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Saturday, April 10, 2010

[ALOCHONA] Grameen Bank Uses The Poor To Bail Out Adidas From Its Financial Crisis



Grameen Bank Uses The Poor To Bail Out Adidas From Its Financial Crisis

By Devinder Sharma
 

Nobel laureate Muhammed Yunus is planning a joint venture with German sports apparel maker Adidas to provide cheaper shoes for the poor. Bangladesh's newspaper Daily Star reported on March 21: The two sides have signed a memorandum of understanding and are working together on how to bring the products into market tentatively by the year-end, said officials of Yunus Centre, the hub of his social business activities. At a meeting at Yunus Centre, Yunus was quoted as saying: "The shoes will be cheap and affordable for the poor. It will protect people from diseases."

Appears to be a laudable objective. But just pause, and think.

I admire Muhammed Yunus for his ability to use the poor so effectively in promoting the commercial ventures of internationally known brands, which are faced with a serious economic crisis. Adidas is one such company, which recently faced a money-laundering probe, and has had its net profits falling by a whopping 97 per cent to just US $ 6.7 million. According to news reports, "Adidas has announced a major restructuring of its operations that would include the elimination of regional headquarters in Europe and Asia and was expected to generate more than €100 million in annual savings."

Adidas would remain eternally grateful to Muhammed Yunus for providing it an assured market that it was desperately looking for. Any shoe company would grab an opportunity where it can sell its shoes continuously for years, in bulk. In other words, Grameen Bank will end up bailing out Adidas from its present crisis of survival. Even if the market was for cheaper shoes (in any case, these shoes have often been allegedly manufactured in 'sweat-shops'), Adidas ends up making enough money to keep it afloat.

Ever since I was a child, I always felt outraged to see the poor walk barefoot. In my own village in Himachal Pradesh, this was quite a usual sight till recently. In many other parts of the country, more so in the tribal and poverty-stricken areas, poor people walk barefoot for miles. I even see women walking barefoot to collect drinking water, fuel and fooder. Most people do understand that walking barefoot makes them vulnerable to several ailments and diseases. But it is because of their economic inability, they can't afford a pair of shoes or chappal.

Providing the poor with cheaper shoes certainly looks to be a pious initiative. I am sure Grameen Bank will soon link up sales of shoes with its loan repayment plans. In other words, poor will become an assured market for Adidas shoes.

I am sure many of you would agree that if the poor were given micro-credit at a lower rate of interest than what the Grameen Bank is doing at present, they would be left with more money in their hands from which they can buy not only shoes but also a decent pair of clothing that Muhammed Yunus is now trying to sell. Interestingly, you first squeeze out every penny from the pocket of the poor in the name of empowerment, and then you show benevolence by selling them a pair of shoes!

Muhammed Yunus and his brand of Micro-Finance Institutions (MFIs) all over the developing world charges the poorest of the poor with a very high interest rate varying between 24 to 36 per cent on an average. I don't think even former US President Bill Clinton, a strong votary of micro-finance, himself pays a 24 per cent rate of interest like what the poorest of the poor are made to shell out.

Since the loan recovery is on weekly basis, the poor end up paying still higher interest, anything between 35 to 50 per cent. No wonder, in several parts of India (and also in Bangladesh) poor loanees are being driven to commit suicide.

Micro-finance is an organised money-lending.

Imagine if the poor were to repay at the rate of 4 to 5 per cent rate of interest, which increasingly is being offered to farmers in India, the entire economic activity for which they receive the small credit, would become profitable. I have always been saying that if the poorest of a poor woman in a village were to get credit at 4 per cent interest for buying a goat, she would be probably be driving a Nano car at the end of the second year.

Yunus is only talking about providing the poor with a pair of cheap shoes. I am talking about Nano car (I don't have to sign an MoU with Tata's to market Nano for the poor). I am sure if he (and his fellow MFI partners) were to start charging only 4 per cent interest on the small credit that is made available, poverty would banish much sooner than what is projected to be achieved under the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). But then, the problem is who will sustain the livelihood of MFI employees? How can the MFIs then turn into big Empires?

The MoU with Adidas benefits everyone except the poor. Grameen Bank gets the accolades from the urban elite for an imaginative business deal. The business and industrial chambers in Bangladesh (and also in India) would be delighted since these are the kind of business activities that can keep them afloat. Adidas of course will get a breather that it is desperately looking for. Economists would be very happy because the GDP will go up.

Grameen Bank tie-up with Adidas is a classic case of how the well-to-do in our society gangs up to exploit the poor.

Long live the poor!!

http://devinder-sharma.blogspot.com/2010/04/grameen-bank-uses-poor-to-bail-out.html



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[ALOCHONA] Two Sides of a PM's Brain / Interesting



NONSENCE PROPAGANDA.
 
