Digital services take o� in 2015Several mobile operators looking to launch 4G in a couple of monthsn Muhammad Zahidul Islam

Years of preparation, coupled with un-precedented Internet penetration and network readiness of the mass, paved way for 2015 to take the country to the next level of data services, industry ex-perts have said.

In the new year, the 42.5 million people or nearly a fourth of the popu-lation using Internet in the country will get fourth generation mobile telecom-munications technology, better known as 4G – the fastest mode of wireless connectivity in the world as of now.

Several mobile operators, who have brought the 64 districts in the country under 3G coverage, have already made the preparations to launch 4G services in the new year.

4G data services are better than the previous ones in the sense that they can transfer very high bit rates of data using entirely Internet-based commu-nications and without having to de-pend on traditional telephony services.

SM Ashraf Abir, executive member of Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS) told the Dhaka Tribune: “Over the last two to three years, we got prepared. A lot of products got matured. Now customers can enjoy the bene� ts...No doubt 2015 is very important from the point of view of o� ering services. ”

On-line marketplaces, mobile bank-ing and mobile applications are some of the products that he said had at-tained maturity over the last few years.

4G data servicesLong-Term Evolution or LTE, marketed as 4G, is a standard for wireless commu-nication of high-speed data for mobile.

While the leading mobile operators are gearing up for launching 4G in the country within a month or two, Wi-max operator Bangladesh Internet Exchange Limited (BIEL), under the brand name Ollo, has already installed 4G network in the capital and some other cities.

Ollo’s Chief Technical O� cer Md Miz-anur Rahaman said they will go for com-mercial services within a month or two.

For faster service, having a smart handsets is mandatory; but since 3G-enabled handsets are not cheap, the mobile operators have laid out innova-tive market plans.

PAGE 2 COLUMN 1

Khaleda places seven proposals toend political stalematen Mohammad Al-Masum Molla

BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia yesterday placed a seven-point set of proposals to the government including ensuring lev-el-playing � eld for all political parties with a view to holding an inclusive election that may resolve the current political stale-mate.

“We have given seven proposals for ensuring a fair election. Now it is the gov-ernment who will have to decide wheth-er they will sit for dialogue accepting our proposals or face a movement,” Khaleda, also the chief of 20-party alliance, said at an emergency press conference held at her Gulshan o� ce.

The three-time former premier, whose alliance refrained from participating in the January 5 election, announced that the 20-party alliance would observe Jan-

uary 5 as “Democracy Killing Day” through holding rallies and demonstrations across the country with black � ags.

The alliance would hold a rally in the

capital on January 5, the BNP chief said hoping that the government would not hinder their programmes.

Khaleda said: “We want to hold a ral-ly on January 5 and hope that we will be allowed to arrange it peacefully. We will come up with our action programmes gradually. No one will be able to subdue people’s movement by creating obstacles and unleashing attack on them.”

The Awami League-led government is set to observe January 5 as the “Victory Day of Democracy.”

Khaleda’s other suggestions are recon-stitution of the Election Commission with impartial, competent and honest persons before announcing the fresh election schedule, amending the RPO and remov-ing anomalies in the voter list; dissolving parliament and cabinet before announcing

PAGE 2 COLUMN 5

VOLUNTEERISM 365

11 | OP-ED

THURSDAY, JANUARY 1, 2015 | www.dhakatribune.com | SECOND EDITION

Paush 18, 1421Rabiul Awal 9, 1436Regd No DA 6238Vol 2, No 268

20 pages plus 16-page T-Mag tabloid and 16-page year-end special tabloid | Price: Tk12

A ROAD TO EMPIRES

7 | HERITAGE

PROUD AND PROMISING MUNER’S

TMAG

LOOKING BACK AND LEAPING FORWARD

YEAR-END SPECIAL

B1 | BusinessSign of recovery after four years of mar-ket crash in late 2010 still remains elu-sive despite some gains in 2014 when a few investors, once their � ngers had burned, returned with their wounds.

12 | SportGlittering performances in three tour-naments – Asian Games Quali� ers, Hockey World League Round 1 and Men’s Junior AHF Cup – enabled hockey to be the most admired sport of 2014.

9 | WorldThe death toll from � ooding and land-slides in the Philippines wrought by tropical storm Jangmi rose to 53 yes-terday, o� cials said, with some regions saying they were caught o� guard.

4 | NewsPlanning to make Bangladesh Air Force more modern and a strategically strong and e� ective force within 2021, the PM yesterday said new aircraft and helicop-ters will be inducted in the air force.

5 | NewsA signboard hanging outside the reading room entrance lists 10 rules that everyone should follow while using the library. It is written there that nobody is allowed to bring any book from the outside.

I N S I D E

The country’s � rst female combat pilots – Flight Lieutenant Nayma Haque and Flying O� cer Tamanna-E-Lut� – pose for a picture after taking part in a � ypast at the Jessore Air Force Academy parade ground yesterday

Year ends witha milestonefor womenn Julfi kar Ali Manik,

back from Jessore

On the eve of stepping into a new year, the country achieved a new milestone for women yesterday; when for the � rst time ever, a female � ight cadet – Nabila Afsana Badhon – carried the national � ag to lead the � ag contingent in a Pres-ident Parade of Bangladesh Air Force.

Also at the same occasion, where Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina took the parade’s salute as the chief guest, two of the country’s � rst female combat pi-lots took part in the � ypast – their � rst such participation at a major event.

Only two weeks earlier, Flight Lieu-tenant Nayma Haque and Flying O� cer Tamanna-E-Lut� made history by be-coming the � rst female combat pilots of the country.

Although they still have many PAGE 2 COLUMN 3

‘Disappearance’ became a horror in 2014n Abid Azad

The rising incidents of disappearance and extra-judicial killings allegedly by the law enforcement agencies and the never-ending culture of impunity were a matter of grave concern among the people in 2014, observe human rights activists.

Disappearance, particularly, was a much-talked-about issue throughout the year.

The country is stepping into a new

year with at least 42 people still remain missing. Families of these victims are yet to know their whereabouts. Rights activists blame the government for its failure to unearth the mysterious inci-dents of disappearance.

Mistrust and fear coupled with the “culture of impunity” dominated people’s minds that barred them from seeking justice from the law enforc-ers. They even do not dear going to the courts to � le cases seeking remedy, the rights activists allege.

According to rights group Ain O Salish Kendra (ASK), 21 persons were abducted during 2007-2009 and only three of them later found dead. The number rose to 47 in 2010, 59 in 2011, 56 in 2012, 72 in 2013 and 88 in 2014.

From the last year’s victims, 23 were later found dead, 12 released after ab-duction, one found at the DB o� ce, two sent to jail, one shown arrested. Moreo-ver, seven of the victims were produced before media by elite force Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), for the � rst time.

The � gures show the incidents re-ported only in national newspapers.

On the other hand, the number of ex-tra-judicial killings – elaborated by the rights body as “cross� re” and torture before and after arrest by di� erent law enforcement agencies – was 146 in 2014.

Extra-judicial killings reached as high as 208 in 2013; the number was 91 in 2012, 100 in 2011 and 133 in 2010.

On the other hand, during the mil-itary-backed caretaker government,

PAGE 2 COLUMN 1

“Over the last 2 to 3 years, we got prepared. Now customers can enjoy the bene� ts”

Government okays satellite orbital slot procurementn Asif Showkat Kallol and

Muhammad Zahidul Islam

Bangladesh Telecommunication Regula-tory Commission (BTRC) is going to sign a � nal contract with Intersputnik, an orbital slot leasing company, in order to launch the country’s � rst satellite Bangabandhu 1.

The proposal got the � nal nod at the meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Government Purchase (CCGP) yesterday, chaired by Finance Minister AMA Muhith, as con� rmed by Joint Secretary of Cabinet Division Mosta� zur Rahman.

The CCGP approved the proposal for or-bital slot lease following the direct procure-ment method (DPM) to launch the a com-munication and broadcasting satellite on

119.1 East longitude, with the cost � xed at $28m (around Tk218.96 crore).

According to the contract draft, the BTRC will pay 20% of the cost ($5.6m) to the Rus-sia-based international space communica-tion services organisation within 90 days after the deal is sealed.

The BTRC also needs to pay 30% of the cost ($8.4m) within the next 15 months, 25% ($7m) within 18 months after that, and the rest within the next eight months.

Earlier, the BTRC also signed a non-dis-closure agreement with Intersputnik on Marcy 29, 2012, and then a non-binding Memoranda of Understanding in February 10, 2013, which expired yesterday.

“After receiving the o� cial order of PAGE 2 COLUMN 1

UN team: Oil spill had ‘limited’ impact on Sundarbansn Abu Bakar Siddique

There has been “limited” environ-mental impact to the Sundarbans and its aquatic ecosystem following last month’s oil spill in Sela River, a team of UN experts has said as part of their pri-mary observation after surveying the mangrove forest.

The joint team of specialists from the United Nations and the Bangladesh government found no visible impact on the forest � oor while the oil spill’s initial acute impacts to wildlife appeared to be limited, team leader Emilia Wahlstrom told a Meet the Press programme at the capital’s Hotel Sonargaon yesterday.

However, further monitoring was

needed to conclusively determine the e� ect of the residual oil in the aquatic environment and its impacts on � sher-ies and livelihood, Wahlstrom said.

In their primary assessment, the team said the oil spill would have a lim-ited impact because of the tidal system of the river that experience high and low tide twice daily.

The team is scheduled to present their � nal assessment report on January 15.

The team also recommended the government to ensure controlled nav-igation through the Sela River with appropriate safeguards and mitigation measures to avoid any further disaster in the forest.

The Sela River has been used as an

illegal navigation route since 2011 after siltation forced navigation to be halted on the legal Mongla-Ghosiakhali route. Regarding reopening the navigation route, Md Nojibur Rahman, secretary of the Ministry of Environment and Forest, said the government would take a decision on this regard soon.

Following a request from the Bang-ladesh government in the wake of the oil spill, a 25-member team consisting of government and UNDP o� cials in-cluding nine foreign experts conducted the assessment at the forest between December 22 and 27.

On December 9, oil tanker Southern Star 7 – carrying around 3.58 lakh litres

PAGE 2 COLUMN 6

Khaleda Zia addressing a press meet at the party’s Gulshan o� ce yesterday

News2 DHAKA TRIBUNE Thursday, January 1, 2015

‘Disappearance’ became a horror in 2014 PAGE 1 COLUMN 6180 people were killed by law enforce-ment agencies in 2007 while it was 175 in 2008, the ASK says.

In 2009, when the Awami League took o� ce, deaths of people in the hands of law enforcers was 229.

Apart from RAB and DB, the other agencies blamed for extra-judicial kill-ings and disappearance are police, BGB and joint forces.

The victims belong to di� erent po-litical parties including the Awami League, while some of them are busi-nessmen or students. Rights bodies say many of the victims are innocent.

Trained by the US and the UK on in-terrogation and human rights among other issues, RAB since its inception in June 2004 has been criticised also for defending the extra-judicial killings, mainly “cross� res” claiming that they open � re in self defence only.

During the BNP-Jamaat govern-ment, 210 people were killed by the law enforcement agencies in 2004. The � g-ure rose to as high as 377 the following year and stood at 362 in 2006, accord-ing to ASK documentation.

The deaths drew massive criticisms at home and abroad. However, the gov-ernment defended RAB activities.

Then home state minister Lutfoz-zaman Babar told a US embassy o� cial in 2004 that he got hundreds of calls

from people blessing him after each cross� re and judges encourage him to continue “the good work.”

He justi� ed RAB as a short-term tac-tic pending his long-term reform and streamlining of the law enforcement agencies.

In 2002, around 50 people had been killed in the much-controversial crack-down by the armed forces “Operation Clean Heart” in custody, many attrib-uted to “heart attacks.” However, par-liament gave the military indemnity against those deaths.

The Awami League government too rejects demands from di� erent quar-ters for disbanding or reforming the RAB, formed to combat serious crimes and protecting the VVIPs.

Rights activists demand that every incident of extra-judicial killings and disappearance by the law enforcers must be investigated and those respon-sible be brought to the book to ensure justice for the victims.

They say the alarming trend of im-punity should be stopped by the state itself otherwise the country’s social and political situation would be jeop-ardised.

Sultana Kamal, the ASK executive director, blamed the ill political culture for the situation.

“Currently, there is a huge lack of sense of accountability in our politi-

cal practice. The issues of establishing democracy and people enjoying their rights including freedom of speech depend on the quality of political prac-tice.”

On the other hand, there is lack of sense of accountability and respon-sibility among the people. “Thus the total atmosphere creates a violent sit-uation at the individual-level as well as the state level,” Sultana, also a former caretaker government adviser, told the Dhaka Tribune.

“Nowadays not only an individual but also the state acts in a desperate mood which will make everyone vio-lent against each other. Who began all these is a debatable issues. But it is im-portant what the state is doing to tackle such desperate situation.”

She observed that such situation continued not beyond the knowledge of the rulers.

Sultana also expressed concern over the grabbing mentality of the ordinary people as well as the in� uential people linked to the state and the government.

Several human rights organisations in investigations found that members of the law enforcement agencies were involved in most of the cases of ex-tra-judicial killings and disappearance or abductions, including the much-hyped seven murders in Narayanganj in late April.

It is also alleged that the law enforc-ers mainly those from RAB and DB can now be hired for committing crimes.

In a report submitted to the High Court, elite force RAB has admitted that its o� cials and members in unit 11 were involved in the abduction of sev-en people including a panel mayor and their subsequent killings.

The rights bodies at several discus-sions brought the victims’ families to public who claimed that their near and dear ones had been abducted by the law enforcement agencies.

On May 17, another accusation sur-faced against RAB o� cials. From a hu-man chain at Siddhirganj Power Station in Narayanganj, Abdul Mannan alleged that Nur Hossain, the prime accused in seven murders, and three RAB o� cers had been involved in the abduction of his brother Ismail Hossain, 42.

Ismail, an Awami League activist, was abducted on February 7. His family claims that they received a letter where the abductors demanded that Tk2 crore must be paid to former RAB 11 unit chief Lt Col Tarek Sayeed Mohammad for the release of the victim.

Lt Col Tarek is the son-in-law of Disaster Management Minister Mo-fazzal Hossain Chowdhury Maya. He was sacked after the allegations of his involvement in the seven murders proved in preliminary investigation.

Rights activist Nur Khan observes that when the victims’ families are blaming the RAB and the DB members for most of the incidents, the govern-ment pays no heed.

He suggested establishment of a judicial investigation commission to bring the law enforcement agencies under accountability so that the gov-ernment cannot interfere.

He also recommended that chain of command and discipline be ensured in the law enforcement agencies so that they work free from any political in� u-ence.

New York-based Human Rights Watch’s Meenakshi Ganguly said when Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was in opposition, she had committed to re-forms in human rights protections.

“Soon after the Awami League took o� ce during the previous term [in 2009], the government made the prom-ise of zero tolerance for human rights violations. Since then, however, there have been several steps backwards, including the targeting of opposition members,” she said in an email sent to the Dhaka Tribune upon queries.

South Asia Director of the HRW, Meenakshi also said the “crackdown on criticism” has had a chilling impact e� ecting not only media but also civil society.

She suggested that the government

initiates immediate reforms to the criminal justice system, introduce ju-dicial reforms to reduce case load and maintain the independence of the ju-diciary, and empower constitutional bodies including the National Human Rights Commission and anti-corrup-tion authorities.

About RAB, she said: “The Rapid Action Battalion is a joint force made up of police and military. Although the force is usually headed by a police of-� cial, it is increasingly the army that is calling the shots, e� ectively placing the military into domestic, civilian law enforcement duties. The army is a powerful force in Bangladesh and re-sists any attempt to hold its forces to account for abuses.

“The Narayanganj killings exposed misdoings by RAB forces to the extent that the state was forced to make ar-rests. But other abuses, including the attack that left an innocent teenager [Limon Hossain] disabled, are yet to punished. In fact, motivated allega-tions of criminal activities were made against the victim.”

Expressing concern that “RAB ex-cesses are now duplicated” by other forces, she said the government should engage in immediate police reform, including proper training in modern investigation and rights-respecting law enforcement. l

Digital services take o� in 2015 PAGE 1 COLUMN 2“The � ourishing of data markets in 2015 will heavily depend on the handset market. From the operators’ side, we are trying to reduce the price of devic-es, so that everyone can get mounted to the 3G network,” said Munir Hasan, a director of Grameenphone, the leading mobile operator in the country.

Mobile banking According to available data, around 25 million registered mobile banking customers are currently transacting around Tk323 crore everyday through 519,000 registered agents across the country.

Currently, three out of every four rickshaw-pullers in Dhaka send money to their village homes through mobile banking services which they deem safe and cost-e� ective, says a study. It pre-dicts that the number is very likely to multiply manifold in the new year.

Grameenphone (GP), the leading mobile telecom operator in the country has four priorities for 2015 – education, health, agriculture and � nancial ser-vices – and they are all based on mobile technologies.

“Considering the context of the country, we are emphasising health, education, agriculture and � nancial services. To succeed, we require active support from and partnership with the government to create the right policy environment and develop the market,” said Md Munir Hasan, a director of GP.

Market leader GP has already in-troduced the system of paying utility bills such as electricity and gas using its connections. State-owned operator

Teletalk has made an arrangement for paying electricity bills for the rural peo-ple. Another operator Robi has submit-ted tender for launching similar kinds of services, sources said.E-commerce On December 27, the Bangladesh Foot-ball Federation (BFF) sold some tickets of the highly anticipated Sheikh Jamal versus Busan Ipark match, accepting payments through mobile and the In-ternet.

Seeing the success of the experi-ment, the BFF is now planning to do something bigger.

BFF Secretary Abu Nayem Sohag said they are now planning to sell 500,000 tickets for a lottery through mobile and Internet.

For selling tickets on-line, the BFF engaged popular mobile banking ser-vice “bkash.”

In recent times, especially over the last year or so, e-commerce and m-commerce services have developed to the extent that people can now have even groceries delivered to their door-steps; orders can be placed right from the mobile phones.

Saiful Islam, entrepreneur of on-line store AmarGadget.com, said: “E-com-merce will make people’s life much eas-ier in the near future by bringing virtually all kinds of service to people’s doorsteps.”

“Around 500 service-related web portals are currently doing business in the country and the size of the market will be double by the end of 2015,” said Razib Ahmed, president of the E-Com-merce Association of Bangladesh (e-CAB). Recently, the e-CAB declared 2015 as the year of e-commerce.

However, Rokon Zaman, a professor of the North South University, is not happy with the government’s digital service o� ers.

“The private sector is going to take the lead in o� ering modern services such as mHelath and m-Education; but the channels are not tested for security. After the faster services are launched, disputes may arise. I am sure the gov-ernment will not have any answer then,” said Rokon Zaman, who is also a digital services expert.

Contacted, State Minister for ICT Ju-naid Ahmed Palak said the country had achieved more than half of the Digital Bangladesh promise.

“The government is formulating the e-service act for strengthening mon-itoring. We are also developing hun-dreds of mobile applications to ensure better services for citizens.

“Several on-line marketplaces have already been developed; they are now buying and selling products and servic-es. Some of them have become really popular. This, I think, will make a dif-ference in 2015,” Palak said.

The Bangladesh Road Transport Au-thority (BRTA) has recently launched a mobile text-messaging system for pro-viding service to driving licence seekers in order to cut down cost and hassle.

Applications Hundreds of locally developed mobile applications are currently being used by subscribers. With a host of other digital products in the pipeline, 2015 is expected to see a much better pace in the sector, experts said.

These applications are already mak-

ing lives considerably easier for people, they said.

The government has developed 50 useful mobile applications and launched projects for developing an-other 500 applications which may be released by mid-2015.

GSMA projections According to a study of the Groupe Spe-ciale Mobile Association (GSMA), the apex global body of the GSM-based mo-bile operators, Bangladesh will be one of the global powerhouses in terms of Internet penetration by 2020. By then, 39% of the country’s population will be using Internet, making Bangladesh the 10th largest Internet using country in the world.

At present, out of the 42.5 million Internet users in Bangladesh, 12.5 mil-lion are using 3G connections, local data suggests.

According to the GSMA, by 2020, Bangladesh will have 66.7 million ac-tive Internet users, with only China, In-dia, USA, Brazil, Nigeria, Japan, Russia, Indonesia and Pakistan having more.

Experts said the 120 million current active SIM cards in the country give an immensely strong upper-hand to the sector; the number is already the eight largest in the world. They said the mas-sive usage allows the market players to plan di� erent services models.

In addition to all these, there are more than 10 million Facebook users in Bangladesh. Many di� erent Face-book-based commercial services are already doing good business in the country, which is only likely to expand in the new year. l

Khaleda places seven proposals PAGE 1 COLUMN 5election schedule, and handing over pow-er to an impartial and non-partisan ad-ministration through consensus among all political parties; deploying members of the armed forces with magistracy power soon after announcement of the election schedule; launching special drive before the election campaign to arrest the listed criminals and recover illegal arms, withdrawing controversial and partisan o� cials from the administration and the law enforcement agencies; releasing all political prisoners and withdrawing “false cases” � led against political leaders; and reopening all print and electronic me-dia outlets shut down during the Awami League government, and release of all journalists including Mahmudur Rah-man, acting editor of the daily Amar Desh.

Asked whether she also demands re-lease of the Jamaat-e-Islami leaders con-victed for their involvement in 1971 war crimes, Khaleda replied that those who committed crimes, must be punished.

“But the trial must be held in an impartial manner maintaining inter-national standard.” The BNP chief said they were not political prisoners.

“However, we have noticed that many people are being implicated in false charges,” she said without men-tioning any name.

Asked whether her party would participate in election arranged in line with the current constitution, Khaleda said: “We have clearly stated the next election must be held under a non-par-ty administration.”

She also urged all democratic par-ties, forces and individuals to get unit-ed to wage a national movement to es-

tablish a people’s government.On the ruling party’s stance that the

next national election would not be held before 2019, the BNP chief said the current “illegal government” did not represent people. “Despite that, we gave them one year. Now we want a free, fair and inclusive election as early as possible,” she added.

Reiterating the 20-party alliance’s stance on a free and fair election, Khaleda said the government must hold an inclusive election. “We think the proposals we have placed are very much logical and a solution lies there.”

She replied in the negative when asked whether the international commu-nity including the UN should play a role to resolve the ongoing political stand-o� .

In response to another query on her party’s having organisational strength to wage a tougher movement, Khaleda said her party had proved its strength before the “one-sided election” of January 5.

“BNP is a well-organised party and it is completely ready to take to the streets with tougher action pro-grammes,” she added.

In her written speech, Khaleda re-newed her party’s threat that they would enforce a non-stop action pro-gramme if the government increased prices of power and gas.

On Tarique Rahman’s recent re-marks that Bangabandhu Sheikh Mu-jibur Rahman was a big razakar, she said her elder son had not made the comment in that way.

Khaleda, however, claimed that what Tarique said about Bangabandhu in London was based on facts and doc-uments. l

Year ends with a milestone for women PAGE 1 COLUMN 6phases of training left to do, the two fe-male combat pilots said it was an hon-our to get the opportunity to be a part of yesterday’s � ypast in the presence of the prime minister.

“We feel proud and honoured join-ing the President Parade,” Nayma told the Dhaka Tribune after yesterday’s President Parade of 70 Flight Cadet Course of Air Force. Tamanna also ex-pressed similar feelings.

Both of them � ew Bell-206 helicop-ters as they took part in the � ypast, be-coming the � rst female combat pilots in southeast Asia to � y this model of chopper.

It was also a big day for the 42 � ight cadets who passed out from the Air Academy after two years of gruelling training.

But at the Jessore Air Force Acade-my parade ground yesterday, most of the limelight was on Flight Cadet Nabi-la, Flight Lieutenant Nayma and Flying O� cer Tamanna – pioneers of a new generation of female Air Force person-nel.

Once the parade, � ypast and other formal programmes ended, parents of the newly graduated � ight cadets, dis-tinguished guests and senior Armed Forces o� cials came forward to con-gratulate Nayma and Tamanna on their achievement.

Former foreign minister and ruling party MP Dipu Moni was among those who congratulated them. An enthusi-astic Dipu Moni brought out her smart-phone and seized the opportunity to get a picture taken with the country’s � rst two female combat pilots.

Flight Cadet Nabila, who was the national � ag bearer in the parade, is still undergoing training in the acad-emy, while combat pilots Nayma and Tamanna are posted at Air Force’s Bir

Sreshtho Matiur Rahman Base in Jes-sore.

Mili Rahman, wife of Bir Sreshtho Matiur Rahman, was present at yester-day’s event. Following the programme, she excitedly approached Nayma and Tamanna, saying: “Congratulations, you are our pride.”

When she found out that the two combat pilots were located in the base named after her husband, Mili became emotional. She told Nayma and Taman-na: “I am the wife of [Bir Sreshtho] Ma-tiur Rahman, I am very glad to know that [where the pilots were based]. I pray for you, my best wishes for you.”

Air Force Wing Commander Matiur Rahman died in a plane crash in 1971 while escaping from Pakistan to join the Liberation War. For his bravery, Ma-tiur was awarded the country’s highest gallantry award Bir Sreshtho.

“We never met her [Matiur’s wife Mili] before, so we were exited too,” Tamanna told the Dhaka Tribune.

Interestingly, Nayma and Tamanna both said it was their childhood dream to become a combat pilot one day.

Twenty-four-year old Nayma’s in-spiration was her grandfather Abdul Wahed Khandaker who was in the Roy-al Indian Air Force during the British colonial regime and Tamanna’s inspira-tion was her father Lutfor Rahman who

is a retired group captain of Bangladesh Air Force.

Becoming a combat pilot was a “dream come true achievement” for Nayma and Tamanna; but both of them said they believed that this was also an “achievement for the country and na-tion.”

The two combat pilots said they wanted to further serve the country and were looking forward to contrib-ute in di� erent signi� cant occasions as well as helping people in crises like natural disasters. They also expressed hopes of contributing to UN missions on behalf of Bangladesh.

Flight Lieutenant Nayma was com-missioned in the Air Force in December 2011, while Flying O� cer Tamanna was commissioned in December 2012. Now they want to complete their full train-ing as military pilots.

The Army, Navy and Air Force in-troduced the recruitment of female o� cers during Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s � rst tenure in 2000.

Hasina in her speech to the com-missioned o� cer yesterday said: “I am so happy to know that two female Air Force o� cers by now have been able to � y by their own after completing their training successfully as � rst [female] military pilots.

“I hope, the Air Force will train more female military pilots in future,” said Hasina, adding that the Air Force would continue its contribution for the devel-opment of female o� cers.

Nayma and Tamanna said they be-lieved that all females of the country should come forward to realise their own dreams.

“If there is will, there is win... The dream can come true,” said 23-year-old Tamanna with con� dence; a sentiment that was also shared by her colleague Nayma. l

Bangabandhu 1’s orbital slot PAGE 1 COLUMN 5approval, we will contact I ntersputnik to sign the deal. It could be done as soon as 10 days, I expect,” BTRC Com-missioner ATM Monirul Alam told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday evening.

“Although we are already six months behind our schedule, we are very opti-mistic about � nishing the project with-in the given time – by June 2017,” he added.

Sources said although the BTRC is set to sign the deal soon, Intersputnik is under a deadline, set by the Interna-tional Telecommunication Union (ITU) on September 21, 2018, to bring the or-bital slot in question to use, which also puts Bangladesh government under pressure.

The BTRC commissioner said the slot would be bought for a period of 15 years, which can be extended twice, for the same amount of time and with no additional payment.

The orbital slot leasing proposal, formulated by the Post and Telecom-munication Division, states that Inter-sputnik is willing to hand over the full control of the satellite to Bangladesh, which no other available orbital slots o� ered.

There is a scope to launch three satellites in the slot, making many planned quality services possible in Bangladesh and other countries in the region.

If Bangladesh decides not to launch any other satellites, it can lease out or sell the remaining frequency to other countries.

Bangladesh’s demand for a satellite is currently met by renting bandwidth from di� erent satellite operators, which costs around $14m each year and is increasing progressively.

The country � rst applied for orbit-al slots in 2007, on 102 East longitude,

but the BTRC failed the negotiate a deal with the countries who were already using the slot.

Then telecommunication regula-tor also applied for three other orbital slots: 69 East, 74 East and 133 East lon-gitudes.

