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Rash driving, inept drivers, movement of unfit vehicles and corruption in traffic-related offices have made roads and highways in the country a virtual death trap.
   �At least 40,000 people were killed and more than 1,500,000 injured in the past eight years,� a senior police officer, who deals with traffic-related cases, told New Age.
   Nearly half of the injured are doomed to permanent physical disability and cannot earn for the family, he added.
   A director of the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority, however, said the average of 5,000 deaths could be much lower than the actual figures. �Maybe more than 7,000 people are killed every year. It is not possible to come up with the actual figures as we have limitations to gather information on accidents.�
   Independent surveys by different non-governmental organisations also conclude that the number of deaths is higher than the official figures since many cases go unreported.
   The records also show that the rate of accidents increase by five per cent every year, which is alarmingly higher than that of the developed countries. Fifteen to eighteen people die every day or more than 500 every month in road accidents.
   At present, more than 130 million vehicles, of which 0.55 million motorised, ply a road network of about 25,000 kilometres.
   Bangladesh has one of the highest fatality rates in road accidents at over 73 deaths per 10,000 motorised vehicles every year, according to the National Road Safety Council, a government organisation.
   In developed countries, where the number of motorised vehicles is many times more, the rate is below five.
   The road accidents also translate into an annual loss of approximately Tk 150 crore, according to the figures available with the council.
   The Consumer Association of Bangladesh contradicts the figures on annual loss.
   A CAB report says 65 per cent of the people, who died from road accidents in the past eight years, were income generators for the family and the accumulated loss should, therefore, be about Tk 22,000 crore or more than Tk 2,500 crore on an average.
   Unskilled and unauthorised drivers, who drive different types of motorised vehicles with fake driving licence and care very little about traffic rules and regulations, cause most of the accidents, say government officials.
   �More than 80 per cent of the driving licences are forged,� Mohammad Shoeb, a BRTA director, told New Age.
   The number of traffic rules violation is extremely high, says the deputy commissioner of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police (South). �In the capital alone, some 30,000 cases of traffic rules violation is reported every month. In most cases, the offenders are not even aware of the rules.�
   A senior officer in the traffic department of the metropolitan police talked of a climate of immunity as offenders get away with minimal or no punishment for road accidents. �There has hardly been any case where a driver received severe punishment for casualties in a road accident.�
   The Bangladesh Road Transport Authority, which has monopoly over issuance of driving licence, fitness certificate and route permit, is more often than not accused of issuing fake licences and fitness certificates.
   �You can get a fake driving licence in return for bribe,� says Shahjahan Mia, a truck driver. �Similarly, you can buy fitness certificate for your vehicle even if it is faulty.�
   �Bribe the BRTA officials, they will get you whatever you want,� said Shafiqul Islam, another trucker.
   Shoeb, however, tried to pass the blame on transport owners. �They always tend to have the rules bent.�
   He claimed that non-cooperation of the transport owners had led to the failure of a BRTA plan to train up unskilled drivers.
   Four hundred drivers were to be trained and issued licence to in four phases between 2001 and 2004 under the plan.
   �However, the trainees started pressing us for driving licence to drive heavy transport vehicles just after a week of training, which would have been a clear violation of rules,� Shoeb said.
   As per the rules, driving license can be issued for three categories of vehicles � light, medium and heavy vehicles.
   One who gets driving license under the first category can apply for the second after three years. He needs another three years� experience to obtain driving license for heavy vehicles.

Weak monitoring by the authorities concerned continues to allow unfit buses to ply the roads and highways with fitness certificates, said a high official of the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority.
   Such unfit buses cause a large number of accidents, although the authorities have no official figure on such happenings, the official told New Age.
   The road safety cell of the transport authorities said the annual fatality rate in road accidents is 85.6 per 10,000 vehicles.
   The Accident Research Centre of the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology said road accidents alone account for more than 4,000 deaths and 5,000 severe injuries every year.
   The centre said financial losses incurred because of road accidents exceed Tk�4,000 crore a year.
   The transport agency chairman, Faruq Ahmed, told New Age towards the end of April that lack of required manpower makes proper monitoring difficult.
   He said the authorities provides buses with fitness certificate for a year; and during the time, the buses do not visit the agency for any fitness related issues.
   Faruq said the buses often become unfit after taking fitness certificates as they drive fast and often brush against others on road.
   Another official of the transport agency said the agency examines engine, chassis, wheels, indicators, backlights, breaks, rear view mirrors and colours against what are mentioned in the blue books. The owners keep these things fit when they go for fitness test; once they get the certificate, they bother least about any other things, he said.
   Because of unskilled or rash driving, buses also become unfit soon after taking certificates, he said. He said the agency tries to keep unfit buses off roads.
   The agency has only 310 employees; 41 of the positions have remained vacant for long.
   The authorities filed 1,300 cases against faulty buses between January�27 and April�3; the number of cases was 2,508 between October 2004 and January�4.
   The authorities also instructed the district administrations and the Dhaka Metropolitan Police commissioner to hold at least mobile courts in their areas.
   Some owners and drivers told New Age early may that rear view mirrors, colours, indicators and backlights do not last more than 30 days; a break shoe runs only two months because of rush for passengers and traffic congestion.