WHAT PM SHEIKH HASINA IS DOING IS ABSOLUTELY RIGHT. ONLY THE PAKISTANI-LOVER RAZAKARS ARE AGAINST HER.

--- On Tue, 3/30/10, Mounota <nistabdhota@yahoo.com.au> wrote:

From: Mounota <nistabdhota@yahoo.com.au>
Subject: [ALOCHONA] Two Sides of a PM's Brain / Interesting
To: alochona@yahoogroups.com
Date: Tuesday, March 30, 2010, 3:34 AM

 

People are complaining about Hasina that instead of finding people of Bangladesh as friends for a united Bangladesh, she is looking for enemies within the country and friends outside. People are complaining that she is giving everything to India with nothing in return. They complain that she is even ready to surrender Bangladesh's sovereignty through giving transit to India, even the cost of building the roads at Bangladesh's cost. They say, just because they are Muslims, Hasina is chasing the helpless Rohingya refugees out of out Bangladesh, killing and arresting anybody with beard in the university hostels, and against the US and Saudi Arabia's wishes, she is even urgently taking action against the four decades old war crime already resolved by her father, she is helping the India-backed tribals but going after the Bengali people of Chittagong Hill Tracts as being the Jamatis and terrorists. In this normalizing the unthinkable, she is going after anything that is about Muslims.

 

Now that people are questioning about her mental state, she decided to see her doctor and immediately she complains that if she had any problems it got to be due to poisoning by the CTG but the doctor found nothing. Now for her hearing problems from bomb blasts she says it is the BNP to blame. Doctor also found no hearing problems. She insisted that she must have hearing problem because when there was the dialogue between Monmohon and her she couldn't hear anything Monmohon said, that is why she signed the agreement without knowing about the content of the agreement. She says, its BNP's fault. Then she says, for the loads adding and all the other problems in the country, the BNP and the CTG to blame because they gave her so much trouble that she could not hear her beloved people's cries for water and electricity. Now she can only understand through people's sign language. She says, Pakistanis must also be behind all this

conspiracy. She even has proof from the Supreme Court judges.

 

To solve all these problems her enemies are causing to her, she says, she digitally stopped changing the daylight time. Hearing this the doctor was convinced that there must be a problem and suggested her to do a brain scan. The doctor has the results.

The doctor said: Prime Minister I have some bad news for you.

First, we have discovered that your brain has two sides: the left side and the right side."

She interrupted, "Well, that's normal, isn't it?

I thought everybody had two sides to their brain?"

The doctor replied, "That's true, but your brain is very unusual because on the left side there isn't anything right,

while on the right side there isn't anything left.

 



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[ALOCHONA] Bangladeshi scientist dismisses GM foods as no food at all



Bangladeshi scientist dismisses GM foods as no food at all    
Genetically Modified (GM) foods or crops should not be classified as food at all, as they are liable to cause various health problems affecting the liver and kidney, and hence unfit for human consumption. Dr Mohammed Ataur Rahman, a veteran Bangladeshi agriculturist, made this assertion to newsmen Saturday in his office at the International University of Business Agriculture and Technology (IUBAT) in Dhaka, where he is Director of the Centre for Global Environmental Culture (CGEC), as well as the Program on Education for Sustainability (PES).

Dr Rahman said that the main problem with GMO (Genetically Modified Organisms) is that it takes hundreds and thousands years of adaptation in an environment for the development of a genetic character. The pneumatic bones that help birds fly and the air bladders, fins and gills that allow fish to live underwater are characters developed over many years of adaptation to their specific environment.

"There are many examples of GMOs which are not suitable for natural adaptation," said Dr Rahman, adding that when something is modified (GMO) it can not be sustainable. Without proper adaptation or acclimatization, something may succeed for the time being, but in the long run, it will perish.

"If we consider chickens, although the growth is rapid, it is abnormal, they cannot move, and are sexually disabled. Therefore, they become geneically and environmentally dependent."

Dr Rahman described the case of the Liger (Lion+Tiger), a giant animal developed by scientists that is a hybrid between a lion and a tiger. But although it is 3 times the size of a lion or tiger, it cannot jump like either.

He said, " we further learned that GMO crops are unsuitable for developing countries in particular, as their development requires massive investment in research. Consequently it drains resources from much needed research in the development of low cost alternatives."

He said poor countries do not have the capacity to carry out the impact assessment, testing and monitoring that growing GMO crops will entail, and because of these high costs, GMO crops will also be more expensive, putting tremendous pressure on poor farmers having to buy new seeds every year.