On September 16, the Executive Committee of the National Econom-ic Council (Ecnec) approved Tk2,967 crore for the Bangabandhu 1 project. Of that fund, Tk1,652.44 crore came from foreign aid, and the remaining Tk1,315.51 crore will be paid by the gov-ernment.

Out of the total cost, the BTRC has estimated Tk1,312.58 crore to be oper-ational expenditure and Tk1,655.38 for capital expenditure.

The project proposal said the satel-lite would minimise the existing digital divide between the country’s urban and rural areas as it would take broadcast-ing and telecommunication services to the most remote areas of the country, and introduce pro� table and promising services such as direct service to house-holds throughout the country.

When launched, the Bangabandhu 1 satellite will serve the Saarc countries along with Indonesia and the Philip-pines, as well as the “Stan” countries – such as Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan – if the satellite’s frequency is properly coordinated.

The government plans to launch the satellite in the middle of 2017. Before, the plan was to launch it at the end of 2014.

American � rm Space Partnership In-ternational has worked with the BTRC for the past few years on the project as a consultancy � rm.

Currently, India and Pakistan are the only countries in the subcontinent with satellites, and Sri Lanka is working on launching one of its own. l

UN team: Oil spill had ‘limited’ impact on Sundarbans PAGE 1 COLUMN 3of furnace oil – sank in Sela River near Mrigmari area after being hit by a car-go vessel. Around 68,000 litres of the spilled oil was manually collected by the local people, while the rest spread to nearby areas.

On tackling any similar disaster in the future, the UN team suggested the government to pursue special training, buy equipments and gain experience to improve the response to any envi-ronmental emergency and minimise the impacts on local communities and ecosystems.

According to the UN team, the oil spill had spread across 40km up and downstream in the main shoreline which showed varying degrees of pol-lution.

However, a recent study by the En-vironmental Science Department of Khulna University showed that the spilled oil had spread across around 500 square-kilometres of the forest.

The study also found there was very limited presence of di� erent pri-mary food producers like phytoplank-ton and zooplankton in the contami-nated water compared to the regularsituation.

The 6017 sq-km area of the forest is rich with � ora and fauna diversity including 66 species of plants, more than 200 � sh species, 42 mammals, 234 birds, 51 reptiles, 8 amphibians and a wide range of invertebrates species. Around 500,000 people also directly and indirectly depend on the Sundar-bans for their livelihoods. l

Combat pilots Nayma and Tamanna said they believed that all females of the country should come forward to realise their own dreams

3NewsDHAKA TRIBUNE Thursday, January 1, 2015

‘Enact data protection law to secure privacy’ n Tribune Report

Rights activists yesterday urged the government to enact data protection law to secure privacy rights and per-sonal data.

They said it was imperative to enact fresh law to defend privacy rights, as-sured by article 43 of Bangladesh consti-tution. Before making the law, the de� -nition of personal information should be made more speci� c considering the national context and spirit, they said.

Rights activists were speaking in a national convention on “Privacy Rights Protection” at the national press club.

Protecting individual’s personal in-formation has become more crucial than ever before and privacy was es-sential for enabling individuals to ex-press themselves freely, they said. But the existing legal framework does not fully recognize the right to privacy and data protection, they said.

The convention also proposed a draft “Data Protection Law.” l

Ex-army o� cial sued for embezzling Tk59cr n Adil Sakhawat

The Anti-Corruption Commission yes-terday � led a case against a former army o� cial and his three family mem-bers for their alleged involvement in embezzling Tk59 crore from 1,451 in-vestors in the name of a multi-purpose cooperative society.

ACC Deputy Director Jahangir Alam � led the case with Banani police station yesterday. The accused in the case are Maj Gen (retired) Jalal Uddin Ahmed, president of Dhara Multi-purpose Coop-erative Society; Jalal’s wife Aleya Fate-ma, also the vice-president of the co-operative; Jalal’s son Talha Ahmed, its general secretary and Jalal’s daughter Radia Ahmed, its joint secretary.

According to the case statement, Dhara Multi-purpose Cooperative So-ciety Limited – founded by Jalal and his wife – collected about Tk59 crore from 1,451 investors alluring them with

high interest rates. But Jalal allegedly siphoned o� the money to his son and daughter living in the US.

ACC’s Jahangir Alam told the Dhaka Tribune that Jalal retired from the force in 2003, while he and his wife secured permission to run a multi-purpose co-operative from the Cooperatives Depart-ment in 2005. The former military o� -cial’s alleged embezzlement � rst came to light in June 2012 when he started to ignore requests from investors who wanted the pro� ts of their investment.

In April 2013, Jalal provided a bond in the presence of army and intelligence o� cials, promising that he would return all the money deposited by the coopera-tive members by 13 July, 2013. But again he failed to return any money.

Jalal � nally went into hiding in Sep-tember 2013. Dhaka Cantonment Board had taken several measures to pay back the investors money but failed, said ACC Deputy Director Jahangir. l

First day of Jamaat’s hartal relatively calm n Tribune Report

The � rst day of the two-day country-wide dawn-to-dusk shutdown en-forced by Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami went relatively calm yesterday, with some stray incidents of vandalising, torching and picketing.

Jamaat called the hartal in protest of the death sentence given to one of its top leaders ATM Azharul Islam for war crimes.

Members of the Border Guard Ban-gladesh (BGB) were deployed in the capital as well as di� erent parts of the country on Tuesday evening, who pa-trolled di� erent strategic points along with other law enforcement agencies to prevent or contain untoward incidents.

In Jatrabari area, miscreants torched a covered van around 6am. On informa-tion, two units of � re � ghters rushed to the spot and doused the � re. Fire ser-vice o� cer Farhad Uddin said the van was owned by a cement and fertiliser company.

The miscreants � ed the scene im-mediately after setting the van on � re. No injuries were reported in connec-tion with the incident. Jatrabari police station OC Oboni Sankar Kar said no one was arrested in this regard.

Besides, three or four crude bombs went o� at Rayerbagh area in Jatrabari.

In Sheorapara area, pickets blasted

20-25 crude bombs around 11:45am. Sub Inspector Moin of Kafrul police station said they had been trying to arrest the pickets. In addition, crude bombs were blasted in Pallabi and Gendaria areas.

Hartal-related violence outside the capital was reported as well.

In Barisal, activists of Islami Chha-tra Shibir, the student front of Jamaat, assaulted a Special Branch constable when he tried to disperse pro-hartal picketing at Band Road BIP Gate area in the city early yesterday morning.

Joynul Abedin, the constable, said he was attacked when he tried to chase and disperse a group of Shibir pickets trying to block the road by burning tyres. The attackers later � ed the scene, leaving a motorcycle behind.

Barisal Metropolitan Police authori-ties � led a case in this regard yesterday afternoon. Golam Rouf Khan, deputy commissioner (south) at the BMP, said Joynul � led the case as complainant with Kotwali police station.

Although the case has eight to ten unidenti� ed accused, police later found that the motorcycle is owned by a Muhammadullah, said Kotwali OC Shakhawat Hossain.

In another event, pro-hartal  activ-ists brought out processions – for pho-to documentation – at Kawnia, C and B Road, Sagardi and Kashipur areas in Barisal city early morning.

They tried to block the roads by fell-ing trees, but left the spot as soon as law enforcers rushed there. The Kot-wali police OC said the law enforcing agencies kept patrolling the city roads to keep the situation under control.

Also, a school girl was injured yes-terday afternoon after getting hit by pro-hartal pickets on the Barisal-Dhaka highway in Kashipur. The victim, Mou-sumi Akhter, 17, is an SSC examinee from Jagua School in the city.

In Sylhet, police detained � ve pick-ets from Balauara area on the outskirts of Sylhet city yesterday morning.

Akhter Hossain, OC at Jalalabad po-lice station, said police rushed to Ba-lauara after receiving information about picketing on the Sylhet-Sunamganj road and detained the � ve pickets.

In Chapainawabganj, Jamaat-Shi-bir activists brought out a procession at Boro Indira Square in the town and ended at Shanti Square, touching the Nimtola and Baten Kha Square areas on the way. The local Awami League Ac-tivists also brought out an anti-hartal procession around 11am.

In Gazipur, pro-hartal activists torched two passenger buses at Bhogra bypass and Chandona intersection areas in Gazipur. No injuries were reported.

Mobarak Hossain, sub-inspector at Bhogra police camp under Joydeb-pur police station, said the miscreants

torched the VIP-27 bus at Bhogra by-pass area. Later, a unit of Gazipur � re service doused the � re.

In Jessore, no major incidents were reported. The local Awami League, Bangladesh Chhatra League and Jubo League activists brought out anti-har-tal processions in di� erent areas.

In Noakhali, police detained 44 Ja-maat and BNP activists in six upazilas of the district, starting from Tuesday night until this report was � led.

In a separate drive, Begumganj po-lice arrested two persons with one light gun, a round of bullet and two knives from their possession.

Pickets also vandalised a a pick-up van around 6:30am, injuring its driver Md Sohag, 35, in his head. Sohag was later taken to Abdul Malek Ukil Medical College Hospital in Noakhali for treat-ment.

In Gaibandha, the Rapid Action Bat-tallion 13 recovered 25 crude bombs hidden inside two abandoned school bags at Boalia area in Gobindaganj mu-nicipality under Gaibandha district.

Ashraf Ali, in-charge of RAB 13 Gai-bandha camp, said the hartal activists had carried those bags in order to cre-ate violence.

Kamal Hossain, sub-inspector at Go-bindaganj police station, said the RAB o� cials had � led a general diary with the police station in this regard. l

COLLEGES WITH GRADUATE COURSES

National University senate disagrees with government decisionn Munir Momtaj

The government’s decision to bring all National University-a� liated state-run colleges o� ering graduate and post-graduate degrees under public univer-sities will not bring any bene� t, rather it will be harmful for both the NU and public universities, according to NU senate members.

If the decision is implemented, a haphazard situation will be created in the country’s higher education system, they said.

The public universities are not themselves free from session jam. Some 30,000 to 50,000 students of the colleges under NU will be an extra bur-den for them, they added.

Instead spiting the NU, the government should take steps to remove its existing problems, including shortage of teach-ers, infrastructures, libraries, reading rooms, laboratories and other facilities instead of breaking it down, the NU senate members said.

The NU senate members expressed the concerns at a special meeting at its Gazipur campus on December 27.

The NU formed a committee consisting of seven members at the meeting, which will meet the prime minister to express their concerns, said sources in the NU. On August 31, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina directed the education ministry to bring the

government colleges under public universities.

Prof Dr Muhammad Samad, a senate member of the NU, said the social and political impact of the government’s decision would be very bad.

With the existing infrastructures and manpower, the public universities will not be able to a� ord the massive students of the NU a� liated colleges, he said.

Prof Samad, also the vice-chancellor of the University of Information Tech-nology and Sciences (UITS), said the college students who will receive de-grees from public universities may fall victim to discrimination.

Moreover, the NU has recently taken some decisions, including decentrali-sation of its administrations, reduction of session jam, publishing result with-in 80 days, digitization of its activities and strengthening regional o� ces, to improve its academic activities and quality of education, he said.

With 2,154 institutions, including government 275 and private 1879 col-leges, about 21 lakh students and around 60,000 teachers, the NU is the largest university in the country, and a� icted with various problems, session jam.

Against this backdrop, the Univer-sity Grants Commission (UGC) has re-cently formed an eight-member com-mittee to implement the government’s decision.

On December 7, the UGC arranged a view exchange meeting where vice-chancellors of 36 public universi-ties were present with UGC chairman AK Azad Chowdhury in the chair.

Headed by UGC member Prof Mo-hammad Mohabbat Khan, the commit-tee will submit its report making rec-ommendations on how to implement the prime minister’s guideline.

Prof Mohabbat Khan told the Dhaka Tribune that the NU was established to improve the quality of higher educa-tion and to reduce session jam in 1992. But it failed to ful� ll the expectation.

“The prime minister has given a guideline about this issue. We also have observed it,” he said.

To change the existing condition of the NU the government’s decision should be implemented, he said. l

A picket sets a bus on � re in the capital’s Doyaganj area yesterday - the � rst day of the 48-hour strike called by Jamaat protesting the death sentence given to its leader ATM Azharul Islam for his war crimes in 1971 MAHMUD HOSSAIN OPU

Awami League terms Khaleda’s election demand irrationaln Abu Hayat Mahmud

The ruling Awami League has observed that BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia’s demand for arranging early election under a non-partisan caretaker govern-ment system is “irrational and contrary to the constitution.”

Hasan Mahmud, publicity and pub-lication secretary of the Awami League, came up with the reaction at the prime minister’s political o� ce at Dhanmondi when party’s other central leaders were present. The press conference was ar-ranged for stating the party’s reaction over Khaleda’s speech yesterday.

“Khaleda Zia’s claim that the Awami League has broken its promise of holding early election is not true. Her demand is irrational as holding early poll under a caretaker government system is contrary to the constitution of the country.

“The next general election will be held in 2019 as per the constitution.

There is no option for a caretaker gov-ernment or interim government as per the constitution.”

Environment minister during the Awami League’s previous term, Hasan Mahmud claimed that Khaleda’s re-marks on the ruling party and the gov-ernment were “false and exaggerated.”

Labelling BNP’s politics as destructive, he asked Khaleda to change behaviour of her party men. “Khaleda Zia has been trying to unleash violence along with the war criminals’ party Jamaat-e-Islami and militants to attain her political goals.”

He said under the leadership of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, “Ban-gladesh has become a model among

the developing countries for its devel-opment and rising GDP, GNP and per capita income, and e� orts to reducing poverty level.” He alleged that the BNP had resorted to violence ahead of the January 5 election.

About BNP’s Senior Vice-Chairman Tarique Rahman, the Awami League leader said the elder son of Khaleda had commented on Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman like an “illiterate.”

“Khaleda has failed to give her son a proper education,” he added.

Responding to a query on BNP’s pro-grammes for January 5 in the capital, Hasan Mahmud said: “Awami League does not believe in foiling anyone’s democratic activity.”

The Awami League is set to ob-serve January 5 as the “Victory Day of Democracy” while the BNP-led 20-party alliance announced di� erent programmes to mark the day as “De-mocracy Killing Day.” l

With 2,154 institutions, including government 275 and private 1879 colleges, about 21 lakh students and around 60,000 teachers, the NU is the largest university in the country, and a� icted with various problems, session jam

‘The next general election will be held in 2019 as per the constitution’

News4 DHAKA TRIBUNE Thursday, January 1, 2015

Now tribunal seeks full addresses of 50 signatoriesn UNB

The International Crimes Tri-bunal-2 yesterday asked the Prothom Alo to furnish by January 14 next the names and full addresses of the 50 signatories to the statement over its judgment against journalist David Bergman for contempt of court.

The tribunal passed the order after it found absent in the original text of the statement submitted by the Prothom Alo authorities on compliance.

The tribunal on December 28 asked the Prothom Alo editor to submit before it on Wednesday a copy of the full text of the statement signed by 50 citizens over its judg-ment against David Bergman for contempt of court. It asked Prothom Alo editor Motiur Rahman and rights activist Dr Shahdeen Malilk, the � rst sig-natories to the statement, to comply with its order.

The Prothom Alo, a ver-nacular daily, published the statement titled, ‘50 citizens express concern punishing Bergman on December 20.

In its suo moto order, the tribunal had also expressed its resentment on the editori-al published by the New York Times on December 23 criti-cising the judgment against Bergman, a British origin journalist working here in the daily New Age, and asked for overturning Bergman’s sentence and conviction.

On December 2, the tribu-nal after a lengthy hearing convicted David Bergman, also son in-law of noted ju-rist Dr Kamal Hossain, pres-ident of Gono Forum and a former minister, and sen-tenced him a symbolic jail term with � ne. l

PM for making BAF strong, e� ective force by 2021n UNB

Planning to make Bangladesh Air Force more modern and a strategically strong and e� ective force within 2021, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday said new aircraft and helicopters will be in-ducted in the air force very soon.

“Agreement has been completed to induct � ve new MI-171 helicopters, nine basic trainer aircraft, three transport trainer aircraft, two maritime search and rescue helicopters and 16 combat trainer aircraft. These will be included in the air force very soon,” she said.

The prime minister stated this while addressing the Winter President Parade of 70 Flight Cadet Course of Bangla-desh Air Force held at the Jessore BAF Academy Parade Ground.

A total of 42 � ight cadets including 27 � ight cadets from 70 Flight Cadet Course and 15 cadets from 14 SSC and SPSSC were commissioned. Among them, six were female cadets.

Hasina asked the newly commis-sioned o� cers of the Air Force to car-ry out their duties of safeguarding the country’s hard-earned independence imbued with the spirit of patriotism.

Recalling the history of huge sacri-� ce of the millions of lives for the cause of country’s independence, the prime minister urged the new o� cers to re-� ect the motto of keeping air space free through their works and thinking.

Stressing the need for strengthening training activities of the members of the air force, Hasina said Jet Trainer K-8W plane, procured from China, has already begun training activities while construc-tion of the Bangabandhu Complex with ultra-modern facilities at the Air Force Academy has been progressing fast.

The prime minister mentioned her � rm determination to maintain the trend of developing the Air Force and said that her government would build the force as strategically modern, strong, powerful and e� ective one. l

Indictment hearing against Fakhrul, 45 others deferred n Md Sanaul Islam Tipu

A Dhaka court yesterday deferred the indictment hearing against BNP acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir as well as some 45 leaders and

activists of 20-party alliance in a case launched on charge of setting � re to a vehicle near the Prime Ministers O� ce in the capital two years ago.

Metropolitan Magistrate Md Ataul Haque announced deferral and � xed

January 29 for the hearing following a time petition � led by defence coun-sel Md Sanaullah Miah. The defence counsel � led the petition mentioning that most of the accused could not ap-peared before the court due to country-wide hartal called by Jamaat-e Islami.

The accused included BNP standing committee members MK Anwar, Dr Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain, Mirza Abbas, Gayashwar Chandra Roy, Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, Jamaat-e Islami acting Ameer Makbul Ahmed, Bangladesh Jatiya Party (BJP) Chairman Andaleeve Rahman Partho.

According to the case statement, the accused torched a vehicle in front of the PMO during the April 29 hartal in 2012 and that year DB Inspector Md Nurul Amin submitted the charge sheet of the case. l

CEC: Separate voter lists for CHT district council polls not possiblen UNB

Chief Election Commissioner Kazi Rakibuddin Ahmad yesterday said it is not possible to arrange elections to the three Chittagong Hill Tracts district coun-cils after preparing separate voter lists.

“According to the existing law, there’s no scope for preparing separate voter lists. There’s no government directive in this regard as well,” the CEC said, while replying to queries from reporters after visiting the district server station of the Election Commission in the town. l

On the last day of the month and year yesterday, a family with low-income heads towards Old Dhaka with their belongings on a rickshaw van to settle at a new place on rent SYED ZAKIR HOSSAIN

New IGP: Zero tolerance for policemen involved in criminal o� encesn Tribune Report

Any police man, no matter which posi-tion the o� cial belongs to, found doing criminal o� ence will not be spared, said AKM Shahidul Hoque, the newly appointed Inspector General of Police (IGP).

Hailing the police as an institution, he said: “A police o� cial may person-ally compromise his morality. But we will neither own him nor protect him. We will take action as per the existing laws.”

On the � rst day of his work, yester-day, as the new IGP, AKM Shahidul Ho-que expressed his � rm commitment to ensuring the integrity of the force while addressing a media brie� ng at the Po-lice Headquarters Conference room.

“All necessary steps will be taken shortly to remove irregularities from the police force to make it more people

oriented and friendlier,” said IGP Sha-hidul further adding that his priority would be to ensure that the police work for people’s welfare and security.

During the brie� ng, Additional In-spector General of Police (Administra-tion) Mokhlesur Rahman, newly ap-pointed Director General (DG) of Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) Benazir Ahmed, newly appointed Commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) Asa-duzzaman Miah and senior o� cials of the police were present among others.

About taking action against militancy, IGP Shahidul Hoque said the police force would do their level best to combat terrorism, extremism and militancy.

Shahidul Hoque took charge of the police department as the 39th IGP of the country in a major reshu� e on Tuesday. He was serving as the addi-tional IGP (administration) prior to the

promotion. During his elaborate career, Shahid-

ul Hoque served as the DMP commis-sioner and superintendent of police (SP) in various districts including Chit-tagong.

According to a press statement from the police headquarters, IGP Shahidul joined the police department in 1986 as an assistant superintendent after get-ting his masters’ degree in social wel-fare from Dhaka University (DU). He also holds an LLB from DU and an MBA from a private university.

As a recognition of his extraordinary performance, he was awarded with Bangladesh Police Medal and Presi-dential Police Medal. Shahidul also au-thored several books, including “Police and Community with Concept of Com-munity Policing”, “Community Polic-ing Concept, Aims and Objectives”, and “Bangladesh Police Book”. l

ATM AZHARUL'S DEATH SENTENCE

Prosecution tells tribunal: Counsel's speech was contemptuous n Tribune Report

Claiming that a speech of a counsel of war criminal ATM Azharul regarding his conviction was contemptuous, the prosecution yesterday brought the matter under the tribunal's cognizance. The tribunal asked prosecution to � le a petition regarding the matter.

On Tuesday, the International Crimes Tribunal 1 sentenced former al-Badr leader and Jamaat-e-Islami assistant secretary general Azharul to death to for his crimes against humani-ty during the 1971 Liberation War.

The three-member tribunal led by Justice Enayetur Rahim, found Azharul guilty in � ve charges out of six. The Ja-maat leader was given capital punish-ment for three charges that included murder and genocide.

Soon after the verdict, Azharul's

lawyer Tajul Islam claimed that his cli-ent was not given a fair verdict.

“It would have been fair if the evi-dence presented by the prosecution was thrown into the dustbin, rather ordering a death sentence on its basis,” he said.

“Justice would have been served if the prosecution was � ned for coming up with such evidence,” he added.

Tajul said: “...we think that giving death sentences on the basis of those witnesses who identi� ed Azharul Islam from three kilometer away, one and half kilometer and six kilometer away is the eighth wonder.”

At the beginning of yesterdays tribu-nal's trial procedure, prosecutor Ziad Al Malum brought the matter under tribu-nal's cognizance on behalf of the prose-cution. He said: “The way Tajul Islam ex-pressed his reaction after the verdict, was not like a lawyer. His speech and choos-

ing of words were not also like a lawyer.” “He gave the speech intentionally to decry the tribunal,” he said.

Claiming that Tajul Islam is a habit-ual contemnor, Malum said, “To ques-tion the trial procedure and the tribu-nal, the Jamaat-e-Islami is spreading propaganda as part of its ongoing plan. In continuation of the plan, Tajul Islam is also continuing lying.” “We will � le a contempt petition against him tomor-row (today),” said Malum.

Meanwhile, Tajul Islam said: “Misin-terpreting his speech, a part of the pros-ecution is spreading propaganda saying that he gave contemptuous speech.”

“I gave the speech against the weird witness and information which was placed before the court against ATM Ajharul Islam, not against the verdict of tribunal.” “We were respectful to the tri-bunal as we are now and we will be.” l

Committee formed to review pay commission recommendationsn Asif Showkat Kallol

The government has formed a six-mem-ber committee to review the recent Pay and Services Commission recommen-dations, o� cial sources said.

The committee headed by Cabinet Secretary M Musharraf Hossain Bhu-iyan is expected to submit a report within six weeks.

A gazette noti� cation signed by M Mo-sta� zur Rahman, joint secretary of the Cabinet Division, was issued yesterday regarding formation of the committee.

The committee will � nd out how to implement recommendations of the commission. It will also review the re-port of the armed forces salary commit-tee and will make recommendations.

Meanwhile, the armed forces salary committee will submit its report to the � nance minister today.

The Pay and Services Commission has recommended increasing salary of public servants by 100% on an average, full implementation of which would raise the government spending on salary and allowance by 63.7%. l

The accused allegedly torched a vehicle in front of the PMO during the April 29 hartal in 2012

WEATHER

PRAYER TIMES Fajr 5:20am Sunrise 6:40am Zohr 12:01am Asr 3:46pm Magrib 5:22pm Esha 6:42 pm

Source: Accuweather/UNB

D H A K ATODAY TOMORROW

SUN SETS 5:22PM SUN RISES 6:42AM

YESTERDAY’S HIGH AND LOW29.2ºC 10.5ºCSylhet Dinajpur

THURSDAY, JANUARY 1

SourceL IslamicFinder.org

F O R E C A S T F O R T O D A YDhaka 23 18Chittagong 23 21Rajshahi 21 16Rangpur 24 15Khulna 20 18Barisal 21 19Sylhet 25 17Cox’s Bazar 25 22

5NewsDHAKA TRIBUNE Thursday, January 1, 2015

DRY WEATHER

LIKELY

Nobody obeys any rules at the Central Public Libraryn Munir Momtaj

Rashed, a student of philosophy at Dhaka University, was asked by one his teachers to read a rare novel as part of a course.

In the afternoon on December 22, he went to the Central Public Library at Shahbagh in the capital and found the book among the collection. He took it out, sat at a desk and started reading it.

The chair was not occupied but there were several job recruitment guide books on the desk.

A signboard that hangs right outside the entrance to the reading room lists a set of 10 rules that everyone should fol-low while using the library. It is clearly written there that nobody is allowed to bring any book from the outside.

Around half an hour later, a young man came and asked Rashed to leave the chair. His name is Sohel, a former student of the capital’s Jagannath Uni-versity, now making preparations for taking a Bangladesh Civil Service (BCS) recruitment examination.

Sohel claimed that the desk was his for the day because he had come here even before the library opened at 8am, studied till 1pm and went outside for lunch and prayer, leaving his “belong-ings” on the desk.

The list of rules also suggests that nobody can keep a chair or a desk occu-pied and stay outside.

In a few minutes, a crowd gathered around Rashed. They all were like So-hel, gobbling up multiple choice ques-tions from recruitment guide books that they had brought with them to the library.

To this Dhaka Tribune reporter, who was present there, it appeared that there was no room available for anyone

who wanted to study anything else; nearly all the chairs were occupied and there were piles of guidebooks on all the desks.

Having failed to grab a chair, many people, including elderly persons, could be seen sitting on the ground in the alleys between bookshelves.

Rashed kept on refusing to give up the desk and the crowd started growing bigger as more government job seekers joined in; apparently oblivious to the rules of the library, they were more sympathetic towards their fellow.

In the meantime, this reporter also noticed that many people – all study-ing for BCS – were sleeping with their heads down on the desks.

One rule from that list says that nobody is allowed to sleep inside the library. It also asks everyone be nice enough to let others sit there and study.

So, the crowd decided to take the matter to the authorities as Rashed said he would only leave the sit if someone responsible asked him to.

Sohel, who appeared to have no idea that he had by then broken two important rules of using the library, complained about Rashed to Librarian Jillur Rahman, the most senior o� cer present there at that moment.

If the rules were to be followed, Rashed was a clear winner in the dispute; but Jillur Rahman did not want to take the trouble of going against the majority.

So he said: “Everyone has the right to use this library. I think you can easily solve it mutually.”

He also said: “You [the readers] have been coming here with your own books and we have been overlooking that. You can look up on the Internet; librar-ies in no other country in the world allow that. Not even the Scandinavian countries such as Norway, Sweden and Finland who have best library services in the world.”

When asked who told them to over-look the breach of rules, the senior li-brarian could not give any satisfactory answer.

“Many senior citizens have com-plained to us that they had to go back because could not � nd a chair to sit. All were occupied by BCS aspirants. Unfor-tunately, we have not been able to do

anything in this regard,” Jillur said.Seeking anonymity, a sta� of the li-

brary said the authorities cannot take any action against the “seat grabbers” because they are very organised.

“We have stopped bothering them years ago when some of our colleagues were literally beaten by the BCS people when they tried to remind them the rules,” he said.

This reporter found out that the BCS aspirants, many of whom have been breaching rules of the library for years,

have formed a team of volunteers from among them. That team reportedly looks after the “discipline” at the li-brary.

A BCS aspirant named Kanchon is the self-proclaimed president of the volunteers. He is originally from Jes-sore and has a post graduation degree from the Dhaka College. He describes himself as a “senior reader” because he has been reading in the library for the last � ve years – from 8am to 9pm everyday.

“We can enforce the rules any day. But if we do that, there will not be a sin-gle reader here,” Jillur told the crowd and Rashed.

Rashed realised that the authorities were not going to do anything and so he decided to leave the place sensing that his opposition was very organised and sympathetic towards each other.

