the last year of the BNP Government as Rahman was able to effectively make the Bangladesh case abroad as an attractive investment destination in this region.
Critics wonder why the RRC took the BOI as its experimental scapegoat and whether it is accidental or part of a game plan. There is no doubt the BOI has lost its shinning face in the recent past. But critics held the government responsible for the decay. The very first thing they cite is the replacement of Mahmudur Rahman by an average functionary having no vision, professional skill and leadership drive to steer the organisation. On retirement, he is now working as a local staff of a foreign firm in the energy sector.
The current appointment is yet another average functionary at the additional secretary level, away from the status of a state minister, just fielded to regular posting from the OSD dumping desk, as the source said. This is how the BOI is sinking deeper into demoralisation from continued neglect.
So the Government should have found an effective head for the organisation in the first place, if it meant serious business from the organisation. Moreover, if the current hangover of several big foreign investment proposals lying without decision is at the centre of the new thinking, critics say it is not the BOI but the present unusual situation primarily responsible for it. The caretaker government does not have the legal authority to give decision on these proposals such as the Asia Energy case. Over and above, most people feel the prospect of the election is only getting lengthier. So there is nothing wrong with the BOI, the present situation is at fault, they argue.
Moreover, will it be good for the Bangladesh Bank to take over the FDI window of the BOI rendering it inactive to function only as the Board of Domestic Investment (BODI) agency.
The most serious argument has come from a banker who said the Bangladesh Bank would also be sinking slowly along with, both in terms of credibility and quality of delivery from such uncalled-for work overload.
The RRC meeting which adopted the recommendation to authorise foreign investors' local bank to put investment proposals direct to Bangladesh Bank was attended, among others, by the BOI executive chairman and the governor of Bangladesh Bank. Why the governor agreed to it away from its main function to concentrate on proper management of the country's monetary system remains a mystery. Why the BOI chief executive agreed is also a big question.
Some critics are looking at the entire proposition from a sceptical viewpoint. They fear that the simplification of the approval process, leaving the BOI out of the process may be a way out to expedite the approval process of some questionable investment proposals. Some foreign ambassadors and high commissioners are routinely bringing pressure on the Government to clear these proposals; no matter whether these will be good or not good for the economy or the population. "If it is so we are heading towards a turning point to muddy water," said a critic opposed to some of these proposals. Critics emphasised the need for involving the political leadership in such decisions, it is not bureaucrats' business, they said.
One of the critics said Dr Akbar Ali Khan seems to be working as the liaison between the caretaker government and civil society and often speaking as a political voice to fill up the vacuum. Akbar Ali Khan addressed a big gathering of the local elected representatives recently in the city along with the governor of Bangladesh Bank and some other functionaries. It was an unpleasant scene as a big mockery of democracy to see retired public servants addressing elected representatives about what to do and how to move forward.
Dr Akbar Ali Khan may be all the more confused in this situation. At one end he seems to be working as a facilitator to the Government and in some other cases clearly appears like its critic. One does not know if it is a balancing act, a critic said.
But the audience at a seminar two weeks ago at Sonargaon Hotel was really appreciative of him when he urged the Government to give immediate election, if possible to make sure that the next budget is given by an elected government. Speaking on the state of the economy, he said two emergencies are threatening the country today - one is a political and constitutional emergency undermining the stability of the society and the other is an undeclared economic emergency with spiralling prices bringing down growth.
He said it is not the job of the bureaucrats to resolve these problems; an unelected government cannot do it either. He said politicians may have quality problems but they are equally patriots and be allowed to resettle the house.
Dr Akbar Ali Khan speaks out himself freely; but when he becomes party to certain decisions, which appear to destroy institutions and framed to serve certain interest, he becomes open to critical scanning. Since the present Government is a short-lived phenomenon, BOI should not be put on the brink and the Government should rather take steps to bring dynamic leadership to it to deliver the goods. Otherwise, it should wait until the next elected government takes office to strengthen it.
Observers say there is no alternative to political leadership as it works with a vision, a central bank governor is unlikely to deliver the goods.
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JUDICIARY BEING PUSHED TO THE BRINK?
Restoration of constitutional piety
a must before polls
M. Shahidul Islam
Learning from crises is an indispensable political therapy. The CG is still in the process of learning and some recent moves of the government look pragmatic, positive and, pre-emptive too.
The solution sought to resolve the campus agitation shows signs of pragmatism. Other moves toward holding an election is indicative of a positive mindset and the lenient gestures toward the alleged corrupt business people seems like a pre-emptive move to bring back the economy to its heels.
There are reasons for the fuming campus and its community of students and teachers to heave a sigh of relief following the pardon granted by the President on January 22 to the three teachers accused of inciting students during the August 21 campus unrest, despite the court having found them guilty only hours before. Excepting the cases relating to torching military vehicles, all other charges against the students may be dropped soon.
Yet, leaders of the student body (formed to fight for the release of the accused) vowed to continue with protests until all the cases against the students are withdrawn, unconditionally. Some teachers too are displaying similar bellicose mood.
