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When I was requested to write an article on: “The Priest, Servant of the Sacraments”, at first I felt rather uneasy. I disliked the title, it gave me a negative impression.

But I had a second thought. I understood that the negative impression was the sign that I still share a widespread mentality that considers the Sacraments as “things,” or “actions” to be performed. They are indeed, but if we do not put them into their proper context, we do not really understand their meaning and their place: they look like isolated realities that almost magically give something not much connected with the rest of our life. Should the priest be a servant of some “things” or “actions?”

“The sacraments are the Word made visible.” I believe this description of the sacraments is of St. Augustine, but I may be wrong... I choose it because by relating immediately the “things” or “actions” which constitute the sacraments to the living Word, it connects them with their source. It also shows that for a priest there is no gap between being servant of the Word and servant of the Sacraments, since there is a deep integration and unity among them. The Word of God is not just the sound of a voice, which touches our ear and enters our mind, it is creative, effective. This effectiveness finds expression, it becomes somehow “visible” or perceptible in the sacraments.

Let us go to the liturgy, expression and source of our living, and understanding the faith.

The words of absolution that the priest pronounces when he celebrates the Sacrament of Reconciliation can give us the frame, or the scheme of what I want to say.

“God, the Father of Mercies, through the death and resurrection of his Son has reconciled the world to himself and sent the Holy Spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins. Through the ministry of the Church may God give you pardon and peace, and I absolve you from your sins, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

The formula is first of all a proclamation of the God of Mercies and of his salvation plan. The priest recalls that God the Father is the source of who and what we are now as human beings and as Christians: we are reconciled with God because of his will, and his will has been fulfilled in Christ’s death and resurrection. We are reconciled in Christ.

These words eco the powerful appeal of Paul to the Corinthians: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation; the old has passed away (...). All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them...” (2Co 5:17-19a).

They also eco the Gospel of John, where the risen Lord appears to his disciples locked into the room “for fear of the Jews.” He gives them his peace, he breathes on them and gives them the Holy Spirit along with the mission to forgive (see John 20:19-23).

By so doing, the Lord transfers to the Church – his body – the duty and the power to continue the work that the Father had entrusted to him. The liturgical formula in fact, after the short, dense synthesis of the Trinitarian plan of salvation, moves ahead to pray that the Church, may now express her ministry and offer the penitent God’s pardon and peace.

Paul expresses the same truth in the passage quoted above by saying that God reconciled the world to himself and “entrusted to us the message of reconciliation.” (2Co 5:19b). In other words, we must spread around this message, so that it can actually reach whoever is ready to accept it.

Having built this solid basis (God’s salvific action and the ministry given to the Church), Paul comes to the role of the apostles: “So we are ambassadors of Christ, God making his appeal through us.” (ibid. 20a). It is not the appeal of the apostles, it is God’s appeal through them. It calls people to accept and to enter the eternal merciful plan of God.

Everything is ready now, to address the appeal specifically to the Corinthians: “We beseech you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.” (ibid 20b).

From the eternal will of God we have come down to Paul’s plead to a specific community in need of reconciliation. We may say that now and only now Paul is directly involved in God’s work of reconciliation.

Similarly, the liturgical formula ends by involving the priest directly. The priest personally, on behalf of Christ, offers the penitent the reconciliation operated by Christ in his death and resurrection and now enforced by the Holy Spirit.

By celebrating this sacrament, the priest, along with the penitent, does not perform an isolated act, to bring him or her back to God. Rather, both priest and penitent, by the action of the Holy Spirit in them, enter the infinite river of God’s mercy and are reconciled.

I say that “they” are reconciled. When I celebrate Confession I believe that I am benefited from it, because no sacramental action is only personal. Each is ecclesial, it involves the whole Church, and the whole Church is recipient of the grace given to one or more specific persons. A Christian who enters this river of Mercy brings the whole Church closer to God, and since I am the one who celebrates this immersion, I am especially involved in God’s grace. As I “give” the absolution on behalf of Christ, somehow I also “receive” it, through the grace that reaches this sister or brother of mine, who is part of the Body of Christ.

What I say of the Sacrament of Reconciliation is true of all the Sacraments. As a priest, I am entrusted the service of accompanying other persons to the source of salvation. Each time I do, I believe it happens by a special call of the Spirit to all of us who are involved.