"Their production system depends on saving their own seeds - with occasional exchange or renewal, - not on yearly purchase of expensive patented seeds," said Dr Rahman, adding that the 'solutions' offered by GMO crops are largely irrelevant against the barriers to increased productivity that poor farmers face.

Referring to a report published in the International Journal of Microbiology, he said it has been verified once again that Monsanto's genetically modified (GM) crops are causing severe health problems to consumers.

He mentioned that a legal challenge issued against Monsanto had forced the multinational agricultural giant to release raw data revealing that animals fed its patented GM corn suffered liver and kidney damage within just three months.

"Genetically manipulated food crops are not fit for human consumption and should not be classified as food. No legitimate study has ever proven them to be safe or nutritious."

About the GM seeds, he said that in the 25 years from 1975 to 2000, non-GM soybean seed prices rose a modest 63 percent. SGM soybeans came to dominate the market, the price rose by a massive 230 percent.

Maize (corn) growers planting the new GM variety "SmartStax", will pay more than twice as much as farmers planting conventional non-GM seeds, he said. He also added that according to this, the price of growing GM crops is almost four times what conventional farmers paid just ten years earlier.

From 1975 to 1996, the price of cotton seed only doubled, but in the GM cotton era, it has risen from $73 to $589.

Dr Rahman said the huge increases in GM seed prices only make economic sense if farmers use the savings by reducing pesticide use, but recent research by The Organic Center found that GM crops are actually pushing pesticide use up at a rapidly accelerating rate.

http://ftp.app.com.pk/en_/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=98964&Itemid=2

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[ALOCHONA] Rohingya humanitarian crisis in Bangladesh



Rohingya humanitarian crisis in Bangladesh

The Rohingya refugees remain trapped in a desperate situation with no future in Bangladesh. These unfortunate people are caught between a crocodile and a snake: neither the xenophobic SPDC regime wants them back in Myanmar, nor does the Bangladesh government want them to stay because they are largely perceived as a burden on already scant resources, writes Dr Habib Siddiqui
and Dr Nora Rowley


WHEN a widely circulated newspaper like the New York Times picks up the matter of ill-treatment of the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, it is no small matter. It is a matter of grievous concern and shame to tens of thousands of Bangladeshi-Americans who live in and around the Big Apple state. In its February 20 publication the headline read, 'Burmese Refugees Persecuted in Bangladesh.' It said, 'Stateless refugees from Myanmar are suffering beatings and deportation in Bangladesh, according to aid workers and rights groups who say thousands are crowding into a squalid camp where they face starvation and disease.' It described the situation as a humanitarian crisis.
   
The NY Times report should come as no surprise to many of us who have been following the inhuman condition of the Rohingyas around the world for a number of years. In its special report, dated February 18, 'Bangladesh: Violent Crackdown Fuels Humanitarian Crisis for Unrecognized Rohingya Refugees', the Doctors without Borders (MSF) criticised the Bangladesh government for violent crackdown against the stateless Rohingyas in Bangladesh. It was a chastising report in which the MSF called for an immediate end to the violence, along with urgent measures by the government of Bangladesh and the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to increase protection to Rohingya refugees seeking asylum in the country.
   
Last month the Physicians for Human Rights issued an emergency report, 'Stateless and Starving: Persecuted Rohingya Flee Burma and Starve in Bangladesh'. This report reveals a PHR emergency assessment of 18.3 per cent acute malnutrition in children. This level of child malnutrition is 'considered "critical" by the World Health Organization (WHO), which recommends in such crises that adequate food aid be delivered to the entire population to avoid high numbers of preventable deaths.' The extreme food insecurity causing this critical level of malnutrition is the direct consequence of Bangladesh government authorities' restricting movement and, therefore, income generation of the Rohingyas, and actively obstructing the amount of international humanitarian aid to this population.
   
Last week, the American Muslim Taskforce, an umbrella organisation that includes the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Islamic Circle of North America, amongst other Muslim organisations in the United States, hosted a press conference in the National Press Club, Washington DC to discuss human rights abuses in Bangladesh. In his inaugural statement, Wright Mahdi Bray of the AMT brought up the squalid living conditions of the Rohingya refugees inside Bangladesh. In the last few years we have raised the Rohingya issue a few times with the Bangladesh government, but have failed to improve the deplorable condition.
   
Denied citizenship rights and subjected to repeated abuse and forced slave labour in their ancestral homes in the Arakan/Rakhine state of Burma by a xenophobic Buddhist government, where they cannot travel, marry or practise their religion freely, and betrayed and battered by their Magh Rakhine co-residents, many Rohingya Muslims have hardly any option left for them to survive with dignity other than seeking refuge outside. The neighbouring Bangladesh to the north-west with her huge Muslim population and historical ties with Chittagong and Cox's Bazar, dating back centuries earlier during the Arakanese rule of those districts (1538-1666), provides a natural setting for seeking shelter. Thus, when the Burmese genocidal campaigns – Naga Min (1978-79) and Pyi Thaya (1991-92) – forced eviction of some 300,000 and 268,000 Rohingya refugees, respectively, to seek shelter outside, it was Bangladesh where they ended up.
   