The bodies of the passengers who died trapped inside the ML Raipura that sank in the River Padma on Tuesday came afloat on Friday in several areas downstream, but there were no efforts to recover them.
   There had been police, navy and fire service personnel and the people of the Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority on the riverbank since Tuesday night, but no one felt the need for travelling downstream to recover the bodies until 10:00am.
   �I saw five bodies afloat near a char, hardly a kilometre off,� said a local resident, Sumayet Hossain Rana, at 7:30am.
   People in vehicles coming from downstream said that they had seen bodies at some more places. �I saw two bodies drifting downstream at Harirampur,� a fisherman told New Age on his arrival at Aricha.
   Many people had waited on the riverbank looking for their relatives since the ferry capsized with at least 200 passengers on board.
   Till 10:00am, they expressed their disappointment at the negligence by the authorities in bring the bodies ashore.
   �I want to see my son, dead or alive. But it shows I will never find him,� said farm worker Akijuddin Ahmed, standing on the bank on Friday.
   Some bodies lay at places such as Annaypur, Elachipur, Hemganj, Jharibagh and Nayakandi early morning, decomposed and disfigured, reeking of obnoxious smell. Some crows and dogs were eating a corpse.
   On hearing that three bodies came afloat near a char, some people hired a boat to the place early morning. They did not bring the bodies ashore as they were not of their relatives. The bodies were all decomposed.
   The police said their drive to recover bodies that had drifted downstream was delayed for lack of volunteers and fishing boats.
   �We requested the volunteers and fishing boats to come early to resume recovery. But they did not show up until 9:30am,� said the Shibalay police officer-in-charge, Abu Yusuf.
   �Everyone we requested to turn up tried to escape,� he said. �The boatmen who helped us to recover bodies on Thursday also declined to show up thinking of decaying bodies.�
   The assistant superintendent of police of Manikganj, Nazmul Hossen, said they recovered as many bodies as had drifted downstream since the accident.
   �But the problem is that nobody is willing to take bodies in their boats,� he told New Age, counting the bodies and the people gone missing, sitting in a temporary police camp. �We are having a hard time finding volunteers for the recovery drive.�
   A volunteer, Latif, finally arrived at around 9:30am. He said two of his assistants had also been on their way. �We were hesitant to join the drive as the bodies had already begun decomposing,� he told New Age.
   �But we will do it on humanitarian grounds,� Latif said, as he was preparing to travel downstream in a fishing boat.
   Two more boats were engaged later and 12 bodies were recovered from Harirampur, Paturiaghat and nearby chars.

As there are only five shipping department surveyors, they are unable to handle the huge number of motorised vessels in the country. Therefore, three non-government and non-profit organisations will be given the responsibility to ensure standard safety measures in the vessels from July.
   The surveyors, two of whom are on temporary service and one on deputation, are struggling to monitor nearly 8,000 vessels plying the country�s rivers. They are able to monitor only a few thousand vessels throughout the year, though far from properly.
   �In fact, the surveyors issue certificates to the vessels without proper verification,� an official in the shipping department told New Age on Tuesday. �They are compelled to do so as they are always in a hurry and cannot handle the huge number of launches and cargo vessels, thus endangering the lives of passengers.�
   The shipping department sources said five organisations, in response to a government circular, had applied for the task. After evaluation, the government selected three as they fulfilled the required criteria.
   The government has taken the initiative to involve non-government and non-profit organisations, having been impressed by the superlative performance of the classification societies, local and international, in other countries.
   �The lack of manpower and resources, which makes it extremely difficult to maintain the minimum level of safety standard of the vessels, has prompted the government to go for this initiative,� a source in the shipping department told New Age.
   Like other classification societies, the classification societies in Bangladesh will comprise different professionals, including marine engineers. According to the circular, the society will provide the service under the direct supervision of the shipping department.
   �Everything is in the final stage and we expect that the societies will start functioning from July 1,� said Captain AKM Shafiqullah, director general of the shipping department.
   He said the main task of the members of the societies would be to ensure safety.
   Setting safety standards for the vessels will be the main goal of the societies, which will be achieved through establishing and ensuring technical standards, especially enforcing rules for the design, construction and operational maintenance of vessels.
   The classification certificate is the document�which confirms that a ship has been designed and built in accordance with the society�s rules and is thus fit for service.
   To maintain its class and renew its certificate, a vessel must be surveyed annually. Surveys become increasingly stringent as vessels get older.
   Classification is vital for the structural and engineering design, construction and operation of ships.
   Failure to meet the relevant standards, or non-compliance with recommendations issued as the result of a classification survey, may result in the suspension or withdrawal of the permit.

