How can I get Joy's email address?
From: Isha Khan <bdmailer@gmail.com>
Sent: Tue, Mar 8, 2011 8:37 pm
Subject: [ALOCHONA] Joy's 'letter' tells it all
http://www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=177004
The group, chaired by Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland and former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, said it has been particularly alarmed by the statements made by Sajeeb.
"Friends of Grameen are shocked by this letter, its existence, signatory, allegations and the themes that are developed, that are now exposing fully the dynamics behind the attacks on Grameen Bank and Prof Yunus, the very strong personal content of the harassment of Yunus and Grameen Bank, the allegations that Grameen Bank has been designed as and remains an organ of state, the clear underlying view that Grameen Bank is a useless organisation that has brought no relief to poverty in Bangladesh, the full and explicit opposition to microcredit as an efficient way to alleviate poverty."
The group said: "He wrote and signed an open letter on Saturday in his capacity of 'Advisor to Sheikh Hasina, Honourable Prime Minister of Bangladesh', claiming that he was representing the official view of the Government of Bangladesh on the matter, in extremely troubling and defamatory terms."
"Here are the facts from the Bangladesh Government's side on the Yunus and Grameen Bank issue", starts the email. It continues, "Last year Norwegian Television uncovered documents revealing massive financial improprieties at Grameen Bank under Mohammed Yunus.... Commenting on the fact that the government of Norway has totally cleared this issue, he says "no doubt Yunus lobbied the Norwegian Government."
The letter continues with very acrimonious, pseudo-legal terms, and contains such words as illegal activities, criminal offence, fraud, improprieties, theft, embezzlement, and molestation, according to a statement of Friends of Grameen.
"Even more alarming, Mr Sajeeb Wazed goes on by saying: 'Contrary to the popular perception, Yunus did not found Grameen Bank. The Government of Bangladesh did', and continues with the following conclusion: 'Despite the hype, there is no evidence that microcredit has in fact reduced the rolls of the poor in Bangladesh. Grameen Bank has been in the microcredit business for 30 years, yet Bangladesh remains one of the poorest countries in the world.'"
The letter came as the High Court yesterday ruled that Grameen Bank did not obtain formal approval from the government on Yunus' reappointment as the managing director in 1999.
The Group said the government is the member of the board of Grameen Bank by running three seats out of 12, but it has never questioned the position of Prof Yunus as the managing director.
On the contrary, the board voted unanimously for Yunus to continue as managing director. The court decision is politically oriented and without legal grounds, it said.
Friends of Grameen hoped the position expressed by Sajeeb is not the official position of the government of Bangladesh.
Meanwhile, Óscar Arias, former president of Costa Rica and 1987 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, joined as Friends of Grameen.
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Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Re: [ALOCHONA] Joy's 'letter' tells it all
[ALOCHONA] Re: [KHABOR] Japan radiation:Bangladesh should be careful too
Fears of Japan radiation spreading to Thailand played down
The Office of Atoms for Peace which oversees the use of nuclear technology in the country has played down fears radioactive leakage at a nuclear power plant in Japan may spread to Thailand."We have closely monitored the situation of the nuclear power plant explosion in Japan since Saturday," OAP secretary-general Chaiwat Toskulkao said yesterday.
"From the wind direction, radioactive dust has been swept towards the northeastern direction. The dust, if there is any, will not reach Thailand. So I would say we are quite safe."Thailand is more than 4,300 kilometres from Japan.
Thailand has eight radioactive monitoring stations. None has detected any radiation, said Siriratana Biramontri, director of Bureau of Technical Support for Nuclear Safety.
The OAP, formerly known as the Office of Atomic Energy for Peace, will not impose a ban on foods from Japan as there were no reports of radiation leakage beyond the Fukushima area, she said. The government will send three doctors who are experts on radiology from Rajvithi Hospital to assist affected people in Japan.
The OAP said the 1.2 megawatt research reactor at its premise next to Kasetsart University could withstand an earthquake of up to 7 on the Richter scale - the highest level of seismic shake the nearest active fault in Kanchanaburi is believed to be capable of creating.
To cope with a possible earthquake crisis, the OAP has just completed drafting a national emergency plan for officials at various agencies to use.
However, rescue operations will still be limited to officials of related agencies.Thailand's most recent experience in radioactive leakage was in January, 2000, when a group of scavengers illegally obtained metal containers carrying cobalt-60, a radioactive material used for medical treatment.
The scavengers brought the material back to their home community in Samut Prakan province. After successfully dissembling a container, they fell ill.
http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/226689/fears-of-japan-radiation-spreading-to-thailand-played-down
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Re: [ALOCHONA] India’s Bangladesh Moment
In environmental issues, security issues there are no solid alternative than working together. Sooner India realises it is better for the region.
If we could hold such a nice world cup by working as a regional team, just imagine what we can gain by addressing each others concerns.
