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Wednesday, May 13, 2009

[chottala.com] Nuclear power MoU inked with Russia



Thursday, May 14, 2009 

Nuke power MoU inked with Russia

Staff Correspondent

Bangladesh and Russia yesterday signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to pave the way for exchanging nuclear technology and setting up nuclear power plants in Bangladesh.

Acting Chairman of Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission Md Mosharraf Hossain and Deputy Director of Russian Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation NN Spasskiy signed the MoU on behalf of their countries.

Spasskiy is leading a three-member experts team from Russia that arrived in Dhaka yesterday to sign the MoU.

As per the understanding, the two countries acknowledged that the use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes and assurance of nuclear- and radiation-safety are important factors in ensuring social and economic development of both the states.

"Russia will assist in the development of nuclear energy infrastructure in Bangladesh," reads the MoU signed at the science and ICT ministry at Bangladesh Secretariat. It mentions that the two sides are interested in establishing a joint working group to define the specific joint projects facilitating implementation of Bangladesh's plans to develop a safe and viable nuclear industry.

As per the understanding, Russia will supply Bangladesh with nuclear materials and provide services in the field of nuclear fuel cycle in accordance with national legislations of the two states and international treaties to which both Bangladesh and Russia are parties.

The MoU also includes terms for cooperation in education, training, updating skills of administration, scientific and technical persons and radioactive waste management.

The MoU singing is the result of a fruitful negotiation between officials of Bangladesh and Russia in early April. State Minister for Science and ICT Yafes Osman said, "Bangladesh and Russia moved one step ahead regarding cooperation in nuclear technology."

Talking to reporters after the signing ceremony, he said, "We have also signed such MoUs with USA and China. Now we will assess them and opt for the one that will be best for Bangladesh and its citizens."

The main point of the MoU is building more confidence between the two nations for peaceful use of nuclear energy in Bangladesh, he added.

Asked if Bangladesh will choose Russia for setting up the nuclear power plant, he later told The Daily Star, "Let us see who is coming with what proposals."

A Bangladeshi delegation will soon visit Russia to see nuclear power plants there.

About the cost and fund of such plants in Bangladesh, Yafes said the MoU is a very preliminary step and more discussions are needed to resolve crucial issues like managing funds. He expressed hope that the fund for the proposed nuclear power plant would not be a big problem.

Yafes said initially they would set up a 600-1000MW power plant at Rooppur to resolve the country's electricity crisis.

The Rooppur Nuclear Power Project was conceived in the early 1960s and 260 acres of land was acquired for it.

Spasskiy said neither technology nor financing would be a problem to set up nuclear power plants in Bangladesh. "Our technologies are the best in the world and we will offer a very competitive proposal to Bangladesh for installing plants," he told reporters.

"It is an important moment. We have signed the MoU which enables us to start working and practical cooperation on both sides about matter of interests and define the areas of cooperation," he said, adding that the governments of both the countries will now decide the matter.

"The prospect of the cooperation is in the designing and afterwards in the building of the first ever energy nuclear reactor in your country. It will also imply a radical change to the situation of electricity in your country," Spasskiy said.

Describing Bangladesh as "not only a longstanding friend but also a strategic partner", he said, "I hope both the countries will proceed to the signature of a final agreement as soon as possible."

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina had approved the draft of the MoU last week.

Energy Adviser to the Prime Minister Towfiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury, Law Secretary Habibul Awal, senior officials of the science and ICT ministry and Russian Ambassador in Dhaka GP Trotsenko were present at the MoU signing ceremony.

MM Meyer, director (fund) of Russia World, and N Averkiev, Department of International Cooperation of Rosatom were the two other members of the Russian experts team.
 
 
 


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[chottala.com] PBS: Bangladesh: Bribery's Dangerous Beneficiary



Bangladesh: Bribery's Dangerous Beneficiary
 
Video:
 
RELATED STORIES
From our Files & Beyond
 

In 2004, the German industrial giant Siemens was keen to land a telecom deal with the government of Bangladesh, a country of 150 million, where mobile phone use was soaring. Taking no chances, the company paid $5 million in bribes to government officials to secure the bid. There was certainly nothing unusual about that: bribery is a way of life in Bangladesh, which was ranked the most corrupt country in the world between 2001 and 2006 by Transparency International.

But in January, while investigating the country's chronic corruption problems [I spent a year reporting in Bangladesh in 2005], I noticed something unusual and potentially alarming about the Siemens bribe.

During the time Haque was receiving bribes from Siemens, he was also patronizing Jamat'ul Mujahadeen Bangladesh, or JMB, an Islamic militant group in Bangladesh.

According to court documents [PDF] filed by prosecutors at the U.S. Department of Justice, Siemens had bribed the former telecommunications minister in Bangladesh.

The documents didn't name the minister, but further investigation revealed that he was Aminul Haque. I also discovered that during the time Haque was receiving bribes from Siemens, he was also patronizing Jamat'ul Mujahadeen Bangladesh, or JMB, an Islamic militant group in Bangladesh.