Two suspected robbers were killed and three others, including a policeman, injured in a shootout at Mirpur in the city Friday night.
   The police said a Mirpur police patrol team challenged a group of four young men in a taxicab for suspicious movement near the Punam Community Centre at West Shewrapara at about 8:15pm.
   As the young men hurled bombs and fired shots to escape, the police retaliated.
   At one stage, the passengers tried to run away, leaving the cab abandoned at an alley, but were shot down by the police.
   Later, local people rushed in and beat them up severely before the police rescued them. The four were in possession of a loaded revolver and two sharp weapons.
   The police took the four to Dhaka Medical College Hospital, where on-duty doctors declared two of them dead. The condition of the others was stated to be critical.
   The police also arrested the cabbie, Monir, and were ques- tioning him at the Mirpur police station. Incidents of robberies have been on the rise at Shewrapara over the past few days.
   Two robberies were recorded in the locality within eight hours on Thursday and the authorities suspended two police officers of the Mirpur police station for negligence in duty.

The police on Friday clubbed a procession, brought out in the city to drum up support for today�s countrywide, dawn-to-dusk hartal called by the Awami League.
   The police action prompted retaliation from the opposition activists and subsequent clashes left more than a dozen people injured. The Awami League claimed that the number of the injured should be at least 50.
   The Awami League called the general strike in protest against the killing of its city leader Khorshed Alam Bachchu, a lawyer by profession, who was gunned down by unidentified assailants in front of his Tejkunipara residence on Tuesday.
   Today�s hartal is the second in Dhaka and the first across the country after Bachchu had been murdered. The city Awami League enforced a shutdown in Dhaka on Wednesday to protest against the killing.
   The government already postponed the examinations for higher secondary and equivalent certificates under nine education boards, scheduled for today.
   In support of the hartal, different affiliated organisations of the Awami League brought out a procession at Bangabandhu Avenue on Friday afternoon, but it ended in fiasco as the police clubbed and dispersed the protesters.
   Earlier, the police cordoned off the Awami League leaders and workers with barbwire fences in front of the party�s central office on Bangabandhu Avenue where they had gathered for the procession. The police in riot gear swung into action as the opposition party men tried to break through the barricades.
   The Juba League, youth front of the Awami League, claimed that at least 50 people, including its president Jahangir Kabir Nanak and general secretary Mirza Azam MP were injured.
   Nanak was admitted to the Dhanmondi Trauma Centre and others were sent to Dhaka Medical College Hospital and some clinics.
   The Awami League general secretary, Abdul Jalil, announced Saturday�s hartal on Wednesday.
   Jalil in a statement on Friday called the people to make today�s countrywide hartal a success.
   He appealed to all, including democratic forces, to observe the hartal for resisting the �planned brutal killings of political rivals� and setting the country free from �the misrule of the BNP-led alliance government�. The allies of the Awami League, the 11-party alliance, a combine of left and democratic political parties, did not support hartal call.

