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 All's well that Ends well
Bangladesh must succeed in creating higher, stronger, foundations for democracy that can endure beyond the elections.
Ripan Kumar Biswas
One of my known persons who is a mid level army officer, was very sad while he was talking with me as according to him and many others including defense personnel and a large number of civilians in Bangladesh, present military backed interim government is trying hard to improve the country's total image in politics, businesses, administrations and finally to restore a stable and peaceful democratic political system in Bangladesh, but critics both local and international, are so harsh on the government and different law enforcement agencies.
Although it's a part of their duty, but he further mentioned that they are living and spending their lives in the different camps in rural areas across the country leaving their families at different places since January 11, 2007 as because like others they also dream of a peaceful democratic political system in Bangladesh.
After receiving criticism against the role of Fakhruddin's government especially regarding human rights issues from different groups, organizations or individuals both local and international, government expressed its deep concern while the US Department of State in its annual report "Human Rights Practices 2007" on Bangladesh revealed that human rights record worsened in the country as the state of emergency continued to be in effect with elections remaining postponed.
In the country paper on Bangladesh, the report said the Emergency Powers Rules of 2007 (EPR), imposed by the government in January and effective through year's end, suspended many fundamental rights, including freedom of press, freedom of association, and the right to bail. The report criticized harshly giving priorities against serious abuses, including custodial deaths, arbitrary arrest and detention, and harassment of journalists by the security forces although there was a significant drop of extra-judicial killings.
In addition since last September, although the government eased bans on indoor political gatherings in Dhaka but limited the number of people who could attend and required parties to seek permission from the home ministry to hold meetings, while according to one election commissioner Brig Gen (retd) M Sakhawat Hussain, without any decision on the state of emergency with the hands and feet of political parties tied, holding of polls would not be possible. Talking to the reporters after holding a meeting with a delegation of the newly launched Bangladesh Kalyan Party on Thursday 13, 2008, Sakhawat felt the need for relaxing the state of emergency not only for creating an environment conducive to elections, but also for registration of political parties.
However in an immediate reaction to the report, Bangladesh government expressed disappointment at the report's lack of balance in presenting the country's ground realities as the international communities are very much aware of the circumstances, which led to the declaration of the state of emergency early January 2007. According to a foreign ministry spokesman, the report further failed to mention the significant reform measures taken by the caretaker government for consolidating and sustaining democracy.
The army-backed Caretaker Government has scored some credible successes, especially in the area of law and order to address the challenge of extremism and terrorism in Bangladesh. It has eliminated a large number of terrorist kingpins like Bangla Bhai. They have also revived the case on the assassination attempt on Sheikh Hasina in which preliminary evidence shows complicity of some BNP leaders.
Strong democracies also need sound institutions and processes. A stable business climate needs firm foundations of accountability. And people need to be able to trust that public life is not manipulated by a few individuals to satisfy selfish greed for money and power. The Caretaker Government pointed out its achievements: an overhaul of the country's institutions including the Election Commission, Public Service Commission, the separation of the Judiciary that has eluded past governments for over 35 years and a drive to combat corruption. Government further mentioned its effort to improve human rights situation including the progress toward the formation of the Human Rights Commission and efforts to improve workers' and women rights. The government which is elected in 2008 will have a responsibility to nurture these gains.
Using countrywide data, the US State Department report said the Rapid Action Battalion killed 94 persons throughout the year, although the average number of such deaths dropped from 15 per month in 2006 to approximately 8 per month during the year, but it's still continuing. Odhikar, a Dhaka based human rights organization, said that 87 persons died in prison and 67 died while in the custody of police and other security forces. The report pointed its concern to the declaration a curfew in August 2007 in response to protests on university campuses in several major cities and unwarranted arrests of teachers, students, and employees.
"This is the best time to get things right in Bangladesh and there is an urgent need to strengthen democracy through free, fair and transparent election for receiving continued US support," said Congressman Joseph Crowley, co-chair of US Congressional Bangladesh Caucus, on Thursday, March 13, 2008 at the Capitol Hill in Washington DC. All of them including Congressman Sheila Jackson and Bangladesh Ambassador to the US M Humayun Kabir, who were present at that meeting, mentioned the vastness of change in Bangladesh while Crowley expected that the government would follow the due process of law during the trials of the arrested leaders.