From: Isha Khan <bdmailer@gmail.com>
Sent: Wed, Mar 9, 2011 7:07 pm
Subject: [ALOCHONA] India's Bangladesh Moment
India's Bangladesh Moment
Maj. Gen. (Retd.) Dipankar Banerjee
Mentor, IPCS
An international conference in New Delhi between India and ASEAN leaders in March 2011 indicated that the region is today poised for unprecedented cooperation. Even though China's influence and presence in ASEAN is much higher and growing even faster, there remain enough opportunities and space for simultaneous cooperation with India. That process will be facilitated through redefining our relations with Bangladesh and Myanmar, which in turn will benefit 400 million people that inhabit the entire region.
The completely free and credible elections in Bangladesh in end 2009 ushered in a government with a large mandate. It also demonstrated that given the right opportunity, the people's choice would be peace, development and a tolerant society. Bangladesh is not a 'basket case' as Henry Kissinger so dismissively described it not so long ago. It is not also a 'failed state' like Pakistan, which for many decades kept it under its servitude. Instead it is a vibrant society where its rich language and culture and moderate Islam define its identity and nationalism. Yet, the nation is also densely populated, resource-scarce and susceptible to the frequent furies of nature. It provides a natural fit for a genuine partnership with India that is based on equity, self-respect and generosity as between friends, without insistence on 'equal reciprocity'.
Over the years, parts of the population in Bangladesh have been influenced through Saudi money and Wahabi influence towards a more radical Islam. Their potential influence cannot be ignored, but should be recognized as a force that thrives only in times of economic difficulties. Dhaka has recently comprehensively addressed India's core security concerns by cooperating in countering terrorism. Insurgents from India's northeast, whose presence previous regimes flatly denied, were ferreted out and handed over.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's visit to India in Jan 2010 set the stage for a new partnership. Apart from three major agreements signed it also laid out a road map and initiated an eighteen track process to address other issues.
But, decisions have a timeline and agreements take place in a political context. Just as sensible people in both countries understand the importance of genuine partnership and the economic opportunities that this will open up, there is still a sizeable community in Bangladesh that consider this a ripe issue for mobilizing anti-India sentiments. In an intensely bipartisan and divided polity, the government in power often succumbs to this pressure as elections loom. Then there are rising expectations, tendency of politicians in power to succumb to corruption over time and thus lose popular support. A time may soon come in Bangladesh when the cumulative effects of all these developments may become a serious obstacle even to agree to sensible agreements.
Dhaka is looking to a visit from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to consolidate this partnership. The time for moving forward is now. Elections to both the neighbouring Indian states, West Bengal and Assam, are in April and results are due in mid-May. Hopefully Manmohan Singh's visit to Bangladesh will take place at the earliest, before the onset of monsoons. It is likely that negotiations on all tracks will not be completed by then. But, a few major breakthroughs and critical agreements that serve as real 'game changers' must be signed during this visit. What might these be?
It is suggested that these should include the vital issues of territory, water, trade and connectivity. The enclaves issue is ripe for a solution and bold political decisions in conjunction with West Bengal should resolve them. The Teesta water-sharing negotiation too is at an advanced stage and it will be enormously helpful if this is agreed by that time. Over the years river water issues have become sensitive and a major resolution will be highly positive. A sensitive issue of late between India and Bangladesh has been the very adverse trade balance, which is ten times in India's favour. This is clearly unsustainable between friends. India can afford to have a zero-tariff regime for Bangladesh and not suffer a dent in its overall trade balance. But, if there is an apprehension that this may be misused, at least Bangladesh textile import tariffs should be eliminated. This will benefit maximum numbers of its citizens and an important constituency. Taken together these will be true game-changers in India-Bangladesh relations.
In turn these would open up the whole question of connectivity already liberalized through direct access from Bangladesh to Bhutan and Nepal. Building further on this through multiple nodes across Bangladesh will be of enormous financial benefit to its people in several substantive ways.
The time has come to build public opinion in both countries to ensure that Manmohan Singh's visit is of historic significance to both countries.
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[ALOCHONA] Japan radiation:Bangladesh should be careful too
Fears of Japan radiation spreading to Thailand played down
The Office of Atoms for Peace which oversees the use of nuclear technology in the country has played down fears radioactive leakage at a nuclear power plant in Japan may spread to Thailand."We have closely monitored the situation of the nuclear power plant explosion in Japan since Saturday," OAP secretary-general Chaiwat Toskulkao said yesterday.
"From the wind direction, radioactive dust has been swept towards the northeastern direction. The dust, if there is any, will not reach Thailand. So I would say we are quite safe."Thailand is more than 4,300 kilometres from Japan.
Thailand has eight radioactive monitoring stations. None has detected any radiation, said Siriratana Biramontri, director of Bureau of Technical Support for Nuclear Safety.
The OAP, formerly known as the Office of Atomic Energy for Peace, will not impose a ban on foods from Japan as there were no reports of radiation leakage beyond the Fukushima area, she said. The government will send three doctors who are experts on radiology from Rajvithi Hospital to assist affected people in Japan.