The demand for unconditional release of all students carries signs of destructive intransigence. The campus unrest related cases were the first test cases for the judiciary to prove that it can work independent of the executive's interferences. That is why, despite repeated assurances from concerned advisers for months that the accused teachers and students would be freed, concerns were voiced by many whether such assurances were prejudicial to the proceedings of the court where justice was supposed to be dispensed based on adduced evidence.
Now that the court has decided to acquit many, and the President of the Republic did the rest, further calls for agitation seem a bit too much.
We must remind student leaders and their academic peers that the incident of August 21 started from a small altercation at the play ground between army personnel and some students. Army's Chief of General Staff (CGS) regretted the event the same day as did one of the accused teachers, professor Anwar Hossain, who'd rendered an 'on-camera' apology to all army personnel- 'from a soldier to the army chief',- upon his arrest two days later. In between, the mob violence and vandalism for three consecutive days were undesirable. The investigators - as well as the independent judicial committee that probed into the incident's genesis - later found evidence of behind the scene political instigation to foment a kind of unrest that could have toppled the government, if not forestalled by imposing indefinite curfew.
At this point, we must also remind our teachers and students that the prolongation of further agitation not only deprives students of the education they rightly deserve, it inspires some self-seeking politicians to capitalise on the unrest in order to sabotage the holding of an election, which is the only way to move forward toward democratic governance. After all, the government has shown enough sagacity and fortitude in the face of blatant provocations to breach the EPR time and again, and all cases relating to the EPR violations have either been withdrawn or being withdrawn. All concerned should appreciate that and try hard not to allow the situation to deteriorate further.
The judiciary, on the other hand, can not overlook evidence of vandalism and lawlessness that has probative values. It should be left with the court to decide who deserves acquittal and who does not. And, if there is Presidential compassion to be applied, that is a different matter all together. As of now, the court has been squeezed to its extreme limit and further pressure on the court can result in setting precedents that could boomerang on the very people who might try to exert executive influences over the judiciary.
Also worth remembering is the fact that, the seemingly undiminished economic afflictions of the people aside, the country is painfully digesting a constitutional crisis caused by the CG not holding an election within the stipulated 90 days (which was its main undertaking), and the President as yet not seeking an 'interlocutory' legal opinion from the Appellate Division pursuant to Article 106 of the Constitution in order to render the needed validity to the CG's prolongation in office.
Let's not pretend that we're not faced with a constitutional crisis. A constitutional crisis occurs when the stakeholders wilfully choose to violate a provision of the constitution - or an unwritten constitutional convention - or, it may occur to be so when the disputants disagree over the interpretation of such a provision or convention, as we did prior to the CA's appointment in October 2006 and whatever followed since 1/11. If the dispute arises because some aspect of the constitution is ambiguous or unclear, the ultimate resolution of the crisis often establishes a precedent for the future. That precedent must be set before holding the polls, not after.
A quick journey over some of the famous constitutional crises that had bedevilled nation-states around the world may make our own situation much more clear. The Australian constitutional crisis of 1975 resulted in Prime Minister Gough Whitlam's dismissal by the nation's apolitical Governor General, in response to a prolonged budget deadlock in parliament. In Belgium, the controversy over the wartime conduct of Leopold III culminated in his abdication in 1951. Belgium saw another constitutional crisis in the 1990s when King Badouin refused to sign a law allowing abortion.
In the Fijian constitutional crisis of 1977, the winning party in a general election failed to name a government due to internal conflicts, resulting in the intervention by the Governor General who appointed a prime minister from the opposition party. In Iran, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi's 1953 dismissal of Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh and Mossadegh's subsequent refusal to quit the office led to a constitutional crisis.
The 1988 Malaysian constitutional crisis was triggered by a series of events following the general election of 1987 and ended with the suspension and the eventual removal of Lord President of the Supreme Court of Malaysia, Tun Salleh Abas. Another constitutional crisis in Malaysia in 1993 involved the limitation of monarchs' power. Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed successfully amended the constitution to make the monarchies more accountable to their actions.
The Bangladesh scenario is more akin to the Maltese one. The 1981 election in Malta ended up with a quirk in that country's 'Single Transferable Vote System' (something as unique as our caretaker system). This resulted in a party winning more than half the votes but fewer than half the seats. Near home, in Nepal, the Loktantra Andolan movement of 2006 rejected King Gyanendra's year-long direct rule and stripped him of political authority. Nepal now seems to have succumbed to a seemingly irreversible Maoist takeover. In Thailand, in March 2006, 60 seats of the assembly could not be elected, and Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra resigned and martial law followed.
The New Zealand constitutional crisis of 1984 was caused by Prime Minister Sir Robert Muldoon's refusal to devalue the dollar as per instructions of the Prime Minister-elect, David Lange. The cabinet rebelled against Muldoon, who relented. This led to the passage of the Constitution Act. In Norway, a constitutional crisis began in 1905 following the dissolution of the union between Sweden and Norway. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, President Joseph Kasavubu and Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba attempted to dismiss each other in September 1960. Kasavubu prevailed in a coup led by Mobutu later that month.