Credible and fair elections will be vital to the success of democratic renaissance in Bangladesh - the first and fundamental pillar of new foundations. "Democracy is not just about elections and installing governments after definite intervals. It is about empowering the people and ensuring their rights to choose their representatives without fear or intimidation and we always remained focused in our main task of holding a free and fair election by the end of 2008," Chief Adviser Dr. Fakhruddin Ahmed commented while addressing the Asia Society at New York on September 27, 2007.
As democracy is a right to enjoy the fruits of economic growth and development and a continuous process of building and strengthening institutions, Bangladesh must succeed in creating higher, stronger, foundations for democracy that can endure beyond the elections.
(Ripan Kumar Biswas is a freelance writer based in New York. Dateline New York; March 15, 2008. E-mail: Ripan.Biswas@yahoo.com)
Policy Clash Looms between Trade and Climate
A number of policy groups, including the Center for American Progress, suggest climate trade restrictions should be policy "tools of last resort."
Toni Johnson
Canada's ambassador sent a letter to U.S. officials in February warning that an overly broad interpretation of the Energy Independence and Security Act, signed into law in December 2007, could actually prohibit the United States from importing oil. The law prohibits the import of alternative fuels with higher greenhouse-gas emissions than conventional petroleum sources. Canada points out this might be read to include oil from tar sands, which makes up the bulk of the oil Canada sends to the United States. Canada is the largest single supplier of oil to the United States, thanks in part to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
The concerns raised by the Canadian embassy highlight a looming clash between climate change policy and U.S. commitments to free trade. After years in which the United States declined to take part in the multilateral approach to climate policy, symbolized by the Kyoto Protocol, U.S. lawmakers appear ready to push through climate change legislation. But lawmakers worry about U.S. competitiveness. They want to discourage industries from relocating abroad to avoid climate regulation. They also want to ensure foreign producers don't get a "free ride" on greenhouse-gas regulations when U.S. industries are forced to comply. Under pending proposals , U.S. lawmakers are weighing several options that would penalize foreign trading partners if they do not take steps to reduce emissions during the production of commodities for the U.S. market. But the import taxes, labeling specifications, and requirements to purchase emissions permits being proposed are in conflict with the notion of free trade, say some experts. The European Union, in particular, is considering such measures (EurActiv), many of them directed at producers in the United States.
U.S. lawmakers and environmental advocates believe these measures would fall within World Trade Organization (WTO) rules covering environmental standards. But some experts disagree. Although the WTO allows discriminatory actions by members for environmental concerns, such measures must be proved not to be arbitrary, overly onerous, or merely using the environment as a means to erect covert trade barriers. International trade lawyer Bernd G. Janzen says that to date, the WTO's rulings on these issues offer little in the way of guidelines for U.S. or other policymakers. A report from the National Foreign Trade Council, a U.S.-based trade advocacy group, points to a 1994 WTO ruling that prevented the United States from imposing an auto import tax on based on fuel efficiency standards.
Gary Clyde Hufbauer, an economist at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, told U.S. lawmakers earlier this month that almost all environmentally based trade restrictions stand a good chance of a WTO challenge. He says such restrictions could spark retaliation on U.S. exports. Sebastian Mallaby, director of CFR's Center for Geoeconomic Studies, says the potential destabilizing force of green tariffs on existing international trade deals should be assessed before finishing a new round of global trade talks. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a powerful proponent of free trade, suggests a better climate policy solution would be liberalizing the trade of clean energy technologies . The Bush administration and European Union are both pushing for an end to clean-technology tariffs currently imposed by other countries. The administration has also warned against imposing the type of tariffs being proposed in Congress and the European Union.
A number of policy groups, including the Center for American Progress, suggest climate trade restrictions should be policy "tools of last resort." Instead they suggest engaging countries in multilateral or bilateral climate agreements. A 2008 World Bank report notes that many climate measures focus on production methods and processes , which it suggests could be crucial to finding a regime that can pass WTO muster. The WTO recently upheld a U.S. ban on imported shrimp trawled without protective measures for sea turtles. In that ruling, the WTO noted that the disputants were all signatories of the same endangered species treaty. Such reasoning, the report says, could be applied to climate and trade policy clashes between nations.
(Toni Johnson is a Staff Writer for the Council on Foreign Relations. Source: www.crf.org)
Iraq: Never-Ending Misery and Rising Economic Costs The war has had only two winners: Oil companies and defense contractors. The stock price of Halliburton, Vice President Dick Cheney's old company, has soared.