When contacted, Md Ha� zur Rah-man, director general of the Central Public Library, said: “We take it posi-tively that people are coming to read in

the library. If they did not come here, they could have wasted their time in doing bad things.”

Asked about the current situation, he said: “We have tried several times to change this; but readers do not obey our rules. Some of our colleagues were insulted by students in the past. That is why our stu� do not pretest.”

He also said: “We have a shortage of seats here. We are trying to solve this problems by building a new 13-storey building very soon.” l

Clockwise: Defying the ground rules many sleep with their heads down on the desks inside the Central Public Library. Failing to grab a chair some sit on the ground in between bookshelves to do some reading. Books brought from outside lies on the desks indicating violation of another rule. The photos were taken recently MAHMUD HOSSAIN OPU / MUNIR MOMTAJ

Chittagong people defy Jamaat hartaln CU Correspondent

People from all walks of life in Chit-tagong de� ed the � rst phase of Ja-maat-e-Islami enforced hartal yester-day.

They came out to the streets for their daily works as any other normal days. Public transports, including bus-es, CNG-run auto-rickshaws, were seen plying on the streets.

No incidence of violence was report-ed during hartal hours in the port city yesterday.

However, leaders and activists of Islami Chhatra Shibir, the student of body of Jamaat, brought out sudden processions in di� erent places, includ-ing Kadamtali, Jail Road, and Matiarpul areas, in the city.

On Tuesday, the Islamic party’s Act-ing Ameer Moqbul Ahmad announced the two-day countrywide dawn to

dusk shutdown for yesterday and to-day (Thursday) protesting the death sentence to its top leader ATM Azharul Islam for war crimes.

Yesterday’s hartal began around 6am and will end at 5:30pm.

Activities at government and non-government o� ces found to be normal during the hartal hours.

Additional law enforcers were de-ployed at the key points in the city to avoid any untoward incident, police said.

Some 2,000 additional police per-sonnel were deployed in the di� erent points in the city, said Chittagong Met-ropolitan Commissioner Additional Commissioner (Crime and Operation) Banaj Kumar Majumdar.

Six platoons of Border Guard Bang-ladesh (BGB) personnel were also in high alert with the police force in the city, he city. l

SSC candidate killed by friends n Our Correspondent, Chittagong

A candidate of Secondary School Cer-ti� cate (SSC) examination died after being beaten by his friends due to po-litical enmity.

Alauddin Rakib, 15, hailing from Hingul union of Mirersorai upazila succumbed to injuries on Tuesday while undergoing treatment at the Chittagong Medical College Hospital (CMHC).

Sources said, while returning home from a fair on December 28, Alauddin was beaten up, stabbed and left on the side of Briarhaat rail line by his friends.

Later locals rescued him and rushed him to the upazila health complex. When his situation deteriorated, he was shifted to the CMCH, where he died after struggling for three days.

When contacted Sub-Inspector of Jorarganj police station Alamgir said: “Alauddin, who was a Shibir activist, was killed by BNP activists Mizan, Rana and their associates. He might have been killed because of political ven-detta. We will take proper action after investigation.”

Local Union Parishad member Be-layet Hossain con� rmed the incident and said Alauddin’s family would lodge a case. l

JU 5th convocation on January 31 n JU Correspondent

The 5th convocation of Jahangirnagar University will be held on January 31, according to a press release published yesterday. The release sent from JU Public Rela-tion O� ce said the registration process for the convocation would start from January 1 and will continue till January 15. Detailed information will be on uni-versity’s website – www.juniv.edu. l

Robbers’ gang leader shot dead in Chittagong n CU Correspondent

An alleged robber was shot dead by his rivals at Bashkhali upazila in Chit-tagong yesterday afternoon over a land dispute.

The deceased was identi� ed as Didarul Alam, 30, ringleader of a local dacoits’ gang, said police sources.

Police nabbed eight persons in connection with the killing after con-ducting drives in di� erent parts of the upazila, said Chittagong District’s As-sistant Superintendent of Police (Sat-kania circle) Emran Bhuiyan.

He said Didar had a loggerhead for long with another local Ansar over land ownership of a piece of land.

“The men of Ansar opened � re on Didar in front of his house around 1pm in Khankhanabad area of Banshkhali, leaving him dead on the spot”, said the ASP.

Being informed, police recovered the body and sent it to Chittagong Medical College Hospital (CMCH) Police Outpost for autopsy, said ASP Emran.

Didar was an accused in several cas-es � led with Bashkhali police station where � ling of a case in this connection was being going on. l

Pro-AL teachers win all DUTA postsn DU Correspondent

Awami League backed Blue panel teachers swept the Dhaka University Teachers’ Association (Duta) election yesterday bagging all 15 posts of the ex-ecutive committee.

Its contestant BNP-Jamaat backed White panel won zero posts in the elec-tion. Prof Sha� q Uz Zaman of Econom-ics Department conducted the election and announced the results around 4pm.

Prof Farid Uddin Ahmed and Prof

ASM Maksud Kamal from Blue Pan-el were elected president and general secretary of the committee defeating Prof Akhter Hossain Khan and Prof Md Lutfor Rahman from White Panel re-spectively.

Prof Shibli Rubayat Ul Islam was elected treasurer defeating rival Prof ABM Shahidul Islam while Prof Aftab Ali Sheikh won the post of joint secre-tary defeating Prof Dwilip Kumar Barua.

The post of vice-president was won by Hasibur Rashid who contest-

ed against White Panel’s Prof ABM Obaidul Islam. The elected members of DUTA from Blue Panel are Dr Aktaru-zzaman, Prof Sha� ul Alam Bhuiyan, Prof Shabita Rezwana Rahman, Prof Md Nizamul Haque Bhuiyan, Associate Professor Tazin Aziz Chowdhury, Prof Md Abdus Samad, Prof Ziaur Rahman, Prof Mubina Khandakar, Prof Rahmat Ullaha and Prof Shoumitro Shekhor.

A total of 1,365 teachers out of 1,580 cast their votes from 10am to 2pm at the Dhaka University Teachers’ Club yesterday. l

SOHAN MURDER CASE

Family members reject charge sheet, demand more investigationn Our Correspondent, Sylhet

Family members of murdered college student Sohan Islam yesterday reject-ed the charge sheet � led with a Sylhet court. They demanded that more in-vestigation be done in the murder case.

Sohan’s mother Shahana Begum Shanu, a former ward councilor of the Sylhet City Corporation, placed the de-mand at press conference in the Sylhet Press Club yesterday.

On January 26 last year, Sohan Ahmed, 18, a class XI student of Madan Mohon College was murdered by some miscreants in Lamabazar area in Sylhet city.

Later, Shanu, also the vice president of Mahila Dal Sylhet city unit, � led a murder case with Kotwali police sta-

tion against 16 people.On November 28, Nurul Alam, an in-

spector of the Sylhet Metropolitan De-tective Branch of police, and the inves-

tigation o� cer of the case, submitted the charge sheet to the court against seven people.

In the charge sheet, Md Shakil,24, Jamal alias Tiger Jamal,25, Md Amir,24, Md Ripon,30, Mahbubur Rahman Ali-as Maruf,25, Md Nuruzzaman,21 and Biswajit Das,25, were indicted.

Speaking at the press conference, Shanu alleged that the names of main accused have been dropped from the charge sheet.

Guljar Ahmed, a former ward councilor candidate, was made the main accused in the murder case. The name of Guljar and eight others were dropped from the charge sheet, she said.

The then IO, Nurul Alam, now of-� cer-in-charge (investigation) at Syl-het Airport police station, said: “I had submitted the charge sheet as per the investigation report.” l

Worker dies falling o� rooftop n Our Correspondent, Savar

A construction worker died after fall-ing o� a roof of an under-construction building in Kathgora area of Ashulia yesterday.

The fateful incident took place in the morning to Abdul Quader, 27, son of Sanaullah Miah, a resident of San-tuspur village in Faridganj upazila of Chandpur district.

Witness sources said Quader acci-dentally fell from the seventh � oor of a building owned by “Pikad Bangladesh Company” after losing control over his body while he was working with some workers, leaving him critically injured.

He was rushed to Savar Enam Med-ical College and Hospital where duty doctors declared him dead.

Being informed, police visited the spot and sent the body to Dhaka Medical College Hospital morgue for autopsy. l

'We have stopped bothering them as some of our colleagues were literally beaten by the BCS people' when they tried to remind them the rules'

Stalls all set to start the Dhaka International Trade Fair 2015 at the Sher-E-Bangla Nagar in the capital today SYED ZAKIR HOSSAIN

On January 26 last year, Sohan Ahmed, 18, was murdered by some miscreants in Lamabazar area in Sylhet city

6 NationDHAKA TRIBUNE Thursday, January 1, 2015

Unabated sand lifting puts villagersat risk of erosionn Our Correspondent, Kishoreganj

A section of in� uential people are lift-ing sands illegally from the bank of Meghna River intensifying the threat of river bank erosion in adjacent Mendip-ur and Sadekpur villages under Bhairab upazila of Kishoreganj district.

Around 80 bighas of cropland of Mendipur village have already gone under Meghna due to the unplanned and unabated sand lifting for 13 consec-utive days. Villagers are now passing days amid fear that their homesteads might go under water.

They alleged that a group of work-ers are extracting sands from the river bank for using in the ongoing construc-tion work of a road on the Bhairab- Mendipur route.

Although the assigned construction � rm, Moushumi Enterprise, is required to purchase the sands, they are ille-gally lifting them from the river bank

without taking permission from the authorities concerned. They also car-ry the sands on boats to sell in nearby markets.

An in� uential group was also in-volved with the sand lifting in the name of river dredging, they claimed.

Paying no heed to the repeated plea of the villagers, they were continuing the act with high-powered dredger. The matter was informed to the Bhair-ab Upazila Nirbahi O� cer, however, no step was taken in due time, said a num-ber of a� ected villagers.

Mintu Miya, owner of Mousumi En-terprise, said they had taken permis-sion from the authorities concerned for extracting sands for the road con-struction two kilometres away fromthe villages.

“Erosion will occur naturally, sand lifting has nothing to do with that,” he said.

Sa� Uddin, a resident of Mendipur

village said: “I have lost three bighas of crop land in river bank erosion caused by the callous act.”

Manik Miya, Jahir Miya and Akkas Miya of the village echoed with him.

Requesting anonymity, several other locals said no action was taken against the illegal sand traders as they were associated with the ruling party leaders.

Bahirab upazila chairman Gias Uddin said he was looking into thematter.

Bhairab Upazila Nirbahi O� cer Je-smin Akter said: “We have received complaints and informed the matter to the higher authority after visiting the spot. As far as I know, the sand lifting was stopped now.

Maximum of the area that was ef-fected by erosion are khas lands, how-ever, if anyone claimed ownership of the lands we would help him upon scrutinising proper documents.” l

Eastern railway counting loss due to frequent accidentsn Our Correspondent,

Brahmanbaria

The Bangladesh Railway (east zone) of the country su� ered at least 18 train accidents throughout 2014 in the Brah-manbaria district alone. Most of the accidents happened due to the derail-ment of container trains.

Faulty rail lines and mechanical and engineering glitches have been quoted as the reasons behind the rampant mishaps.

The major rail line of the country also faced losses in the last year as number of passengers reduced due to schedule failures and service disrup-tions caused by rampant accidents.

Akhaura Station Master Motaleb Hos-sain said a total of 430,404 passengers travelled through the eastern railway in 2012-2013 � scal year. But the number came down to 385,231 in 2013-2014.

As a result, the railway incurred a huge loss despite doubling the fare. In 2012-2013 the total income from the ticket sales was more than Tk3 crore. However, the � gure was almost

the same in 2013-2014 despite the in-creased fare.

According to Akhaura rail junction, a container train derailed at the be-ginning of the year on January 31 near Ashuganj. It halted the Dhaka-Chit-tagong and Sylhet trains for about three hours. On February 9, another train de-

railment near Akhaura’s Gangashagor area snapped Dhaka-Sylhet connection for six hours.

Within the next three months, � ve more accidents happened increasing the number to 18 till November.

Station Master of Gangashagor sta-tion Zakir Hossain said: “Most of the

trains that derailed in this area were container trains. The loop of this line is weak. That is why the container trains have been using the main line.”

He further added that Gangashagor was the most accident-prone area since the rain lines there had not been re-paired for a long time.

Though materials for repairing the lines had already been brought in and the railways minister Mujibul Haq in-augurated the project, the main work is yet to begin.

As per the project plan, the 180 kilometre line from Ashuganj to Feni’s Chinki Astana will be replaced costing about Tk299 crore.

Assistant Executive Engineer of Akhaura junction Kazi Musta� zur Rahman said: “There will be no accidents once the project is implemented. Rail lines, bridges, and signalling system will also be improved under the project.”

When asked about the frequent accidents in the Gangshagor area, he blamed the quality of the soil which deteriorates during the monsoon. l

40 houses guttedn Our Correspondent,

Bagerhat

At least 40 shops were gut-ted in a devastating � re at Chitalmari Upazila Bazar in Bagerhat district on Tuesday night.

Sources said the � re broke out at a petrol shop and soon engulfed the nearby shops.

Chitalmari police station O� cer-in-Charge Dilip Ku-mar Sarker said on infor-mation, � re� ghters from Tungipara, Bagerhat and Nazirpur went to the spot and doused the � re after two hours of hectic e� orts.

Three people were in-jured in the � re.

They were admitted to Chitalmari Upazila Hos-pital. The shops owners claimed the loss caused by � re could go up to Tk-10crore.

UNO Didarul Alam said a three member probe committee was formed in this connection. l

Prisoner dies in jail n Our Correspondent,

Kishoreganj

A prisoner died in Kishoreganj Jail yesterday. The deceased was identi-� ed as Ali Akbar, 32, son of Ful Mia of Borokanda village in Nikli upazila of the district. Sa� ul, jail-er of Kishoreganj prison said Ali Akbar was rushed to Kishoreganj 250 bed Modern Sadar Hospital on Tuesday night as he was su� ering from chest pain. He died theret around 2am. Akbar was in jail from 29 August last year, he added. l

Construction worker dies in rooftop collapsen Our Correspondent, Noakhali

A construction worker was killed as rooftop of an under-construction building accidentally fell on him at Chaprashirhat in Companiganj upazila of the district yesterday.

The ill-fated worker is Hedayet Ul-lah, 27, son of Rahmat Ullah, of Boyar-char village in Hatiya upazila.

Quoting locals, Companiganj police station OC Sajidur Rahman Sajid said second � oor of an under-construction building owned by one Md Hanif col-lapsed on him around 3pm at the time of working.

Being informed, � re � ghters from local unit rushed to the spot and res-cued him from debris after one hour of frantic e� orts.

Later, he was declared dead on tak-ing him to local health complex. The body was sent to Noakhali Abdul Malek Ukil Medical College Hospital for au-topsy. l

Robbery at garment factory in Gazipurn Our Correspondent, Savar

A daring robbery was committed at a garment factory in Savar outskirt of Dhaka early yesterday.

According to sources, a gang of armed robbers in number 50-60 en-tered Samia Garments around 4am in Purba Sadar area jumping over the

main gate. They beat up the security guards leaving critically injured while they tried to resist them. Later, they looted 10 tonne garments materials, 70,000 gauges clothes, valuables worth about Tk2crore.

Sheikh Badrul Alam, o� cer-in-charge of Ashulia police station con-� rmed the incident. l

JSC student commits suicide n Our Correspondent, Gazipur

A JSC examinee committed suicide on Tuesday night hanging herself at Kali-akoir upazila in Gazipur district for failing in the examination.

The deceased was identi� ed as Rima Akter,14, daughter of Jahangir Hossain in Purbachandapara village. She was the student Sinbah High School.

The father of the decesaed said Rima sat for the JSC examination from the school this year.

She hanged herself from the ceiling fan after the result published on Tues-day as she could not succeed in the ex-amination, said the father.

Later, she was rushed to local hospi-tal where the doctor on duty declared her dead. l

Fresh text books being packed for delivery to di� erent schools in Jhalakathi for starting the new academic session 2015. The photo was taken from in front of the District Education O� ce, Jhalakathi yesterday DHAKA TRIBUNE

Faulty rail lines and mechanical and engineering glitches have been quoted as the reasons behind the rampant mishaps

7Heritage Thursday, January 1, 2015DHAKA TRIBUNE

n Tim Steel

It was Rudyard Kipling, the great British poet of the imperial era, who so described one of the longest, and most ancient roadways in the world. It is

usually described as terminating in Chittagong, after running all the way across the north of the Indian subcontinent from Kabul, but it seems not inconceivable to suppose that the road, known in Bangladesh as Shah Suja Road, that runs south from Chittagong to, at least, the Naf River,

and may well be the route taken by the Buddha on his reputed journey to Pegu in Myanmar, could logically be regarded as a part of this great, histor-ic, transcontinental highway.

The Grand Trunk Road, as it has been known, at least since the time of the British occupation, is believed to have its origins back in the early years of Chandragupta Maurya, the � rst of the Mauryan emperors of the late fourth century BCE. The initial inhabitants of these lands, however, were traders from earlier times, so it is possible that the ancient track became roadways in the time of the later king-doms and empires.

In fact, there remains some confusion and uncertainty about, especially the borders and identity of, the kingdoms and empires that rose and fell across the north of the subcontinent; a confusion mirrored, even today, across the world, about the nations that still span those lands, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim, India and Pakistan!

The Maghada kingdom, with its capital in Patna, seems to have lasted from about the 13th century BCE until the 4th, but lacked the expanse of the great Nanda empire that succeeded it, rather brie� y, towards the end of the 4th century, and itself succeeded

by the famous Mauryan Empire late in the latter century, and lasting for about 150 years.

Whilst rivers are considered, across the world, to have been “the high-ways of the ancient world,” there is no doubting that land travel was, at times, and in places, also necessary.

The Maghada kingdom’s lands may well be shown to have butted up to today’s borders of Bangladesh, but over 800 years it seems unlikely they would have remained so static, and that ancient kingdom, the most famous ruler of which was King Bimb-

isara, the earliest notable convert of the Buddha, may have held territories deeper into modern Bangladesh.

Equally, the Nanda empire, whilst stretching, during its brief existence, as far as the Indus in the west, is certainly believed to have extended at least to the banks of the Brahmaputra in the east.

The Mauryan Empire, believed to be founded at around 322 BCE by the great Chandragupta, is thought to have extended at least as far south east as the Naf River. Ramkot, the Buddhist foundation in Ramu, in the Cox’s Bazar district, certainly claims foundation by the third Mauryan Emperor, the famous Ashoka, and although there appears no archaeolog-ical evidence to support the claim, it lies within the realms of possibility.

It is unclear as to how we should reconcile the existence of the kingdom of Gangaridai, within the Ganges delta itself, with these other territorial claims for kingdoms and empires based on Patna; but the fact that ancient writers wrote of both suggests, perhaps, as descriptions of Alexander’s advance across north-ern subcontinent in the late years of the brief Nanda empire suggests, the lands of the delta which proved the last obstacle to his advance, and

caused his retreat, may have protected that kingdom in the delta.

What seems certain is that, wheth-er the Maghada rulers developed road-ways between the rivers, or the Nanda connected toward the Indus, the Mauryans so extended their empire, east and west, that roads, for admin-istrative purposes, perhaps military, and certainly trade as well, stretched, by the time of Ashoka, at least from Patna to modern Taxila, and most likely beyond, at both ends.

There is no real evidence that the Nandas, or the Mauryans developed the water craft for exploiting the speed of coastal travel that must have been ideal for their south eastern territories, and may have preferred to travel by land to the far south east.

In fact, we are told, that the GTR was complete with hostelries with stables, and ferries where required, al-though whether that was from earlier times, or a more recent innovation is uncertain.

We are also told that this is one of the great unsung heritage treasures of ancient India, with immense potential appeal to motorists and cyclists as well as other tourists. However, since the publicising of it by Indian tourism promoters, involving entry into Bangladesh to properly explore it, just like the � rst of the iconic Silk Roads, the Southern Silk Road, it remains

neglected and under promoted. It is easy enough to spot the web-

sites of Indian origin, amongst them those who claim it ends in Kolkata. In truth, since that city was founded by the East India Company in the early 18th century, unable to � nd a base any closer to the teeming centre of trade that were the lands, most of which are now in Bangladesh, the road was sub-sequently diverted to take in Calcutta, as it was then known, before continu-ing, through Jessore to Sonargoan and beyond.

Rudyard Kipling, who in his writ-ing, christened the road “A river of life,” in fact, may have been entirely unaware of the true, eastern reach of it. The furthest east he ever travelled in India, having been born in Mum-bai, and subsequently lived there as a young teacher and writer, was impe-rial Simla, so perhaps the great man’s ignorance may be excused. There is, of course, no such excuse today, when only the origins, in both age and reach, seem to be debatable.

His poem, however, may convey the diversity of users in his time, with, who knows, perhaps a little poets licence?

“Look! Brahmins and chumars, bankers and tinkers, barbers and bunnias, pilgrims and potters - all the world going and coming.”

What is not really debatable is that

it was the initiative of the great rulers of the Ganges basin centred empires whose skill and initiative commenced the building of the road, and it may well have reached the whole breadth of Bangladesh over two thousand years ago, a tribute to the imagination and initiative of people who also built one of the world’s earliest, and great-est, crossroads of trade in the delta of three of Asia’s largest and best known rivers.

This crossroads opened, by water and by road, to traders from across the world, the entire north of the sub-continent, with its highly developed skills in manufacturing, and the great treasures of central and the coasts of eastern Asia, including the Chinese

and Tibetan empires. No wonder the empires that followed the time of the Mauryans seem to have been prone to � ourish, at least until the arrival of the Pathans, � eeing, in all likelihood, the Mongol hordes. But, although empires come and go, the Grand Trunk Road remains one of the earliest, and most enduring of feats of communications planning, engineering and mainte-nance in the world. Let’s not even think about the struggle we face, in modern Bangladesh, with maintaining an e� ective roadway for trade and communication between Sonargaon and Chittagong! l

Tim Steel is a communications, marketing and tourism consultant.

A road to empires

Ramkot, the Buddhist foundation in Ramu, claims foundation by emperor Ashoka, and although there appears no archaeological evidence to support the claim, it lies within the realms of possibility

The Mauryan Empire, believed to be founded at around 322 BCE by the great Chandragupta, is thought to have extended at least as far south east as the Naf River

It is usually described as terminating in Chittagong, after running all the way across the north of the Indian subcontinent from Kabul, but it seems not inconceivable to suppose that the road, known in Bangladesh as Shah Suja Road, that runs south from Chittagong to, at least, the Naf River could logically be regarded as a part of this great, historic, transcontinental highway SYED ZAKIR HOSSAIN

The Grand Trunk Road remains one of the earliest, and most enduring of feats of communications planning, engineering and maintenance in the world

Thursday, January 1, 2015DHAKA TRIBUNE World8

IFJ: 118 journalists killed in 2014 n AFP

One hundred and eighteen journalists and media sta� were killed around the world in 2014, with Pakistan and Syria the deadliest countries, the International Federation of Journalists said yesterday.

The IFJ said those killed, 13 more than in 2013, were either targeted for their work or caught in the cross-� re while another 17 died in accidents or natural disasters while on assignment.

It renewed its call to governments to “make the protection of journalists their priority.”

Journalists are “targeted not only to re-strict the free � ow of information, but in-creasingly as leverage to secure huge ran-soms and political concessions through sheer violence,” IFJ president Jim Boumelha said in a statement.

He said some media organisations are now wary of sending reporters to war zones or even using material from freelancers there, warning that war coverage will “be poorer for lack of independent witnesses” unless media safety is improved.

Pakistan was the deadliest country with 14 journalists killed, followed by 12 dead in Syria and nine each in Afghanistan and the Palestinian territories.

Among those killed this year was AFP journalist Sardar Ahmad, 40, who was shot dead in March when Taliban militants stormed a hotel in the Afghan capital Kabul. He died along with his wife and two of his three children.

Eight journalists each were killed in Iraq and Ukraine while six died in Honduras and � ve in Mexico.

IFJ said the public beheadings of jour-nalists, including US freelancers James Fo-ley and Steven Sotlo� , by the Islamic State militant group were a “game changer in the governments’ attitude to media projection.”

The IFJ � gures, which include present-ers and other sta� such as drivers working for the media, are sharply higher than those given by the Committee to Protect Journal-ists which said a week ago that 60 journalists were killed this year.

Another watchdog, Reporters Without Borders, reported on December 16 that 66 reporters had died in 2014. l

First AirAsia bodies arrive as bad weather hampers recoveryn AFP, Surabaya

Soldiers acting as pall bearers yes-terday carried co� ns containing the � rst two bodies from AirAsia Flight QZ8501 into Surabaya airport, from where the ill-fated plane departed, as sombre relatives gave their DNA to help identify loved ones.

The bodies were taken from an air force plane to a military ambu-lance to be transported to a hospital for examination and identi� cation – but many exhausted families were left waiting for news as bad weather hampered search e� orts.

O� cials had hoped to recover most of the bodies but rough con-ditions made it di� cult for helicop-ters to � y over the area in the Java Sea where several corpses and de-bris from the Airbus A320-200 were found a day earlier.

In Indonesia’s second-biggest city Surabaya, where the plane had departed for Singapore ear-ly on Sunday, drained and emo-tional relatives of the 162 people

on board gathered at a crisis cen-tre to hand over documents and medical records.

Among them was Hadi Widjaja, 60, who was preparing a Muslim funeral for his son Andreas and daughter-in-law Enny Wahyuni.

“I am anxious to know if the res-cuers have found their bodies. The president has said that they will do the best they can to � nd them,” Wi-djaja told AFP.

“But if they really cannot � nd them, I will scatter � owers in the sea here as a way to say goodbye.”

Police in Surabaya said they had taken DNA from 30 immediate fam-ily members to assist with the iden-ti� cation of bodies at a local hospi-tal, to which the crisis centre is also being shifted.

Seven bodies have been recov-ered from the sea so far, o� cials said, and all of them were due to reach Surabaya by yesterday night.

Storms delayed the start of op-erations yesterday and helicopters were later forced to return to the

base in Pangkalan Bun, the town with the nearest airstrip to the crash site.

‘We turned back’ “For the safety reasons, we turned back,” helicopter pilot Tatang Onne Setiawan told AFP.

“Besides the evacuation of the bodies, we also planned to search for bigger parts of the plane.”

Boat-based teams called o� the search for bodies as night fell, but ships with sonar equipment were continuing their search for the plane’s fuselage.

AirAsia boss Tony Fernandes denied reports that sonar imag-es had located the aircraft on the seabed.

“There is no sonar, nothing, some visual identi� cation but noth-ing con� rmed,” he told reporters.

He said however that the search team was “feeling more comfort-able. They are beginning to know where it is.”

During Tuesday’s searches, an

air force plane saw a “shadow” on the seabed believed to be the miss-ing plane, where search e� orts have since been concentrated.

Debris found from the aircraft, which crashed into the Java Sea southwest of the island of Borneo during a storm, included an exit door and several suitcases.

“There were snacks, instant por-ridge, and three umbrellas,” com-mander of the Bung Tomo warship, Colonel Yayan, told a local news channel, referring to the 28 items that had been retrieved.

According to search and rescue o� cials AFP spoke with, none of the victims found so far was wear-ing a lifejacket.

The hunt is now on for the plane’s black boxes, which are key to deter-mining the cause of the crash.

“We have concerns to secure the � ight recorders, believed to be with parts of the plane we haven’t found,” said National Search and Rescue Agency chief Bambang So-elistyo. l

Merkel asks Germans not to attend anti-Islamist rallies n AP, Berlin

German Chancellor Ange-la Merkel yesterday warned the country’s citizens not to participate in weekly anti-Is-lam rallies that have attracted growing numbers of support-ers in the eastern German city of Dresden.

Merkel condemned the organ-isers of the protests and said they were driven by prejudices and hatred against foreigners.

The chancellor used unusual-ly direct words in her New Year’s speech yesterday for the rallies organised by a group calling it-self Patriotic Europeans against the Islamisation of the West, or PEGIDA which have been attend-ed by thousands.

When the protesters chant “we are the people,” they actu-ally mean to say “you don’t be-long — because of your religion or your skin color,” Merkel said.

PEGIDA organisers insist they are protesting only against

extremism and not against im-migrants or Islam itself, but the demonstrations have received support from far-right groups, prompting concerns that an-ti-foreigner sentiment might be rising.