The revelation was surprising enough to get me on a plane back to Dhaka, Bangladesh's capital. The day after I arrived, a national tragedy erupted that would have profound implications for my story: In events that made headlines around the world, soldiers in the Bangladesh Rifles, or BDR, the country's border security forces, staged a bloody mutiny killing scores of their own senior officers and burying bodies in shallow graves inside their military headquarters. It soon emerged that some of the mutineers had belonged to JMB and that logistics of the attack further suggested the imprint of the extremist group.

David Montero (left) with the Daily Star's Julfikar Ali Manik reporting in the district of Rajshahi in northwest Bangladesh.

As investigators probed links between the soldiers and JMB, I headed to Rajshahi, a district in northwest Bangladesh where Haque was born and where the JMB first emerged as a militant threat. When I asked residents about Haque's involvement with extremists, local prosecutor Ekramul Haque told me that the former minister and barrister had formed a deadly alliance with the JMB, which has been charged with a wave of abductions and killings in the region.

Haque was a powerful politician in the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), one of the country's two political parties. Its main rival is the Awami League. According to victims, Haque allegedly used JMB militants to kill Awami League members to ensure his party's supremacy in the area. In return, Haque provided the group with political cover to continue its Islamist agenda.

A newspaper clip of the former telecommunications minister Aminul Haque, currently at large.

Breaking down in tears, one villager told me that his son was tortured and beheaded by JMB for no other reason than that his son belonged to Awami League. The boy's body was later left as a warning.

The JMB has become a nationwide menace in Bangladesh. Although six of its leaders were arrested and hanged in 2007, it continues to operate underground. Every week the police arrest new cells and seize weapons stockpiles. The mutiny in Dhaka that shocked Bangladeshis may prove to be JMB's most devastating attack to date.

Although Haque was sentenced to 31 years in prison in 2007 for supporting JMB, he fled Bangladesh before he could be apprehended. At the time of sentencing, Public Prosecutor Ekramul Haque said, "The JMB came into being, flourished and continued criminal activities with the finance and assistance of barrister Aminul Islam [Haque], Shish Muhammad [a BNP party official in Rajshahi] and other ruling party men of the BNP-Jamaat alliance."

Today, Haque's whereabouts is unknown. Although, this week, through his lawyers, Haque petitioned the government to withdraw five cases filed against him.

Although there is no evidence that money paid to Haque by Siemens made its way to JMB, it underscores how bribe money can easily fall into the wrong hands.

http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/bribe/2009/05/bangladesh.html



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Re: [chottala.com] FW: [dhakamails] Qoumi madrassahs doing good job, says WB

Education is required for the people to any country to know the country's natural resources to know the country's climates to know the country's all kind of animals, quality of land & other available things & materials in the country & to know what the benefits & how to use of those things, materials & resources.
It is the most essential duty to the personals of the Government Administrations, Ministry of education & Department of education who are getting their salary & other benefits from the people's tax & vats to know & to learn how they can provide quality knowledge education nation wide to all people for educating them the quality resources & knowledge education to making them quality skilled work persons.
But the personals that are getting their salary & other benefits from the people's tax & vats in the Government Administrations, Ministry of education & Department of education are very irresponsible & careless about their normal duties.
So the people are learning what they can learn.


--- On Sat, 9/5/09, K. Raisuddin <Kraisuddin@hotmail.com> wrote:

> From: K. Raisuddin <Kraisuddin@hotmail.com>
> Subject: [chottala.com] FW: [dhakamails] Qoumi madrassahs doing good job, says WB
> To: "chottala@yahoogroups.com" <chottala@yahoogroups.com>, "Daily Star_Editor" <editor@thedailystar.net>, "dhakamails@yahoogroups.com" <dhakamails@yahoogroups.com>, "Diagnose YG" <diagnose@yahoogroups.com>, "Khobor YG" <khabor@yahoogroups.com>
> Received: Saturday, 9 May, 2009, 8:43 AM
> Every nation must have a single standard and curriculum for
> the basic national education that is considered to be the
> first 12 years (an era) from K (Kindergarten) to 12th
> Grade/Class of education. Even all the diehard muslim
> countries like Saudi Arabia and all other middle eastern
> countries have just formal 12 years of single standard
> national education curriculum. Only India, Bangladesh and
> Pakistan has this derailed system of madrasa education that
> produces bunch of quacks and un-educated people. Stop
> following the bad prescription of Deobond of the then
> British colonial time. At that time there was no system of
> education in the entire Indo-Pak-Bangla subcontinent. So,
> madrasa education could mean at least something at that
> time, but certainly not now. Also it has been observed that
> the madrasas produce hate-mongers and anti-state and
> anti-civilization bad elements. Must stop it. Any one who
> advocates on behalf of the madrasa education must be doing
> crime against the state and humanity because they want to
> burr children from receiving the real national education to
> gather real human knowledge to become the better citizens.
> Illiterate and brainwashed citizens of any country are
> unproductive and threat for the nation, world and overall
> humanity.
>
>
> To: dhakamails@yahoogroups.com
> From: bd_mailer@yahoo.com
> Date: Fri, 8 May 2009 16:37:26 -0700
> Subject: [dhakamails] Qoumi madrassahs doing good job, says
> WB
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Qoumi madrassahs doing good job, says WB
>
>
> 'Increase of madrassahs graduates in army is unfounded'
>
>
> Private donations account for 57 per cent of the money
> spent on running qoumi madrassah which 'confirms the
> popular beliefs that these types of institutions survive
> under community patronage and donations from Muslim
> households and individuals,' said a World Bank report.(The
> Newage)
>
> 'Thirty per cent of their total income does not fall
> under any category. … at the same time 11 per cent of
> total income comes from student fees, pointing out that not
> all of these traditional madrassahs provide free
> education,' said the World Bank report, 'Secondary
> School Madrassahs in Bangladesh: Incidence, Quality, and
> Implications for Reform,' drafted on March 15, 2009.
>
> 'If the parents only care about whether their child
> excels in religious studies, then as we point out in the
> report Qoumis are doing a good job. Unlike traditional
> madrassahs in Pakistan, traditional madrassahs in Bangladesh
> seem to have undergone some structural changes even in the
> absence of any state intervention. Some have stared to admit
> girls in recent years in addition to undertaking some
> modernisation of the curriculum,' it reads.
>
> 'Qoumi madrassahs in Bangladesh are also becoming
> increasingly feminised.… Seventy-four per cent of our
> samples Qoumis are all male-institutions while only a mere
> 9.5 per cent are coeducational.… In all of our
> coeducational Qoumi madrassahs, however, boys and girls have
> separate classroom,' said the report which was sent to the
> Economic Relations Division secretary, Muhammad Musharraf
> Hossain Bhuiyan, by Xian Zhu, country director of the World
> Bank, on March 31.
>
> 'This is the part of bank's comprehensive effort to
> examine the quality of secondary education in Bangladesh,
> which has been highlighted by the government as a major
> challenge to be addressed moving forward,' said the
> letter. 'We seek your comments on this report and would
> also like to discuss how to disseminate it effectively with
> a wide-range of stakeholders.'
>
> About the residential facilities, the report said, 'As a
> matter of fact, only 87 per cent of our qoumi madrassahs
> offer at least some residential facilities (compared to only
> 19 per cent of aliyah madrassahs).'
>
> About the number of qoumi madrassahs and their students,
> the report observed, 'To summarise, the number and share
> of qoumi madrassahs in both the primary and secondary sector
> is much lower than what is portrayed in the popular
> press.'
>
> 'Once again, even in terms of primary enrolment share,
> incidence of Qoumi madrassah is not large in rural
> Bangladesh: they account only 1.9 per cent of the total
> primary enrolment. These numbers are very small when
> compared to enrolment in a similar non-religious, non-state
> school that also caters to children from poor families —
> NGO schools account for 8.2 per cent of the primary
> enrolment in our study,' the report said.
>
> The first-ever survey conducted by the Bangladesh Bureau of
> Educational Information and Statistics in December 2008 said
> there were 5,230 qoumi madrassahs with about 14 lakh
> students.
>
> Brushing aside a 'finding' of an international survey
> which claimed recruitment of madrassah graduates in the
> Bangladesh army, the World Bank report said the finding was
> unfounded as the source of the data of the study was
> unknown.
>
> According to the report, '… also in a recent edition of
> Harvard International Review, Wazed and Ciovacco (2008)
> state that as part of a deliberate plan by Islamists to
> increase their representation in the armed forces in
> Bangladesh, madrassahas are specifically prepping their
> pupils for the military entrance exam. They then go on to
> give precise figures — they state that while only 5 per
> cent of military recruit came from madrassah in 2001, by
> 2006 madrassahs supplied nearly 35 per cent of recruits.
> Unfortunately, nowhere in the study do the authors give any
> reference whatsoever for the source of their data.'
>
> In line with the study of Wazed and Ciovacco, a former
> ambassador Waliur Rahman at a workshop of the Bangladesh
> Institute of Law and International Affairs on April 16, 2009
> said the BNP-Jamaat government had recruited almost 35 per
> cent military from qoumi madrassah background during its
> tenure from 2001 to 2006, but it was not more than 5 per
> cent before the 2001 elections.
>
> Waliur also said 'The majority madrassah-background army
> members are involved with the militancy.' When asked about
> the source of his data, Waliur said, 'This was among the
> findings of a study conducted by BILIA and the Bangladesh
> Research and Publication Ltd.'
>
> Waliur faced severe criticism as he failed to produce an
> authentic document in favour of his claim. There is no state
> recognition of certificates offered by qoumi madrassah.
>
>
>
>
> _____
>
>
>
> .
>
>
>
>
> _________________________________________________________________
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