In Pakistan, Supreme Court Chief Justice Sajjad Ali Shah clashed repeatedly with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in late 1997, accusing him of undermining the court's independence. After Ali Shah suspended a constitutional amendment that prevented dismissal of the prime minister, Sharif ordered President Farooq Leghari to appoint a new chief justice. Upon Leghari's refusal, Sharif considered impeaching him, but retreated after a warning from the armed forces. Faced with a choice of accepting Sharif's demands or dismissing him, Leghari resigned. Ali Shah resigned shortly afterward, establishing Sharif's dominance. Compare this with the resignations of so many of our advisers to the CG in two successive terms, and of the CA himself (President) prior to 1/11.
Pakistan again pre-empted a constitutional crisis when President Musharraf declared emergency in November 2007 in the face of Supreme Court's withholding of a verdict on the validity of a Presidential election result while the President's tenure of office was nearing its end.
In Russia, the constitutional crisis of 1993 began when a conflict between President Boris Yeltsin and the parliament led by Ruslan Khasbulatov intensified, resulting in a military siege of the parliament building and street fighting that claimed 187 lives. Aleksandr Rutskoy assumed power of the Acting President for a few days.
In Canada, in the King-Byng Affair of 1926 where Governor General Viscount Byng of Vimy refused a request by Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King that Parliament be dissolved and new elections called, Byng dismissed Mackenzie King and appointed Arthur Meighen as Prime Minister. Finally, the United States constitution was silent on the question of whether states are allowed to secede from the Union. After the secession of several states was forcibly prevented in the American Civil War, it has become generally accepted that states cannot leave the Union.
That is why overcoming the constitutional shortcoming we are faced with is more important than anything else. It also deserves utmost priority due to (1) the likely move by any aggrieved party after the election to challenge the election's validity under a government that could be deemed to have lacked required legal wherewithal to hold such an election; (2) the need to avoid setting a bad precedent that could be used by future CGs to overstay in power under any pretext, and, (3) the need to forestall the plausibility of a backlash against the architect of 1/11 unless a constitutional amendment can be affected by two-third parliamentarians to give retrospective validity to CG's overstay in power and all that went with it.
The role of the academicians in aiding the government to overcome this and other crises is very pivotal. Academicians are the torch bearer of the nation's intellectual quest for stability and good governance. We expect them to focus more on creating a society based on rules of law by shunning aside the partisan interests they've sunken themselves into. We also want our children to learn at the seats of learning instead of inculcating political mantras that have already destroyed many endeared dreams of their parents. Above all, we want students and teachers not to indulge in party politics inside the campus. The country is more important that any individual or a party, as is law that alone can keep the fabrics of the nation intact amid turbulences.
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D.U. INCIDENT
Maturity shown in averting greater crisis
Abdur Rahman Khan
The government at last has taken a clear course of retreat in the face of growing dissatisfaction and agitation on the campus. It shows some sort of maturity in averting a serious crisis. But at the same time, it has demonstrated a serious weakness of a government functioning under the Emergency Power Rules (EPR)
It appears ridiculous to use the judiciary and the highest office of the President to effect a retreat when it would have been wiser to straightway withdraw the cases at the initial stage. The apology of a Dhaka University teacher like Professor Anwar Hossain also could have been taken as an opportunity to release them showing good gesture from the government side. It could have brought goodwill.
The cases filed against the students and teachers of Dhaka University and Rajshahi University were backed by EPR as promulgated in January last year. The rules restricted procession, agitation and other political activities.
However, there are several examples of violation of the EPR earlier but the government did not take any action against the violators. This questioned the authorities' neutrality in enforcing the EPR that bans holding any rally or procession.
Although the law was applied selectively against the teachers and students for violation of EPR in last August in connection with violence on the DU campus, the same people were allowed to hold a grand rally at Central Shaheed Minar after the release of teachers ands students last week. Speakers on the occasion rather expressed more political and critical views against the government at the rally.
The caretaker government had been speaking of working for a respectful solution to the crisis that arose following the arrest of university teachers and students. After releasing the four DU teachers-of them three were convicted by a court and pardoned by the president. The education adviser Tuesday said the government brought a respectful solution to the crisis.
However, in their instant reaction, political leaders, legal experts and civil society members said conviction of three DU teachers and their release on presidential mercy have undermined the credibility of the legal process.
Justice Ghulam Rabbani, a former judge of the Appellate Division of Supreme Court, termed the criminal cases against the DU teachers and students mysterious. "The solution is neither respectful nor desirable for teachers and students, who fought for admittedly a just cause, as under the law the conviction will subsist forever although the sentences are pardoned," Justice Rabbani told a Dhaka daily
Political activists belonging to major parties like Bangladesh Awami League and Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) have recieved a sort of moral boost up with the government showing a retreat on campus issue. Now they seem to feel that, a rather strong political agitation would help them pursue their demands especially for the release of their top leaders from behind the bar.
After the resignation of some Advisors from the caretaker government many in government also feel that they would not be in a position to pursue in a short time all their agenda like cleaning politics from corruption and muscle power, reform the political parties, delimitation of constituencies and holding of elections to the local government and the national parliament simultaneously.
It would be foolish to remain unconcerned about the political party's capacity to pull their strings while pursuing their demands before going to join any dialogue with the government or taking part in future elections.