Immigration has emerged as a contentious topic lately in Ger-many, partly due to a sharp rise in asylum applications, particu-larly from Syrians.

However, Merkel also referred to this topic and stressed that refugees from wars and crises around the globe are welcome in Germany, saying many of them “literally escaped death.”

“It goes without saying that we will help them and accommo-date people who are looking for refuge,” the chancellor said.

The number of participants at PEGIDA’s weekly demonstra-tions in Dresden, a region that has few immigrants or Muslims, has swelled from a few hundred in October to more than 17,000 in December. l

Navalny says Putin’s regime must be destroyedn Agencies

Russian opposition leader Alexei Na-valny has been detained by police after breaking house arrest to join an oppo-sition rally in Moscow.

“I was detained,” Navalny said on his Twitter account on Tuesday. “But they won’t be able to detain everyone.”

A Russian court gave Navalny a sus-pended sentence for embezzling mon-ey but jailed his brother for three-and-a-half years in a case seen as part of a campaign to sti� e dissent.

Navalny has been under house ar-rest since February under the condi-tions of the ongoing court case.

About 2,000 people rallied near Red Square on the evening after the sen-tencing, responding to Navalny’s call for mass protests to “destroy” Presi-dent Vladimir Putin’s regime.

The gathering near the Kremlin fell far short of the 18,000 who pledged to

attend on social media.Police detained more than 130 dem-

onstrators during the protests accord-ing to OVD-Info, a group which tracks arrests. Many were yelling things like “Freedom!” and “We are the power.”

A Moscow judge on Tuesday found both Navalny and his brother Oleg guilty of embezzlement and sentenced them to three and a half years in what is wide-ly seen as a politically motivated case.

The hearing was abruptly brought forward by two weeks in what many see as a bid to prevent protests because demonstrators would not be able to or-ganise the required permission.

But while Navalny’s sentence was suspended, his younger brother, who is not involved in politics, was ordered to serve the time behind bars in what observers saw as an attempt to muzzle the Kremlin critic ahead of the 2018 presidential election by taking his brother hostage. l

H A P P Y N E W Y E A R

New Year’s Eve � reworks erupt over Sydney’s iconic Harbour Bridge and Opera House during the traditional � reworks show held at midnight AFP

Thursday, January 1, 2015DHAKA TRIBUNE World 9

53 dead in Philippines � ooding and landslidesn AFP, Manila

The death toll from � ooding and land-slides in the Philippines wrought by tropical storm Jangmi rose to 53 yester-day, o� cials said, with some regions saying they were caught o� guard by the deluge.

In Catbalogan town in Samar prov-ince 19 people died in a landslide that left homes and vehicles buried under rocks and mud, local Mayor Stephany Uy-Tan said, adding that the town had been surprised by the landslide.

“We did not expect a deluge. We thought the hill where the landslide hit was tough as rocks,” she told AFP.

“There was no evacuation, people were just advised to prepare for possi-ble landslides,” she said. “We need to check communication systems to � nd out what went wrong.”

Jangmi a� ected 121,737 people, of which 80,186 are in evacuation cen-tres, according to the national disaster monitoring agency, which said that 53 people were killed overall.

The storm’s death toll was nearly triple that of the last major storm to hit the country, Super Typhoon Hagupit, earlier this month.

Hagupit, with winds of 210 kilome-tres (130 miles) per hour, sparked a mas-sive evacuation e� ort as it brought back memories of the strongest storm ever to hit the country, Super Typhoon Haiyan, whose 230-kilometre per hour winds left 7,350 dead or missing in 2013.

In Misamis Oriental province, � oods � attened rice and corn � elds resulting in an estimated 400 million pesos ($9 million) in damages, Governor Yevge-ny Emano told DZMM radio.

“We were caught by surprise, we

didn’t expect that we would be hit by the eye of the storm,” Emano said, although he noted he had received some warnings.

In Leyte – the province worst-hit by Haiyan – the rains brought landslides and � oods that closed o� major roads, Governor Leopoldo Domenico Petilla said on DZMM.

Mina Marasigan, the national disas-ter monitoring agency’s spokeswoman, defended the government’s handling of the storm saying weather warnings were sent out even as Jangmi was still forming over the Paci� c Ocean.

“Maybe people underestimated the situation because it’s a tropical depres-sion, not a super typhoon. They dis-missed it as weak,” she said.

“We need to study what happened in this storm closely and � nd ways for the public to better understand storm warnings,” Marasigan added. l

Border guard killed in exchange of � re in Indian Kashmir n AFP, Srinagar

An Indian border guard was killed and another wounded in an exchange of � re with Pakistan forces yesterday along their border in Kashmir, o� cials said.

Pakistani Rangers opened � re in the Samba sector, 350 kilometres (217 miles) from the region’s main city of Srinagar, and the Indian guards retali-ated, said Border Security Force (BSF) Inspector General D Parikh.

“One soldier was killed and anoth-er critically wounded in the � ring from across the border,” Parikh told AFP. The paramilitary force patrols the internation-ally recognised border in Kashmir, south of the disputed frontier in the region. l

Hong Kong culls 19,000 birds amid avian � u alert n AFP, Hong Kong

Hong Kong culled thousands of chick-ens yesterday after the potentially deadly H7N9 bird � u virus was discov-ered in poultry imported from China, days after a woman was admitted to hospital with the disease.

Authorities found the virus in sam-ples taken from 120 chickens import-ed from the nearby Chinese city of Huizhou and slaughtered nearly 19,000 birds, including 11,800 chickens.

“The rapid testing showed... that this batch of chickens carries the H7N9 virus,” the city’s health minister Ko Wing-man said yesterday.

Televised images showed author-ities beginning the cull yesterday morning, with health o� cials in white hazmat suits dumping chickens into green plastic bins.

The bins were then pumped with carbon dioxide to kill the b irds, a spokeswoman for the city’s agriculture department told AFP. l

South Korean to drop Sony � lm in North by balloonn AP, Seoul

A South Korean activist said yesterday that he will launch balloons carrying DVDs of Sony’s “The Interview” to-ward North Korea to try to break down a personality cult built around dictator Kim Jong Un.

The comedy depicting an assassina-tion attempt on Kim is at the center of tension between North Korea and the US, with Washington blaming Pyong-yang for crippling hacking attacks on Sony Entertainment. Pyongyang de-nies that and has vowed to retaliate.

Activist Park Sang-hak said he will start dropping 100,000 DVDs and USBs with the movie by balloon in North Korea as early as late January. Park, a North Ko-rean defector, said he’s partnering with the US-based non-pro� t Human Rights Foundation, which is � nancing the mak-ing of the DVDs and USB memory sticks of the movie with Korean subtitles.

Park said foundation o� cials plan to visit South Korea around Jan. 20 to hand over the DVDs and USBs, and that he and the o� cials will then try to � oat the � rst batch of the balloons if weath-er conditions allow. l

Greece formally dissolves parliament ahead of electionn Reuters, Athens

Greece formally dissolved parliament yesterday ahead of a general election on Jan. 25 that has cast its internation-al bailout into doubt and set � nancial markets on edge just as the euro zone grapples with renewed signs of weak-ness.

The traditional decree calling new elections was posted on the door to parliament two days after lawmakers rejected Prime Minister Antonis Sama-ras’ candidate for president, automati-cally triggering a return to the polls.

The Jan. 25 vote will mark a show-down between Samaras’ conservative New Democracy party, which imposed unpopular budget cuts under Greece’s bailout deal, and the leftwing Syriza party of Alexis Tsipras, who wants to cancel austerity measures along with a chunk of Greek debt.

Opinion polls show Syriza holding

a lead over New Democracy, although its margin has narrowed to about three percentage points in the run-up to the vote.

However weakness among the small parties that either Syriza or New Democracy would need to form a sta-ble coalition has also added to the uncertainty and raised the possibili-ty that the next government may not survive long.

Tsipras, who says he wants to keep Greece in the euro, has sought to pres-ent a more moderate face to � nancial markets and reassure voters that a Syriza-led government would not raid their bank accounts.

But the potential arrival of a gov-ernment openly opposed to the inter-national bailout keeping Athens from bankruptcy has fueled a nervy mood on � nancial markets, even if the im-pact has been more limited than in past crises. l

Pakistan reviews plan to block terror � nancing n AFP

Pakistan on Tuesday reviewed its strategy to block terror � nancing and disrupt militant communication net-works as part of the implementation of a national counter-terrorism action plan, o� cials said.

“We have isolated terrorists with our unity and will make sure that we remain united against those who killed the innocent children,” Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was quoted as saying in a statement issued by his o� ce after he chaired the high-level meeting.

He was referring to the country’s worst ever terror attack, a massacre carried out by Taliban militants on an army school in Peshawar earlier this month which left 150 people dead, mostly children.

Pakistan has ramped up its anti-ter-ror strategy in the wake of the Decem-ber 16 slaughter.

“Our � ght is with the forces of ha-tred, violence and intolerance... We

cannot betray our martyrs by giving a picture of disunity and shall win this � ght as a nation,” Sharif said.

The prime minister has announced the establishment of military courts for terror-related cases in order to ac-celerate trials, and he has also lifted a six-year moratorium on the death pen-alty, reinstating it for terrorism-related cases.

O� cials said early last week that Pakistan plans to execute around 500 militants in the coming weeks.

Sharif told the meeting – attended by intelligence o� cials, the ministers of defence and � nance and the army chief, among other high-level o� cials – only those cases which relate to ter-rorists responsible for mass murder of innocent civilians, children and sol-diers of law enforcement agencies will be referred to the special courts.

“Special courts are part of the na-tional action plan and an extraordinary solution to an extraordinary problem,” Sharif said. l

Tunisian secular leader Essebsi sworn in as new presidentn Reuters, Tunis

Veteran politician Beji Caid Sebsi was sworn in as Tunisian president yester-day, giving the country a democratical-ly elected leader four years after an up-rising ousted autocrat Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali.

Essebsi, a former o� cial in Ben Ali’s government, won a second-round run o� election this month after presenting himself as an experienced technocrat able to bring Tunisia the stability it needs after the political unrest follow-ing the 2011 revolt.

With successful free elections and a new constitution, Tunisia has been held up as a model for democratic change and compromise between its secular and Islamist factions in a region beset by chaos and violence.

But the return of a former Ben Ali old guard stalwarts like Essebsi has worried opponents.

“I am committed to be president of all Tunisian men and women without exclusion,” the secular Essebsi said at the swearing in ceremony at the par-liament. “There is no future without consensus among all parties and social movements.”

Essebsi, 88, was a former parlia-ment speaker in Ben Ali’s government and before that held minister posts in the government of the country’s � rst post-independence leader who established the one-party system. Ben Ali � ed into exile after the 2011 uprising.

Essebsi won 56% of the vote in the run-o� against 44% for then incum-bent Moncef Marzouki, who had por-trayed the return of Ben Ali o� cials as a blow to the legacy of the 2011 revolt.

The president’s Nidaa Tounes party also holds the most seats in the new parliament. But Nidaa Tounes will be forced to negotiate a coalition govern-ment with smaller parties. It also faces tough rivals in Islamist party Ennahda, who won the � rst election in 2011, and now hold the second largest number of seats in the parliament. l

US resettles � ve Guantanamo prisoners in Kazakhstann Reuters, Washington

Three Yemenis and t wo Tunisians held for more than a decade at the US mili-tary prison at Guantanamo have been � own to Kazakhstan for resettlement, the Pentagon said on Tuesday, the latest in a series of prisoner transfers aimed at closing the facility.

The transfer of the � ve men fol-lowed a recent pledge by President Barack Obama for a stepped-up push to shut the internationally condemned detention center at the US naval base in Cuba where most prisoners have been held without being charged or tried.

The US government has moved 28 prisoners out of Guantanamo this year – the largest number since 2009 – and a senior US o� cial said the quickened pace would continue with further transfers expected in coming weeks.

Kazakhstan’s acceptance of the � ve followed extensive negotiations, the o� cial said. Though the oil-rich cen-tral Asian state is an ally of Russia, it has cultivated areas of economic and diplomatic cooperation with the West.

The men sent to Kazakhstan, a ma-jority-Muslim country, were identi� ed as low-risk detainees cleared long ago for transfer. With their removal from Guantanamo just before the new year, the detainee population has been whit-tled down to 127.

More than half of the remaining Guantanamo detainees are from Ye-men, but Washington is unable to send them home because of the chaotic se-curity situation there.

Obama continues to face obstacles posed by Congress to the goal of emp-tying the prison before he leaves o� ce, not least of which is a ban on transfer of prisoners to the US mainland.

All � ve men were detained on suspicion of links to al Qaeda or al-lied groups, but the US o� cial said investigations had determined they “could be described as low-level, if even that.”

Resettlement efforts gather steamThe Pentagon identi� ed the Yemenis as Asim Thabit Abdullah Al-Khalaqi, Mu-hammad Ali Husayn Khanayna and Sa-bri Muhammad Ibrahim Al Qurashi. The Tunisians were named as Adel Al-Ha-keemy and Abdullah Bin Ali Al-Lufti.

Other countries that have accepted Guantanamo detainees for resettle-ment this year include Uruguay, Geor-gia and Slovakia.

The prison was opened by Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the Unit-ed States to house militant suspects rounded up overseas.

“I’m going to be doing everything I can to close it,” Obama told CNN in an interview broadcast on Dec. 21, renew-ing a pledge he made when he took of-� ce in 2008.

A key thrust of the strategy is the administration’s outreach to a range of countries it hopes will take in more of the roughly 60 prisoners already ap-proved for transfer.

Cli� ord Sloan, Obama’s outgoing State Department envoy on Guanta-namo, led negotiations for the Kazakh deal. It was not immediately known whether the Obama played any per-sonal role.

Among the prisoners sent to Ka-zakhstan, Lufti, 49, was detained in Pakistan and held at Guantanamo for nearly 12 years, according to a database of government documents compiled by the New York Times and National Public Radio.

He was accused of links to Tunisian militants when he lived in Italy in the 1990s, but he denied this. He has heart problems that led authorities to recom-mend his transfer as early as 2004.

One of the Yemenis, Khalaqi, 46, had been implicated by John Walker Lindh, an American captured in late 2001 working with the Taliban, as hav-ing fought with al Qaeda in Afghani-stan, according to the documents. But Khalaqi denied any involvement. l

Residents watch helplessly as � oodwaters submerge their houses after rains spawned by a tropical storm, locally known as Seniang, caused � ooding in Misamis Oriental on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao AFP

A better year aheadAs 2015 begins, people all round the world are taking stock as

they anticipate the year ahead.It is a time to re� ect upon past errors as the nation looks

forward.Bangladesh’s people continued to show tremendous resilience

and fortitude during the year just completed. The economy grew better than most and the nation is still performing relatively well on ful� lling the social indicators set by the Millennium Development Goals.

Farmers continue to deliver bigger harvests and the garment industry is at last acting more collectively to undertake vital safety inspections while reaching out to new markets.

Still, the sense remains that so much more could be achieved if the country was not held back by corruption and poor governance.

With millions of young people joining the workforce each year, the economy needs to grow faster and more productively if we are to reap the bene� ts of the nation’s demographic dividend. Unless we can eliminate corruption and improve infrastructure, the economy risks failing to attain its potential.

If there is some relief that political violence has tailed o� in the last twelve months, this is quali� ed by apprehension that the underlying disputes which trigger disruptive hartals remain unresolved.

Most negatively of all, the country continues to be plagued by preventable crises and incidents. From ferry disasters to tra� c accidents and the calamitous oil spill in the Sunderbans, there are a huge number of lessons to be learned.

We hope individuals and political leaders alike can all learn from mistakes and make the year ahead a better one.

Combat the coldIt is terrible that people continue to die from the cold, when this

can be prevented with warm blankets, clothing, and heating. With cold waves striking the nation, there is every reason to

be wary. The onset of winter brings a rise in respiratory illnesses, pneumonia, and cough, which has often resulted in death. In fact, 80 people died in Syedpur in January 2013 from illnesses resulting from the cold, when temperatures had dropped to a record-breaking 3 degrees Celsius.

Rural areas are often worst hit since inhabitants cannot a� ord warm clothing or heating, let alone carry out their daily duties. Already this year, many have been hospitalised for respiratory problems.

The government as well as several NGOs have already begun holding blanket drives and warm clothing drives. But while these e� orts are admirable, more large-scale e� orts are needed to reach everyone who needs help.

Ensuring that no one dies of exposure in the winter is a worthy goal. The government should make the distribution of warm winter clothing and blankets to the needy a top priority each winter season. The government does an admirable job with food provision to vulnerable groups, but protection from the cold is no less essential.

In fact, from next year on, perhaps the government can plan well in advance, so that those who need the warm blankets and clothing can get them before the � rst cold wave strikes.

Even though no deaths from exposure to cold and respiratory problems have been reported thus far, we can be sure that they will occur. Let us all do everything we can to bring this number down to zero.

Jute genome decoder Maqsudul Alam passes awayDecember 21azA truly sad day for Bangladesh. We need more people like him, not the sorry excuses we are currently left with. Rest in peace, sir, and may you go to heaven. Long live Bangladesh.

mouseaz: Right on. Maqsudul Alam was a great man and I hope to see others follow in his footsteps.

Free Wi-Fi launched in secretariatDecember 21birbanggali“Administrative complexities will be reduced through the expansion of information tech-nology, says Junaid Ahmed Polok.”

Thank you Bangladesh govt. Viva Digital Bangladesh!

Junk IPOs � ood market in 2014December 22ImamOne of the boldest, most factual and clearest capital market coverage articles I’ve ever seen in Bangladesh. The reporter will go miles in � nancial journalism here.

Editorial10 DHAKA TRIBUNE Thursday, January 1, 2015

CALVIN AND HOBBES

PEANUTS

Be heardWrite to Dhaka Tribune

FR Tower, 8/C Panthapath, Sukrabad, Dhaka-1207Email letters.dt@dhakatribune.com

Send us your Op-Ed articles:opinion.dt@dhakatribune.com

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Learn from the past to help Bangladesh attain its potential

Act in advance to ensure blankets and clothing reach the needy

CODE-CRACKER

ACROSS1 Unsightly growth (4)4 Foundation (5)9 Choler (3)11 Protuberance (4)12 Intelligent (5)13 Small secluded valley (4)14 Heavy substance (4)15 Hackneyed (5)19 Separated (5)21 Remaining (4)25 Leave out (4)26 Accustom (5)28 Testament (4)29 Incision (3)30 Metal (5)31 Seeks charity (4)

DOWN1 Sagacious (4)2 Limb (3)3 Respond (5)5 Fisher (6)6 Part of a shoe (4)7 Notion (4)8 Transmits (5)10 Undress (5)16 Disconcert (6)17 Unspoken (5)18 Is excessively hot (5)20 Suspension of � ghting (5)22 Send out (4)23 Line of soldiers (4)24 Wagers (4)27 Floor covering (3)

CROSSWORD

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.

SUDOKU

How to solve: Each number in our CODE-CRACKER grid represents a di� erent letter of the alphabet. For example, today 21 represents U so � ll U every time the � gure 21 appears.You have two letters in the control grid to start you o� . Enter them in the appro-priate 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, � ll in the other squares with the same number in the main grid, and the control grid. Check o� the list of alphabetical letters as you identify them.

CODE-CRACKER

CROSSWORD

SUDOKU

YESTERDAY’S SOLUTIONS

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y ZTowards a culture of accountability

December 21SammyGod bless the editor for his call to arms and con� dence, but he is more sanguine than I if he thinks that one-party dictatorships have any reason to be “accountable” or “responsible.”

There simply isn’t any incentive to be responsive to public complaints since there is no way for the public to in� uence a government that is not formed through actual, competitive elections.

Farhad FaisalA crisis is also an opportunity. The government

will do well to act quickly on the recommendation of the parliamentary committee and remove the highest responsible o� cial concerned in the ministry, namely the minister himself, if he fails to bow out on his own soon. This can signal the much-needed beginning towards restoring the lost culture of political responsibility in o� ce in our country.

It would also help to enhance the image of the government in the eyes of the citizens. For drawing attention to this vital issue of political culture and the opportunity involved, the editorial deserves our thanks.

Bangladesh opposes Chicago street sign for ZiaDecember 20

DispassionateObserverThe government ought to be congratulated for exporting our political � st� ght to distant shores!

SMWait, isn’t this the same government which, almost once a week, complains about the United States involving itself in Bangladesh’s “internal matters?” How typical of a Baksali mindset.

BareeshSo petty. Oh so petty.

AnonFigures the ambassador would parrot the AL line on Zia. So representative of government o� cials, who act more like children on a playground. Why can’t they ever get o� Zia’s back? So pathetic.

Can we put a price on the Sundarbans?December 22

LunaIt’s a good thing that everyone is concerned about the Sundarbans now. Hopefully, the other man-made causes that were destroying our forests will now be noticed and stopped too.

vhs“About 10 million people’s livelihoods depend on the Sundarbans, so it is preposterous to pretend as if this is merely an environmental issue.”

We seem to be a bit suicidal. The Sundarbans were pretty much the last remaining national treasure.

ASvhs: Say goodbye to your little treasure. muhaha-haha

Bakshibazar turns into a battle� eld

December 24

Matiur Rahman You cannot � ght a very well-supported and deep-rooted party, like the BNP, with the use of police,

guns, and terrorists. AL has to come up with a better political agenda to defeat #BNP.

To me, Bakshibazar seems to signal the fall of the AL-led government.

Plan to ‘replace’ rickshaws with commercial motorcycles

December 23

Na� Khan Ew! Who in their right minds would want to sit on

a motorcycle with their crotch against a stranger’s bottom?

Ahsan Sajid More motorised vehicles are exactly what we need

in Dhaka!

Wali Rahman Yes, more consumption of fossil fuel and pollution!!

Mindless.

Muhith: Government committed to women’s empowerment

December 21

RSThe government’s commitment to women’s

empowerment is always commendable.

MausRS: Yes, as long as it is a credible commitment, and not another eyewash. Considering who’s speaking,

however, I have my doubts.

n Mamun Rashid

December 31 is a banking holiday. Though there are no customer transactions, the mainframe

system is busy calculating pro� ts and losses for the entire year.

Some commercial bank manag-ers even take this time to arrange luncheons or exchange greetings by distributing sweets to their larger clients. Most are talking about how the year went, though. I am sure Thursday or Friday’s newspapers will carry a lot of news on this.

Banking in Bangladesh, or more broadly the � nancial sector, has become quite a failed case for the ruling regime. Large loan scams, weak security and collateral, diversion of funds to real estate, capital market, or even overseas, low pro� tability, poor internal control, weak risk manage-ment, continuous interference from the owners, and poor management standards have become synonyms for Bangladeshi banking.

Not even the Ministry of Finance or Bangladesh Bank could do much in this regard. The Finance Ministry

could not make sure they were in command for the government’s under-takings.

Often, interference from the highest o� ce, political intervention in selection of the state-owned bank chairman, director, or even managing director expedited the “nowhere to go” situation for them.

Everyone has witnessed the contin-uous tug of war between the ministry, a few stalwarts in the highest o� ce, some in� uential ministers, or even ruling party biggies and the watch-dog agency. At times, the somewhat achieved independence of the watch-dog agency has been questioned due to too much political pressure.

Some people at the central bank have really worked hard, but they were to approve the day-to-day transactions of business entities, not much could be done to further streamline the policy regime.

Thanks to the central bank’s contin-uous focus and the commitment of its operators, agriculture � nance, mobile commerce, or even school banking have made very good progress.

Our country has seen phenomenal

growth in mobile banking transac-tions. Focus had also been given on e-commerce and the rede� nition of CSR activities in banks.

It was good, more so in view of all nine new banks being given licenses on political considerations, and most of their owners being very eager to expand branch presence to their native places and grant CSR allocation to their near and dear ones. The central bank has reports that too much of CSR funds were being diverted to sports, or for the owners’ domain buildings.

Bangladesh Bank’s e� orts to ensure a shift to quality assets in banks have been put to question with the issuance and exercise of a new loan rescheduling circular, issued in view of protecting the victims of the political meltdown which was seen at the end of 2013.

It could reportedly take care of a few old or perennial defaulters, or large, politically favoured business houses only. There are instances of politically appointed state-owned bank chairmen requesting the chairman of a private commercial bank for undue reschedul-ing of large business house loans.

According to reports, Bangladesh Bank is not too happy with the classi-� ed loan situation in the commercial banks. It is around 11.6% of the coun-try’s total Tk4.94tn banking sector funded assets.

But accountants, and people with above average visibility, tell us if we apply more qualitative judgment, this � gure would easily cross 20% of the banking sector loan.

A lot of money has been � own into companies with weak internal cash � ow generation, poor fundamentals,

weak business plans, or those who can’t withstand competition or face any industry consolidation. Large commodity loans in Chittagong faced the music in view of the global price reduction of commodities or had lost out to competition with better access to lower interest rates or control on easy bank � nancing.

A lot of large private commercial banks got caught up in debacles with management changes or for sticking to a few cronies who are otherwise not good bankers. Finding out good senior banking resources is increasingly becoming a tough job.

On the other side, we have not seen banks spending much in organisation-al development. Most of them were shy in allocating much for building alternate banking solutions, building robust IT infrastructures, or retail banking solutions.

They were not happy with large classi� ed loans, but did very little to avoid their reoccurrance in the future. Higher pro� t targets, less time to analyse the underlying or ultimate risk or recovery, or even the restructuring of distressed assets put the banks in

further risk. Most of the banks’ seniors are not sure what they should be doing more of or doing less of.

Day-to-day witch-hunting is not al-lowing them to dedicate some quality time towards developing new business models, improving risk architecture, or developing core resources.

Going forward, the central bank should be seen allocating more of its time in reforming the existing archaic policy regime, focus more on qual-ity shift in the banking sector, and improving the risk preparedness of the commercial banks in view of BASEL-III commandments.

Commercial banks, take them or leave them, must demonstrate their preparedness against emerging an-ti-money laundering (AML) risks, cap-ital adequacy in view of deteriorating quality of assets, leadership develop-ment, IT governance, and the over-hauling of the entire risk management system – the way we analyse risk, address risk, administer risk, monitor risk, and ensure damage control. l

Mamun Rashid is a business professor and � nancial sector entrepreneur.

n SM Shahrukh

War is the ultimate scourge of the world. Leaders and gen-erals know it, but still they

need it for the power, that is their “� x.” They feel withdrawals, as if, when not enough young men are dying or not enough women are raped or enslaved, there is no need to say anything about the untold misery for all. They go on pushing the button till a man, gone mad, said: “I love the smell of napalm in the morning.” They don’t stop still.

Peace is unbearable for the men all dressed up and with pips glistening and no place to re� ect its “glory.” Re-member George W Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld? And now, we have Assad, al-Baghdadi, Putin, and America’s war industry and more. They love war because it � lls their pockets with blood which they see as gold. When will the world get rid of all these “grey old men” of this world, some are not even that old.

Does a war ever end in peace – people living in harmony, in health, in the safety of a home? Is there ever an end to the miseries of con� icts? Let us hope that atrocities seen in 2014 will not haunt the coming year, and we will take a baby step, at least, towards world peace – a clichéd dream, but dreams are all we have. Let us not have the traumas su� ered by Robert Graves in his World War I nightmare:

“Grey haunted eyes, absent-mind-edly glaringFrom wide, uneven orbits; one brow droopingSomewhat over the eyeBecause of a missile fragment still inhering,Skin-deep, as a foolish record of old-world � ghting.

Crookedly broken nose – low tack-ling caused it;Cheeks, furrowed; coarse grey hair, � ying frenetic;Forehead, wrinkled and high;Jowls, prominent; ears, large; jaw, pugilistic;Teeth, few; lips, full and ruddy; mouth, ascetic.

I pause with razor poised, scowling derisionAt the mirrored man whose beard

needs my attention,And once more ask him whyHe still stands ready, with a boy’s presumption,To court the queen in her high silk pavilion.”

A new day, a new year, 15 years into the millennium already. Time � ies, and lives change – for better or for worse, but time will keep � ying come what may. Every year we get a little older, a new wrinkle appears like a mark of the passing years, a notch on a stick. Do we get wiser? Sometimes, but not necessarily.

Upheavals in life are inevitable, but no such guarantee of peace and serenity, we end up choosing paths with no thoughts of consequence. Life cannot be mapped out, one has to go with the � ow. That � ow is not always taking us where we want to be.

