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DEADLY GAMES
Bangladesh turned into a theatre
of covert war
M. Shahidul Islam
The mismanagement of the AL-led regime is becoming as unruly like sliding potatoes from a derailed carriage. And, nowhere this drawback is as starkly evident as are in the fields of national defence and geopolitics.
The governments of India and Bangladesh are pursuing a strategy rather aggressively to connect Indian Northeast with the mainland via Bangladesh, without any profound thoughts having been accorded to the likely ramifications of such moves on our vital national interests...[ FULL STORY ]
Indian nationals in BTRC's highly security-sensitive positions
Faisal Rahim
The disclosure that the Government has appointed five Indian nationals to senior positions of highly security-sensitive Bangladesh Telecommuni-cation Regulatory Commission (BTRC) has come as a bolt from the blue last week as newspaper reports on this latest strategic development caught the nation by surprise.
What is happening in the high places of power corridor in Dhaka and Delhi was the common question that many people here asked each other with eye brows raised and suspicion spread in the country's political landscape from the capital down to the districts.
Telecom specialists
The news item said the BTRC has appointed five Indian telecommunication specialists to highly sensitive places of the country's highest policy making authority controlling the telecommunication sector. And in doing so, the government has removed the Bangladesh Army's Signal Corps engineers from those posts...[ FULL STORY ]
A shining example to emulate
Harry Truman was a different kind of President. He probably made as many, or more important decisions regarding our nation's history as any of the other 42 Presidents preceding him. However, a measure of his greatness may rest on what he did after he left the White House.
The only asset he had when he died was the house he lived in, which was in Independence Missouri. His wife had inherited the house from her mother and father and other than their years in the White House, they lived their entire lives there...[ FULL STORY ]
DANGEROUS TIMES
Iran crisis defused for now
Sadeq Khan
U.S. President Barack Obama appears to have successfully diffused the latest Iran crisis over the latter's notification to IAEA of a second uranium enrichment plant, much ahead of the stipulated time for such notification under NPT. The initial reaction of President Obama to that notification, aggressively expressed in his speech at the UNGA, was verging on rudeness and contained a threat that US reserved all options including military strike to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weaponry. I quote Dr. Zakir Hossain, a keen watcher of contemporary "clash of civilisations", reacting to that reaction (New Age, October 7): "Some of those who are so puzzled and outraged by Iran's nuclear 'ambitions' (ambitions and not possession) had helped Israel build the bomb; those who go livid with shock at the 'disclosure' of Iran's Qom facility had no qualms about nuclear proliferation on previous occasions...[ FULL STORY ]
Bangladeshi female police to join UN peacekeeping mission
Holiday Report
The United Nations (UN) will deploy 140 Bangladeshi female police officers in different peacekeeping missions around the world.
"The process of appointments is underway," the visiting United Nations Under Secretary General for Peacekeeping Operations, Alain Le Roy, told reporters after a meeting with Foreign Minister Dipu Moni at her office Tuesday morning. She arrived in Dhaka on a two-day official visit...[ FULL STORY ]
BLACK FLAG VIS-À-VIS PRESS CLUB
Great peril for newsmen
Hafiz Shamseer
The feared regimentation is coming - unhurriedly but inexorably. Whilst the plan is on to push the country back to the dreadful monolithic BKSAL days of the post-independence years, journalistic institutions not conforming to the totalitarian values of the ruling party are up for vengeful reprisals.
Growls and angry snarls assail the ears of journalists not displaying as much loyalty to the current regime as they or their predecessors did in 1975 when Bangladesh, born four years earlier in the name of unfettered democracy, reverted to one-party authoritarian rule.
NPC prime target
The prime target at the moment is National Press Club (NPC), acclaimed over the years as the second home to professional journalists, an esplanade of neutral skull exchange and an intellectual joint for the specialised scribblers...[ FULL STORY ]
Nobel prizes for Physics, Medicine
and Chemistry
Anisur Rahman in Stockholm
The announcement of Nobel Prizes 2009 for Physics, Medicine and Chemistry were made last week.
Three chemists will share the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work in revealing more about how cells use bits of DNA to form the blueprints for living organisms, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm announced it Wednesday last...[ FULL STORY ]
US dangles aid package to keep Pak army off civil matters
Fazle Rashid in New York
The United States has agreed to provide Pakistan with an aid package of $1.5 billion over the next five years on condition that it would not allow its territory to be used by the Taliban and the army would not interfere with the civil administration.
President Asif Ali Zardari has consented to the conditions but the army has not failed to reject the move saying that the conditions are in direct interference with the internal affairs of Pakistan. The US officials say its security presence in Pakistan must expand in order to monitor how the money is spent.
The US embassy in Pakistan is planning to construct something like a green zone in Iraq with accommodation for more than 1000 people. However, tensions are brewing as the United States is pressing Pakistan to take on not only those Taliban groups, who have threatened the government, but also those Taliban, who use Pakistan as their base to organise and conduct their insurgency against American forces in Afghanistan as well, the New York Times in a report said...[ FULL STORY ]
GLIMPSES OF THE GREAT
Harold Macmillan
K Z Islam
Harold Maurice Macmillan (1894-1986) was the Prime Minister of Britain from 10 January 1957 to 18 October 1963. These years coincides exactly with my stay in England. The mention of Macmillan the ditty that comes to my mid was the following after the Christine Keeler's scandal
Oh what have you done Christine
You have wrecked the party machine
To lie in the nude is not so rude
But to lie in the House is obscene
More of Christine
Keeler later.
When Winston Churchill became Prime Minister in May 1940, Macmillan was made Minister of Supply and then transferred to the colonial office. This led to the much more distinguished post of Resident Minister at Allied Headquarter in North Africa. But just as his career seemed ready to take off, the Conservative Party lost the 1945 election and Macmillan lost his seat...[ FULL STORY ]
Environmental rights should be part
of the Constitution
Abdur Rahman Khan
To many people, the issue of environment was a matter of fancy or a subject of ridicule specially when the huge number people suffered from poverty, sickness, illiteracy and without shelter.
The environment movement faced such phenomenon till the end of last decade. However, the situation has changed after improvement of public awareness following sustained campaign by environmental groups. It further led to some policy support from the government and inter-national organisations...[ FULL STORY ]
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