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US WON'T OCCUPY GLOBAL SUPREMACY AGAIN
Bush legacy and battle for oil
Sadeq Khan
The Independent online of UK in an article in its January 20 issue mocked US President Bush in the following words: "Today (January 20) is a sombre milestone, marking the start of the last of Bush's eight years in the White House. This being a leap year, exactly 366 days remain until 20 January 2009, when his successor will be sworn into office. It is a time when incumbents look to their legacies.
Is he the worst president in US history? Bush faces stiff competition from the likes of James Buchanan, who watched as America slipped towards the civil war, or Warren Harding with his corrupt administration, or Herbert Hoover, who failed to halt the slide into the Great Depression, or, more recently, Richard Nixon, the only president to be forced to resign. But in terms of dogmatism, incompetence, ignorance and divisiveness, Bush surely compares with any of the above.
In Greek mythology, Hercules washed away the mess of Augean stables by re-routing the rivers Alpheus and Peneus. Whoever takes the oath of office next 20 January will face a similar task in repairing America, both at home and in the eyes of the world. By almost every yardstick, the US is in a worse state than seven years ago -- a state virtually unimaginable when the new century dawned. Bush cannot be blamed for some of the difficulties.
That said, the Bush era leaves its own nasty odour. Corporate cronyism has been rife. Globalisation and cuts driven by ideology have turned the wealth gap between rich Americans and the rest from an embarrassment into an obscenity.
A cartoon last week in The Washington Post caught the mood of laissez-faire drift. "Anything interesting happen while I was gone?" asks a voice from Air Force One as the president's plane flies over Manhattan on the way back from the Middle East. Below, a giant sign dangles from the skyscrapers of America's financial capital: "USA -- Now a Wholly Owned Subsidiary of Foreign Investors".
"The new occupant of the Oval Office can but hope today's dislike for America is directed at a leader, not at a country. That may well be, but one thing is for sure. Never again will the US occupy that extraordinary position of supremacy -- military, moral and economic -- that it held in the interlude between the demise of [the Soviet Union] and the attacks of September 2001."
Robert Gates, US Secretary of Defence, on the other hand, in an interview with Los Angeles Times on January 16 mocked European military prowess pinpointedly saying: "I'm worried we're deploying [military advisers] that are not properly trained and I'm worried we have some military forces that don't know how to do counter-insurgency operations ... Most of the European forces, NATO forces, are not trained in counter-insurgency; they were trained for the Fulda Gap [NATO's Cold War battle lines in Germany]."
Earlier, "On December 11, at the US Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Afghanistan, Gates admitted sombrely, "If I had to sum up the current situation in Afghanistan, I would say there is reason for optimism, but tempered by caution."
Gates warned the NATO mission "has exposed real limitations in the way the alliance is, or organised, operated and equipped. I believe the problem arises in a large part due to the way various allies view the very nature of the alliance in the 21st century, where in a post-Cold War environment, we have to be ready to operate in distant locations against insurgencies and terrorist networks.' He solicited help from US Congressmen for 'pressuring' the NATO capitals 'to do the difficult work of persuading their own citizens [in Europe] of the need to step up to this challenge.'
Gates again spoke forcefully at the meeting of NATO defence ministers in Edinburgh, Scotland, on December 14.
Therefore, the Pentagon underscored its displeasure by making a deployment of 3,200 Marine Corps to southern Afghanistan, bringing the US presence to about 30,000 troops. The NATO force in Afghanistan numbers about 40,000, of which 14,000 are Americans. The Washington Post described the US move as one to 'fill a void created in part by NATO's inability to fight the insurgency adequately, a job the allies never signed up to do."
Are such expressions of mutual indignation symptomatic of any severe strain in the trans-Atlantic alliance? Perhaps not. Trans-Atlantic bonds of common heritage, common world view, and common interests cemented through post-World War II Western compact of global domination are too strong to be shaken by moral reservations or military weaknesses on the part of any wing of the superpower league.
But a more significant development may be surreptitiously undermining the clasp of the trans-Atlantic alliance. While the USA has been aggressively engaged in a war of attrition in Iraq to establish an unshakable grip of the trans-Atlantic alliance on Arab oil resources, Kremlin has been manoeuvring its way to a commanding position on the energy map of Europe. European Union (EU) members adopted at their spring summit in Brussels an action plan for energy security for 2007-2009, which emphasised the need to diversify Europe's energy sources and transport routes. But the ground reality continues to be that Europe's dependence on Russian energy supplies is growing. In 2006, Europe imported from Russia 290.8 million tonnes of oil and 130 billion cubic metres of gas. With Europe's energy consumption rapidly rising, its import dependency on Russia is also set to increase. Europe, which imported around 330 billion cubic metres of gas in 2005, will require an additional 200 billion cubic metres per year by 2015. And Russia has the world's largest natural gas reserves, estimated to be 1,688 trillion cubic feet, apart from the seventh largest proven oil reserves,
Europe's self-sufficiency in energy is sharply declining. By 2030, the production of oil and gas is expected to decline by 73 per cent and 59 per cent respectively. The result is that by 2030, two-thirds of Europe's energy requirements will have to be met through imports. In Europe's energy mix, the dependence on oil imports by 2030 will be as high as 94 per cent of its needs, and on natural gas as high as 84 per cent.