Pain is a part of life, and time does not heal all wounds. But maybe it lessens the heartache somewhat. It would be foolish to try and wipe out memories of painful events, but living life is of paramount importance in spite of them. Seize the moment? Why not? We have only one life to live. Our actions are best driven when we listen to our hearts.

“There comes a time when the world gets quiet, and the only thing left is your own heart. So you’d better learn the sound of it. Otherwise you’ll never understand what it’s saying.” Where will we be standing at the end of the coming new year? Well, only time will tell. Happy new year! l

SM Shahrukh is a freelance contributor.

11Op-Ed Thursday, January 1, 2015DHAKA TRIBUNE

n Osama Bin Noor

What’s your New Year’s resolution? If you’re looking for inspi-ration, here is how the young people at

Volunteer for Bangladesh spent their 2014

Our volunteers have been engaged in numerous volunteering activities throughout the year. These include: Di� erent awareness programs, women empowerment programs, distribut-ing new clothes to street children, calligraphy exhibition, � rst respond-ers training program, programs with cancer-a� ected children. All these programs were initiatives taken and executed by our volunteers.

Volunteerism will be the winner for humanity.

January: Blanket driveLike every other year, the volunteers set out to distribute warmth among the destitute in Jessore, Chandpur, No-rail, Rajshahi, Noakhali (Hatiya), and other districts. A total of 2,000 blan-kets and 700 sweaters were collected from the more fortunate, and person-ally distributed by the volunteers.

February: Spreading careValentine’s Day is celebrated world-wide as an occasion to express love, and our volunteers marked this day by giving � owers and “Thank You” cards to nurses, out of respect for their dedi-cated service in saving lives. The event was carried out in Dhaka, Chittagong, and Sylhet.

March: Great Water ChallengeVolunteer for Bangladesh observes

World Water Day every year at the Karail slum to instill the value of water among the youth. This year, 150 volunteers from 15 districts across the country came to Dhaka and partici-pated in this one of a kind challenge. They cleaned Karail Lake, interacted with slum-dwellers, and helped in preventing waterborne diseases such as malaria. The underlying principle was the importance of water in every-body’s life – from the wealthiest to the poorest.

April: World Health DayVolunteers celebrated World Health Day with 300 underprivileged children in Rajshahi. The children received free medical treatment from renowned physicians and dentists. In addition to the health checkup, they were also given lessons on healthy nutrition and were provided with medicine, saline and food.

May: Mother’s DayOur mothers are our superheroes and as their children, our lives revolve around them. Unfortunately, as we get older we often fail to appreciate and express our love to them. This year on Mother’s Day our volunteers hit the

streets to show appreciation for the best gift in their lives. They went to schools and markets giving out badges for mothers with the words: “Con-gratulations for holding the toughest job in the world.” The mothers were exuberant when their children went up to them and said: “Thank you.”

June: World Environment DayMore than 1,000 volunteers across 12 districts celebrated this day by plant-ing trees and organising a bicycle rally to motivate the youth to be responsi-ble for their environment. Trees were planted by the volunteers themselves with a pledge to respect their own environment.

July: School of survivorsRamadan brings a di� erent atmos-phere. Besides being a religious duty, the Ramadan iftar with friends and family is an a� air we all look forward to. Our volunteers organised an iftar party for acid survivors. They also spent time with them and applauded them for their bravery of survival.

August: The Great Kindness ChallengeEvery coin has two sides, but we often point out criticisms only. The Great Kindness Challenge celebrated unsung heroes by giving them thanks and appreciation. Volunteers across 13 dis-tricts paid respect and gave badges and � owers to police o� cers, � re service and civil defense, journalists, Nobel laureate Mohammad Yunus, and other notable personalities for their devoted service towards this nation.

September: Flood reliefFlooding in Bangladesh is an old story, and every year � ood-a� ected people

lose their belongings and homes. Our Kurigram organisation extended a helping hand to these victims and distributed food among 200 families in Vogdanga Union, Kurigram.

October: Ranga Haate Eid UtshobEid is a joyous celebration, but un-fortunately not every child is born with a blessed life. Like every year, our volunteers shared the happiness of Eid with street kids in 21 districts. The volunteers went out on the streets and applied henna, while giving them small souvenirs such as bangles and caps in an e� ort to bring colour to these destitute children’s lives.

November: Universal Children’s DayCelebrated in 28 districts, 10,000 volunteers created awareness about the importance of a child’s education – their future. Citizens extended helping hands and invested in educating underprivileged children with their contributions.

December: My road my responsibilityRather than sitting back and complaining, our volunteers went out onto the roads with brooms in hand to clean up the streets, because they believed it was their responsibility. While the volunteers swept, they spent time with the professional sweepers, and enjoyed a breakfast with them, where they expressed appreciation for their e� orts in keeping our country clean. This event took place at di� erent locations in Dhaka, as well as in Jessore. l

Osama Bin Noor is Volunteer Resource Coordinator, Dhaka Division, Volunteer for Bangladesh.

Volunteerism 365

Volunteerism will be the winner for humanity

Going forward, the central bank should be allocating more time in reforming the existing archaic policy regime

Every year we get a little older. Do we get wiser? Sometimes, but not necessarily

A mark of the passing years

T H I R D E Y E

Taking stock

BIGSTOCK

BIGSTOCK

12 DHAKA TRIBUNE Thursday, January 1, 2015

Sport1413 Hughes tragedy overshadows eventful year

‘Spoilt brat’ Kohli assumes helm

14 El Shaarawy leads Milan to victory over Real

Did you know?Steve Smith was

dropped more times than anyone else

in Tests in 2014 (8). B McCullum & Mark

Craig were both dropped 7 times

Hockey passes 2014 with distinctionn Raihan Mahmood

Glittering performances in three tournaments – Asian Games Quali� ers, Hockey World League Round 1 and Men’s Junior AHF Cup – enabled hockey to be the most admired sport of 2014. When almost all the other sports disciplines faltered, hockey more or less produced inspiring performances. If only Bangladesh were able to register a better show than their eighth-place � nish in the Asian Games, hockey would have undoubtedly become the most successful sport this year.

Hockey shows glimpses of a bright futureOn March, Bangladesh regained the ti-tle of the Asian Games Quali� ers with a massive 6-1 thrashing over Oman in the � nal at Maulana Bhasani National Hockey Stadium. Bangladesh topped the eight-team event to seal their berth in the Asian Games.

Moving forward, an Indian hockey team dubbed India A, comprising a number of experienced internation-als, arrived in the capital city on Sep-tember. Bangladesh, however, lost the three-match series 3-0.

Coached by Pakistani Naveed Alam,

Bangladesh exhibited a dismal display in the Incheon Asian Games as they su� ered a 7-0 thumping at the hands of former champions and hosts South Korea. Bangladesh also went down against powerhouse Japan (8-0) and Malaysia (5-1). Bangladesh’s solitary victory came against Singapore (2-1). In the 7th-8th place decider Bangla-desh lost 3-2 against Oman at Seonhak Hockey Stadium and the result frus-trated the sports fans of the country a great deal.

However, success did not elude Bangladesh for long. The Red and Greens justi� ed their pre-tournament

favourites tag with a dominant display winning the Hockey World League Round 1 in Dhaka on September.

The home side posted victories over Sri Lanka (3-2) and Hong Kong (3-1) to seal a safe passage through to Round 2, scheduled for January 17-25 in Singapore. This is the second time Bangladesh will be taking part in Round 2, the � rst instance happening last year.

The Bangladesh youngsters wrapped up the year on a winning note in the Men’s Junior AHF Cup in December and the cherry on the cake was the new blue turf provided by the International Hockey Federation (FIH) and the Olympic Council Association.

The Men’s Junior AHF Cup was the � nal on-� eld event this year. The Ban-gladesh youngsters lifted their maiden title trouncing Oman 4-0 in the � nal. In the group stage, Bangladesh over-powered Oman 7-0, crashed a hapless Thailand 10-0, strolled past Chinese Taipei 7-0 and got the better of Sri Lanka by a 7-0 margin.

Bangladesh hockey received a big boost in December when FIH presi-dent Leandro Negre inaugurated the installation process of the new blue turf at the home of hockey. The FIH supremo, who represented Spain in the 1968 Mexico Olympics, came to Dhaka twice this year. On the � rst oc-casion, Negre had arrived on February.

The FIH boss also inaugurated the installation process of a mini-turf at BAF Shaheen School during his sec-ond visit.

Baki presents the country with a Commonwealth Games SilverAbdullah Hel Baki ended the coun-try’s 12-year wait for a Commonwealth

Games medal as the Bangladesh shoot-er attained silver in the 10m air-ri� e event of the 20th Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland on July.

The 24-year old shooter from Gazi-pur quali� ed for the eight-man � nal round after � nishing � fth in quali-� cation with a score of 620 points. In the � nal shoot-o� , Baki managed 202.1 points out of 218, narrowly miss-ing out on the gold. 3.2 points was all that separated Baki from gold-winner Abhinav Singh Bindra of India.

Below-par show in the Asian GamesApart from cricket and football, Ban-gladesh also participated in the disci-plines of archery, kabaddi, shooting, gymnastics, golf, taekwondo, beach volleyball, wushu and weightlifting. US-based gymnast Quazi Syque Cae-sar’s performance left a lot to

be desired and once again proved that Bangladesh is lag-ging far behind in gymnastics. Kabaddi,

which was once c o v e r e d w i t h

glory, is also disappearing slowly from the horizon.

Women’s handball team set new milestoneBangladesh women’s handball team etched new history as they became the � rst women’s side, apart from cricket, to bring laurel for the coun-try. The Bangladesh women clinched the International Handball Federation Trophy in Pakistan and the triumph tasted even more sweeter as they defeated the hosts in the � nal, that too on the month of Victory. Before beating Pakistan 34-22 in the � nal,

Bangladesh defeated Nepal, Afghani-

stan and Yemen to stamp their authority. The success en-abled Bangla-

desh to qualify for the continen-tal phase of the

women’s com-petition. l

Pakistan’s Younis Khan gives a T-shirt of New Zealand cricket captain Kane Williamson to an injured student of the Peshawar school massacre at a military hospital AFP

NZ donate kit, funds to school survivorsn AFP, Peshawar

Senior Pakistani batsman Younis Khan Tuesday delivered players’ kits and a � nancial donation from the New Zea-land cricket team to the child survivors of Pakistan’s worst ever terror attack.

Khan visited the army school in Peshawar where Taliban gunmen slaughtered 150 people on December 16, the vast majority of them children, where he met o� cials and some of the students.

He also visited some of children in-jured in the massacre as they contin-

ued their recovery in a local hospital.“All the players from Pakistan and

New Zealand were shocked and hurt by the incident,” said Khan of the Taliban attack.

Khan said New Zealand captain Kane Williamson and team manager Mike Sandle met him after the fourth one-day international between the two teams in Abu Dhabi to hand over the kits and the � nancial donation.

“Since the amount is a donation I can’t disclose it, but it shows their grief and sentiments towards the schoolchil-dren,” he said.l

GK coach Minar replaces Mong n Shishir Hoque

The development committee of Ban-gladesh Football Federation (BFF) yes-terday terminated the contract of Mong kru Marma, one of the 20 local coaches under the supervision of Asian Football Confederation (AFC), and replaced him with Khandakar Mizanur Rahman Mi-nar. A specialist goalkeeping coach, Mi-nar was one of the two candidates who applied for the job.

The committee also recommended to renew the contracts of the other 19 coaches for the new year starting today.

The evaluation of the 20 coaches will be carried out by BFF technical di-rector Bayezid Alam Zubaer Nipu in ev-

ery four months who will review their performance, coaching license, atten-dance and behaviour.

Badal Roy, chairman of the com-mittee, said they feel the federation needs more coaches. “We need two coaches each for every four categories of BFF football academy which means we need 8-10 coaches there. After dis-cussions and considering the upcom-ing activities of BFF, we think we need more coaches,” said the BFF vice pres-ident. The coaches are funded by the AFC, but since the total amount provid-ed – $5000 – falls a bit short BFF also chips in a little.

The committee wants to appoint a foreign coach for the academy who

will be able to guide both the players and local coaches as it has already been alleged that the local coaches lack in skill.

BFF president Kazi Salahuddin urged the local coaches to produce � ve promising players every year and also announced incentives for achieving the feat, informed Badal.

Meanwhile, Badal also informed of the ongoing investigating behind the “suspicious” role of the coaches during the U-12 Super Mokh Cup in Malaysia and said, “We are serious about this is-sue. The case is still under investigation and we will soon get the full report.” The coaches were reported to favour some players during the tournament.l

Tigers’ young brigade not shying away from challengesn Minhaz Uddin Khan and

Rashad Banna

The whole world stepped into a new year today. And for everyone related with Bangladesh cricket, 2015 promises to be a challenging year.

The third biggest sporting extrava-ganza after the Fifa World Cup and the Olympics and the most attractive crick-et event, the ICC World Cup, is slated for Australia-New Zealand on Febru-ary-March.

Right after the global showpiece competition, the Tigers will barely have any time to rest on their laurels as they will entertain Pakistan, India, South Af-rica and Australia in bilateral series – all scheduled to be held in Bangladesh.

With such a challenging year ahead, the senior members of the Tigers contingent have a tough task in their hands. Simultaneously, the Tigers’ young brigade will also look to chip in with their contributions.

Although 2014 was a disappointing year for the Tigers with the exception of the home series against Zimbabwe, the youngsters performed admirably with as many as six cricketers making their bow in international cricket.

And ahead of so many formidable challenges, three young Tigers, despite their tender ages, are expected to play

their part in three key departments.Right-arm paceman Al Amin Hos-

sain is one of them. The 24-year old cricketer from Jhe-

naidah experienced mixed fortunes in 2014. Even though he bagged � ve wick-ets in as many Tests, 17 wickets in 11 ODIs and 10 wickets in eight Twenty20 Internationals, his con� dence took a pounding as his bowling action was deemed to be illegal by the Internation-al Cricket Council (ICC). One positive though was the completion of his Hon-ors degree from Rajshahi University.

As one of the spearheads of the Ti-gers’ bowling department, Al Amin will have to play a crucial role this year. With his bowling action recently cleared by the ICC and his studies com-pleted, the paceman is now looking forward to an event-� lled 2015.

“I personally think 2014 was a good year for me. I completed my Honors de-gree, performed in the [ICC] World T20 and the tour of the West Indies. So, I am quite a happy man,” Al Amin told Dha-ka Tribune yesterday.

“One advantage I will have is that I will not have to worry about studies anymore. All I will think about is crick-et. The past few months were really tough for me due to the exams. I had to miss the Zimbabwe series. So yes, I am quite relieved having completed my

studies,” he added.The batting department, mean-

while, contains a calming presence in the diminutive Mominul Haque.

The 23-year old cricketer from the coastal town of Cox’s Bazar was the most successful Tigers batsman last year in � ve-day cricket. The little mas-ter topped the run-scorers’ chart with 614 runs in 14 innings.

His form in 50-over cricket was a letdown though, especially by his own high standards. Mominul garnered 334 runs in 12 ODIs at an average of 30.36.

With so many ODIs scheduled for this year, Mominul’s new year’s resolution is to better his average in one-day cricket.

“I want to improve my average in ODIs and also mend the mistakes in my batting technique,” Mominul told Dha-ka Tribune yesterday.

The left-handed batsman will have his work cut out. Bangladesh’s oppo-nents in the upcoming World Cup are England, Australia, Sri Lanka, New Zea-land, Afghanistan and Scotland.

Mominul though said he is not los-ing any sleep thinking about the might of the opposition.

“It’s usual. Things are always tough against big opponents. I do not think big or small opponents are a factor. What matters to me is that all the se-

ries and all the games are important. We have the World Cup up ahead and teams like Australia and South Africa are touring our country. So, I will have to work hard and prepare myself for that,” he added.

The third member of the young brigade is none other than 19-year old leg-spinner Jubair Hossain. The right-arm leggie was one of the six debutants last year.

Following his impressive perfor-mances in Bangladesh A’s home se-ries against their Zimbabwean coun-terparts, the cricketer from Jamalpur was drafted to the national side for the year-end series against Zimbabwe.

Despite his lack of experience in the � rst-class arena, Jubair gave an excellent account of himself in the Zimbabwe se-ries, registering his maiden � ve-wicket haul in the � rst innings of the third Test against the Southern African nation. The country’s � rst specialist leggie, Jubair is expecting more of the same in 2015.

“I had a fair year. 2015 will be tough as there will be big opponents but I will try to hold onto the performance of the Zimba-bwe series. I also want to cement my place in all formats of the game,” Jubair told Dhaka Tribune yesterday. Despite being a novice of three Tests and two ODIs, Jubair is well capable of handling the weight of expectations of a whole nation. l

BGB, Police face o� in � naln Tribune Desk

Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) and Bangladesh Police are poised for an exiting � nal after both teams thrashed their respective semi� nal opponents in the Exim Bank 24th National Men’s Handball Championship at the M Mansur Ali National Handball Stadium yesterday.

BGB thrashed Chapainawabganj 42-15 with Sudhan Barua scoring 13 goals. Later, Police earned a comfortable vic-tory of 31-19 over Bangladesh Ansar in the other semi� nal. Chinu and Mahbub netted eight and six goals respectively for the winners.l

SportDHAKA TRIBUNE 13Thursday, January 1, 2015

Inter’s Podolski interest ‘a joke’: WengerArsenal manager Arsene Wenger on Tuesday described Inter Milan’s report-ed interest in Lukas Podolski as “a joke” and said he wants the out-of-favour Germany international to stay at the club. Podolski has expressed unhap-piness at his lack of playing time this season and Inter coach Roberto Mancini recently told the Italian media that he is monitoring the 29-year-old’s situation. But Wenger dismissed the reports and said he had no intention of allowing his squad to be weakened during the Jan-uary transfer window. “That is a joke. Inter Milan is not serious,” the French-man told his weekly press conference. “It is nothing serious. They talk, there is only talk.” With Olivier Giroud serving a three-game ban and Danny Welbeck having injured his thigh during Sunday’s 2-1 win at West Ham United, Podolski could have more opportunities to play in the weeks ahead. “Podolski is a player of Arsenal Football Club and I want him to stay,” added Wenger, whose side visit Southampton in the Premier League on Thursday. “Apart from that, what it is to be professional is that as long as you are somewhere, you give your best to justify your wages and your love for the club.”

–AFP

Pulis, Sherwood in West Brom frameTony Pulis and Tim Sherwood are in talks with West Bromwich Albion about succeeding sacked manager Alan Irvine, according to reports in the British media on Tuesday. West Brom announced on Monday that they had sacked Irvine after a run of seven de-feats in nine matches that left the club in 16th place in the Premier League table, just a point above the relegation zone. Pulis was named the Premier League’s Manager of the Year for steer-ing Crystal Palace away from relegation last season, but he left the club on the eve of the current campaign after falling out with chairman Steve Parish. Sherwood, out of work since being sacked by Tottenham Hotspur in May, was interviewed by West Brom during the close season, only for the club to appoint Irvine as the successor to Spaniard Pepe Mel. The BBC said that both Sherwood, 45, and 56-year-old Welshman Pulis were in talks with West Brom. West Brom announced Irvine’s departure in a statement that read: “Irvine leaves the club with immediate e� ect and has been placed on garden-ing leave.”

–AFP

Cisse accepts ban for Coleman elbowNewcastle United striker Papiss Cisse will be banned for three matches after accepting a Football Association charge of violent conduct for elbowing Everton’s Seamus Coleman, his club announced on Tuesday. The 29-year-old Senegal international swung his elbow at Coleman during Newcastle’s 3-2 home win in the Premier League on Sunday. Referee Craig Pawson missed the incident but Cisse was charged retrospectively. “Newcastle United striker Papiss Cisse has accepted a charge of violent conduct from the Football Association,” Newcastle said in a statement on their website. “Cisse has accepted the charge and will now serve a three-match suspension, which starts with immediate e� ect.” Cisse, who has scored � ve times in his last six matches, will miss Thursday’s home match against Burnley, Saturday’s FA Cup third-round trip to Leicester City and Chelsea’s visit on January 10. Speaking after Sunday’s match, Ever-ton manager Roberto Martinez said that Cisse should have been sent o� for the incident, which occurred shortly before he cancelled out Arouna Kone’s opening goal for the visitors.

–AFP

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DAY’S WATCH

‘Spoilt brat’ Kohli assumes helmn AFP, New Delhi

Firebrand batsman Virat Kohli is likely to instill a new aggression in the Indian team as he assumes the captaincy of a Test side which badly needs to start packing a punch on its travels.

Dubbed by some opponents as a ‘spoilt brat’, the 26-year-old has been tasked with leading a team that last won a Test series away from home back in 2011 against the West Indies.

Kohli, who is taking over from Ma-hendra Singh Dhoni for the fourth and � nal Test in Sydney, has been one of the few batsman to emerge with credit from the tour in Australia which again saw India su� er a resounding series defeat.

The loss of the Border-Gavaskar tro-phy follows series defeats in England and New Zealand earlier this year for a team that was ranked the best in the

world little more than three years ago.The team’s shortcomings were � rst

exposed in England in the summer of 2011 when they su� ered the � rst of two back-to-back whitewashes. Australia dished out the second hiding.

But while other batsman such as swashbuckling opener Shikhar Dha-wan and the usually solid Cheteshwar Pujara have struggled Down Under in recent weeks, Kohli has scored three centuries -- and got under the Austra-lians’ skin in the process.

“They were calling me a spoilt brat, and I said maybe that’s the way I am,” Kohli told reporters in Melbourne on Sunday after a spat with express bowl-er Mitchell Johnson.

“You guys hate me and I like that. I don’t mind having a chat on the � eld.”

Kohli’s immediate task will be to lift the sagging morale of the team who

have just one more game to salvage a modicum of pride before starting their defence of the ODI World Cup under Dhoni’s stewardship.

For the moment his appointment is as interim skipper but he has long been widely seen as the natural successor of Dhoni who was the most successful Test match skipper in India’s history.

The timing of Dhoni’s announce-ment took many by surprise although the 33-year-old had been tipped by many to stand down once the series was over.

The right-hander Kohli has emerged as India’s leading batsman following the recent retirements of a string of greats including Sachin Tendulkar, Ra-hul Dravid and VVS Laxman. From 32 Tests so far, Kohli has aggregated 2,354 runs at an average of 44.41 with nine hundreds and 10 half-centuries.

He has been the vice-captain and led India in the � rst Test against Australia with Dhoni nursing an injury.

Kohli, who has been romantically linked with raven-haired Bollywood actress Anushka Sharma, is popular with many fans despite his somewhat brash reputation.

Even Indian batting great Sunil Ga-vaskar has been moved to voice his dis-approval of Kohli’s aggressive approach in Australia, saying he was “not sure it was the wisest thing to do”.

But Sourav Ganguly, another former skipper who managed to famously rile the Aussies, is a fan of Kohli’s no-holds barred approach.

“I like his (Kohli’s) passion. You’ve got to have passion,” said Ganguly.

“It should mean something to you, any job you do. I like him, I like what I see.” l

‘Celtic Tiger’ McIlroy emerges dominant in 2014n Reuters, Los Angeles

A year to forget for an injury-plagued Tiger Woods was savoured sweetly by Northern Ireland’s Rory McIlroy after the ‘Celtic Tiger’ won two majors in 2014 to regain his status as the game’s leading player.

McIlroy ended a stellar campaign with four victories and � ve runner-up spots in 23 starts worldwide, embel-lishing his credentials as a genuine gol� ng great in what many regard as a handover of the ‘Tiger’ torch to usher in a new ‘Rory’ era.

While former world number one Woods failed to add to his career major tally of 14 and played just eight tourna-ments during a winless and truncated season, McIlroy proved to be the player

to beat virtually every time he teed o� in competition.

McIlroy dominated golf’s biggest events in the latter half of 2014 after American left-hander Bubba Watson had clinched the Masters for a second time in three years and Germany’s Mar-tin Kaymer had coasted to an eight-shot victory at the U.S. Open.

Swede Henrik Stenson, Australian Adam Scott and Spaniard Sergio Gar-cia each triumphed once as they also produced impressively consistent golf during the year but McIlroy set himself apart from his closest rivals, just as he did in 2012.

Having endured a turbulent 2013 on and o� the course, McIlroy was once again a picture of focus and consis-tency, � nishing no worse than 25th in

17 starts on the 2013-14 PGA Tour and recording three victories among 12 top-10 placings.

He also claimed the European Tour’s money list trophy for the second time in three years and played an in� uential role in Europe’s Ryder Cup victory over the United States in September.

McIlroy never looked back after re-cording his � rst win of the year at the European Tour’s � agship BMW PGA Championship in May, just a few days after breaking up with his tennis-play-ing � ancee Caroline Wozniacki.

“Every time I teed it up, I felt like I had a good chance to win,” McIlroy said of his superb form in 2014, highlight-ed by consecutive major wins at the British Open and PGA Championship sandwiched around a victory at the

WGC-Bridgestone Invitational.“That’s what I feel like I need going

forward, consistency in my game and being up there each and every week,” added the four-times major champion.

McIlroy, who dropped to sixth in the world rankings after struggling with an equipment change and o� -course dis-tractions in 2013, enhanced his stand-ing as golf’s top player and many of his peers expect him to remain there for some time.

“I think we are witnessing at least a � ve-year spell as world number one (for McIlroy),” former U.S. Open champion Graeme McDowell said of his compatri-ot and long-time friend in a column for BBC Sport last month. “I think he is go-ing to dominate in the way Tiger Woods did in the early 2000s.”l

Cabaye � res PSG to victory over Inter Milann AFP, Marrakech

French champions Paris Saint-Germain � nished 2014 with a victory as a second half goal from Yohan Cabaye handed them a narrow 1-0 victory over Serie A side Inter Milan on Tuesday in Morocco.

In a prestige friendly, held in the North African country recently stripped of the right to host the upcom-ing Africa Cup of Nations, PSG coach Laurent Blanc made numerous chang-es at the Grand Stade in front of some 30,000 supporters.

Former Newcastle favourite Cabaye grabbed the only goal of the match on 57 minutes when he converted following

sustained pressure from the capital club. Uruguayan striker Edinson Cavani

was a notable absentee along with Ar-gentinian Ezequiel Lavezzi, while tal-isman Zlatan Ibrahimovic was given a chance to prove his return to � tness and lasted the full 90 minutes.

“It was a good match,” said Swede Ibrahimovic. “We’ve had a super three days here with very intensive training sessions. Winning is good for the con� -dence but the most important thing is to work well to prepare the second part of the season.” Meanwhile, Blanc said he would be awaiting “some explications” from both Cavani and Lavezzi, who missed the training camp in Morocco.l

Adelaide Strikers batsman Jono Dean’s power proved too much for his piece of willow against Hobart Hurricanes during their Big Bash League match in Adelaide yesterday

CRICINFO

Dhoni’s shock exit catches India o� -guardn AFP, New Delhi

India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s sudden decision to quit Test cricket caught the country’s media and former players by surprise Wednesday, even though many felt his time at the top was over.

Dhoni’s retirement from the lon-ger format on Tuesday soon after the drawn third Test in Melbourne had handed Australia the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, was the lead front-page story in most newspapers.

But headlines like ‘Dhoni takes the highway, Mahi (Dhoni’s nickname) way’, ‘Dhoni drops a bomb’ and ‘Dhoni retires Dhoni style’ indicated how the media-wary skipper had managed to fool the usually alert press pack.

“Dhoni’s Test career came to an end in the same way that he has of-ten played his cricket - with a quirky, inscrutable move that seemed to defy logic and left eyebrows raised all around,” wrote the Times of India.

Former captain Sourav Ganguly, who is in Australia as a television com-mentator, also appeared stunned by Dhoni’s retirement before the � nal Test had been played in Sydney.

“I am surprised by the decision in the middle of the series,” Ganguly wrote in the Hindustan Times. “Three Tests are over and it was a question of one more. He could have � nished it o� .

“The decision to give up the cap-taincy was right, though I think the decision not to play Test cricket is an incorrect one.”

The same paper said Dhoni may have created more trouble for the tour-ing team even though he was “past his shelf life as captain”.

“Given his recent poor run, it is clear Dhoni is past his shelf life as captain,” the Hindustan Times wrote. “(But) by

walking out at such a juncture, he has not solved a problem, but seems to have created one.

“Losing a player during the heat of battle can unsettle any team. Here, India have lost their command-er-in-chief.”

Dhoni will continue to lead in lim-ited-overs cricket starting with the de-fence of the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand from February 14.