Joseph Stiglitz
With March 20 marking the fifth anniversary of the United States-led invasion of Iraq, it's time to take stock of what has happened. In our new book "The Three Trillion Dollar War", Harvard's Linda Bilmes and I conservatively estimate the economic cost of the war to the US to be $3 trillion, and the costs to the rest of the world to be another $3 trillion - far higher than the Bush administration's estimates before the war. The Bush team not only misled the world about the war's possible costs, but has also sought to obscure the costs as the war has gone on.
This is not surprising. After all, the Bush administration lied about everything else, from Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction to his supposed link with Al-Qaeda. Indeed, only after the US-led invasion did Iraq become a breeding ground for terrorists.
The Bush administration said the war would cost $50 billion. The US now spends that amount in Iraq every three months. To put that number in context: For one-sixth of the cost of the war, the US could put its social security system on a sound footing for more than a half-century, without cutting benefits or raising contributions.
Moreover, the Bush administration cut taxes for the rich as it went to war, despite running a budget deficit. As a result, it has had to use deficit spending - much of it financed from abroad - to pay for the war. This is the first war in American history that has not demanded some sacrifice from citizens through higher taxes; instead, the entire cost is being passed onto future generations. Unless things change, the US national debt - which was $5.7 trillion when Bush became president - will be $2 trillion higher because of the war (in addition to the $800 billion increase under Bush before the war).
Was this incompetence or dishonesty? Almost surely both. Cash accounting meant that the Bush administration focused on today's costs, not future costs, including disability and health care for returning veterans. Only years after the war began did the administration order the specially armored vehicles that would have saved the lives of many killed by roadside bombs. Not wanting to reintroduce a draft, and finding it difficult to recruit for an unpopular war, troops have been forced into two, three, or four stress-filled deployments.
The administration has tried to keep the war's costs from the American public. Veterans groups have used the freedom of information act to discover the total number of injured - 15 times the number of fatalities. Already, 52,000 returning veterans have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress syndrome. America will need to provide disability compensation to an estimated 40 percent of the 1.65 million troops that have already been deployed. And, of course, the bleeding will continue as long as the war continues, with the healthcare and disability bill amounting to more than $600 billion (in present-value terms).
Ideology and profiteering have also played a role in driving up the war's costs. America has relied on private contractors, which have not come cheap. A Blackwater security guard can cost more than $1,000 per day, not including disability and life insurance, which is paid for by the government. When unemployment rates in Iraq soared to 60 percent, hiring Iraqis would have made sense; but the contractors preferred to import cheap labor from Nepal, Philippines, and other countries. The war has had only two winners: Oil companies and defense contractors. The stock price of Halliburton, Vice President Dick Cheney's old company, has soared. But even as the government turned increasingly to contractors, it reduced its oversight.
The largest cost of this mismanaged war has been borne by Iraq. Half of Iraq's doctors have been killed or have left the country, unemployment stands at 25 percent, and, five years after the war's start, Baghdad still has less than eight hours of electricity a day. Out of Iraq's total population of around 28 million, 4 million are displaced and 2 million have fled the country.
The thousands of violent deaths have inured most Westerners to what is going on: A bomb blast that kills 25 hardly seems newsworthy anymore. But statistical studies of death rates before and after the invasion tell some of the grim reality. They suggest additional deaths from a low of around 450,000 in the first 40 months of the war (150,000 of them violent deaths) to 600,000. With so many people in Iraq suffering so much in so many ways, it may seem callous to discuss the economic costs. And it may seem particularly self-absorbed to focus on the economic costs to America, which embarked on this war in violation of international law. But the economic costs are enormous, and they go well beyond budgetary outlays. Americans like to say that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Nor is there such a thing as a free war. The US - and the world - will be paying the price for decades to come.
Source: www.arabnews.com
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"Afghan Star" contestant Lima Sahar, sings during a rehearsal at the Tolo TV office in Kabul, Afghanistan, Wednesday, March 12, 2008. In a first for post-Taliban Afghanistan, Sahar, a woman from the conservative Pashtun belt is one of the top three contenders in the country's version of "American Idol." Conservative detractors decry the fact an Afghan woman has found success singing on television, while others, younger Afghans, say the show is helping women progress. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool) 