An analyst of the Heritage Foundation, which is closely associated with the Bush administration, candidly observed: "It is in the US's strategic interests to mitigate Europe's dependence on Russian energy. The Kremlin will likely use Europe's dependence to promote its largely anti-American foreign policy agenda. This would significantly limit the manoeuvring space available to America's European allies, forcing them to choose between an affordable and stable energy supply and siding with the US on some key issues."
M K Bhadrakumar, former Indian diplomat and a geopolitical analyst, wrote in Asia Times Online of Hong Kong, December 22, 2007 issue: "Washington has robustly worked for advancing its proposals for the construction of oil and gas pipelines linking Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to Europe across the Caspian Sea; new pipelines that would connect the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline with the Baku-Erzurum gas pipeline (making Turkey an energy hub for Europe); and the so-called Nabucco pipeline that proposes to link Azerbaijan and Central Asian countries with southern European markets.
"Moscow's counter-strategy aims at augmenting even further Russia's profile and capacity to be Europe's dependable energy supplier and thereby forcing the European consumer countries to negotiate with Russia as a partner with shared or equal interests.
"At a tripartite summit meeting in the city of Turkemenbashi (Turkmenistan) on May 12, Putin and his Kazakh and Turkmen counterparts signed a declaration of intent for upgrading and expanding gas pipelines from Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan along the Caspian Sea coast directly to Russia. The president of Uzbekistan, Islam Karimov, also signed up separately on May 9 for a modernisation of the Turkmenistan-Uzbekistan-Kazakhstan-Russia pipeline.
"The quadripartite project essentially aims at the transportation of Turkmenistan's gas output, which almost in its entirety would be bought up by Russia for a 25-year period."
Bhadrakumar further noted that the US-supported proposals for a trans-Caspian pipeline and the Nabucco pipeline depended significantly on the availability of Turkmen and Kazakh gas. Their future is now up in the air. That, in turn, means Europe is increasingly left with only one serious option for diversifying its gas imports -- Iran.
Russian President Vladimir Putin successfully staged another diplomatic showdown in the same month when he visited Vienna, and in a dramatic breakthrough drew Austria into a key energy partnership, placing that country as a base for Gazprom's future expansion into EU territory. The agreements signed in Vienna on May 23 outlined Gazprom's plans to build a Central European gas hub and gas transit management centre, the largest in continental Europe, at Baumgarten near Vienna; expansion of Gazprom's market share in Austria; delivery of gas directly by Gazprom to Austrian consumers -- for the first time in Europe; and plans to use Austria as a transit corridor for Russian gas exports aspiring to capture new EU markets.
Austria's 'defection' to the Russian camp virtually dealt a coup de grace to Washington's strategy to cut Russia's share of Europe's growing need for gas. But Moscow pressed ahead. On June 25, Gazprom signed with Italy's Eni a memorandum of understanding (which on November 22 was finalised as an agreement) on a US$5.5 billion project for building a 900-kilometre gas pipeline ('South Stream') with an aggregate annual capacity of 30 billion cubic metres. The pipeline will run from Russia's Beregovaya on the Black Sea to Bulgaria, where it will split, with the two branches fanning out to reach southern Italy, Greece, Austria, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary.
In the energy map of the Middle East, too, Russia is maneuvering to obtain an edge by playing the Iran card. Russia's number one priority in energy cooperation with Iran will be for upstream participation by Russian companies. Gazprom has had some limited participation so far in the early phases of Iran's massive South Pars gas fields with an estimated aggregate cumulative production range of a stunning 13 trillion cubic metres.
Moscow will be keen to promote greater involvement. Gazprom has shown interest in the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline project not only as a contractor but also as an investor. That interest could be, in the event of possible shift in the Iran policy of the United States, an incentive for Russia-NATO cooperation in Afghanistan.
But for the time being, with the energy-hungry giant Indian market demands waiting on Iran's gates in the Gulf, the big-ticket item will be the future development phases of South Pars, which Tehran has earmarked as feedstock for producing and exporting LNG to ready buyers in Europe, Asia and the Far East.
Despite soaring prices of oil and gas, and coal remaining an unclean fuel injurious to environment, nuclear fission energy is considered costly and unsafe compared to hydrocarbon output of energy. In the last decade of the twentieth century, predictions were made by elitist neo-con philosophers and scientists that nuclear fusion energy from water and air (fusing hydrogen and oxygen atoms) by high technological advancement would render hydrocarbons valueless. Such wishful predictions did not materialise.
That is not the fault of US President George W. Bush. But Bush will nevertheless be held responsible that for all the might of superpower weapons and dollars, the USA has lost the battle for singular control of the world's energy resources of oil and gas. It is also no wonder that Iran, aware of compacting multilateral interests in its oil and gas resources, is playing it cool to the threat of any new UN Security Council resolution against its nuclear programme, ahead of talks between major powers in Berlin on possible new sanctions.
The German foreign minister has invited his counterparts from the five permanent members of the Security Council - Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States - for talks aimed at keeping the pressure on Tehran to come clean about its sensitive nuclear activities.