Former team-mate Rahul Dravid called Dhoni an “inspiration”, saying he was a captain who led “more by ex-ample than by rhetoric or by words”.

“He was a captain I enjoyed playing un-der,” Dravid told the Cricinfo website. “One of the things I liked about MS was that what you saw was what you got. Very uncomplicated, always led by ex-ample.”

Dhoni � nished as India’s most suc-cessful Test captain with 27 wins in 60 matches, but not everyone was con-vinced he was the right man for the job.

Former Test batsman Mohinder Am-arnath, who was sacked as selector in 2012 after demanding that Dhoni be re-moved as Test captain, said the player had taken the right decision.

“It was in the last two years that I felt that Dhoni was simply not doing enough justice to his talent and was not adding enough value to the Test team,” Amarnath wrote in the Times of India.

“Gradually, his captaincy lost all � air and aggression, especially abroad.” l

The decision to give up the captaincy was right, though I think the decision not to play Test cricket is an incorrect one, says Ganguly

‘Dhoni calmly told me, I want to quit’n Cricinfo

Despite the news of MS Dhoni's retire-ment from Test cricket coming out of the blue following the end of the MCG Test, BCCI secretary Sanjay Patel said it wasn't a decision the India captain had made in haste.

"I asked him, 'Is it your � nal deci-sion,' and he told me, 'Please wait a bit as I want to inform the boys about my decision and then you can make an of-� cial announcement.' He duly called up and told me that I have informed the boys and you can go ahead. In the mean-while, I also contacted chairman of se-lectors. Both felt that we should respect Dhoni's decision. I was a bit taken aback by the suddenness of his statement. But we had spoken about it before the Test also. Now what transpired between us is an internal matter but I can tell you that it wasn't a decision taken in haste."l

SportDHAKA TRIBUNE14 Thursday, January 1, 2015

Hughes tragedy overshadows eventful year

n Reuters

Phillip Hughes’s tragic death cast a shadow over an eventful year that saw Ashes rivals Australia and England brawl on the � eld and bond o� it, join-ing India to pull o� a bloodless coup and take charge of the game.

2014 was also the year when the Ashes rivals joined hands with the powerful Indian board in a signi� cant development that e� ectively put the “Big Three” in charge of the game.

On the � eld, Corey Anderson, Misbah-ul Haq and Rohit Sharma all lit up the game with their thundering exploits.

Anderson bludgeoned the West In-dies bowlers to score the fastest ODI century, o� just 36 balls, eclipsing the record of 37 set by a 16-year-old Shahid Afridi in 1996. The swashbuckling left-

hander smote the Windies bowlers all over the Queenstown Events Centre on the very � rst day of 2014.

Pakistan captain Misbah on the other hand equalled the record for the fastest century in Test cricket when he smashed his way to a hundred against Australia in the second Test on October-November in Abu Dhabi. The patient right-hander was anything but on that day.

The talented Rohit meanwhile creat-ed countless headlines when he blast-ed his second double hundred in ODIs. His astronomical 173-ball 264 came against a hapless Sri Lanka in Kolkata on November 13.

Everything was overshadowed though by the passing away of Hughes. Hughes died at a Sydney hospital on Nov. 27, two days after being hit on the head by a bouncer three days before his 26th birthday.

The tragedy triggered an avalanche of tributes while questions were raised about the safety standards in the game.

Hughes scored 1500-odd runs in 26 tests but will be remembered more for the impression he left on team mates and opponents.

“I don’t know about you, but I keep looking for him,” distraught Australia captain Michael Clarke, a near-con-stant presence at Hughes’s bedside, said at the funeral.

“I know it is crazy but I expect any minute to take a call from him or to see his face pop around the corner. Is this what we call the spirit? If so, then his spirit is still with me. And I hope it nev-er leaves,” he added.

Hughes’s death came in the year that compatriot Mitchell Johnson and South Africa speedster Dale Steyn were hailed for reviving the art of intimidat-

ing fast bowling.Left-arm paceman Johnson, re-

called after more than a year in the Test wilderness, took 37 England wickets in Australia’s 5-0 Ashes whitewash, instilling fear in the minds of the bats-men with his raw pace.

The tourists’ campaign down under looked doomed from the start and they continue to reel in the aftermath of an Ashes debacle that ended the England careers of coach Andy Flower and � am-boyant batsman Kevin Pietersen.

The trouble started when top order batsman Jonathan Trott � ew home with a stress-related illness after the � rst Test in Brisbane and was com-pounded when o� -spinner Graeme Swann announced his shock retire-ment after their third straight defeat.

The English board o� ered little ex-planation as it cast aside Pietersen be-

yond a need to rebuild “team ethics” and the South Africa-born player went on to chronicle embarrassing details of dressing room controversies in his au-tobiography.

The International Cricket Council (ICC) passed key reforms that promise the trio a greater share of the revenue pie, while projecting higher earnings for other boards as well.

India’s Narayanaswami Srinivasan took over as ICC chairman in June even before he was cleared by a committee probing corruption in the Indian Pre-mier League (IPL) in which his son-in-law was implicated for illegal betting.

The cash-strapped West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) voted in favour of the ICC reforms hoping to revive its fortune but now stare at � nancial trou-ble instead, having incurred the wrath of the Indian cricket board, which is the

world’s richest.Enraged by the pull-put of the West

Indies team midway through a series over an internal pay dispute, the Indi-an cricket board has severed cricket-ing ties with the Caribbean board and made a $42 million damages claim.

The governing ICC also showed ur-gency in dealing with the menace of chucking, leading to bans on a number of bowlers, including Pakistan o� -spin-ner Saeed Ajmal, for illegal action.

Elsewhere, Sri Lanka gave their out-going stalwarts Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene a perfect farewell by winning the Twenty20 World Cup in Dhaka, beating India in the � nal.

New Zealand’s Corey Anderson took 36 balls to score the fastest century in ODIs while India’s Rohit Sharma blast-ed a 173-ball 264 to register the highest ODI score by a batsman. l

AC Milan captain Riccardo Montolivo (L) celebrates with his teammates as he raises the Dubai Challenge Cup trophy after beating Real Madrid 4-2 in a friendly match at the Sevens Stadium in Dubai on Tuesday AFP

Bale not for sale at any price, says Perezn Reuters, Madrid

Real Madrid have made it clear to Man-chester United and other possible suit-ors for his signature that Gareth Bale is not for sale at any price.

Real president Florentino Perez told Spanish newspaper Marca that Welsh-man Bale, who signed for the European champions for a world record 100 mil-lion euros ($121.6 million) last year, was key to the club’s present and future.

“Just as I can’t imagine Real Madrid without Cristiano (Ronaldo), I can’t imagine Real Madrid without Bale ei-ther,” Perez said.

Bale has been linked with a move to Premier League giants United, who have been undertaking very expensive rebuilding under manager Louis van Gaal.

“We have not received an o� er from Manchester or any other club for Ga-reth Bale,” Perez said.

“We haven’t received any o� ers for one simple reason: every club knows that Gareth Bale will never leave Real Madrid and that the club will not dis-cuss their star, no matter how much is o� ered.”l

El Shaarawy leads Milan to victory over Real Madridn AFP, Dubai

Serie A giants AC Milan ‘ended’ Real Madrid’s 22 match winning streak on Tuesday as striker Stephan El Shaarawy scored twice in a 4-2 friendly win in Dubai.

Real coach Carlo Ancelotti left star players Gareth Bale, Karim Benzema and James Rodriguez out of his starting line-up but Cristiano Ronaldo began the match and scored a � rst half goal in vain.

The European champions had won 22 matches in all competitions com-ing into the clash although Tuesday’s match was classi� ed as a friendly and not an o� cial � xture.

Real, won the World Club Cup on Sunday with a 2-0 win over Argentine club San Lorenzo, but El Shaarawy did the damage for the Italians with goals either side of half-time while French-man Jeremy Menez and Giampaolo Pazzini were also on target. l

Relegation dread heralds New Yearn AFP, London

The chill winds of relegation anxiety have blown across the Premier League ahead of Thursday’s New Year’s Day programme, with a burst of managerial comings and goings ushering in 2015.

A week ago, all 20 managers who had started the season were still in place, but two clubs approach the new year without a manager, while New-castle United are poised to lose Alan Pardew.

Crystal Palace were the � rst club to press the panic button, � ring Neil War-nock the day after a Boxing Day defeat at home to Southampton that saw the south London club slip into the relega-tion zone.

Pardew is in line to return to Palace, where he spent four years as a player, after being given permission to speak to his former club by Newcastle.

Palace visit Aston Villa on Thursday and Keith Millen, who has been placed in charge on a caretaker basis, has called on the club to appoint a succes-sor to Warnock swiftly.

West Brom, who have reportedly opened talks with Tony Pulis and Tim Sherwood, travel to West Ham United on Thursday.

While Palace and West Brom are

desperate for points, Newcastle are in a position of relative prosperity, having climbed to 10th place in the table after Sunday’s 3-2 win over Everton.

Bottom club Leicester City kickstart-ed their � ght to beat the drop by win-ning 1-0 at Hull City on Sunday, which left them three points from safety.

Leicester visit improving Liverpool

on Thursday, while Hull, who are above third-bottom Palace on goal di� erence alone, host out-of-form Everton.

City’s slip-up against Burnley meant that Chelsea preserved their three-point lead at the summit despite being held to a 1-1 draw at Southampton on Sunday.

But Jose Mourinho’s side face a tax-

ing trip to a Tottenham Hotspur team who have moved to within two points of the Champions League places after a � ve-game unbeaten run.

“I think it’s going to be tough. We knew it was not over,” said Chelsea striker Didier Drogba of the title race.

“A few years ago, I think we were 11 or 12 points in front of Man United and then they won the league. So eight points or nine points - I don’t know how many points we had on top of Man City - I think it is not enough.

“At that time of the season, it was too early, but I think now we start again a new championship. I think the game is on.”

City will also be seeking to return to winning ways when they host Sun-derland, while third-place Manchester United, who drew 0-0 at Spurs on Sun-day, raise the curtain on 2015 with a match at Stoke City.

Perhaps the most intriguing contest of the weekend takes place at St Mary’s, where fourth-place Southampton host � fth-place Arsenal with a berth in the top four at stake.

Arsenal gained ground on the teams above them with a 2-1 win at West Ham at the weekend, but Southampton, who they trail on goal di� erence, have now gone three games unbeaten fol-lowing a run of poor results. l

Spain forward Fernando Torres trains at Atletico Madrid’s sports ground in Majadahonda on Tuesday REUTERS

EPL FIXTURES Aston Villa v Crystal Palace Hull City v Everton Liverpool v Leicester City Man City v Sunderland Newcastle v Burnley QPR v Swansea City Southampton v Arsenal Stoke City v Man United Tottenham v Chelsea West Ham v West Brom

Court deals transfer ban blow to Barcelona n AFP, Lausanne

The main international sport appeal court on Tuesday backed a one year transfer ban against Barcelona in a ma-jor blow to the Spanish football giants.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) “dismissed” a Barcelona appeal against the FIFA ban imposed in April for breaching rules on signing players aged under 18. Barcelona cannot buy players during the transfer window that opens on January 1 and for the summer transfer period before the 2015-16 season. They can only open the cheque book again in January 2016.

“FIFA considers that CAS has shown clear and strong support for FIFA’s ef-forts to protect underage players,” the world ruling body said in a statement.

Barcelona however said they would consider a new appeal to a Swiss feder-al court. CAS and FIFA are both based in Switzerland.

Barcelona were also � ned 450,000 Swiss francs ($455,000, 375,000 euros). The Spanish federation was also repri-manded by FIFA and � ned.

“The panel found in particular that FC Barcelona had breached the rules

regarding the protection of minors and the registration of minors attending football academies,” said the statement.

Barcelona said they “totally disagree” with the sanction which they called “disproportionate” and “excessive”.

The club acknowledged making “errors” but said these were caused by “con� ict between FIFA regulations and Spanish legislation.”

Barcelona president Josep Maria Bar-tomeu called for a change in the FIFA rules as the club con� rmed they would study the full CAS ruling and could make an appeal to a Swiss federal court.

“FIFA and its president should rep-resent an organisation that protects the world of football and with these deci-sions they are moving away from their goal,” Bartomeu told Barca TV.

“The priority has been given to a poor-ly written rule, going beyond the spirit that inspired this rule,” he complained.

“I hope FIFA will have the good sense to rewrite this rule.”

Barcelona made a � rst appeal to FIFA and the sanction was suspended enabling them to make major signings such as Luis Suarez from Liverpool for 95 million euros. l

Misbah equals Sir Viv

Hughes tragedy

Anderson � res fastest ODI 100

Rohit’s 264 in Kolkata

DHAKA TRIBUNE Entertainment Thursday, January 1, 2015 15

CELEBRITY PLANS FOR 2015n Shadma Malik

With the new year comes a fresh start. Just like regular people, celebrities have their own plans for 2015 as well, ranging from travelling to learning a new skill. Some of the country’s ce-lebrities shared their plans with the Dhaka Tribune.

“Last year, Bar-sha and I were blessed with a son, Areez. We hope for a healthy life for our baby. Besides giv-ing time to my

family, I would like to progress with my � lm “Shoinik.” It is a � lm based on the army’s success and struggle and their use of advanced technology in the development of our country. The cast will be real army force members. I will play an army person as well. It is going to be my mega project in 2015.”

Ananta Jalil, actor

“I always think about my work. But in 2015, my plan is to take my 80-year-old fa-ther to a tour of Bangladesh. My father Syed

Fazlul Karim and I would like to meet our relatives in Bagerhat, Khulna and Lalmonirhat. We would like to see those who are old now. You never know when we can meet them next.”

Afsana Mimi, actor and director

“I am enrolled at Jahangir-nagar Univer-sity. In 2015, my � rst goal is to submit my PhD thesis pa-per in June. So, I am working

hard on that. I will continue to work in challenging roles as well. I will also take some time o� to go to a vacation with my family. As far as my personal life is concerned, my parents are look-ing for an eligible bachelor for me, so you never know!”

Sumaiya Shimu, actor

“I have done many acting jobs in 2014. It was a lucky year for me, as I received much acknowledge-ment and suc-

cess. But there are also a few things that I could not � nish, which I would like to do in 2015. For one, I want to complete my Barrister degree this

year. I was an active member in the political community of Chittagong University. So in 2015, I wish to be more active for the development of our country.”

Urmila Srabonti Kar, actor

“2015 for me would be mostly about travelling and photography. It will also be a year of clean and healthy life. I am work-

ing hard on my � tness and do not want to do too many roles, until I am happy with the way I look and feel.”

Iresh Zaker, actor

“I do not be-lieve in plans. Whatever I do in present, if the outcome is good, I believe a better future will be coming

my way. If my intentions are true, I can make a better future for myself and my family. I believe in luck and God.”

Apurbo, actor

“It is di� cult to take time o� from work, and in the middle of 2015, I have my exams for fashion de-signing. In the

coming year, my plan is to visit some exotic places like Australia, the Mal-dives and Egypt.”

Mehjabin, actor

“In 2015, I would like to have some time to my-self, travelling alone or maybe with friends. I will also work on my � tness.

Music inspires me a lot, so I will try to listen to music more often. Perhaps this year will bring a big change for me. I hope for the best.”

Emon, actor

“I am going to compete Miss Earth 2015 on April in Ja-maica for one week. How-ever, on New Year day I just kept myself

completely free for my kids. I am also planning for another visit to Bangla-desh soon in this year.

Maksuda Prioty, Miss Ireland 2014

Sanjida PreetiThe marriage ceremony of TV actress Sanjida Preeti and Jibran Tanveer was held on February 19.

BinduPopular TV actress Afsana Ara Bindu tied the knot with businessman Asif Salahuddin Malik on October 24 in a small-scale private ceremony.

Hridoy KhanSinger Hridoy Khan and TV actress Sujana got married in a family gath-ering at Sujana’s house on August 1.

Peya Jannatul Ferdous Peya, the Miss Bangladesh 2007, tied the knot with Faruq Hasan on June 16.

RuheeDilruba Yasmin Ruhee tied the knot with Monsur Ali, the director of ‘71-er Shongram,’ on September 5

Nirob Model and actor Sakhawat Hos-sain Nirob recently married Tas-� a Taher Chowdhury Riddhi onDecember 26.

Celebrity tied their knot in 2014The year 2014 was a special one for showbiz, since some of the most popular names tied the knot. There were sizzling chimes ringing indeed. Here are some celebrities who just sprang a surprise on us and got married.

THE BEST MOVIES RELEASED IN 2014n Mosabber Rahman

In 2014 I have watched 64 movies (50 excluding repeated viewings) at the multiplexes costing a total of Tk17000, that is, roughly Tk1400 per month. What scares me is the oppor-tunity cost. 64 movies sum up to over 127 hours of viewing. I have spent the same amount of time sitting in a chair and staring at a wall that James Franco did under that rock-of-redemption in “127 Hours”.

What have I done? I could have spent the time with my family or searched for a vaccine for Ebola, but no, I just sat there. Life is really all about chairs; the chair on which we spend most of the time de� nes who we are. We are the chair at home, the chair at work, or, in my case, the chair at the movie theatre.

Before proceeding with the list, a word about our two multiplexes: ten-year-old Star Cineplex (4 screens) and one-year-old Blockbuster Cinemas (7 screens).

I watched most of the � lms – 50 to be precise – at the Star Cineplex be-

cause it releases twice as many � lms, the tickets are cheaper and it is lo-cated near my house. 9 out of the 10 highest grossing � lms of 2014 were released by this cineplex. However, it is hard to ignore Blockbuster Cinemas as it released some of the best � lms: “Gravity” (January 1) and “Hobbit 3” (December 28). Moreover, it was the Blockbuster Cinemas that brought us “Interstellar”, which I watched four-times.

This favourite-list is based on 2014 � lms, from the worldwide Hollywood monopoly, released in Dhaka. Here’s the countdown:

10. Hundred-Foot JourneyThis � lm about the art of cook-ing is an inspiring coming of age � lm seasoned with ro-mance and topped with humour. A.R. Rahman’s music makes it delicious.

9. How to Train Your Dragon 2Dreamworks’ ex-cellent animation tells us that wars are mainly failures in diplomacy but

we still should not give up even cute little dragons can � ght when needed.

8. Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1As the rebels rise against the auto-cratic President Snow, our hero-ine Katniss gets caught in a new propaganda; this

time the strings are being pulled by the leader of the people, President Alma Coin. Like “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” this one is a worthy sequel.

7. John WickYou cannot kill John Wick’s dog and get away with it! This one is worth a hundred

action � lms. It is the coolest � lm since “Drive”.

6. X-Men: Days of Future PastMarvel Studios’ � lms have so much electricity in them that you just cannot resist it. “Guardians of the Galaxy” and

“Captain America: Winter Soldier” were very good too. But do you all re-member who did what to whom?

5. Gone GirlThis boy-kills-girls murder mystery has so many hair-pin turns that I could not make up my mind on whose side I

should be. It might look very simple but make no mistake, it is the work of a master director.

4. Hobbit: Battle of the Five ArmiesSay whatever you want but I love the

� lms as much as I love the books. “Hobbit” is a magni� cent achievement in movie magic and it would be loved

forever as a classic. A must watch!

3. FuryAn excellent � lm on the brutality of war. It does not matter which side you are on, the Nazis or the Allies, war will make you

cruel. This is the only � lm that felt like worthy of the Oscars.

2. Edge of TomorrowThis is a near per-fect apocalyptic science � ction about a guy who gets stuck in a sin-gle day, reliving it over and over

again, like a video game, and that day

happens to be the D-Day.

1. InterstellarThis space opera is a perfect marriage of Christopher Nolan’s image and Hans Zimmers’ music. It is because of � lms like “Interstellar” that the motion pic-ture medium continues to exist as the greatest form of public entertainment and as a commercial art form.

Honourable mentions: “Pipra-bidya” for its originality and “Monu-ments Men” for its grand theme.

And what is the worst movie of the year? You guessed it right- “Trans-formers: Age of Extinction.” l

Top Dhallywood box o� ce performers in 2014

n Entertainment Desk

The year 2014 turned out to be a lucky one for Dhallywood as it saw many super hit box o� ce entries in-cluding the all time highest grossing Agnee. Here are the seven � lms that were commercially successful in 2014 and brought the audience back to the cinemas.

4. Most Welcome 2One of the most anticipated � lms of the year and a sequel to Ananta Jalil’s previous hit, Most Welcome 2 earned

Tk5 crore against its budget of Tk80 crore. It was screened in 66 cinemas.

With “Most Welcome 2,” claiming to be the most expensive � lm ever made here, actor-producer-director Ananta Jalil has left the local sex-is-cheaper-than-violence � lm industry far behind.

3. KistimaatThe Tk2 crore budget � lm earned Tk6.4 crore from the market where it was shown in 112 cinemas simultane-ously in the second week of release.Directed by Ashiqur Rahman, the

romantic action � ick features Are� n Shuvo with Achol.

2. Hero The SuperstarThe Tk3.5 crore budget � lm earned a gross Tk10 crore from the � lm mar-ket. It was screened at 128 cinemas. Directed by Bodiul Alam Khokon, the � lm stars Shakib Khan in a dual role, with Apu Biswas and Bobby in the fe-male lead.

Shakib Khan and Apu Biswas have gifted many hits at the box o� ce creating a positive vibe in the � lmindustry.

1. AgneeAgnee easily tops the list of the most commercially successful � lms of the year for garnering a total of Tk12crore against the budget of Tk2.5 crore. It was screened at 92 cinemas simultaneously in the � rst week of release.

This Mahia Mahi and Are� n Shuvo starring action-thriller has broken all previous box o� ce records of Dhal-lywood by collecting over Tk3 crore only in three days. l

(Source: Box O� ce Bangladesh)

16 Back PageDHAKA TRIBUNE Thursday, January 1, 2015

Rubel to go through DNA testn Md Sanaul Islam Tipu

A Dhaka court yesterday gave police the permission to conduct a DNA test of Bangladesh cricketer Rubel Hossain in a case � led under the Women and Children Repression Act.

Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Mo-hammad Mosta� zur Rahman passed the order after the investigation o� cer of the case sought court’s permission to carry out the DNA test.

Earlier in the day, Mirpur police sta-tion Sub-Inspector Masud Parvez, also the investigation o� cer of the case,

� led a petition seeking permission for the test in order to � nd out whether the rape allegation against Rubel was true.

The court also � xed January 11 for the submission of the probe report.

Earlier, police collected some sam-ples from Rubel’s residence and hand-ed them over to the Criminal Investiga-tion Department for test.

Naznin Akter Happy, an actress and model, � led the case against Rubel on December 14 with the Mirpur model police station. According to Happy, Rubel allegedly had an a� air with her in promise of marriage. l

DMP o� cials to start wearing body cams n Tribune Report

The DMP has launched a special initia-tive which would see its o� cials carry small wearable GoPro cameras on their persons from now on, in an attempt to ensure better transparency and ac-countability.

“The camera will also help police o� cials to coordinate better with the common people of the country,” said Benazir Ahmed, the outgoing commis-sioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP), while inaugurating the body camera initiative at the capital’s Shah-bagh intersection yesterday.

The cameras would be able to cap-

ture a � rst-person view from the po-lice o� cials’ perspective. It would also record law enforcers’ conversations which the o� cials would not be able to delete themselves, said Benazir.

“It is a 16 megapixel high-resolution camera that could record the audio and video for eight hours and it could be monitored from the command centre. It is small in size and for this reason it can be worn on head or on duty o� -cial’s body,” said Benazir.

The outgoing DMP commissioner further said that the service has initial-ly been launched with only 15 cameras for the DMP tra� c department, while 400 more cameras would soon be pro-

vided to the crime division and police stations.

DMP sources said each of the GoPro camera costs Tk20,000 and is able to record even during rain. If there is not enough light available to record video, the camera would still continue to re-cord audio clips.

Asked about the service, Mosleh Ud-din Ahmed, joint commissioner of DMP (tra� c), told the Dhaka Tribune that during the initial stage 15 body cameras have been distributed to four tra� c de-partments of the capital and sergeants would remain on duty with the cam-eras while discharging duty during the New Year’s Eve. l

A year of gold digging at airportsThe land ports in Bhomra and Benapole were used by smugglers to push the gold into neighboring country India n Tribune Report

Although Bangladesh is no stranger to see gold being smuggled into the coun-try, the frequency of it reached an alarm-ing level this year; while for the � rst time ever, not only the gold mules, but also high-ranking aviation o� cials were di-rectly linked to the smuggling racket.

The land ports in Bhomra and Be-napole were used by the smugglers to push the gold into India, where the demand for the product was sky-high because of steep import taxes.

The smugglers had never acted alone; over the years they had been in cahoots with unscrupulous o� cials in-volved with � ight operations and man-agement, who have consistently man-aged to escape the investigators’ radar.

But missing pieces of the puzzle started to � t in following the arrest of Biman cabin crew Mazharul Afsar Ras-sel on November 12 – who was caught at the Dhaka airport with 2.6kg of gold bars. During the interrogation, Rassel � nally gave investigators a solid lead to chase by naming several top o� cials from Biman Bangladesh Airlines, Cus-toms, and the Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh (CAAB).

Acting on the lead, police arrested Captain Abu Mohammad Aslam Sha-heed, Biman’s chief of � ight planning and scheduling; and Tozammel Hos-sain and Emdad Hossain, deputy gen-eral manager and manager of � ight scheduling respectively.

Mahmudul Haque Palash, a listed contractor of Biman and reportedly a godson to the Biman chief, was also ar-rested for allegedly being a key man be-hind the gold smuggling racket. Biman Chairman Jamal Uddin Ahmed, howev-er, denied any involvement with Palash.

The arrestees gave confessional statements where they mostly blamed each other. But they also reportedly revealed names of at least 56 bigwigs such as ministers, lawmakers, high-ranked government o� cials and in� u-ential businessmen – who had links to the gold smuggling business.

However, none of the named indi-viduals have so far been arrested.

The arrested Biman employees also shed light on the intricate mechanism of smuggling gold in and out of the country, saying engineers of the air-lines helped hide the products inside the inaccessible places of the fuselage.

Earlier in July this year, airlines en-gineers’ involvement also came to the fore when a huge consignment of gold was recovered in an abandoned condi-tion from a Biman aircraft. Customs in-telligence found that out of the 14 peo-ple involved with the assignment, 10 were members of the engineering de-partment. Within a period of one year, the aircraft had been taken to the hang-er nine times just to hide gold packages inside the interior fabric.

Meanwhile, after the arrest of the Biman high-ups in November, detec-tives submitted a report to the Prime

Minister’s O� ce which said there were 30 gold smuggling syndicates active in several airports, who had help from 270 Biman and CAAB sta� members and o� cials.

Twenty-three of the identi� ed syn-dicates were in Bangladesh; 11 of them were involved directly with gold smug-gling and the other 12 were operating in the guise of money exchange trading. Of the 11 syndicates directly involved, seven are at Dhaka airport, three at Chittagong airport and one is at Sylhet airport.

According to the report, the Biman o� cials involved in smuggling includ-ed � ve pilots, four co-pilots, 25 cabin crew members, 15 � ight stewards, sev-en junior parsers, three � ight parsers and � ve chief parsers; the rest were from the CAAB.

Although � gures had not been o� -cially compiled about the total amount of smuggled gold that was seized during 2014, Customs intelligence data sug-gests that between April 2013 and Oc-tober this year, over 631kg of gold had been seized from airports and air-crafts.

Talking to various industry insiders, the Dhaka Tribune found that the com-plicated import procedure and high taxes had prompted local jewellers to rely heavily on smuggled gold.

Jewellers told the Dhaka Tribune that the procedures to bring in gold were “time consuming,” adding that the existing import policy was over 65 years old. They also claimed that the Indian government’s decision to raise its tax on gold import to 6.5% had also prompted Indian smugglers to use Bangladesh as a channel.

The jewellers also called for a compre-hensive gold import policy which would tell them how they should get gold and in which prices it should be sold at.

In another development in De-cember, Customs intelligence sued 14 people in connection with the 2013 in-cident of seizing 124kg smuggled gold at the Dhaka airport, the biggest ever haul in the country. The case statement mentioned names of 10 employees of the national � ag carrier Biman and four outsiders including two foreigners.

On July 24 last year, a stash of 1,165 gold bars weighing 124kg and worth Tk54 crore, was recovered from a Bi-man aircraft coming in from Dubai. l

Palestinian statehood resolution failsn Reuters, United Nations

The UN Security Council on Tuesday rejected a Palestinian resolution calling for an Israeli withdrawal from the oc-cupied West Bank and East Jerusalem and the establishment of a Palestinian state by late 2017.