The OAP said the 1.2 megawatt research reactor at its premise next to Kasetsart University could withstand an earthquake of up to 7 on the Richter scale - the highest level of seismic shake the nearest active fault in Kanchanaburi is believed to be capable of creating.
To cope with a possible earthquake crisis, the OAP has just completed drafting a national emergency plan for officials at various agencies to use.
However, rescue operations will still be limited to officials of related agencies.Thailand's most recent experience in radioactive leakage was in January, 2000, when a group of scavengers illegally obtained metal containers carrying cobalt-60, a radioactive material used for medical treatment.
The scavengers brought the material back to their home community in Samut Prakan province. After successfully dissembling a container, they fell ill.
http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/226689/fears-of-japan-radiation-spreading-to-thailand-played-down
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[ALOCHONA] The internet:Anonymous no more
The internet:Anonymous no more
It is becoming ever more difficult to browse the internet without leaving behind digital footprints that reveal your identity.
WAY back in the early days of the web, in 1993, the New Yorker ran a cartoon featuring two dogs sitting in front of a computer. The internet-savvy canine is saying to its friend: "On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog." This joke captured the freewheeling anonymity of the early stages of internet adoption, but it doesn't work now. Today websites often know a great deal about their visitors, including their names and interests.
The ability to use the internet anonymously is being eroded on several fronts. Some popular websites, including Facebook, the leading social network, and Quora, a popular question-and-answer site, require users to give their real names, and block people who are suspected of using pseudonyms. Other sites ask that users provide their real names in order to be able to leave comments, in the hope that discussions will be more civil if people have to reveal their identities.
In recent months security researchers have shown that if you use your real identity on some sites, you can be identified when you visit others. One way this can happen involves "cookies", the snippets of data that websites deposit on visitors' computers, so that returning visitors can be recognised. It sounds creepy, but cookies are generally anonymised. Cookies can reveal things about your browsing habits—they are used to target advertising, for example, based on other sites you have visited—but they do not usually know who you are.
In 2010, however, privacy experts twice pointed out that Facebook was sending information about its users to the same advertisers that track browsing using cookies. It is not known what, if anything, the advertisers did with this information. The potential, however, is clear: the Facebook data could have been used to deanonymise the browsing histories associated with the cookies. Facebook plugged this leak of personal information, but only after the problem was given prominent coverage in the Wall Street Journal. When the leak was highlighted by computer scientists in August 2009, nine months earlier, Facebook took no action.
Another anonymity-eroding technique was recently flagged by computer scientists. It relies on "history stealing", in which a security flaw in a user's web browser allows rogue websites to retrieve fragments of his browsing history. This may not directly reveal his identity, but can be very revealing. For example, if a user has joined three groups on a social network, there is a limited overlap between the groups' membership lists, and those lists are public, it may simply be a matter of working out who belongs to all three groups.
This sounds rather contrived, but it works in practice. Gilbert Wondracek at the Vienna University of Technology in Austria and his colleagues built a history-stealing website aimed at groups on Xing, a business-orientated social network. Mr Wondracek's analysis of over 6,500 Xing groups, containing a total of more than 1.8m users, suggested that his rogue site would be able to determine the identity of around four in ten visitors. A trial run, in which Mr Wondracek invited colleagues who use Xing to visit his history-stealing site, showed this estimate to be about right. The vulnerability he exploited has since been addressed by the engineers behind several browsers, including Firefox and Safari, but has so far not been fixed in Microsoft's Internet Explorer.
Meanwhile, Facebook has quietly gained the ability to monitor its users' wanderings elsewhere on the web. Many sites now include Facebook "Like" buttons. Click one, and your Facebook profile will be updated with a message linking to the page in question. This feature helps people share content with friends, but it also allows Facebook to track its users' browsing. In fact, merely going to a page containing a "Like" button while logged into Facebook is enough to notify the social network of your visit, whether or not you click the button.
Where is all this heading? It is clear that many firms can now track people as they move around the web, and can sometimes link these browsing histories to specific individuals and their personal information. If the days of anonymous browsing are not over yet, some observers think they soon will be. As Julie Cohen, a legal scholar at Georgetown University, put it in a prescient paper published 15 years ago, the internet era is "as much an age of information about readers as it is an age of information for readers". Speaking at the Techonomy conference last year, Eric Schmidt of Google distinguished between privacy, which he said should be respected, and anonymity. "Absolute anonymity could lead to some very difficult decisions for our governments and our society as a whole," he said.
But anonymity is freeing. It lets people go online and read about fringe political viewpoints, look up words they are embarrassed not to know the meaning of, or search for a new job without being thought extremist, stupid or disloyal. In America some judges have recognised that browsing habits will change if people feel that they are being watched. In rejecting a government demand for book-purchase data from Amazon, an online retailer, a judge wrote that the release of the information would create a chilling effect that would "frost keyboards across America". Librarians have long understood this, which is why they keep readers' files confidential. But many of the new custodians of people's reading records do not seem inclined to do the same.
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