With the assistance of the UNHCR, Bangladesh repatriated most of those refugees back to Arakan. Still, however, tens of thousands of Rohingyas never returned, especially from the second batch of major exodus in 1991-92. The ongoing Nasaka operation and targeted violence by the Rakhine Maghs inside the Rakhine state have also forced many Rohingyas to leave their ancestral land and return again to Bangladesh. Many of those refugees have often used Bangladesh as a transit point to seek better shelters elsewhere. Many of the Rohingyas have ended up in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states, and also in Pakistan.
   
As noted recently by Syed Neaz Ahmad in a New Age article, the late King Faisal's kind gesture to offer the fleeing Rohingyas a permanent abode in Saudi Arabia is no longer respected by the new rulers who have restricted their employment and movement within the kingdom. According to him, some three thousand Rohingya families are in Makkah and Jeddah prisons awaiting their deportation. It is good to hear that the Pakistan government has agreed to take these unwanted refugees. (Islamabad can also do a noble job, albeit a delayed one for the past four decades, in taking some 300,000 stranded Pakistanis – living a miserable life in camps in Bangladesh.)
   
There are some 13,600 Rohingyas registered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Malaysia, an estimated 3,000 in Thailand, and unknown numbers in India. A small number of Rohingya refugees also live in Japan, Australia and the United States. The total number of Rohingya refugees living inside Bangladesh today is not known. The UNHCR stopped documenting the Rohingyas after 1991 as they shifted their focus to Africa and Eastern Europe. From my contacts within the Rohingya leadership, the estimate is around 400,000. Of these refugees, only 28,000 are recognised as prima facie refugees by the government of Bangladesh and live in official camps under the supervision of the UNHCR. The official camp has everything: primary schools, a computer learning centre funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, healthcare centres, adult literacy centres, supplementary food centres for children and pregnant women.
   
Except a handful of wealthy Rohingyas who have been able to settle comfortably within the big cities, the rest of the refugees struggle to survive unrecognised and largely unassisted and unprotected, living in dire humanitarian condition with food insecurity, poor water and appalling sanitation. They live mostly in and around Cox's Bazar and the Hilly districts of Chittagong. Some of the unfortunate refugees have also ended up living in slums of big cities like Dhaka and Chittagong. As reported by the MSF and the Amnesty International, these Rohingya refugees are treated as unwanted folks and have faced repeated beatings and harassment, including forcible repatriation to Myanmar. Many refugees, who had been repatriated to their country in the past, had entered Bangladesh again as they did not find any development and change in the attitude of the Myanmar authorities.
   
Some Rohingya refugees live at a makeshift camp in Kutupalong, south of Cox's Bazar. Last June and July the local authorities destroyed 259 homes in that makeshift camp to clear space around the perimeter of the official UNHCR camp at Kutupalong. There was a crackdown in October in Bandarban, east of Cox's Bazar, forcing many Rohingyas to take shelter in the makeshift camp in Kutupalong. In January 2010, another crackdown followed the refugees living in Cox's Bazar. To add to the brutality of the authorities, the Rohingyas also suffer at the hands of the local population, whose anti-Rohingya sentiment is fuelled by local leaders and the media.
   
This was not the first time that this kind of problem emerged for the fleeing Rohingyas. In 2002 during the 'Operation Clean Heart' many Rohingyas were violently forced from their homes, which led to the establishment of the original Tal makeshift camp on a swamp-like patch of ground. This camp relocated, and in the spring of 2006 the MSF started a medical programme at the new site, where at the time around 5,700 unregistered Rohingya lived in awful, unsanitary conditions on a small strip of flood land in Teknaf in Cox's Bazar. After two years of providing humanitarian assistance, and following strong advocacy by the MSF, which ultimately gained the support of UNHCR and the international community, the government of Bangladesh allocated new land in Leda Bazar for around 10,000 people in mid-2008. Less than one year later, nearly 13,000 people were living in Leda Bazar Camp, their fundamental living conditions having changed little. According to the MSF, these people continue to struggle to survive without recognition and opportunities to provide for themselves inside an increasingly hostile environment.
   