The resolution called for negotia-tions to be based on territorial lines that existed before Israel captured the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Middle East war. It also called for a peace deal within 12 months.

Even if the draft had received the min-imum nine votes in favor, it would have been defeated by Washington’s vote against it. The United States is one of the � ve veto-wielding permanent members.

There were eight votes in favor, in-cluding France, Russia and China, two against and � ve abstentions, among them Britain. Australia joined the Unit-ed States in voting against the measure.

US ambassador to the United Na-tions Samantha Power defended Wash-ington’s position against the draft in a speech to the 15-nation council by say-ing it was not a vote against peace be-tween Israel and the Palestinians.

“The United States every day search-es for new ways to take constructive steps to support the parties in making progress toward achieving a negotiat-ed settlement,” she said. “The Security Council resolution put before us today is not one of those constructive steps.”

She said the text was “deeply imbal-anced” and contained “unconstructive deadlines that take no account of Israel’s legitimate security concerns.” To make matters worse, Power said, it “was put to

a vote without a discussion or due con-sideration among council members.”

She did not spare Israel either. “To-day’s vote should not be interpreted as a victory for an unsustainable status quo,” Power said, adding that Wash-ington would oppose actions by either side that undermined peace e� orts, whether “in the form of settlement ac-tivity or imbalanced draft resolutions.”

Jordanian ambassador, Dina Kawar, the sole Arab representative on the coun-cil, expressed regret that the resolution was voted down, while noting that she thought council members should have had more time to discuss the proposal.

Palestinian frustrationIn order to pass, a resolution needs nine votes in favor and no vetoes from the council’s � ve permanent members.

The European and African camps were split in the vote. France and Lux-embourg voted in favor of the resolution while Britain and Lithuania abstained. Among the Africans, Chad voted yes while Rwanda and Nigeria abstained.

The Palestinians, frustrated by the lack of progress in peace talks, have sought to internationalise the issue by seeking UN membership and recogni-tion of statehood via membership in international organisations.

Palestinian observer Riyad Mansour thanked delegations that voted for the resolution, noting that lawmakers in a number of European countries have called for recognition of Palestine. He said it was time to end the “abhorrent Israeli occupation and impunity that has brought our people so much su� ering.” l

RAB man among 6 sued for vested property ownership fraud n Adil Sakhawat

The Anti-Corruption Commission yes-terday lodged a case against six people, including a RAB o� cial, in connection with dishonest exchange of Tk1.1 crore for registering a vested property in a woman’s name.

The woman, Zinat Ara, is one of the six while the remaining � ve are Law Of-� cer and Executive Magistrate of RAB Mohammed Anisur Rahman, Assistant Commissioner (land) of Dhanmondi circle Samar Chandra Sutradhar, for-

mer Kotwali circle land o� cer Huma-yun Mollah, Mohammed Ali Hossain and Mohiuddin.

ACC Assistant Director Abu Bakar Siddique � led the case with Tejgaon police station, said the commission’s Public Relations O� cer Pranab Kumar Bhattacharya.

According to the case statement, Anisur, while serving as the assistant commissioner (land) of Kotwali circle, and the other four accused took Tk1.1 crore from Zinat to give her eight dec-imals of vested land in Wari through

mutation on July 21, 2013.The original owner of the land was

Jashoda Lalbagh Roy and it became a vested property when she moved to In-dia at the time of partition.

Zinat later on claimed ownership of the land, for which she was also sued, and Anisur put her name in the muta-tion form in exchange for the money, the case statement read.

An ACC o� cial said an inquiry into the allegation was carried out before the case was � led and proof was also found. l

‘RAB is sincere in upholding human rights’ n Tribune Report

Outgoing RAB director general (DG) Mokhlesur Rahman yesterday claimed that the police elite force’s members give their maximum e� orts to uphold human rights in the country.

He blamed human rights organisa-tions for not practising professionalism and taking side in case of any arrest by RAB or police.

Almost everyday a number of people have been abducted, killed, tortured and raped which are also violation of human rights and RAB o� cials have rescued a number of the victims along with arresting the killers and rapist, says Mokhlesur who has recently made an additional inspector general of po-lice.

The human rights groups do not give any credit to RAB for the glaring performance.

“If the statistics of the human rights � ndings and RAB’s activities place in a paper, I can bate for RAB that gives maximum e� ort to uphold the human rights in the country, Mokhlesur con-tinued while interacting view with journalists during his farewell pro-gramme at RAB headquarters in Uttara.

About the Narayanganj seven-mur-der, the outgoing DG, who served RAB nearly for four years, said RAB is � rst which gives report in the sensational case identifying the responsible ones.

“Not only in this case, the elite force always ensures punishment as per the existing law when any of its o� cials found guilty even in petty criminal act,” says Mokhlesur.

RAB additional DG Ziaul Ahasan, media wing director Mufti Mahmud Khan, Deputy Director Rumman Mahmud, intelligence wing director Abul Kalam Azad were also present at the farewell ceremony, among others.

Earlier, a guard of honour was given to Mokhlesur Rahman. Later, he ride in a car decorated with � owers and the RAB o� cials pulled the vehicle outside the o� ce by rope as part of his farewell. He joined as a DG of RAB on September 2 in 2010 from police force.

On Tuesday in a reshu� e, DMP commissioner Benazir Ahmed made the DG of RAB, while Deputy Inspector General of Highway police Asaduzzam-an Mia was sent to the post. l

2D seismic survey in hydrocarbon block 11 begins n Aminur Rahman Rasel

An Australian and a Singaporean � rm yesterday initiated a two-dimensional seismic survey in the 3,000 line-kilo-metre area of the hydrocarbon block 11 in the shallow sea of the Bay of Bengal.

This is the � rst joint venture opera-tion of Australia-based Santos and Sin-gapore-based Kris Energy as they were awarded three shallow blocks under the Model Production Sharing Contract 2012.

The � rms submitted a proposal to carry out the survey in the 3,000 line-kilometre area which will cost around $9 million, he said.

“They selected French geophysical services company CGG as a third party for the survey. The block is very close to Myanmar and is believed to contain greater resources as it is di� erent from other shallow blocks,” he added.

On March 12 last year, Bangladesh signed the deal with Santos and Kris Energy to start oil and gas exploration in the o� shore shallow block 11. l

The clamp of the ongoing cold spell has resulted into di� erent cold-related diseases among people, particularly children, as the Dhaka Shishu Hospital saw a surge of too many child patients yesterday SYED ZAKIR HOSSAIN

DMP Commissioner Benazir Ahmed checking the new type of ‘body-worn’ camera to record the activities between on-duty tra� c sergeants, vehicle owners and drivers after launching at a police booth in Shabagah intersection in the capital yesterday MAHMUD HOSSAIN OPU

Throughout the year, the international airports in Bangladesh became a favourite pit stop for gold smugglers

‘Not only in this case, the elite force always ensures punishment as per the existing law when any of its o� cials found guilty even in petty criminal act’

Editor: Zafar Sobhan, Published and Printed by Kazi Anis Ahmed on behalf of 2A Media Limited at Dainik Shakaler Khabar Publications Limited, 153/7, Tejgaon Industrial Area, Dhaka-1208. Editorial, News & Commercial O� ce: FR Tower, 8/C Panthapath, Shukrabad, Dhaka 1207. Phone: 9132093-94, Advertising: 9132155, Circulation: 9132282, Fax: News-9132192, e-mail: news@dhakatribune.com, info@dhakatribune.com, Website: www.dhakatribune.com

www.dhakatribune.com/business THURSDAY, JANUARY 1, 2015

B3 China factory activity contracts in December as slowdown deepens

B4 US opening of oil export tap widens battle for global market

Banks gain marginal pro� t in 2014 n Jebun Nesa Alo

Most banks registered marginal operating pro� ts in the just-concluded year as pro-longed political unrest round the year left spillover e� ect on their business.

The year 2014 fetched most of the banks minimal pro� t in comparison with the pre-vious year, according to provisional � gures the Dhaka Tribune obtained from respective banks yesterday, the day of closing the ac-counts of the banks.

“The banks faced various challenges in business last year,” said Islami Bank Bangla-desh Managing Director Mohammad Abdul Mannan.

He said banking sector in 2014 continued to bear the brunt of political unrest of 2013.

Moreover, fall in price of imported goods and agriculture products in global and local markets respectively a� ected the bank busi-ness.

Mannan observed that though political situation remained somewhat quiet last year,

investment con� dence did not build up fully. Of the private banks, Islami Bank in the

just-concluded year bagged highest pro� t of Tk1,725 crore, 8% higher than Tk1,598 crore pro� t in 2013.

The bank experienced a fall by 12.5% in the year 2013 compared to Tk1,830 crore in the previous year.

The banking sector continued to gain mar-ginal pro� t over the last two years in the wake of violent politics centering the national elec-tion.

The pro� t of banking sector continued downward after the share market crash in 2010. No sooner had the sector overcome stock loss, it faced investment crisis amid po-litical violence.

Default loan was rising faster last year due to disturbance in cash � ow of business groups that pushed the banks’ pro� t downward.

Bangladesh Bank, however, relaxed the loan rescheduling policy in December 2013, aiming to bring back the business, which con-tinued till June this year.

The central bank has planned to boost business con� dence of big groups in the new year.

Of the state-owned banks, Sonali Bank bagged good pro� t in 2014 compared to the previous year.

Similarly, Bangladesh Development Bank showed a good pro� t in 2014 which is a re-sult of strategic planning in bank manage-ment. The bank made a pro� t of Tk175 crore last year compared to Tk131 crore in previous year. Earning per share of the bank increased to Tk30 during the year from Tk25.50 in the year of 2013.

New banks, however, faced various di� -culties to do good business last year, thereby making moderate pro� t.

Of the banks, Modhumoti and Union Bank had highest pro� t of around Tk49 crore and Tk42 crore respectively.

Excess liquidity in the banking sector and stagnant investment were main barriers to getting business for new banks, said Meghan Bank CEO Nurul Amin. l

Foreign investment on stocks record high in 2014 n Tribune Report

Maintaining a bullish stance in most part of 2014, foreign investors increased their exposure in Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) to a record high of over 34%.

According to the DSE, strong in� ows from foreign investors in the concluded year have resulted in an all-time high in net foreign investment in the local stock market. Foreign investment in 2014 stood at Tk2,608 crore rising 34.3% from Tk1,943 crore in 2013, the data showed.

The factors, including a stable eco-nomic outlook, relative calmness in politics and a vast young population, played a major role in the rise of foreign portfolio investment, said stockbro-kers dealing with foreign investment.

Fundamentally strong shares like telecommunications, IT, energy, mul-ti-national company, banks and phar-maceuticals were the most bought stocks among overseas investors.

However, foreign investment in the local stock market remains the lowest among South Asian countries, making up less than 2% of DSE’s total market value.

The stockbrokers said before put-

ting funds on any company, they would usually prefer long-term investment in the companies with good fundamen-tals and love to talk with the company management too. In September last, Chad Cleaver, a fund manager at Lux-embourg-based VAM Funds, said, “We believe the frontier markets provide an ine� cient landscape.”

A frontier refers to a type of country that is not a developed market.

Cleaver told a news portal, Fund Se-lector Asia, the frontier markets o� er the attraction of high rates of growth and return on the capital and they are still trading at a discount in both emerging and developed markets.

“Two countries in Asia that � t these criteria, where we have sizable over-weight positions, are Vietnam and Bangladesh.”

It is well known that inadequate energy and transportation infrastruc-tures, political in� ghting, bureaucracy, corruption and a shortage of skilled labourers contribute to a challenging investment climate in Bangladesh.

Despite this, the country’s economy has managed to grow more than 6% a year for much of the last decade, indi-cating that Bangladesh has a promis-ing economic growth histology, which mainly catches the eyes of foreign fund managers, said another stock broker.

He said the local currency against greenback also remained stable in re-cent period but in the neighbouring India’s currency depreciated against it.

He said the political front is relative-ly calm after the national election. l

Market wounds not yet healedPolitical worry, weak macro-economy dims 2015n Kayes Sohel

Sign of recovery after four years of mar-ket crash in late 2010 still remains elu-sive despite some gains in 2014 when a few investors, once their � ngers had burned, returned with their wounds barely healed, analysts say.

The investors believe that feeble macroeconomic performance and grow-ing political uncertainty might rock the boat of the bourse in the New Year.

The benchmark index DSEX rallied 14% to 4865 in 2014 – its best year since 2011, when the market experienced boom and bust. Market value of list-ed companies – a yardstick of market depth – in 2014 stood at Tk325,000 crore, up 23% over the previous year and 2.73% made up of 17 companies listed during the period. The average daily turnover was Tk499 crore, soar-ing 24.75% during the period.

“The market basically was on falling side despite somewhat gains in 2014,” said former � nance adviser to the care-taker government Mirza Azizul Islam. “It was like some point-gain one day to lose it in the next day,” he said.

He said index still remains half from maximum level in 2010 and below 5,000-mark despite 17 companies list-ed in 2014, which is the re� ection of lack of con� dence. “So, overall there is no sign of restoration of con� dence.”

Former chairman of the Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission (BSEC) Farukh Ahmed Siddique sees the stock market of past year relatively better than the previous year. “Inves-tors tried to heal their wounds this year but failed, as stability is yet to return.”

Alif Asset Management Company CEO Tanim N Sattar said new inves-tors and a few investors, who stayed, put fresh funds on the market, making some gains in 2014. But a large number

of investors who su� ered four years back are yet to return, he said.

During stock market torment in 2011, many speculators and punters, who su� ered severely from excessive lev-eraged buying, were still licking their wounds. A stock trader Mohammad Shahed has recently taken a much more active position in the stock market for the � rst time since the collapse of 2011.

“‘I was one of those people who got caught up in the bubble. I lost every penny and without my knowledge, my brokers had sold all shares in my port-folios worth Tk60 lakh I bought in late 2010 to adjust with negative account. However, early this year I put Tk4lakh but lost too.”

Shahed’s bitter story indicated that the relief was not arrived yet for many investors who invested at peak in 2010 until Wednesday, the � nal day of 2014.

Tanim said it will take a lot of time for index to reach a peak level. “If you expect that level right now, it will give rise the question of overvalued stocks. That’s a reality for investors now as the fourth anniversary of market crash ar-rives,” he said.

According to an uno� cial estimate, around Tk14,000 crore is estimated to have got stuck and become non-per-forming because the borrowers do not have the capacity to repay.

Some accounts are so badly a� ected that even a 100% price increase won’t

take them to positive territory, said a merchant banker.

Prospects in 2015Glimmer of hope is waiting for inves-tors in the New Year because of sim-mering political situation and weak macro-economy.

“2015 looks particularly dry taking growing political con� ict and weak macroeconomic situation,” said Islam, also former SEC chairman.

He said most indicators of mac-ro-economy are bad.

“Number one is export growth that is almost grounded to zero level over the last � ve months. Private sector in-vestment is not growing. Financial sec-

tor is within a mess as non-performing loan is piling up and on the other hand, there is an excess liquidity. Though in-� ation remains at low level, the trend will continue due to stable commodity price in the local market and falling pe-troleum products’ prices in the inter-national market,” he said.

He added that “Political instability is an additional woe. Taking all these into account, 2015 will not be any bet-ter than 2014.”

In the same breath, Siddique said political stability is the biggest factor for the stock market in the New Year. “The market actually might fail to see the return of full recovery until politi-cal concerns are at rest.” l

New Year gifts for stock market n Tribune Report

A stock investor having account with negative equity will be able to partici-pate in trading in next six months from today, which is expected to boost turn-over in the stock market.

Bangladesh Securities and Ex-change Commission (BSEC) in a letter yesterday wrote to the stock exchanges to allow transactions in the accounts having negative equity from today to June 30 this year.

Analysts termed the move “arti� -cial” that would jack up the market temporarily, but would not be sustain-able in the long run.

Equity accounts of the investors who su� ered following the market de-bacle in late 2010 went into negative as their share value falls below their outstanding balance on the loan used to purchase equities. Negative equity is calculated by taking the value of the assets less the balance on the outstand-ing loan.

According to an uno� cial estimate, around Tk14,000 crore is estimated to have got stuck and become non-per-forming because the borrowers do not have the capacity to repay.

A market expert asking not to be named said the accounts are already bankrupt and the move will bring no sustainable result for the market in the long run.

“It will also encourage speculative trading instead of promoting invest-ment culture.”

In another development, BSEC in its commission meeting yesterday gave in to stockbrokers demand in allowing netting facility in same script.

The commission has approved stock exchanges’ proposal on � nancial ad-justment facilities for same securi-ties on the same trading day and only shares under A, B, G and N categories are eligible for netting, said the BSEC in a statement.

On Monday last, Dhaka Stock Ex-change put forward the proposal argu-ing that the netting facility will boost turnover that continued to fall since launching new automated trading sys-tem.

The securities regulator suspended netting facility around four years back. Netting facility means settlement of mutual obligations between the two parties or with a third-party acting as a clearing house where the net di� er-ence is carried forward.

The BSEC has also extended the pe-riod for keeping provision against loss-es by stockbrokers, stock-dealers and merchant bankers up to 2015, which expired yesterday.

Now stockbrokers, stock-dealers and merchant bankers will be able to keep 20% provision against their un-re-alised losses in � ve installments. l

OPERATING PROFIT OF BANKS (PROVISIONAL FIGURES IN CR TK)

Bank name 2013 2014Sonali 330 900Rupali 310 300BDBL 131 175Islami 1600 1725NCC 404 386Exim 510 625Pubali 813 800Dutch-Bangla 512 580

Southeast 680 810NBL 683 811BRAC 636.33 680MTBL 211 280Prime 832 710SBAC 13 31NRB 3.24 1.5NRB Com 9.25 35Farmers 5.55 14Meghna 9.21 17Midland 3.65 17.5Modhumoti 11.31 49NRB Global 3.51 5Union 24.63 42

Nine companies raise Tk2,000cr from rights o� er in 2014 n Tribune Report

Nine companies raised more than Tk1,980 crore in 2014 by o� ering rights shares to their respective shareholders.

The � gure shows a rise of 998% from Tk180 crore raised by six com-panies in 2013, according to the Dhaka Stock Exchange.

A total of 77.6 crore shares in the form of rights o� er was issued in the concluded year, which was more than 1.8 crore in 2013.

A rights issue is an issue of addition-al shares by a listed company to raise capital from existing shareholders.

With the rights, the existing share-holders have the privilege to buy a speci� ed number of new shares from the � rm at a particular price within a speci� ed time.

Out of nine companies, Aramit Cement raised Tk25.41 crore, Generation Next Fashions around Tk113 crore, Rupali Life Insurance Tk36 crore, BRAC Bank Tk433 crore, Delta

Spinners Tk9.2 crore, Midas Financing Tk60.2 crore, BIFC Tk33.6 crore, Investment Corporation of Bangladesh Tk1,055 crore and First Security Islami Bank Tk206 crore.

Among them, Aramit Cement, Ru-pali Life Insurance, BRAC Bank and ICB took premium.

The tendency of capital raising through rights o� er and IPO increases when the market passes a bullish trend.

“Rights shares issuance increased as performance of the secondary market was relatively good in 2014 compared to the previous year,” said Akter H San-namat, managing director at Union Capital.

“A listed company applies for is-suing rights shares to further expand, repay loans or boost the company’s growth,” he said.

According to securities rules, a list-ed company must have pro� tability records for three preceding years and a credit rating if it wants to o� er rights shares with premium. l

The BSEC has also extended the period for keeping provision against losses by stockbrokers, stock-dealers and merchant bankers up to 2015, which expired yesterday

B2 Business Thursday, January 1, 2015DHAKA TRIBUNE

China stocks top performers in 2014, oil plunges, dollar gains n Reuters, Sydney

Chinese stocks were celebrating their best year in � ve yesterday while mar-kets elsewhere in Asia were ending 2014 on a cautionary note as worries about Greece’s future in the euro zone served as an excuse to take pro� ts on crowded trades.

The US dollar lost a little of its recent gains, but the euro got no respite as European bonds yields scored all-time lows following a shockingly sharp fall in Spanish in� ation.

The stand-out global equity per-former was China, where the CSI300 index of the largest listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen looked set to end 2014 with gains of nearly 50 percent, the biggest among the world’s major markets.

Almost all of China’s rise came in the last couple of months, as hopes for more aggressive policy stimulus to counter its economic slowdown boost-ed banks and brokerages.

Featuring on Wednesday were hefty gains for China’s biggest train makers, China CNR and CSR Corp, after the two � rms con� rmed a $26bn merger.

Trade elsewhere was thinned by holidays in Japan, Thailand, South Ko-rea and the Philippines, while many markets in Europe are either shut or � nish early on Wednesday.

Australia and Singapore were all but � at for the day. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Paci� c shares outside Japan edged up 0.2% but was still ending the year almost exactly where it started.

The Nikkei fared better with a rise of 7.1% for the year, thanks chie� y to the Bank of Japan’s extraordinary campaign of asset buying which lowered the yen while fattening exporters’ pro� t margins.

Asia’s worst performer in 2014 was South Korea, where the KOSPI lost 4.8 percent for the year, partly on fears that the sliding yen would give Japanese exporters a greater competitive advan-tage over their Asian rivals.

Among the scraps of news in Asia was a � nal measure of December Chi-

nese manufacturing from HSBC. Ac-tivity shrank for the � rst time in seven months but was little changed from a preliminary reading and only rein-forced expectations that Beijing will have to roll out more economic support measures in coming months.

On Wall Street, the S&P 500 eased 0.49% on Tuesday but was still on track for a third straight year of double-digit returns. The Dow fell 0.31%, while the Nasdaq lost 0.61%.

In currencies, the dollar was on track to end 2014 with a gain of 12% against a basket of major currencies, its best per-formance since 2005, and anticipated US interest rake hikes may strengthen its appeal in the new year.

It eased against the safe haven yen to stand at 119.41 from Tuesday’s peak of 120.69. The euro was undermined by sliding European yields amid intense speculation the European Central Bank will have to start buying government

bonds to avert de� ation. The single currency was stuck at

$1.2162 having touched a 29-month trough of $1.2123.

German yields hit a new record low on Tuesday, ending 2014 with their biggest annual fall in six years, while yields in Italy and Spain also reached historic lows.

Data out on Tuesday showed Span-ish consumer prices fell in December at their fastest rate since July 2009, large-

ly as a result of cheaper oil. The steep decline made it more like-

ly that in� ation for the entire euro zone while slip into negative territory when the data are released on Jan. 7, far be-low the ECB’s target of just under 2%.

There was little sign of an end to oil’s stunning decline after it hit lows last seen in May 2009. Brent fell 64 cents to $57.26, leaving it down 48 percent for the year, while U.S. crude lost 47 cents to $53.65 a barrel. l

A man walks out of the Shanghai Stock Exchange building at the Pudong � nancial district in Shanghai REUTERS

US consumer con� dence rebounds in December n AFP. Washington

US consumer con� dence rebounded in December after falling the previous month, though Americans remained dubious in their outlook for 2015, the Conference Board reported Tuesday.

The consumer con� dence index rose to 92.6 from 88.7 in November, still shy of the year’s peak at 94.5 in Oc-tober, but well up from 77.5 a year ago.

Consumers views of the current situation in the economy were fairly strong, but the outlook for the next half year dimmed, with the expectations sub-index dropping to 88.5 from 89.3.

There was little change in assess-ments of the jobs market, with only 17 percent of survey respondents calling jobs “plentiful.” Nearly the same pro-portion expects a gain in wages.

Consumer spending plans for the next half-year were slightly lower, es-pecially for big-ticket items like homes and cars.

“Consumers were moderately less optimistic about the short-term out-look in December, but even so, they are more con� dent at year-end than they were at the beginning of the year,” said Lynn Franco, Conference Board direc-tor of indicators. l

‘Hong Kong will be like New York’ n Reuters

Under the plan, Hong Kong would be a leader for the region in shipping, trade, services and distribution. In � nance, Hong Kong would serve as an o� shore market for the mainland currency, the renminbi.

New transport links from Hong Kong now under construction, includ-ing a high speed rail to Guangzhou and a bridge across the Pearl River Delta to the mainland city of Zhuhai near Ma-cau, would allow the rapid movement of commuters and visitors.

“It will be like New York where you have people working in Manhattan and living on Long Island or in New Jersey and commuting in to work every day,” said Hong Kong entrepreneur Allan Zeman, who developed the Lan Kwai Fong pub and restaurant area popular with expatriates. “People who can’t have a home here (in Hong Kong) will live in Shenzhen and be able to come here in 10 minutes.”

The mainland’s construction be-hemoths, including state-owned Chi-na State Construction International Holdings Ltd, are also grabbing market share. Hong Kong’s permanent secre-tary for Development (Works), Wai Chi-sing, said in an interview that while mainland � rms accounted for less than 15% of public works contracts by value in the mid 1990s, they now accounted for more than a third.

While mainland Chinese companies are rapidly expanding into Hong Kong, Western banking and � nancial insti-tutions still have a strong presence in the city. Global bank HSBC Holdings Plc, for instance, employed more than 28,000 people in Hong Kong at the end of 2013.

For Beijing, growing economic clout has not been mirrored by increased popular support. Frustrated by Hong Kong residents’ lack of identi� cation with the mainland 17 years after the handover, China has at times resorted to covert means to bolster its control. Earlier this month, for instance, Reu-ters reported that retired Hong Kong policemen were part of a mainland-led surveillance operation to tail leading pro-democracy � gures in the city.

Although the street protests ulti-mately petered out, at their height they drew tens of thousands, presenting Xi Jinping with his most serious popu-lar challenge since he took power two years ago. While the protesters have demanded full universal su� rage, the mainland authorities insist that only a handful of Beijing-vetted candidates can stand in the next elections for the city’s political leader in 2017. Hong Kong’s current chief executive, Leung Chun-ying, got the backing of Xi and Premier Li Keqiang during a visit to Beijing last Friday, according to reports in China’s state-run media.

A Hong Kong government spokes-man said in an email response that eco-nomic integration with the mainland has been mutually bene� cial, citing the growing number of mainland com-panies listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange and the city’s role as the larg-est o� shore renminbi center. The Hong Kong and Macau A� airs O� ce in Bei-jing did not respond to questions from Reuters.l

After 2014’s party, investors in US stock market may face a hangover n Reuters

Revelers ringing in of the new year this week need to watch out for the next day’s hangover. And investors may ex-perience a similar feeling early in 2015 after a two-year run that has propelled US stocks up by nearly 50%.

Headed into the last trading day of 2014, the S&P 500 has gained nearly 13% on the year, shaking o� concerns about valuations thanks to improved economic growth and a very accom-modative US Federal Reserve. Add in dividends and the advance is 15%.

However, the S&P 500’s forward price-to-earnings multiple - based on 2015 earnings expectations - is at about 17 now, exceeding the 15-year average of about 15.

It means that a pick-up in pro� ts growth may be essential if the mar-ket is to continue to add to its histor-ic gains. And yet Wall Street analysts’ estimates for S&P 500 earnings growth for coming quarters are languishing in the mid-single digits.

With the Fed ready to begin raising interest rates for the � rst time in a de-cade, and the strong dollar providing a headwind for companies with overseas operations, a lot will depend on wheth-er the recent strong growth in domes-tic demand can drive corporate pro� ts higher than those estimates. Wheth-er consumers and companies bene� t enough from lower oil prices to more than o� set the e� ects of the slide on the energy sector is also critical.

“Multiples almost always go down when the Fed raises rates - you’re going to have to depend on earnings,” said Jim Paulsen, chief investment strat-egist at Wells Capital Management in Minneapolis, which has $345bn in as-sets under management.

The S&P 500’s forward price-to-earnings ratio sat at about 13 times at the beginning of 2013; it is now closer to 17, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Since 1940, such a level is associated with S&P returns (excluding dividends) of about 5% over a 12-month period, according to data from Citigroup.

The high valuation concerns are starting to have some impact on trad-ing. Stocks have been noticeably more volatile in the last few months; the CBOE Volatility Index, or VIX, has aver-aged 15.4 over the past 12 weeks, com-pared with 12.6 at the end of August.

Share buybacks If the Fed tightens, the higher rates will not only raise � nancing costs generally but would also be a deterrent to bor-rowing to do the share buybacks that have helped to propel earnings per share growth and stock prices gains in the past few years.