A section of senior Awami League leaders believe today�s hartal will affect the party politically in terms of gaining popularity on the one hand and consolidating the process of forging a broad-based anti-government alliance with smaller opposition parties on the other.
   The disgruntled leaders told New Age, on condition of anonymity, indeed, that most of them had neither been consulted on nor informed of the two hartals, called in protest against the killing of the legal affairs secretary of the Dhaka city Awami League, Khorshed Alam Bachchu.
   �We must protest against the brutal murder of the city unit leader,� said a senior AL leader. �However, we should have chosen some other forms of protest without affecting the ongoing public examinations that involve thousands of families.�
   The general secretary of the Dhaka city Awami League, Mofazzal Hossain Chowdhury Maya called Wednesday�s strike in the capital almost unilaterally, AL sources said.
   On the other hand, the AL general secretary, Abdul Jalil, called the countrywide hartal for Saturday without consulting senior party leaders, claimed a presidium member.
   Sources close to Jalil said he had secured prior approval of the AL president, Sheikh Hasina, who was on a five-day organisational tour to Cox�s Bazar.
   However, more than one AL leader told New Age on Friday that Jalil had disgraced the party by claiming to the press that there were no public examinations on Saturday.
   �He is supposed to be aware of the ongoing HSC examinations schedule, and announce political programmes accordingly,� said a senior AL leader.
   Notably, Wednesday�s strike in Dhaka forced the authorities concerned to postpone all higher secondary certificate and bachelor�s examinations scheduled for the day.
   Besides, there were two HSC examinations in the morning and afternoon, which were eventually postponed after the announcement of hartal.
   Components of the 11-Party Alliance, who were approached by the Awami League for support to the hartal only after its announcement, refused to join in.
   After announcing the hartal, Jalil telephoned the coordinator of the 11-Party Alliance, Bimal Biswas, also general secretary of the Workers Party, and sought support for the hartal.
   However, the alliance, a combine of left and democratic political parties, at a meeting at the Workers Party office Thursday morning, decided not to extend support to the hartal.
   �It is a matter of regret that the Awami League did not seek our opinion before the May 18 hartal. Now, they have requested us for the one on May 20, and that too after making the announcement,� Bimal told New Age. �The practice is inconsistent with the principles of joint movement.�

A British newspaper ran intimate photographs Friday of ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in US military custody, including one of him half-naked, prompting an investigation into possible human rights abuses.
   Under the headline �Tyrant�s in his pants,� The Sun ran a front-page photo of a bare-chested Saddam standing in white underwear and holding an item of clothing as he appeared to be getting dressed, with an unpainted wooden door behind him.
   In the accompanying article along with other intimate photographs of him, the mass-circulation daily quotes US military sources as saying they handed over the photos in the hope of dealing a body blow to the resistance in Iraq.
   �Saddam is not superman or God, he is now just an ageing and humble old man. It�s important that the people of Iraq see him like that to destroy the myth,� the source was quoted as saying.
   �Maybe that will kill a bit of the passion in the fanatics who still follow him,� the source said. �It�s over, guys. The evil days of Saddam�s Baath Party are never coming back � and here�s the proof.�
   In Baghdad, a US military spokesman said the military was investigating the photos of Saddam to find out who took them and decide what kind of disciplinary action should be taken.
   �There is an investigation,� US Staff Sergeant Don Dees said. �A policy prohibits us from exploitation of detainees and that policy is in place to preserve their dignity.�
   The photos �were taken in clear violation of department of defence directives and possibly Geneva Convention guidelines for the humane treatment of detained individuals�, a US military statement said.
   In addition, existing procedures and directives are being investigated �to prevent this from happening again�, the statement said.
   On its front page, The Sun also ran a teaser photo with the headline �Inside�s Saddam�s jail cell. First ever pictures.� It claimed a world exclusive of the intimate life of the 68-year-old ousted dictator.
   Inside, photographs appeared of the moustachioed Saddam wearing a white-robed garment while washing his clothes by hand in a bucket as he sat on a red plastic chair.
   Another shows him sleeping, dressed in a black top and his head resting on a white pillow. A fourth photograph, which was the only black and white one, showed him shuffling about his jail, wearing a dark robe and sandals.
   The Sun said the top secret location in Iraq where Saddam is held includes a living area that is fully air conditioned. He sleeps under US army blankets, is fed three freshly prepared meals a day, and is allowed to dye his hair black.
   The compound has a washing block, a small courtyard and a small exercise yard. The thick plywood walls ringed with razor-sharp barbed wire are designed more to keep attackers out than Saddam in, it said.
   He rarely mixes with other prisoners to protect him from assassination, it added.
   It is not the first time US soldiers have taken shocking photos in apparent violation of Geneva Convention guidelines. Numerous photos came to light in April 2004 showing abuses of detainees in the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad.
   US tabloid newspaper, the New York Post, also ran a picture of a half-naked Saddam Hussein in his underwear on its front page Friday, under the banner headline �Butcher of Baghdad�.
   The intimate photo of Saddam, along with three other pictures of the ousted Iraqi leader in his prison, were billed as an �exclusive� borrowed from sister British tabloid The Sun.
   Both newspapers are owned by Australian-born media tycoon Rupert Murdoch.
   �Saddam Hussein is living out every dictator�s worst nightmare�stripped of power and stripped to his underwear,� the Post said in an accompanying story headlined �Saddam�s Life is a Hard Cell.�
   The other pictures showed Saddam washing his socks, walking in a prison yard and sleeping in his cell.