I can call people to come and participate to the Eucharist, and I do. But those who actually listen to this call and come, do this in faith, moved by the Holy Spirit, attracted by Christ.

When I anoint a sick person, I am united more intimately to the mystery of the suffering Christ who is now present in him/her; when I bless the marriage of two persons I can strengthen the link of love and self donation that unites me – as a priest – as Christ is united to his Church.

The Word of Salvation becomes perceptible through these actions that I perform; the signs of the liturgy give what they mean because they are filled with the powerful, creative Word of God.

That is why every celebration of any sacrament should be accompanied, nourished by the reading of and listening to biblical passages. They are needed to better express the action of the sacrament which is performed, and to show its link with the global salvific action of God. They make us perceive that the same God who taught, the same Christ who acted, now teaches and acts through this specific liturgy.

The sacraments are a service of God to us, and our response of gratitude and praise to God. By celebrating the sacraments, the priest serves God, the faithful, and the whole human family.

Deforestation is threatening the survival of more than 1.5 billion people who derive their daily subsistence from trees and surrounding nature warns the UN for 2011, "the international year of forests", an initiative that aims to protect the world's 'green lungs' - over 31% of the Earth's surface, or four billion hectares - and its inhabitants. "Forests affect all aspects of human life. [...] We must integrate the voice of people in forestry policies to build a sustainable future for forests and the people who rely on them," said Jan McAlpine, director of the UN Forum for the Promotion of Social Development, the Struggle Against Poverty and the Sustainable Management of Ecosystems which will be running for the next two weeks in New York. The UN says that of the over 1.6 billion people who are directly dependent on forests, some 60 million belong to autochthonous and local communities lacking economic resources. According to data brought to light by the UN, some 13 million hectares of forest are cleared every year because of urban development or agricultural demand. [BO]

The report, entitled The Future of the Global Muslim Population, shows a marked drop in population growth (from 2.2 per cent down to 1.5 per cent) over the next 20 years. Pakistan is set to become the world's most populous Muslim nation.

In the next 20 years, Muslims in Israel (excluding Gaza and the West Bank) will reach 23.2 per cent of the population of the Jewish state, rising from 1.3 million in 2010 to 2.1 million in 2030, this according to a report by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life

In the past 20 years, the Muslim population in Israel has more than doubled, going from 0.6 million in 1990 to 1.3 million in 2010, and it is expected to reach 2.1 million by 2030.

However, falling birth rates will slow the growth the world's Muslim population over the same period, from 2.2 per cent a year in 1990-2010 to 1.5 per cent a year from now until 2030, the study shows.

"The declining growth rate is due primarily to falling fertility rates in many Muslim-majority countries," it said. This is happening because the birth rate is falling, as more Muslim women are educated, living standards rise and rural people move to the cities.

It said about 60 per cent of the world's Muslims will live in the Asia-Pacific region in 2030, 20 per cent in the Middle East, 17.6 per cent in sub-Saharan Africa, 2.7 per cent in Europe and 0.5 per cent in the Americas.

Pakistan will overtake Indonesia as the world's most populous Muslim nation by 2030, whilst the Muslim minority in mostly Hindu India will retain its global rank as the third largest Muslim community.

The president of the Italian Bishops' Conference opens assembly, calling on international institutions to guarantee minimum standards of freedom for all faiths. Speaking about Christianophobia in Europe, he says, "A subtle evil afflicts Europe, causing a slow, unseen marginalisation of Christianity. Sometimes, this involves clear cases of discrimination".

Card Angelo Bagnasco, president of the Italian Bishops' Conference (CEI), opened the latter's assembly today. In the opening speech, he spoke about the threats to religious freedom and to the lives of Christians in various parts of the world, especially in the Middle East, mentioning the attacks in Baghdad and Alexandria. He also focused on the West, slamming "devious threats to real religious freedom in democratic nations, starting in Europe." In his view, "We must guard against the subtle tricks of hypocrisy that lead to seek faraway what is instead nearby".

Card Bagnasco mentioned the controversy of the crucifix in schools or public places, saying that "religious freedom is an essential and very delicate linchpin. If it is compromised, society as a whole may actually have to pay the consequences. Annoyed, some make specious arguments about the neutrality of the state. A certain aggressive secularism betrays attitudes inspired by ideological obsessions that we left behind without regrets. In light of this, we are surprised by complaints made last month at an OSCE conference in Vienna that claimed that an abstract application of the principle of non-discrimination could paradoxically limit the rights of believers to express publicly their faith.