With a total population of over 28,400, the unregistered Rohingyas at Kutupalong makeshift camp now outnumber the total registered refugee population supported by the UNHCR in Bangladesh. The Bangladesh government has repeatedly stopped registration of those unfortunate refugees living outside the official camps. Without official recognition these people are forced to live in overcrowded squalor, unprotected and largely unassisted. Prevented from supporting themselves, they also do not qualify for the UNHCR-supported food relief. And sadly, the UNHCR, which is mandated to protect refugees worldwide, makes little or no visible protest at the injustice of this situation.
   
According to the MSF, the UNHCR is guilty of not taking the return of the Rohingyas as a priority issue. The Office of the UNHCR must take greater steps to protect the unregistered Rohingya seeking asylum in Bangladesh. The UNHCR must not allow the terms of its agreement with the government to undermine its role as international protector of the Rohingyas who have lost the protection of their own state – Myanmar, and have no state to turn to. Any failure to protect the Rohingyas inside and outside Myanmar is simply not acceptable.
   
We are told that as a poor country, Bangladesh faces a dilemma about the Rohingya refugees. If she shows too much flexibility a huge influx may occur, while being harsh creates concern among international community. Nevertheless, Bangladesh government's forced repatriation of the refugees against their wishes is simply inhuman and violates international humanitarian laws. It must be immediately stopped, failing which its international image may suffer terribly. It must also stop all harassment against the Rohingyas. Temporary residency permits should be provided to the refugees so that they can earn their livelihood like any other Bangladeshi. There is nothing worse than a forced poverty which leads to crime and other serious problems. Should the refugees choose to leave Bangladesh for a third country the government should not hinder that process either. It must also make all diplomatic efforts to find shelters for these stranded refugees in sparsely populated and prosperous countries of Europe and North America, and the Gulf states.
   
The Rohingya refugees remain trapped in a desperate situation with no future in Bangladesh. These unfortunate people are caught between a crocodile and a snake: neither the xenophobic SPDC regime wants them back in Myanmar, nor does the Bangladesh government want them to stay because they are largely perceived as a burden on already scant resources. Outside China, none of the neighbouring countries of Burma has ratified the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, its 1967 Protocol, the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. This must change by ratifying those conventions.
   
As the Thai boat crisis of 2009 made clear, regional comprehensive solutions are needed to the situation of the stateless Rohingya. The international community must support the government of Bangladesh and UNHCR to adopt measures to guarantee the unregistered Rohingyas lasting dignity and well-being in Bangladesh.
   
Dr Habib Siddiqui is a human rights activist who has written and co-edited three books on the Rohingyas of Burma. Dr Nora Rowley is a medical doctor who as part of MSF worked with the Rohingya people inside Arakan. She is currently affiliated with the US Campaign for Burma.

http://www.newagebd.com/2010/apr/11/edit.html

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[ALOCHONA] People with shaven heads rally for power




 
Over 100 people shaved their heads in protest against excessive load shedding in Gazipur.The civil skinheads brought out a procession on Saturday morning at Kaliakoir demanding that load shedding should be made less frequent and more tolerable.
   
Carrying a banner saying 'People Annoyed at Power Outage,' the procession marched from the Kaliakoir bus stand to
the local office of the Rural Electrification Board about one kilometre away.The bald headed protesters held a brief discussion in front of the power agency's offices.
   
This was followed by a human chain by the side of the Dhaka–Tangail Highway between 11:00am and noon.The procession attracted a huge number of participants instantly.
 


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[ALOCHONA] Dhaka reasserts sovereignty over South Talpatti



Dhaka reasserts sovereignty over South Talpatti
 

Dhaka categorically reasserted Bangladesh's sovereignty over South Talpatti, a submerged island under formation in the eastern side of the mid-channel of the bordering river of Hariabhanga, citing the Radcliff Award that had drawn the border with India.

�Bangladesh, according to the map prepared on the basis of the Radcliff Award, asserts its sovereignty over South Talpatti, a submerged island in the eastern side of the mid-channel of the bordering river of Hariabhanga,� Foreign Secretary Mohamed Mijarul Quayes on Saturday said at a fortnightly press briefing at the foreign ministry.

He said this when his attention was drawn to media reports on the uninhabited tiny char (island), which, according to the reports, disappeared beneath the waves due to rising sea level and erosion.

The Radcliffe Line became the border between India and Pakistan on 17 August 1947 after the Partition of India. The line was decided by the Border Commissions chaired by Sir Cyril Radcliffe, who was to divide equitably 175,000 square miles (450,000 km2) of territory.

According to the Radcliffe Plan, the riverine demarcation line between the two countries is the deepest part of the riverbed. Two streams of the river flow by two sides of the submerged islands under formation.

Bangladesh claims that the main stream is the western one so the island belongs to her, and it named it �South Talpatti� since there is a northern Talpatti along the same longitude.