Even after a year, the police investigators are yet to make any headway in finding any clues to the grenade attack that wounded the British high commissioner,�Anwar Choudhury, at the shrine of Hazrat Shahjalal in Sylhet.
   The investigation officer of the case, Munshi Atiqur Rahman, assistant superintendent of police, has not yet filed the charge sheet.
   Munshi told New Age that the investigation was yet to be completed. It would take more time to file a charge sheet, he said.
   In a grenade attack in front of the main entrance of the shrine�s mosque on May 21, 2004, Anwar Choudhury was wounded while he was coming out after saying juma prayers. The attack killed three others and injured more than a hundred.
   An assistant subinspector of the Kotwali police station in Sylhet filed a case after the incident.
   The next day, an inquiry committee was formed by the Sylhet police administration. Police superintendent Shahadat Hussain was made to head the committee.
   Shahadat handed the report over to the deputy inspector general of the Sylhet Police Ranges, Ali Imam Chowdhury, on June 27. A team of high police officials, including the then inspector general of police, Shahudul Haque, also inspected the place the day after the incident and put Munshi in charge of the investigation fives days after the incident.
   Munshi interrogated the injured under treatment in Sylhet Osmani Medical College Hospital.
   He interrogated more than a hundred people, including a principal of a local madrassah in the Sylhet city; but he failed to find the criminals, according to the sources in the Criminal Investigation Department.
   Soon after the incident, 16 people, including 9 local leaders of the Bangladesh Chhatra League, were arrested.
   Later three activists of the Bangladesh Chhatra Shibir of the Sylhet unit were also arrested from Akhalia area in the city and most of the arrested were interrogated in the joint interrogation cell in Dhaka.
   The arrested were released on bail because the investigators could not extract any information from them, the sources said.
   An injured expatriate, Shamim, was on top of the suspects� list of the detective agencies. Shamim succeeded to go to England dodging the detectives within a short time of amputating his leg.
   Munshi, according to the sources, went to Singapore to meet Shamim, but failed to get any clues.
   A three-member team of�the Scotland Yard also came to Sylhet to investigate the attack on Chowdhury three days after the incident.
   Apart from the investigation, the team exchanged its views with the police administration in Sylhet and Dhaka.
   The Scotland Yard team submitted its report to the Bangladesh government, where it observed that the attack could be an act of Islamic terrorists� network, the sources said.

Examinations for higher secondary and equivalent certificates under nine education boards, pencilled in for today, have been postponed because of a daylong countrywide hartal, called by the opposition Awami League in protest against the killing of a city unit leader on Tuesday.
   A fresh schedule will be announced shortly, said an education ministry news release on Friday.
   Four lakh twenty-two thousand four hundred and seventy-four examinees have registered for the HSC examinations under seven general education boards that began on May 12.
   Besides, under the Madrassah Education Board 48,052 students registered for Alim, 20,159 for Fazil, and 8,194 for Kamil certificates.
   Under the Technical Education Board, 27,385 examinees registered to take business management examinations, according to ministry sources.
   A Dhaka University news release on Friday also announced postponement of examinations, scheduled to be held in the Arts Building and Curzon Hall centres.