For the CEI president, "A subtle evil afflicts Europe, causing a slow, unseen marginalisation of Christianity. Sometimes, this involves clear cases of discrimination, but also a silent stifling of fundamental freedoms. The case in point is the right to conscientious objection on ethical issues, a matter that is belittled in many nations. This constitutes a retreat for freedom. To marginalise symbols, isolate contents, and denigrate people is a weapon that leads to conformity. Unpopular views are sidelined and those who bear witness to values they freely believe in are mortified."

Speaking about the problem of Christianophobia, the prelate said he hoped that the "issue of basic religious minority rights in many countries would be addressed." He added that the matter of "reciprocity must be dealt with but not with threats of retaliation or by weakening the guarantees given to people who come from nations where equal treatment is not provided." Instead, what is necessary "is to raise the issue of religious freedom in international fora like the European Union, the United Nations [. . .], to open eyes and keep them open so that individual states may uphold minimum standards of freedom for all faiths."

Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe have seen huge increases in food and fuel prices. The cost of wheat and other agricultural products has risen despite shortages because of inflation generated by the Federal Reserve. The gap between economic elites and the population is widening.

AsiaNews recently published a number of articles on rising food prices, especially in China and India, Asia's two largest economies, raising alarm bells about potential turmoil. Countries like Laos, Oman and Jordan have already experienced riots over the cost of food staples. Higher fuel prices have sparked popular unrest elsewhere. News about such incidents have not come from Asia alone; in fact, every continent has been affected. For example, roadblocks have been set up in Chile, a country shaped as a long strip wedged along South America, where transportation costs and fuel prices are very important. Similar incidents have been reported in Bolivia where the cost of petrol jumped 86 per cent on 26 December.

In North Africa, the rising cost for semolina wheat, the basic ingredient in the region's main food staple, couscous, has led to riots in the streets of Algeria and caused disgruntlement in Morocco. In Tunisia, whose president fled (with 1.5 tonnes of gold), the government resigned.

What started out as widespread dissatisfaction appears to be turning into a popular revolution. Something like it is feared in Egypt where customs officials have recently stopped 59 shipments of gold before they left the country, a sign that some people have lost confidence in those in power and are willing to risk confiscation and smuggling charges.

Europe too has not been spared. Urban violence has hit the streets of some European cities when the debt crisis burst in Greece, Portugal, Spain and Ireland. British students took to the streets to protest as well. More recently, three people died in clashes in Albania. More generally, the situation in Eastern Europe, in Estonia and Moldavia for example, is very serious because of major rises in fuel and food prices.

Despite apparently contradictory data, things are not much better in Western nations. The US Department of Agriculture recently released a report forecasting the lowest inflation since 1992 for food items and other basic and consumer goods . The same appears to be true for European nations.

However, regular shopper might not agree . The prices of food and agricultural products are not some vague theoretical issue. In Western countries, inflation has gone "smart" with producers and big chain stores, wherever possible, holding prices steady but putting their products on a diet in terms of quantity and quality (with more greens or sauce in tuna or other canned foods, for example).

North Korea has again reacted to the lack of food its own way. Given the endemic famine it has caused, the regime stressed the urgency and gravity of food shortages by using its artillery. This time however, it did not simply fire blank shots or into the sea, but shelled human settlements, killing civilians.

Taken individually, all these events or happenings appear as local contingencies. However, they are not. According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), food prices, especially grains, rose between 40 and 60 per cent last year. Higher prices for basic items in this or that country are due to worldwide factors. Production shortfalls or bad weather are not to blame, whether it is drought-stricken wheat production in Russia and Kazakhstan or flooding in Canada, northern Europe and Australia (floods in Pakistan had a devastating impact on humans but very little on agricultural output). The same is true for frost in the case of Argentina's maize, soy and wheat production, or the loss of the potato crop in Russia or other such events.

Famine has not caused popular unrest-certainly not in ways known to humanity for thousands of years. Grain production dropped by 2 per cent drop last year, too little to explain the actual rise in prices. In fact, price rises and the decline in world production are out of synch. Indeed, vast food reserves built up over the past few years thanks to record surpluses could have been easily used to make up for any contingent drop in production. Interestingly, FAO data show exceptional price increases in the past six-seven years, in some case of the order of almost 400 per cent compared to 2002-2004, and this despite higher production levels.