India was, however, misinterpreting the position of the mainstream of the bordering river Hariabhanga, apparently for grabbing the 3.5 kilometres long and 3.0 kilometres wide South Talpatti, what the Indians called New Moore island.

Mijarul Quayes said the government has completed seismic survey that was essential for putting forward Bangladesh�s claim over the Bay of Bengal to the UN authorities. �We will duly submit our claim with the UNCLCS by July 2011,� he said.

Khurshid Alam, an additional secretary of the foreign ministry, said South Talpatti is considered as a low tide elevation, meaning it goes underwater at the times of tide. For last 10-12 years, it has not been on the surface.

Alam, a senior retired navy officer, said South Talpatti always remains under water and no military installation or flag of any country is there.

He said since 1980 South Talpatti has been under water. It is basically a low-tide elevation char (island).

Dhaka first made the claim on South Talpatti in 1980 during the then government under president Ziaur Rahman.

In the early 1980s, the two countries had political and diplomatic tensions surrounding the claim over South Talpatti. However, the issue became dormant when HM Ershad was president.

Foreign ministry directors general Muhammad Imran, Saida Muna Tasneem, Monirul Islam and M Sufiur Rahman were present at the press briefing.

http://www.newagebd.com/2010/apr/11/front.html


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[ALOCHONA] New Silk Roads



New Silk Roads

Roads, railways and pipelines are redefining what we mean by Asia

Apr 8th 2010 | From The Economist print edition

SINCE the Silk Road fell into disuse six centuries ago, Asian commerce has been carried not by land but by sea along coasts and island chains, first on monsoon winds and now in the holds of diesel ships. The story of Asia's post-war miracle is above all a maritime one. First Japan, then South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore, and then all of South-East and East Asia bar North Korea and Myanmar, adopted economic models based on exporting manufactures. The rise of China has been nothing if not the embrace of the maritime world. The miracle is inconceivable without the ship-borne container.

The broad lines of Asian security mirror this watery theme. Since the Pacific War of 1941-45, the United States has enforced a Pax Americana through naval strength and a perimeter of island allies, from Australia to Japan. If American dominance is challenged, it will be at sea. The rise of China and India as military powers has been marked by a large increase in their navies.

But Anthony Bubalo and Malcolm Cook of the Lowy Institute in Sydney argue in TheAmerican Interest* that such a perspective is bumping up against the limits of usefulness. It masks a powerful impulse that is starting to reshape continental Asia's territorial expanses. For much of the 20th century the three powers of the Asian land mass, China, India and the former Soviet Union, bothered little with international exchange, and transcontinental development was derisory. That is now changing.

New roads, railways and pipelines are criss-crossing continental Asia. In December a pipeline 7,000 km (4,400 miles) long opened, bringing gas from Turkmenistan to China, via Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Russia and China have a $25 billion project to pipe oil from the Russian Far East into China. An Iran-Pakistan pipeline is being built, and could eventually run into India or China. In Myanmar, South Korean and Indian firms have a big project to bring gas to south-western China.

Road networks are also expanding, led by India (in Afghanistan, for example) and, especially, China. Dusty Myanmar is now plugged into China's spanking new highway complex. New roads bind neighbours along the Mekong River. Central Asia is also seeing a flurry of road-building.

Railways reflect the boldest ambitions. China has already pushed a railway up the Himalayas to Lhasa in Tibet, on which 5m people have travelled since 2006. Now it wants to push lines down them into Nepal, Bangladesh and Bhutan. As for high-speed railways, from a standing start China's are the world's fastest and longest. The government has plans to roll out a high-speed network across Asia and even Europe. It proposes three main routes to connect two dozen countries, from Singapore in the south to Germany in the west (with a tunnel from mainland China to Taiwan to boot). By 2025, if the railway ministry is to be believed, it will take two days to travel from Shanghai to London.

Immense financial, not to mention political, obstacles stand in the way of such ambitions. But these projects are starting to redefine what people mean by Asia. It is no longer mainly a coastline with strong trade links to the rest of the world. Now, links across Asia matter just as much. Trade within the region is growing at roughly twice the pace of trade with the outside world. From almost nothing 20 years ago, China is now India's biggest partner, with bilateral trade that may top $60 billion this year. Central Asia's trade with China jumped from $160m in 1990 to $7 billion in 2006. And China is the biggest merchandise exporter to the Middle East. The crowds of worshippers at the mosque in Yiwu, a town in the eastern Chinese province of Zhejiang with a vast wholesale market, hint at the scale of the links. On the continent's western edge it is getting hard to know where Asia ends.