A French diplomat said on Jan 21 that the so-called P5+1 expected to reach an agreement in Berlin on a draft Security Council resolution for a third round of sanctions against Iran.
Iran insists that its atomic programme should be dealt with only by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN nuclear watchdog.
Iran says a new Security Council resolution was 'unlikely' and any such move would 'weaken the credibility of the UN Security Council and the International Atomic Energy Agency'.
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NUCLEAR-FREE M.E. PROPOSAL WENT UNHEEDED
How real is Bush's fear
of nuclear weapons?
James G. Abourezk in Washington
In an effort to start another war in the Middle East, President George W. Bush apparently tired of accusing Iran of having nuclear weapons. He is now focusing on Iran's Revolutionary Guards, who, the president says, are furnishing weapons to insurgents in Iraq that are killing American soldiers.
First of all, permit me to take a stand against anyone furnishing weapons - nuclear or non-nuclear - that kill Americans. But having started an unnecessary war in Iraq, and having placed American troops in harm's way there - unnecessarily, I might add - should the president be allowed to blame others for the tragedy, or should we insist that he point the finger at himself for what is happening?
Nevertheless, a discussion of nuclear weapons in the hands of Middle East governments is in order. We know that Israel has at least 200 nuclear warheads, plus the missiles to deliver them. We also know that both India and Pakistan are in possession of such weapons.
An unusual silence
We also know, from reports of experts, that if Iran continues on its path, within five to ten years it will have nuclear weapons. Moreover, Israel has leaked a story that it bombed a nuclear site in northern Syria in early September - one that had the North Koreans bringing nuclear technology to Syria. Even Damascus is saying nothing about the bombing, which I find unusual. Normally, a country would complain to the United Nations when one country commits an act of war against it, in violation of the UN Charter.
What the public does not know, and what neither the American media nor the president nor Congress will tell the public, is that both Syria and Iran have called for a "nuclear weapons-free Middle East." That is my choice for a solution to everyone's fear that Middle Eastern countries are arming themselves with weapons of mass destruction. Mr. Bush need only take them up on their offer.
And why, we may ask, does not President Bush at least discuss such a weapons freeze with the Iranians and the Syrians? We do not know the answer, unless Mr. Bush does not want to jeopardise his faulty reasons for attacking Iran.
We also know that Israel does not fear Iran having a nuclear weapon. We know that from a statement by Ephraim Sneh, a high Israeli official - in fact, a deputy defence minister - who said that the Israeli government's primary concern was not any nuclear threat posed by Iran, but the fear that people will de-populate Israel, and that Jews will stop coming there.
Sneh said: "...Ahmedinejad will be able to kill the Zionist dream without pushing a button. That's why we must prevent this regime from obtaining nuclear capability at all costs."
What's amazing about this statement is that, as Jonathan Cook has written (see March 2007 Washington Report, p. 19):
"...the Israeli government is considering either its own strike on Iran or encouraging the United States to undertake such an attack despite terrible consequences for global security simply because a nuclear armed Iran might make Israel a less attractive place for Jews to live... "
And Haaretz Magazine reports that Israel's foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, "...a few months ago in a series of closed discussions [said] that in her opinion that Iranian nuclear weapons do not pose an existential threat to Israel..."
Of course, this would not be the first time that Israel has sold a bottle of snake oil to George W. Bush. While Ariel Sharon's military was busy slaughtering Palestinians in Jenin in 2002, Mr. Bush announced that Sharon was "a man of peace."
Would President Bush be stupid enough to begin bombing Iran? I'm afraid so. Some of my more conspiratorial minded friends claim that Bush and Ahmadinejad have a deal - keep tensions high with respect to Iran and oil prices will inflate, thereby helping both Ahmedinejad's and Bush's friends in the US oil industry. I have long ago stopped having visions of sugar plums dancing in my head, and I am now a cynic. I think Mr. Bush is capable of anything.
Presidential Obliviousness
The reason I say that is because in the face of our mounting debt from war spending, and the mounting casualty figures of American soldiers, and the mounting death toll of Iraqi civilians the surge notwithstanding - he displays nothing but obliviousness to the destruction of our country toward which he is leading us.
So far as the Democrats in Congress are concerned, he can have his way. They are proving to be political wimps, afraid to use their power of the purse to stop funding the war. It would be a very simple thing to refuse to appropriate what Mr. Bush requests for war spending. The Democrats could easily provide just enough money to bring the troops home, and nothing more. If Mr. Bush, as commander-in-chief, refuses to bring them home, then whatever damage is done to the troops will be on his head. That's something the Democrats in Congress have not been able to understand.
When Congress cut off the money for Vietnam, the war ended very quickly, and all the predictions about chaos never came true.
America needs better leadership. Our leaders now have failed us miserably.
- Third World Network Features
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Increasing corruption in WB's $30b annual lending: NYT
Fazle Rashid in New York
The World Bank (WB) which was enmeshed in deep troubles during the presidency of Paul Wolfowitz and was able to steer clear of a storm has again run into a rough weather over the question of combating ever expanding corruption in its $30 billion annual lending to the poor countries. An outside report had said that 40 per cent of bank's lending is dotted with corruption.