Financial, not technical or weather factors are behind higher prices. Inflation is the by-product of huge liquidity injected into the markets by central banks, in particular the US Federal Reserve, as AsiaNews has pointed over the years. For a long time, the price of raw materials has for the most part not reflected the interaction of supply and demand for real goods. By far, the main factor in shaping the price of almost all raw materials is trading by financial operators who can quickly shift huge amounts of money from government bonds to securities, stocks and so-called goods. For those with the right connections, profits are huge and risks relatively low. Since they have access to almost unlimited resources, they can get what they want. Market values are systematically distorted in large measure, but not exclusively, by the 'Plunge Protection Team', a colloquial term used by newspapers for a little known body with an exclusive membership that has a major impact on markets. Set up in 1988, its official name is the President's Working Group on Financial Markets. It includes the secretary of the Treasury, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. In addition, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which oversees the nation's open market operations, is now routinely involved as well. A small number of institutional groups rotate around the aforementioned bodies as well. They include big business banks, like Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan, and hedge funds. Movement of personnel between these institutional groups and big private groups are commonplace; thus, no one should be surprised if a handful of managers in charge of speculative funds can earn huge annual pays, a billion dollars just in fees in some cases.

The pleasant side of all this is not so much the power such a small group of people can exert (financial derivatives alone are worth 15 times all the goods and services produced in the world a year), but rather the certainty these insiders have that they will not likely have to pay for their mistakes. Here is a case in point.

In a previous article, we noted that as of 3 November 2010 mortgage-backed securities (MBS) constituted 44.91 per cent of the budget (so to speak) of the Federal Reserve (the de facto but not de jure central bank of the United States since the US constitution forbids such an institution). However, from a legal point of view, these securities are worthless. Consequently, a strong possibility exists that the Fed (a private organisation created on 23 December 1913 by a law signed by Woodrow Wilson) could become insolvent and go bust because of such securities.

However, this possibility has disappeared a few days ago. Reuters reported in fact that the Fed, without making too much noise, changed its accounting rules. As of 6 January, bonds held by the Fed, including MBSs, can no longer be counted as losses against its own capital but become a liability for the US Treasury. The Federal Reserve is thus no longer facing even the theoretical possibility of bankruptcy. When people realise that bonds bought from commercial banks to prevent their collapse are worthless, the US Treasury will be the one liable for the losses. This way, in complete disregard of democracy and unbeknownst to almost everyone, the risk of insolvency has shifted to US taxpayers, of all ages, both living and those not yet born. Of course, no one is likely to demand that the fat commissions earned by banks and financial companies and their bosses be reimbursed.

"If only businesses and households had the same privilege [of changing accounting guidelines]," said Pedro Nicolaci da Costa in the Reuters piece. Echoing his wish, at AsiaNews we say: If only households in China and India, who spend 40 per cent of their meagre wages on food, had the same privilege.

What all this means is that the gap between elites and the rest of the world is growing ever wider, fuelling popular unrest around the globe. Yet, the former do not appear too worried for they have been preparing for such an eventuality for quite some time. As for political leaders who are unwilling to adapt to what powerful financial elites want, they are likely to be eliminated.

Must history always repeat itself? We are indeed on the verge of what could turn out to be another major food crisis. The FAO Food Price Index at the end of 2010 returned to its highest level. Drought in Russia and the export restrictions adopted by the government, together with lower crop harvests than expected, first in the United States and Europe, then in Australia and Argentina, have triggered a process of soaring agricultural commodity prices in international markets.

Admittedly, the present situation is different from that of 2007-2008, although recent climatic events may significantly reduce agricultural production next season. The hike in prices concerns sugar and oilseeds in particular, more than grains which account for 46% of calorie intake globally. Cereal stocks amounted to 428 million tonnes in 2007/08 but stand currently at 525 million tonnes. However, they are being seriously drawn down in order to meet demand. On another front, oil prices are at around $90 a barrel, instead of $140.