A new forensic laboratory will be set up in the capital soon to help the Criminal Investigation Department carry out advanced examinations of evidence with the latest technology, said sources in the home ministry.
   The lab will be set up under a Tk 80-crore project of the ministry that also involves introduction of 20 model police stations across the country and purchase of modern vehicles for the force.
   The preliminary project proposal is now at the Economic Relations Department for scrutiny.
   The ministry sent a letter to the police headquarters last week asking for a list of police stations that could be described as models.
   �The lab has become essential to track down criminals who deceive law enforcers and escape trials through various means,� said a top home ministry official.
   The ministry originally planned to set up five forensic labs and sought financial assistance from multilateral lending and donor agencies and countries. However, Japan, which came up with a Tk�80-crore proposal, has agreed to finance establishment of one, said the official.
   Japan has also set the conditions that the fund must be utilised within the next one year and that Tk�16 crore must spent on the lab, Tk�28 crore on vehicles and Tk�26 on the model stations, he added.
   A Japanese embassy official, however, told New Age on Sunday that nothing had been finalised as yet.
   Ministry officials believe the lab will help the department to crack cases that were used to be considered tough.
   �Analysis of forensic evidence is used in the investigation and prosecution of civil and criminal proceedings. Often, it can help establish guilt or innocence of possible suspects,� an official involved with the project said. �Forensic evidence is also used to link crimes that are thought to be related to one another.�
   He said investigators would get all kinds of analytical data of examined evidence, including DNA, by using the lab.
   �DNA evidence can link one offender to several different crimes and linking crimes helps the law enforcement authorities to narrow the range of possible suspects and to establish patterns of crimes, which are useful in identifying and prosecuting suspects.�
   The lone forensic lab in the country is located at Mohakhali. It does not have the required technologies and experts to meet the growing pressure. There is also no option for DNA test, he said.

The UNHCR has threatened to wind up its operations in Bangladesh after a series of reported violations of human rights in two refugee camps for Rohingyas in Cox�s Bazar.
   Officials concerned told the news agency that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees did not sign the annual agreement with the disaster management ministry for the current year.
   The repatriation of 20,000 Rohingyas, sheltered in the Nayapa and Kutupalang camps, will face uncertainty, if the disagreement over the human rights issues between the government and the UNHCR is not resolved, fear officials working in Dhaka in the UN agency, disaster management ministry and the Rohingya Repartition Commission.
   �We have already discussed the issue with the UNHCR,� said Shamim Ahmed, chief of the ministry�s Rohingya refugee cell.
   He admitted that the annual agreement with the UN agency was yet to be signed.
   �We have sent a proposal over the annual agreement to the UNHCR. After the agency�s approval, it will need endorsement of the government on some required matters.�
   He, however, hoped that the repartition of the Rohingya refugees would start soon after both the parties reached a consensus.
   The deputy representative of UNHCR in Dhaka, Mulusew Mamo, expressed his dissatisfaction over human rights situation in the two refugee camps in Cox�s Bazar. He said the human rights situation in the camps was really bad.
   �The refugees in the camps have no freedom of movement... Virtually they are passing a captive life,� he said.
   �We informed the Bangladesh government on the issue several times and hope that they will give more attention to the matter.�

The tenure of the chief election commissioner, MA Syed, expires today, a day before the actual date of expiration of the appointment, as Sunday is a public holiday.
   On the last day of his five-year tenure, Syed will call on the president, Iajuddin Ahmed, and submit a five-point proposal for electoral reforms.
   His proposal calls for establishing a secretariat under the Election Commission, introduction of an election official cadre in the Bangladesh Civil Service, framing of new rules enabling introduction of electronic voting machines, deployment of army during municipal and city corporation elections, and provision for formation of electoral inquiry committees during municipal and city corporation polls.
   He joined the Election Commission on May 23, 2000 and conducted the general elections in October in 2001.
   The president appointed MA Syed as the chief election commissioner during the erstwhile Awami League government and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, then in opposition, was against the appointment.
   After the October 1 general elections, the Awami League president, Sheikh Hasina, and other leaders of the party accused Syed several times of plotting their defeat.
   During the five-year tenure he had put the government in a tight spot with his controversial remarks on different issues including the union council elections. A perpetual tension, and at times discords between the Election Commission and the government marked his tenure.
   The trouble between the government and Syed began when the government overturned his repeated requests for deployment of the army during the union council polls in early 2002.
   Terming the government�s refusal �unconstitutional�, he blasted the government and expressed his concern over fairness of the polls.
   By the end of the local government polls, Syed dismissed it saying the election was nothing but a �futile exercise� prompting the ruling lawmakers to demand his removal.
   A rumour ran at that time that the government may impose an age-bar on the appointment of election commissioners by amending the constitution.
   Syed along with his deputies, all of whom are former bureaucrats, had fought a legal battle against the government to uphold their �constitutional� dignity as the government stopped paying their salaries on the ground of over-drawing from pension funds.
   Meanwhile, the government is yet to decide on a new appointment for the post. The main opposition party, the Awami League, will neither make any proposal nor will sit with the government for a dialogue about the appointment of the next chief election commissioner.