Corruption has been widely acknowledged as a major problem in the operation of the bank. Weak management, mutual distrust, an internal resistance to combating fraud and graft have stalled the smooth operation of the bank, the New York Times reported recently. The crisis in the Bank has been heightened by the resignation of Ms Suzanne Rich Folsom, a Wolfowitz protégé, who led the anti-corruption unit of the Bank. Folsom has been blamed for being biased. She has been soft on Wolfowitz favourites and harsh with those who opposed him. Robert Zoellick who succeeded Paul Wolfowitz did not have cosy ties with Folsom but did not interfere with her work. Several of Folsom's colleagues are also leaving.
The relations between Ms. Folsom and the bank had been far from congenial. There is a lot of bad blood in the bank, the NYT report quoted a bank official as saying. World Bank is allergic to efforts to cases of fraud and graft, another official said. Ms. Folsom said opposition to her work had made it difficult for her to function.
The spokesman of the WB president Marwan Muasher denied speculation that Ms. Folsom was driven out and added the president had extended her his full support. Folsom had decided to leave the job earlier but was swayed by Zoellick to stay until the report of corruption in India was completed. The report has been released and it detected corruption in many lending programmes to India. The report on corruption in the WB aided projects in India were backed by pictures. Indian officials had pledged to find out the culprits but they backtracked.
World Bank president Zoellick said 'Suzanne has done a tremendous amount to push the anti-corruption agenda forward and I am grateful to her', NYT reported. The WB president wants to 'install procedures on competitive bidding, inspections and disclosures that would prevent corruption instead of just prosecuting cases.' Ngozi Okonjo I weaala, former finance minister of Nigeria, now working with the WB has negotiated with India to set up ways to rid corruption. Paul Wolfowitz had suspended bank lending to India in 2005. This decision had enraged the bank's board members. Paul Volcker, former chairman US federal reserve, who headed the probe into multi-billion dollar scam in UN sponsored oil for food programme in Iraq also investigated corruption and graft in the World Bank.. Volcker praised Ms. Folsom but strongly suggested changes to prevent corruption in the bank. He also asked Folsom to quit to ease the 'toxic atmosphere' left by Paul Wolfowitz. Wolfowitz had appointed Folsom bypassing the candidate selected by the Bank's search committee.
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Mainul grabbing my property: Manju
Moinuddin Naser in New York
Anwar Hossain Manju, the Editor of largely circulated Bengali daily Ittefaq and former minister in Sheikh Hasina's cabinet, said that he is victim of a family feud and his brother Mainul Husein wants to deprive him of his paternal properties. Taking the advantage of the emergency rule in the country, Mainul Hosein ensured his ouster from the country.
Manju, who now lives in the US, said this in an interview with the Holiday correspondent at a New York restaurant last Monday. He alleged that it was not the caretaker government led by Fakhruddin Ahmed but his brother Barrister Mainul Hossein, who wanted to get him out of the daily Ittefaq and grab the property wholly.
Mainul Hosein was also a member of the Council of Advisers in the present caretaker government. He along with three other advisers, resigned from the government last month. Mainul Hosein joined the new caretaker government soon after it was formed.
Manju said that he was made the Editor of the Ittefaq in a meeting of the board of directors of the company, but he was ousted by the decision of one man, though he is still the owner of 33 per cent of the newspaper. "I was in the government for 12 years and the government can not take any decision against me," he added and said, "It was the vested interest quarter in the family that wanted to get him out of the way and put him in jail by giving a false case."
Jatiya Party Chairman Anwar Hossain Monju ( JP-Monju) was convicted for five year in jail for possessing some bottles of alcoholic beverages in his house, which is not legal in the country. Manju said that he does not drink alcohol, but sometime he used to serve alcoholic drinks to invited foreign guests at home.
There are two other cases against his and his wife's name on charge of avoidance of tax and in the anti-corruption commission (ACC) but the two cases are now pending. Anwar Hosein Monju wants an opportunity to defend him against the allegations in Bangladesh.
He said that he was in full support of the new caretaker government's mission of holding a free, fair and credible election. He along with his Jatiya Party (Manju) colleagues, would like to participate in the polls should he and his party be given the chance.
Anwar Hossain Manju and his wide separately left the country quietly and they are now living together in the US.
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GLIMPSES OF THE GREAT
Edward Kennedy
K. Z. Islam
Edward Moore Kennedy carried the hopes and dreams of millions of Americans who yearned for him to become the President of their country. They saw in him the same qualities with which they imbued his older brothers. The public viewed them as men of honesty and integrity, men who were brave, fearless and ferociously loyal to those close to them. It was a vision history was to question.
Both of Edward's brothers had died in the service of their country. The elder, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, was slain by an assassin's bullet as he rode in a motorcade through the streets of Dallas, Texas, in November 1963, while five years later Robert Kennedy was struck down in a hail of gunfire in a hotel in Los Angeles.