For all its promise, the new continental perspective does not negate the maritime one, and sometimes reinforces it. C. Raja Mohan, an Indian academic, points out that continental development is helping tie isolated populations into international markets, by giving them a route to the sea (for example, south-west China to the Bay of Bengal). Meanwhile, the continental infrastructure boom increases maritime business: four-fifths of the crude oil bound for China still passes through the Malacca strait. Resource competition among rising powers and the need to protect sea lanes will keep naval strategists in work for years.

America all at sea

Whether competition by land will lead to co-operation or conflict remains an open question. Instabilities abound, including thuggish regimes in Central Asia and fractious populations deep inside China and India. Much depends on how smaller countries respond to the blandishments of their giant neighbours. Not all Central Asians like the energy deals their governments are striking with China. Plenty of South Asians resent India's swagger. And now Russia wants to regain influence in its backyard.

In continental Asia, there is no enforcer of the peace, as America has been for maritime Asia. None of the new clubs, such as the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation of China, Russia and Central Asian countries, includes America. American pressure on Iran over nuclear programmes has been undermined by the energy interests of China and Russia. Though the United States has a huge military presence in Afghanistan, it vows to get out. And whereas America has tried both containment and engagement to influence the rogue regime of Myanmar, China and India have used their better contacts mainly to advance their commercial interests. With an overemphasis on maritime Asia, say Messrs Bubalo and Cook, the West risks a kind of sea-blindness when it comes to the implications of the new continental trends.


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[ALOCHONA] Bangladesh – Ripe for Revolution



Hi,

 

I received this article in my inbox this morning. I thought you might be interested. Tell me what you think …….. I am not sure about its credibility but it apparently came from an inside source.

 

 

Bangladesh – Ripe for Revolution

 

 

While watching the scenes of violence in Kyrgyzstan where a despotic government was recently overthrown I could not help but feel that such scenes of public outrage could repeat itself in Bangladesh with Awami Leaguers being rounded up, beaten-up and shot for their arrogant misuse of power and the utter criminality and shamelessness of their supporters. The Kyrgyzstan revolution is said to have been orchestrated by Russia to undermine US penetration of the country and to bring the Central Asian region back within Moscow's sphere of influence and control. I doubt such external stimulus will be required to enrage the population of Bangladesh against the Awami League government who has managed in 15 months to make every citizen of the country – who is not a fanatic Awami Leaguer - a sworn enemy. We have, of course, been here before during the misrule of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman where a two-thirds majority in Parliament was no guarantor of longevity. The crimes of the Mujib regime are well known and we are again relearning the meaning of oppression and despotism through his daughter who could suffer the same fact as her father and many believe justifiably so.

 

When walking through the streets of Dhaka the scent of revolution may still not be quite so perceptible but the feeling that something is in the air waiting to be born from violence and bloodshed is certainly there. The anger and frustration against this government is building –up. Lists are being drawn up and meetings held through out the length and breadth of the country on how to remove this sick and disgraceful excuse of a government. The offences of this government are numerous and include murder, rape torture, massive corruption and nepotism while the supporters of the AL are engaged in forcible takeover of private property and businesses and they have turned our universities and colleges into battlefields.

 

One need not mention the atrocities committed at Pilkhana to understand the seething hatred within the hearts of every Bangladeshi (who is not an Awami Leaguer) against this government. The use of the judiciary as an instrument of political oppression is a new crime which was not even within the contemplation of the original Baksalites of 74-75. Now no one can be sure of obtaining justice in our courts. We worry unnecessarily about the fairness of the War Crimes trials but what about the ordinary cases coming to our courts. Can the ordinary people expect fair and neutral justice from our courts run by corrupt AL judges? Why are we so concerned about the fate of a few alleged war criminals when the mass of the people can no longer get justice? Are these not the issues from which revolution is born? The instruments of government oppression – the police- will be also dealt with harshly for their corruption and incompetence. Police officers found assisting this government in its nefarious designs will be identified and their end is very near.

 

A few years ago Eliza Griswold warned of an imminent Islamist revolution in Bangladesh but this prediction was both premature and its premise mistaken. There will not be an Islamist revolution instead there will be a rising up of the masses against this government as they demand water, power, freedom, justice and security.  The defense of Islam will be an important if not crucial factor in the coming fight but Bangladesh will not be allowed to become another Afghanistan or Pakistan. We do not want a Taliban State we want a just and legitimate government. This government was brought in through conspiracy of India and its stooge Gen. Moin U Ahmed. In gratitude for this immense favour the AL is slowly selling this country to our hegemonic neighbour.  This cannot be allowed to happen and must be resisted in order to defend our sovereignty and national integrity.

 

This is not a program for revolution but only an indication of its coming. The planners and organizers of this revolution are already hard at work inspiring the masses to rise and remove this illegitimate (faraun) government. 