A team of South Korean scientists has developed the first lines of patient-specific embryonic stem cells, designed to give a precise DNA match, according to a study released Thursday in the United States.
   The research marks major strides in work aimed at making it possible one day to transplant healthy cells into humans to replace cells ravaged by illnesses such as Parkinson�s and diabetes, said the researchers, whose work was published in the May 20 issue of Science.
   Co-author on the study, Dr Gerald Schatten of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine called the development �a major advance in the science of using stem cells to repair damage caused by human disease and injury�.
   �What the study shows is that stem cells can be made that are specific to patients regardless of age or sex and that these cells are identical genetic matches to the donor,� Schatten said.
   The advance came from the same Korean researchers who produced the first line of stem cells from a human embryo at 5-10 days�at that point called a blastocyst�which had been cloned. That research was announced in March 2004, also in Science.
   Thursday�s announcement of the new research came one week before a debate starts in the US House of Representatives on federal funding of stem cell research on days-old embryos held in the freezers of fertility clinics donated by couples who no longer need them.
   In the new Korean research, 11 new lines of embryonic stem cells were created by transferring genetic material from a non-reproductive cell of a patient into a donated egg, or oocyte, from which the nucleus had been removed. The method is called somatic cell nuclear transfer, or SNCT, researchers said.
   Then oocytes with the genetic material of the patient were developed to the blastocyst stage, an early phase of embryo growth.
   �Stem cells were then derived from the inner cell mass of the blastocyst,� the Science authors Woo Suk Hwang of Seoul National University, and colleagues, reported.
   Eighteen women, including 10 under age 30, donated the eggs, and 11 people, both male and female from ages two to 56 years, donated skin cells to provide the non-reproductive tissue transferred to the denucleised egg to form the blastocyst.
   Some 185 such eggs had their nucleus exchanged for genetic material from sufferers of juvenile diabetes, spinal chord injury and congenital hypogamma-globulinemia�an illness that can give increased risk of infections.
   The Korean researchers said it took an average 17 eggs to make each stem cell line. They cautioned that such cloning for reproductive purposes would be dangerous and should not be attempted.

The Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board is expected to launch prepaid card for overseas and nationwide dialling by early 2006, having missed several deadlines since June 2004.
   The service will initially be available in Dhaka and in other cities afterwards, the board officials said.
   They said the installation of necessary equipment will begin in June and is expected to be completed by September.
   Huawei Technologies, a Chinese telecom equipment manufacturer, will install the equipment at the Moghbazar Telephone Exchange in the city at a cost of Tk�1.85�crore.
   The board is working on marketing plan of the prepaid cards, which will have some new features like toll-free phone facilities, information service etc, the officials said.
   They said the prepaid calling cards would have unique code numbers to let users make both local and international calls from any landline telephone.
   Scratching the cards, the users will have to dial the digits from a landline telephone and they will then get another dial tone for making local or international calls, said the officials and added that the landline phone would not be charged as the tariff would be deducted from the card.

Four US soldiers have been killed in three separate incidents in Iraq, according to US military statements here Friday.
   Two soldiers were killed in a drive-by shooting attack on their convoy in central Baghdad on Thursday, while another was killed a day earlier in an �indirect fire attack��a term normally designating mortar fire�on a base in the western flashpoint city of Ramadi.
   Another soldier died in a road crash after a bomb exploded near US patrol vehicles overnight Thursday to Friday near Taji, north of the capital.
   The total number of US service personnel who have died in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion now stands at 1,623, according to an AFP tally based on Pentagon figures.
   Tensions between Shiite and Sunni Muslims dominated sermons in Iraqi mosques on Friday, with Sunni leaders saying they would close the places of worship for three days in an unprecedented protest at anti-Sunni assassinations.
   And in an outward show of the escalating sectarian tension, shooting erupted between rival Shia and Sunni neighbourhoods in Baghdad after a car bomb killed two Iraqi soldiers in the Shia district of Kadhimiya.
   After the car bomb in Kadhimiya, US forces moved into the area backed by gunships that fired several rockets on the Adhamiya Sunni neighbourhood, which lies across the Tigris.
   Iraqi forces came under mortar round fire in the area of the car bomb and AFP correspondents witnessed exchanges of gunfire across the river.
   Announcing the mosque closures and plans to hold a meeting of at least 1,000 Sunni leaders, Sheikh Ahmed Abdul Ghafur al-Samarrai said in his sermon: �It is a peaceful protest against heinous crimes and it will be repeated if these attacks happen again.�
   He added: �We must unite to create a leadership for the community.�
   At the same time, leading Shia cleric Abdel Aziz al-Hakim called for Iraqi leaders to unite against the violence.
   �We must preserve unity and fight against any attempts at discord that aim to divide Iraqis,� said Hakim, head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, one of two dominant political parties in the United Iraqi Alliance that controls the new government.
   �I call on all Iraqis not to give in to this. I call on all religious Sunni and Shia clerics to stand against violence aimed at them.�
   Sunnis have accused the Badr Organisation of Hakim�s party of being the militia responsible for the recent killing of several Sunnis, including three imams.