After the murder of Robert Kennedy, the Democratic campaign to win control of the White House faltered and lost steam. However, by 1969 it seemed that the fortunes of the Kennedy dynasty in American politics would be revived by Edward ('Teddy') Kennedy, then 37 years old and gaining rapidly in prestige and experience as a US Senator for his home state of Massachusetts.
The prospect of candidacy for Teddy Kennedy vanished in a blaze of scandal in July 1969, when he left a young woman dead from drowning while he fled in selfish panic. For almost twelve hours the body of political secretary Mary Jo Kopechne was trapped in the rear seat of the Senator's car, which had plunged off a narrow bridge into an inlet of the Atlantic Ocean while returning from Chappaquiddick to main land. Chappaquiddick is a small island off the towns of Cape Cod and Nuntucket Soun where the Atlantic breakers pound at the shores of Massachusetts. For twelve hours Teddy Kennedy's actions were those of a man frantically trying to set up an alibi for himself. Apparently desperate to keep the news of the car accident a secret, he failed to notify police or potential rescue services, hoping, he admitted later, that 'the sense of guilt would somehow be lifted from my shoulders'.
In spite of the blaze of publicity from the world's media, the case was tried just like any other motoring offence. The court was told by a probation officer that Kennedy had no previous convictions.
The decision of Judge James A. Boyle was a sentence of two months' imprisonment. The sentence was suspended.
In the election of 1972, the Democratic choice to contest the White House against Richard Nixon was George McGovern.
Nixon won re-election.
Kennedy retained his seat in the US Congress as the Senator for Massachusetts. Ten years after the death of Mary Jo Kopechne, in 1979, there was a campaign to nominate Teddy Kennedy as the candidate to take over the Democratic Presidency from Jimmy Carter in the election contest against Ronald Reagan.
Before the campaign could get properly under way, the ghost of Mary Jo Kopechne was raised again, and Kennedy withdrew, apparently convinced that the power of the White House had been removed from his grasp for ever because of the scandal.
Before the 1972 election the name Chappaquiddick was known only to locals, tourists and yachtsmen as a sandspit of an island on the Atlantic Coast. Since then it has conjured up death, scandal and human frailty.
Only one other name of a featureless, mundane location can raise such a shock wave of political revulsion. Just like Chappaquiddick, it is burned indelibly into the history of scandal in American politics.
It is the name of a nondescript multi-storey office complex in Washington.
The block of cheap rental offices is called Watergate...
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THE BOTOM LINE
Taher Quddus
People think I am privy to all hot political events because of my former military back ground.
When friends meet me they whisper "What is happening?" I reply with an air of disdain: "Wait and see."
They don't seem to be happy with my reply. They think I am cautious.
The other day I met a friend of mine at a wedding. He took me to a corner and asked, "What is actually happening. I am very apprehensive. You see Advisers are coming and going. Till to day we have seen thirty-two advisers. Twenty two of them left before their time was over. These twenty two had meteoric rise and vanished like morning dew".
"There is no time to waste. When you have outlived your utility you go. That is the rule," I said
"They came with only one objective. To gift the country a free and free election so that the democratic values become a way of life for us ", he said.
I looked at his eyes and asked, "Don't you think we deserve that? We are a nation of simple people, who are happy with very little, but we nourish in our heart a culture of high values. With such qualities we can be one of the proudest nations in the world. But all our dreams have been shattered by a bunch of stupid, power hungry, viscous hoodlums who took the whole nation hostage to satisfy their insatiable greed. We got to bring them to books and all roads, lanes and by-lanes have to be closed to stop recurrence in future. That is exactly what is happening."
My friend embraced me, "Do you really think that shall ever happen."
Yes, that shall happen. We must have patience, I said
But political parties, intellectuals and the foreign countries are saying again and again that the country must be ruled by elected people. Otherwise the country shall not progress and we are bound to be doomed.
Well, do not trust these people. They are not our friends. The elected people ran the country for the last twenty-five years. You know what has happened. This country became the den of thieves, cheats and the devils, I said angrily.
"I also think so. Right at this moment, the country is run by educated and experienced people. They are dedicated and honest. If they can't deliver, who do you think shall be able to do that. There is no need to recall them," he said.
Only place where they have failed is to control the price hike of daily commodities. I don't think when corrupt and dishonest politician come they shall be able to do any better" he said again.
I interrupted, "Yes, the corrupt and dishonest politicians shall be able to do a lot. Adulteration, evasion of tax and duty, importing lower grade produces, use of formalin shall start. The prices of commodities shall fall automatically".
He Laughed and asked, "What do you think about election?"
"There shall be election according to road map. Those who are in the jail they shall stay in their rightful places. Law shall take its own course," I said.
"How can there be an election when the big parties do not have their heads?"
"Big party means big corruption, and small party means less of corruption. How can there be a party whose head is languishing in jail? No wonder they are on the run," I said.
"My understanding is that if there is election, no party shall be able to place their candidates for all the seats of the parliament. So a number of small parties in cooperation with some independent MP's shall be able to become the majority and form the cabinet," He said.
"Well if that happens we can expect a hung parliament most of the time. For a hung parliament to function we shall need 'back seat drivers'," I said smilingly.
He said, "Good, we have 'back seat drivers' now and shall continue to have that".
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