 

(Please translate into Bangla and circulate widely.)      

 



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[ALOCHONA] Please join us on May 29, 2010 (Saturday) by 5:30 pm to enjoy BAAI's Rabindro Joyonti, Nazrul Joyonti, & Welcome Bangla New Year 1417. [1 Attachment]

[Attachment(s) from Mahfuzur Rahman included below]


Bangladesh Association of America, Inc. (BAAI) ®

(Washington DC, Virginia, Maryland)
presents
a super entertaining "three-in-one" event filled evening
 
 ~ Rabindro Joyonti ~
~ Nazrul Joyonti ~
&
~ Welcome Bangla New Year 1417 ~
 
 
Date: May 29, 2010 (Saturday) 
 
Time: from 5:30 pm to 10:30 pm
{We expect to start program on-time, because we are going to present very long three individual events in one evening. 
Therefore, we are strongly requesting you to arrive by 5:30 pm.} 
 
Location: Robert E. Lee High School
6540 Franconia Road
Springfield, Virginia 22150
 
Admission:  FREE
 
 
EVENT HIGHLIGHTS:
 
Details of the events will be announced during the first week of May 2010.   
 
At the end of our show, we will throw an exciting & attracting quiz game "Who is the best guest among the audience?".  We will ask few questions on different segments & slots of the whole program.  Whoever among the audience can answer most of the questions correctly, he/she will get a very good prize and will win the title as "The Best Guest".  To win the prize & to get title as "The Best Guest", you must watch the whole program very attentively from the beginning to end and take notes.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
 
Directions: From interstate 95 in Virginia, take exit 169A (Franconia Road) towards route 644 East.  Keep left on Franconia Road.  After a little while, make a U-TURN onto Franconia Road.  Robert E. Lee High School (6540 Franconia Road) is located on your right side.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
 
Please bring your family, relatives, & friends on May 29, 2010 (Saturday) by 5:30 pm to enjoy a super fun-filled "three-in-one" evening. 
 
Best Regards,
 
Inara Islam: 703-866-2893;  Misu Tasnim: 240-516-8276;  Rajib Bhuiyan: 202-330-8655;  Samina Chowdhury: 301-502-2944;  Aref Baig: 443-472-4158;  Taufique Alam Sumon: 410-446-2574;  Nurain Jamil Chaman: 571-265-7004Beauty Karim: 301-528-6135

********************************************************************************************************************************************************
Based on BAAI's request, this announcement is being sent by:
 
MAHFUZUR  RAHMAN
6524  Ivy Terrace
Elkridge,  Maryland 21075
410-796-0577 (home); 301-646-3475 (cell); 703-875-4054 (work)
BangaliBhai@hotmail.com

Attachment(s) from Mahfuzur Rahman

1 of 1 File(s)


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[ALOCHONA] Bangladesh offers India connection to northeastern states



Bangladesh offers India connection to northeastern states

Bangladesh Friday offered India a connection to its northeastern states as well as Thailand and Myanmar via Bangladeshi territory.

'We are ready to take on our destiny as the natural bridge between two dynamically thriving regions - South and Southeast Asia,' Bangladesh High Commissioner Tariq A. Karim said at the two-day international conference on 'From Landlocked to Land-built: North East India in BIMSTEC' at the North East Hill University here.

Thailand Ambassador Kirit Kraichitti and his Myanmar counterpart U Kyi Thein also attended the international meet inaugurated by Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor Friday. 'Bangladesh is ready to help not only to reconnect India's northeastern states with the rest of the mainland India, but also enable Nepal and Bhutan to gain access to the sea, and enable India reach Myanmar and Thailand overland through easy terrain,' the Bangladeshi envoy said.

Stressing that Bangladesh is eager to serve as the hub of regional linkages, Karim said his country has allowed India to use its Chittagong and Mongla ports.

A bold step in this direction has already been initiated with Ashuganj in Bangladesh and the Silghat in India added as new ports of call under existing riverine transit and trade arrangments, he said.

In order to facilitate sea-going access for land-locked BIMSTEC regions with Sri Lanka in the southeast and Thailand in the east and beyond, Karim said Bangladesh has also decided to allow Nepal and Bhutan to use Chittagong and Mongla ports.

Stating the trade imbalance in India's favour has long been a matter of concern for Bangladesh, Karim invited Indian entrepreneurs to invest in power generation, IT and telecommunication, textiles, healthcare and among others in his country. 'We have announced a number of measures that are aimed at making Bangladesh one of the most foreign investor-friendly destinations,' he said.

http://sify.com/finance/bangladesh-offers-india-connection-to-northeastern-states-news-default-kejxabhjhdh.html


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