No headway has been made in the investigation into the killing of Khorshed Alam Bachchu, the legal affairs secretary of the Dhaka city Awami League, till Friday, four days after the incident.
   The law enforcers could neither find any clue nor identify the criminals responsible for the killing of Bachchu who was shot dead near his residence at Tejkunipara Tuesday morning on his way to the court.
   The Detective Branch police did not get any significant information from the two arrested persons � Sujan and Sohel � who were remanded for a week.
   Shahidul Islam, deputy commissioner of Detective Branch, told New Age on Friday night that they were interrogating the arrested, and launched several drives to hunt down the criminals. �But there is no development in the investigation.�
   Fazlul Kabir, the newly assigned investigation officer, said the arrested did not provide them with any important information. �Even the family members are still in the dark as they did not have any idea about the rivals of Bachchu in his political or professional life.�
   The Tejgaon police arrested Ismail Hossain alias Sujan and Mohammad Sohel from the area on Tuesday night suspecting them to be involved in the killing, and took them on a seven-day remand Wednesday.
   The Tejgaon police handed over the case docket and document to the Detective Branch police on Thursday.
   Earlier victim�s wife Jahan Akhtar filed a case with the Tejgaon police station on Tuesday night without naming any persons.

A young man was killed in a bomb attack at village Devipur in Chapainawabganj early Friday.
   The victim was identified as Badu, son of Abdul Khaleq. His body was sent to the district hospital morgue for autopsy.
   The locals said a conflict between two groups, reportedly led by the Narayanpur union council chairman, Humayun, and Lokman might have been behind the murder.
   No case was filed till 7:00pm.

A district court in West Bengal on Friday rejected the bail prayers of nine Bangladeshi �criminals� who were arrested on May 4 from Bongaon in Kolkata.
   The public prosecutors argued that the arrested were listed �criminals� of Bangladesh and they were engaged in conspiracy against India.
   �The criminals also committed different crimes, including tax evasion, inside Bongaon,� they added.
   Meanwhile, a spokesman of the West Bengal police told the news agency that the arrested confessed that they were listed criminals of Bangladesh. They entered Bongaon 11 months back hiding their real names in their passports.

The trawler, which capsized in the Meghna near Mirzakalu Thursday evening with about 60 passengers and goods worth Tk�10 lakh, about 30 kilometres south of Bhola, is yet to be salvaged.
   Sources in the local administration said the trawler had set out for Char Zahiruddin under Tazumuddin upazila at 5:15pm and sank in the river at about 6:30pm after being caught in a storm.
   They said as the trawler failed to reach the destination due to high wind, it tried to go back and sank in the river.
   Mohammad Jahangir, a member of Malongchhara union parishad, and survivors said at least ten passengers, including two women and four children of Char Zahiruddin, still remain missing.
   But the owner of the trawler claimed that all the passengers survived as the trawler capsized near a char close to the riverbank.
   The trawler was plying without route permit on the very nose of the administration and the police, local people alleged. But local administration and police officials brushed aside the allegations.
   Local businessmen with the help of the owner were trying to salvage the sunken trawler to recover their goods till filing of this report.

An inter-district train rammed into a bus at the Pat Gudam crossing near the Mymensingh railway station on Friday, leaving one person killed and 30 injured.
   The Mymensingh-bound Agni-bina collided with a Dhaka-bound bus from Netrakona at about 12:45pm, according to witnesses.
   The crossing remained open when the bus came on the railway tracks because the lineman had gone off to a shelter in heavy rain, they said.
   One unidentified bus passenger, aged about 45, died on the spot.