With such arti� cial support crum-bling, corporate America will have to rely much more on demand from do-mestic customers to drive earnings growth. Europe is expected to grow at just above 1% in 2015, according to Re-uters data, Russia has been slammed by oil’s decline, and China and other major emerging markets are struggling with weak demand as well.

Switching to more of a reliance on sales growth rather than the Fed’s cheap money may not be an easy tran-sition. Fourth-quarter estimates have plunged in recent weeks, largely in the energy sector as crude oil prices have cratered. Annual growth is now expect-ed to come in at 4.3% for the S&P 500 in the fourth quarter, down from a fore-cast of 11.1% growth on only October 1.

Citigroup’s chief equity strategist Tobias Levkovich, in a note on Tues-day, said estimate cuts in the next few weeks, when companies typically warn if they expect to report disappointing results, could lead to some reversals and volatility, as “some of the late 2014 S&P 500 gains appear to have been bor-rowed from 2015’s returns,” he wrote.

In perhaps a sign of things to come

in the energy sector, Civeo Corp, which builds temporary housing for oil� eld workers, said revenue could fall by one-third due to falling crude prices, and cut its workforce and suspended its dividend. The company’s shares lost almost 53% Tuesday.

Earnings expectations for S&P 500 companies for the � rst half of next year aren’t that encouraging: First- and sec-ond-quarter earnings growth estimates currently stand at 5.3% and 5.9%, re-spectively. “If you don’t feel that you have the earnings wind at your back, and you don’t have the monetary policy wind at your back, why pay more than the prices people have paid in many cases since 2000 for stocks?” said Mike O’Rourke, chief market strategist at Jon-esTrading in Greenwich, Connecticut.

That said, earnings expectations coming into 2014 turned out to be far too pessimistic: On Dec. 31, 2013, the forecast was for per-share earnings of $120.89 on the S&P 500. With fourth-quarter earn-ings season approaching, actual and ex-pected earnings were $126.50 per share, according to Reuters data.

So far in the fourth quarter, expecta-tions have fallen largely due to the en-ergy industry’s woes, but sectors that could bene� t from lower fuel costs, particularly the consumer discretionary sector – which includes many retailers - have not seen an attendant pickup in ex-pectations. That sector is currently fore-cast to grow 8% for the quarter, down from 13.9% estimated on October 1. l

Ukraine economy shrank 7.5% in ‘worst year since WWII’ n AFP, Kiev

Ukraine’s central bank chief on Tues-day said the strife-torn country’s econ-omy contracted by 7.5% and in� ation soared in a year more painful than any since World War II.

Valeria Gontareva added however that the pro-Western leaders who rose to power in Kiev after the February ouster of a Moscow-backed president were optimistic about the chances of a gradual improvement next year and actual growth in 2016.

Gontareva’s comments came a day after parliament approved an austerity budget that should help unlock emer-gency assistance from the Internation-al Monetary Fund and other global lenders within the next few months.

The central bank head - criticised in the media for following IMF advice and allowing the hryvnia currency to depreciate by about 50 percent -- said the annual in� ation rate had reached 21% by the end of November.

“No matter how sad it may sound, we have to say things as they are: our GDP fell by 7.5% and the currency’s devalua-tion reached 50%,” Gontareva said.

The government had earlier project-ed that the economy would shrink by up to � ve additional percentage points in 2015.

Gontareva con� rmed the � gure but also cautioned that in� ation next year may reach 18% - above the 13% target because of the government’s decision to revoke subsidies and raise utility tari� s.

“Our country has not lived through such a di� cult year since at least World War II,” Gontareva told reporters.

“I think that what we have expe-rienced this year will never happen again. Without question, we are look-ing forward to 2015 with optimism.”

Pinning hopes on IMF Ukraine’s reserves more than halved in 2014 and dipped to less than $10bn for the � rst time in � ve years as the au-thorities sought to prop up the hryvnia and fund their eight-month campaign against pro-Russian separatists in the industrial east.

Gontareva said a further $8.6bn of the bank’s reserves were spent on help-ing the state energy � rm Naftogaz pay

o� its natural gas debts to Russia and strike new contracts with EU states.

The central bank’s eventual decision to let the hryvnia � oat freely saw the currency slip from 8.24 to the dollar at the start of the year to 15.82 on Tuesday.

IMF managers admitted at the start of the month that Ukraine next year would need $15bn on top of the $27bn two-year package that global lenders pieced together in the spring.

But the Fund has delayed disbursing its last two tranches because of Kiev’s inability to put together a coherent economic restructuring programme.

Gontareva said she expected those payments to be released shortly after an IMF team completes its next mission to Kiev in the second half of January.

Ruble slide hurts tradeThe hryvnia and the Russian ruble have both lost about their half their value and turned into the year’s two worst performing currencies in the world.

The ruble’s depreciation has accel-erated with the plunge in the global price paid for Russia’s vital oil and nat-ural gas exports.

But Russia has also been hurt by waves of sanctions imposed by the United States and the European Union over the Kremlin’s annexation of Crimea and alleged support for the eastern Ukraine revolt.

Kiev rejects the Kremlin’s denials of involvement and accuses President Vladimir Putin of trying to break his western neighbour apart.

Gontareva took the unusual step on Tuesday of admitting that she was “as a person, very happy to see what is hap-pening to the Russian ruble”.

But she added that the ruble’s slide also made Ukrainian exports more expensive to Russian consumers and therefore hurt the country’s businesses.

“In the past 11 months, Russia’s share of our foreign trade has held steady at 21%,” Gontareva said.

Ukraine’s trade with the European Union is about equal to that with Russia.

It is expected to grow in the years ahead as Kiev looks to develop with Europe in the wake of this year’s sign-ing of a landmark EU trade and political association pact. l

Trader Kevin Lodewick works on the � oor of the New York Stock Exchange, which has been decorated with Christmas lights, in New York REUTERS

B3BusinessDHAKA TRIBUNE Thursday, January 1, 2015

CORPORATE NEWS

Arif Motahar, MD of Dhaka Regency Hotel has recently hosted a Chinese business forum meeting in honour of visiting People’s Government of Hunan Province (PRC). Vice Governor He Baoxiang led the Chinese business delegationSohail R.K. Hussain, MD and CEO of The City Bank Limited has recently handed over blankets

to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on behalf of the bank as a donation to the Prime Minister’s Relief and Welfare Fund for distribution among the cold a� ected people in the country

Trust Bank Limited has recently opened its branch at Kakrail in Dhaka. Adjutent General of Bangladesh Army and the bank’s chairperson, Maj Gen Md Mahfuzur Rahman, rcds, ndc, afwc, psc, PhD inaugurated the branch as chief guest

NCC Bank Ltd has recently unveiled its new logo and inaugurated a 22 storied newly built corporate head o� ce at Motijheel in Dhaka. Minister at Ministry of Planning AHM Mustafa Kamal unveiled the look and inaugurated NCC Bank Bhaban as chief guest at the present of the bank’s chairperson, Md Nurun Newaz Salim

National Bank Limited has recently opened its 179th branch at Rajendrapur Bazar in Keranigonj. The bank’s managing director, Shamsul Huda Khan inaugurated the branch Chairperson of The Premier Bank Ltd, Dr HBM Iqbal has recently handed over 15,000

pieces of blankets to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina as a donation to the premier relief fund for its distribution among the cold stricken people

Three hundred and eighty employees and contractors from Chevron’s three gas � eld locations have recently donated blood during the second round of Chevron’s annual blood donation drive

Brig Gen Md Shaheed Sarwar (retd) NDC, PSC has joined Dhaka Electric Supply Company Ltd (DESCO) as its managing director on Tuesday. In the year of 1980, he got commissioned from the Electrical and Mechanical core of the Bangladesh Army. After that, he has completed B. Sc. Engineering (Electrical and Electronics) from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology

China factory activity contracts in December as slowdown deepensn Reuters, Shanghai

Activity in China’s factory sector shrank for the � rst time in seven months in December, a private survey showed on Wednesday, highlighting the urgency behind a series of surprise easing moves by Beijing in the past two months.

The weak performance will add to the debate over whether Beijing needs to roll out more support measures to avert a sharper economic slowdown or fast-track market reforms to stimulate demand - or both.

The report puts a � nal sluggish stamp on what has been a surprisingly grim fourth quarter for the world’s sec-ond-largest economy, which is expect-ed to grow at its slowest pace this year in nearly a quarter of a century.

“Domestic demand led the slow-down as new orders contracted for the � rst time since April 2014. Price con-traction deepened,” said Qu Hongbin, chief economist for China at HSBC.

“We believe that weaker economic activity and stronger disin� ationary pressures warrant further monetary easing.”

The � nal HSBC/Markit Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) for December came in at 49.6, just below the 50 level that separates growth from contraction. The number was slightly higher than a preliminary “� ash” reading of 49.5 but down from the � nal 50 in November.

Total new orders contracted for the � rst time since April, albeit slightly, al-though new export orders increased.

Highlighting soft demand, output prices declined for the � fth consecu-tive month, with many companies sur-veyed saying they were cutting prices due to increased competition.

This in turn prompted � rms to re-duce output for the second consecutive month, although the rate of contrac-tion was tiny.

Employment weakened for the 14th straight month, although the pace of job shedding slowed.

Hurt by a sagging property market, unsteady exports and cooling domestic demand and investment, China’s eco-nomic growth is expected to slow to a 24-year low of 7.4% this year, although surprisingly weak fourth-quarter data has some analysts wondering whether that might be too optimistic.

Many market watchers expect Bei-jing to lower its annual growth target to

7 percent next year, from 7.5% in 2014. Faltering factory output, rising de-

� ationary pressures, sliding industrial pro� ts and increasing non-performing loans highlight the policy challenges facing Beijing in 2015. Authorities need to not only encourage more lending by banks, but also � nd a way to stimulate genuine demand.

The central bank unexpectedly cut interest rates in late November for the � rst time in more than two years in bid to keep down borrowing costs and sup-

port growth. It has also loosened some lending restrictions.

Hope of more stimulus measures have fueled a sizzling rally in China’s stock markets despite the weakening economy and deteriorating pro� t mar-gins. China’s main share indexes look set to end the year as the world’s best performers, with gains of nearly 50%.

China’s o� cial factory PMI, which tends to focus more on larger, state-owned � rms, will be released on Thurs-day. l

Workers at a construction site for a new subway station are seen in front of a chimney of a heating plant in Beijing REUTERS

Oil prices down in thin pre-holiday trade n AFP. Singapore

Crude edged lower in thin pre-holiday trade yesterday ahead of the release of a key US supply report, as analysts predicted a rebound in prices in the new year after shedding nearly 50% since June.

US benchmark West Texas Interme-diate for February delivery fell 63 cents to $53.49 while Brent crude for Febru-ary eased 91 cents to $56.99 in after-noon trade.

Trading volumes were low with many dealers away ahead of the New Year’s Day holiday on Thursday. Finan-cial markets in Japan, Indonesia, the Philippines, South Korea, and Thailand are closed Wednesday.

With few other trading cues, dealers are closely watching the latest o� cial US stockpiles report to be released later Wednesday for clues about demand in the world’s top crude consumer, ana-lysts said.

Analysts polled by the Wall Street Journal expect US crude reserves to have dipped by 600,000 barrels in the week to December 26.

Daniel Ang, investment analyst at Phillip Futures in Singapore, said there are expectations for a rebound in prices in 2015.

Oil has tumbled since June owing to slowing growth in China and emerging-market economies, a recession in Japan and a near-stall in the eurozone.

On top of that, the OPEC oil-produc-ing cartel last month said it would main-tain output levels despite ample global supplies, in part due to cheaper oil ex-tracted from North American shale rock.

Ang said the global supply glut could likely be alleviated by current low oil prices a� ecting “existing shale oil rigs, causing them to shut o� , keep-ing US crude oil production in check”.

On the demand side, stimulus mea-sures by major economies could boost growth, and in turn, crude demand, Ang said in a commentary.

“In 2015 we believe that crude de-mand would be linked to how China, Ja-pan and the eurozone perform,” he said.

“If we start to see the situation for these countries improve, a reversal from the demand side could happen,” he added. l

Singapore economy grows slower than expected n AFP, Singapore

Singapore’s trade-sensitive economy grew at a slower-than-expected rate of 2.8% in 2014 as the city-state cut its re-liance on foreign workers, Prime Min-ister Lee Hsien Loong said Wednesday.

The slowing growth was attributed in particular to tougher rules on foreign workers stemming from citizens’ com-plaints about overcrowding, a tighter job market and other impacts of immi-gration.

“Our economy has performed mod-erately well in 2014. Growth was 2.8%,” Lee said in his New Year message re-leased to the media. In its last forecast in November, the government predict-ed growth of 3% for 2014.

“Our growth will be slower than we are used to,” he continued.

“One reason for this is that we have been tightening polices, including on foreign workers, to get our economy onto a path of sustainable, productivi-ty-driven growth.”

The 62-year-old premier expressed concern over “disappointing” produc-tivity growth.

In recent years, authorities have been phasing in measures to boost the pro-ductivity of Singaporeans while tighten-ing the in� ux of foreign labour and the granting of permanent residency status.

Concerns over immigration made it

a hot-button issue on the a� uent but space-constricted island.

The discontent spilled into the 2011 general elections when Lee’s People’s Action Party garnered its lowest-ever vote count after more than 50 years in power, and analysts say it remains a key issue for the next election, which must be held before January 2017.

According to o� cial statistics, over 29% of Singapore’s population of 5.47 million is comprised of “non-residents” - those working, studying or living in the country but not granted permanent residency.

In his message Wednesday, Lee also warned of global uncertainties, add-ing that events this year including air tragedies in Asia, the Ebola virus out-break in West Africa, extremism in the Middle East and the Ukraine crisis were reminders that “stability, safety and se-curity are precious”.

“The road ahead appears daunt-ing: intense competition and greater inequality because of globalisation and technological advances, security threats from extremist terrorism, new pandemics are just some of the chal-lenges,” he said.

Singapore, which became a sover-eign state in 1965 after a brief union with Malaysia following the end of British colonial rule, celebrates its 50th year of independence in 2015. l

Vietnam’s economy expands 5.98% in 2014 n AFP, Vietnam

Vietnam’s economy grew 5.98% in 2014, the highest for three years, de-spite a festering banking crisis and damaging anti-China riots, authorities said Wednesday.

The � gure -- higher than last year’s increase of 5.42% and 5.25% in 2012 - marks “a positive sign,” according to a statement on the website of the Gen-eral Statistics O� ce.

The communist nation is still strug-gling with a number of economic trou-bles including bad debts in the banking

system, weak economic competitive-ness and ine� cient production.

In June, the central bank devalued the Vietnamese dong by one percent to help boost exports following deadly ri-ots in May after China moved an oil rig into waters claimed by Vietnam.

To ease foreign investor fears, Hanoi swiftly o� ered compensation to a� ected businesses, among them Taiwanese and South Korean factories set ablaze, by cutting tari� s and fast-tracking insur-ance settlements. Vietnamese in� ation this year slowed to 4.09%, from around 6.04% in 2013, the GSO added. l

Yen rises as investors run to safety n AFP, Singapore

The yen held on to most of its gains against the dollar and the euro yes-terday as investors sought a safe ha-ven owing to growing concern about Greece’s political crisis.

The euro bought 145.41 yen in afternoon Singapore trade, compared with 145.20 yen in New York but well down from 146.15 yen in Asia earlier Tuesday.

The dollar was at 119.66 yen against 119.45 yen in US trade and 120.42 yen earlier Tuesday in Tokyo.

The euro stood at $1.2152 - near two-year lows - from $1.2154 in New York.

Markets in Tokyo, Jakarta, Manila, Seoul and Bangkok were closed for public holidays.

“The recent catalyst for euro weak-ness has been the resurgence of politi-cal risk in Greece,” Canada’s Scotiabank said in a market commentary.

Political turmoil in Greece returned to the centre stage this week when law-makers failed to endorse a new presi-dent, forcing the government to call a snap election for next month.

There are fears the hard-left Syriza party will win and reverse policies re-quired under the IMF-EU bailout of the country, in turn hitting the already troubled eurozone economy.

On Tuesday Prime Minister Antonis Samaras warned that a win for Syriza could lead to Greece leaving the cur-rency bloc.

“This struggle will determine whether Greece stays in Europe,” Sa-maras said, as he asked the outgoing president to dissolve parliament before an election on January 25.

Analysts said trading volumes were thin, with many dealers away before the New Year’s Day holiday tomorrow.

The US dollar was mixed against Asia-Paci� c currencies. l

B4 Back PageDHAKA TRIBUNE Thursday, January 1, 2015

DILBERT

US opening of oil export tap widens battle for global market n AFP, Washington

The Obama administration has opened a new front in the global battle for oil market share, e� ectively clearing the way for the shipment of as much as a million barrels per day of ultra-light US crude to the rest of the world.

The Department of Commerce on Tuesday ended a year-long silence on a contentious, four-decade ban on oil exports, saying it had begun approving a backlog of requests to sell processed light oil abroad. It also issued a long-awaited document outlining exactly what kinds of oil other would-be ex-porters can ship.

The administration’s � rst serious ef-fort to clarify an issue that has caused confusion and consternation in energy markets for more than a year will likely please domestic oil drillers, foreign trade partners and some Republicans who have urged Obama to loosen the export ban, which they see as an outdated hold-over from the 1970s Arab oil embargo.

The latest measures were wrapped in regulatory jargon and couched by some as a basic clari� cation of existing rules, but analysts said the message was un-ambiguous: a green light for any compa-ny willing and able to process their light condensate crude through a distillation tower, a simple piece of oil� eld kit.

“In practice this long-awaited move can open up the � oodgates to substan-tial increases in exports by end 2015,” Ed Morse, global head of commodities research at Citigroup in New York said in a research note.

The action comes at a critical junc-ture for the global oil market. World prices have halved to less than $60 a barrel since the summer as top exporter Saudi Arabia, once a staunch defender of $100 oil, refused to cut production in the face of surging US shale output and tempered global demand.

By opening the door to US crude exports, the administration is o� ering a bit of relief to some domestic drill-ers that have said that they are forced to sell their shale oil at a discount of as much as $15 a barrel versus global mar-kets as fast-rising domestic supplies

overwhelm local demand. But the impending swell of US pe-

troleum into global markets may inten-sify what many analysts say is a pivotal oil market war, with Saudi Arabia and the Organization of the Petroleum Ex-porting Countries (OPEC) unwilling to yield ground. Now they will face even greater competition beyond US shores.

If they can boost selling prices by even a dollar or two, oil producers in places such as the Eagle Ford of Texas will be better able to withstand the slump in oil markets. Morse said US

condensate exports could rise from 200,000 bpd to as much as 1 million bpd by the end of next year.

“This has an interesting impact on the current confrontation between Saudi Arabia and shale,” he said.

Among those most at risk from the US shale exports is Nigeria, which pumps similarly light, sweet oil. The OPEC member has already lost the US market to shale, with its exports fall-ing from more than 1 million barrels per day to next to nothing; now it will face US competition in Europe and Asia, too.

Just the faqs The Bureau of Industry and Secu-rity (BIS), which regulates US export controls, has come under enormous scrutiny over the past year because of growing pressure to clarify confusing regulations on exporting crude.

While untreated crude oil is general-ly banned from being exported, re� ned fuels such as gasoline and diesel can be freely sold abroad. The question that has bedeviled US producers is how the rules apply to “processed condensate,” ultra-light oil that has been heated

through a very basic re� ning unit. On Tuesday, the BIS said it had giv-

en permission to “some” companies to ship treated light oil but did not give details about what it had approved.

Two energy companies, driller Pioneer Natural Resources and mid-stream � rm Enterprise Products Part-ners, have been regularly exporting processed condensate since the sum-mer after receiving a private permit from the BIS. But several dozen other companies that also raced to � le simi-lar requests were left waiting, with no

timeline for action. The agency also released its � rst

ever written guidance on the rules themselves in the form of frequently asked questions (FAQs), clarifying a series of detailed questions that had clouded e� orts to move forward with substantial exports.

The document gives “considerable discretion” that could allow for rising export volumes in the future, mea-sures that could narrow the price gap between US benchmark WTI crude and global marker Brent, said Kevin Book, managing director at ClearView Energy Partners LLC.

On Tuesday, the Brent/WTI spread narrowed by more than 50 cents to around $3.70 a barrel.

In its guidelines, the BIS said that most goods can be shipped abroad “without a license” - a reminder that some analysts read as encouraging shippers to “self-classify” their con-densate, as Reuters reported earlier.

Questions ahead With global oil markets in � ux, it is far from clear how much US condensate will � nd a market overseas. Drillers are al-ready slashing billions of dollars o� their 2015 budgets because of lower prices, actions likely to slow growth in output next year and push forward the point at which supply overtakes demand.

One administration o� cial said the question of exports would ultimately be left to the market, and that the agen-cy was simply seeking to “make the boundary line clearer.”

Even so, with no changes to the core US law that bans raw crude exports, even slower growth will eventually stretch re� ners’ limits, forcing tougher questions in years ahead.

“Whether to allow crude oil exports directly because the production of light crude overwhelms the domestic re� ning system still remains a live issue that may need to be addressed in the future in re-sponse to changing market conditions,” said Jason Bordo� , the founding director of Columbia University’s Center on Glob-al Energy Policy and a former energy ad-viser to the Obama White House. l

A section of the BP Eastern Trough Area Project (ETAP) oil platform is seen in the North Sea, around 100 miles east of Aberdeen in Scotland REUTERS

China’s yuan set for � rst big loss since 2005 n Reuters, Hong Kong

China’s yuan edged up against the dol-lar yesterday following a stronger mid-point set by the central bank, but looked set to post its � rst signi� cant yearly loss since its landmark revaluation in 2005.

The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) � xed the o� cial midpoint at 6.1190 per dollar, 0.06% higher than Tuesday’s 6.1224. Spot yuan changed hands at 6.1990 near midday, up 0.05% from the pervious day’s close at 6.2020. It brie� y touched 6.1908 in morning trade, the highest level since Dec 25.

Traders said the new rules on the management of banks’ foreign cur-rency net opening positions (NOP) re-leased by the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) on Tuesday supported the yuan.

China will relax restrictions on banks’ yuan trading from Jan 1, replac-ing daily caps on banks’ foreign ex-change positions with weekly limits, leaving them leeway to short dollars within that period.

“The fact that some banks will be exempted from being forced to keep minimum long dollar position may al-leviate pressure on RMB depreciation. As such, we think the upside for USD/CNY will be capped in the near term,” said Xie Dongming, an economist at OCBC Bank in Singapore.

The Chinese currency fell sharply early this year in what was widely seen as an engineered move by the central bank to crack down on speculators bet-ting on one-way appreciation.

It regained some ground later in the year, but tumbled again after the cen-tral bank surprised markets but cutting the benchmark interest rate in Novem-ber to shore up the slowing economy. Further policy easing is expected in coming months, which will keep down-ward pressure on the yuan.

A series of weak economic indicators have added to the bearish sentiment toward the currency. Activity in China’s factory sector shrank for the � rst time in seven months in December, a private survey showed on Wednesday.

The � nal HSBC/Markit Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) for December came in at 49.6, just below the 50 level that separates growth from contraction.

The yuan is poised to end the year down 2.4%, its � rst meaningful annual depreciation since 2005. It had dipped fractionally in 2009.

By comparison, the currency gained 2.8% in 2013. l

Oil falls below $57, heads for biggest annual drop since 2008 n Reuters, London

Oil dropped below $57 a barrel on Wednesday and was heading for its big-gest annual decline since 2008, pres-sured by weakening demand and a supply glut prompted by the US shale boom and OPEC’s refusal to cut output.

Global benchmark Brent crude has fallen 49% in 2014 as demand growth slowed, the United States expanded output and OPEC, dropping its strategy of trimming supply to keep oil around $100 a barrel, chose instead to defend market share.

On Wednesday, prices came under pressure from a survey showing Chi-na’s factory sector shrank for the � rst time in seven months in December - a bearish indication on the strength of oil demand in the world’s second-largest consumer.

“Clearly, demand concerns are one of the issues for the oil market,” said Michael McCarthy, chief market strate-gist at CMC Markets.

Brent was down $1.00 at $56.90 by 0917 GMT, after dropping as low as

$56.87. US crude was down 57 cents at $53.55. Both contracts hit their lowest since May 2009 in the previous session.

The annual decline for Brent is set to be the biggest since 2008, when demand crumbled in response to the � nan-cial crisis and prices were, eventually, propped up by OPEC’s last formal deci-sion to cut production.

In contrast, OPEC at a Nov 27 meet-

ing this year decided against a cutback to defend its market share against shale oil and other competing supply sourc-es, despite its own forecasts of a grow-ing surplus in 2015.

Turmoil in Libya has e� ectively led to a drop in OPEC supply in December to a six-month low, a Reuters survey showed on Tuesday, although forecasts still point to a large excess supply next year.

Later on Wednesday, traders will fo-cus on the latest US government report on oil inventories to see if it con� rms the unexpected increase in stockpiles reported on Tuesday by industry group the American Petroleum Institute.

US crude inventories rose by 760,000 barrels last week, the API said, compared with analysts’ expectations for a decrease of around 100,000 bar-rels.

The Obama administration on Tues-day bowed to months of growing pres-sure over a 40-year-old ban on exports of most domestic crude, taking two steps expected to increase the � ow of ultra-light oil onto the global market. l

Obama move on US oil exports paves way for Canadian crude, too n Reuters, New York

As the Obama administration issued landmark guidelines expected to open the door for selling more domestic shale oil abroad, it also likely smoothed the way for more Canadian crude to be shipped through US ports.

Unlike crude produced domesti-cally, oil from Canada is not limited by the longstanding US ban on exports, and licenses to re-export foreign crude are granted routinely. However, many companies have been wary of such trade due to rules that prohibit mixing non-exportable domestic oil with for-eign grades.

The risk of contaminating Canadian oil with a few drops of restricted US crude, which accounts for most of what � ows through US oil pipelines and ter-minals, had deterred energy traders from attempting re-exports, they have said.

On Tuesday, the Commerce Depart-ment’s Bureau of Industry and Secu-rity clari� ed for the � rst time that the prohibition on co-mingling was not absolute, issuing guidelines that allow “incidental” contact for foreign oil us-ing the same infrastructure as domestic grades.

The agency said that “a minimal amount of mixing may occur due to incidental contact in pipelines and/or storage tanks when foreign and U.S. origin-oil is sequentially trans-ported or stored in the same pipeline or tank.”

The bureau said it encouraged appli-cants for re-export licenses to explain the precautions they are taking to en-sure that US oil is not mixed with the foreign-origin crude, other than inci-dental contact.

Canada, the largest oil exporter to the United States, sends 3.4 million barrels a day to its southern neighbor, according to the US Energy Informa-

tion Administration. The clari� cation could reinvigorate

opposition to big Canadian oil pipeline projects such as TransCanada Corp’s Keystone XL, which some environ-mentalists have said will be used to ship carbon-intensive oil sands to Chi-na via US ports.

While TransCanada has maintained that it would not trade crude shipped on that proposed line for export, other shippers have already begun testing the waters. Some had explored ship-ping Canadian oil to the coast by rail, a costly method but one that would en-sure it remained segregated.

Rival Enbridge Inc (ENB.TO) shipped several cargoes of Canadian crude to Europe earlier this year, after opening a reversed pipeline from Oklahoma to Freeport, Texas, but has said that re-exports would account for less than 1.5% of its total US shipments, under 36,000 bpd.

Opportunities to re-export oil sands crude will expand signi� cantly over the next few months as more pipelines designed to carry Canadian oil to the Gulf Coast come on line.

Accounting for this incidental con-tact might make it easier for pipeline companies and other midstream han-dlers of crude oil who manage crude that is re-exported.

It will also o� er opportunities for traders to blend abundant U.S. condensate - which under Tuesday’s notice is now likely to be freely exported if it is minimally processed - with heavy diluted bitumen and Mayan crude, creating medium-grade oil more valuable than either of the original grades on their own, said Ed Morse, Global Commodities Strategist at Citigroup.

Such blending “spells competition for Middle East producers and Russia in European and other markets,” he wrote. l

A ship passes a petro-industrial complex in Kawasaki near Tokyo REUTERS

Turmoil in Libya has e� ectively led to a drop in OPEC supply in December to a six-month low, a Reuters survey showed on Tuesday, although forecasts still point to a large excess supply next year