No doubt higher prices and volatility will continue in the next years if we fail to tackle the structural causes of imbalances in the international agricultural system. We continue to react to circumstances and thus to engage in crisis management. The underlying problems were identified in 1996 and 2002 at the FAO World Food Summits. On both occasions, the attention of the highest authorities of the world was drawn to the failure to deliver on commitments. If current trends persist, the goals set by the world leaders of reducing by half the number of hungry people on the planet by 2015 would only be achieved in 2150.

There has been no decisive change in policy since 1996, despite the warnings by the Global Information and Early Warning System of FAO and those issued through the media. Yet, today there are still close to one billion people who are hungry.

We must therefore forcefully remind everyone the conditions needed for an adequate supply of food for a population that is constantly growing and that, in the next forty years, will require a 70% increase in agricultural production worldwide and a 100% increase in the developing countries.

First is the issue of investment: the share of agriculture in official development assistance (ODA) dropped from 19% in 1980 to 3% in 2006, and now stands at around 5% -- it should amount to $44 billion per year and return to its initial level that helped to avert famine in Asia and Latin America in the 1970s. The budgetary expenditure of low-income food-deficit countries on agriculture represents about 5%, when this should be at least 10%. Finally, domestic and foreign private investments of around $140 billion per year should amount to $200 billion. These figures are to be compared to global military expenditure of $1,500 billion per year.

Then there is the issue of international trade in agricultural commodities, which is neither free nor fair. The OECD countries protect their agriculture with a total support estimate of $365 billion per year, and the subsidies and tariff protection in favour of biofuels divert some 120 million tonnes of cereals from human consumption to the transport sector. Further, unilateral sanitary and phytosanitary measures and technical barriers to trade are hampering exports, particularly from the developing countries.

Finally, there is the subject of speculation that is exacerbated by the measures of liberalisation of agricultural futures markets in a context of economic and financial crisis. These new conditions have served to convert hedging instruments into speculative financial products replacing other less profitable forms of investment.

The solution to the problem of hunger and food insecurity in the world therefore requires an effective coordination of decisions on investment, international agricultural trade and financial markets. In an uncertain climatic context marked by floods and droughts, we need to be in a position to finance small water control works, local storage facilities and rural roads, as well as fishing ports, slaughterhouses, etc. Only then will it be possible to secure food production and enhance the productivity and competitiveness of small farmers, thus lowering consumer prices and increasing the income of rural populations who make up 70% of the world's poor.

We must also reach a consensus on the very lengthy negotiations of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and put an end to the market distortions and restrictive trade practices that are aggravating the imbalances between supply and demand. Finally, there is a pressing need for new measures of transparency and regulation to deal with speculation on agricultural commodity futures markets.

Implementation of such policies at the global level requires the respect of the commitments made by the developed countries, notably at the G8 Summits of Gleneagles and L'Aquila, as well as at the G20 Summit in Pittsburgh. Developing countries, for their part, must increase their national budget allocations to agriculture. And private foreign direct investment needs to be made in conditions that will ensure in particular, thanks to an international code of conduct, an equitable sharing of benefits among the different stakeholders.

Crisis management is essential and a good thing, but prevention is better. Without long-term structural decisions and the necessary political will and financial resources for their implementation, food insecurity will persist with a succession of crises affecting most seriously the poorest populations. This will generate political instability in countries and threaten world peace and security. The speeches and promises made at major international meetings, if not acted upon responsibly, would only fuel a growing sense of frustration and revolt.

The time has come to adopt and implement policies that will enable all farmers of the world, in developing and developed countries alike, to earn a decent income through mechanisms that do not create market distortions. These men, women and youths must be allowed to exercise their profession under conditions of dignity so we can feed a planet that will grow from 6.9 billion inhabitants at present to 9.1 billion in 2050

Billions of dollars are being made by investors in a speculative "food bubble" that's created record food prices, starving millions and destabilising countries, experts now conclude.

Wall Street investment firms and banks, along with their kin in London and Europe, were responsible for the technology dot-com bubble, the stock market bubble, and the recent U.S. and UK housing bubbles. They extracted enormous profits and their bonuses before the inevitable collapse of each.

Now they've turned to basic commodities. The result? At a time when there has been no significant change in the global food supply or in food demand, the average cost of buying food shot up 32 percent from June to December 2010, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

Nothing but price speculation can explain wheat prices jumping 70 percent from June to December last year when global wheat stocks were stable, experts say.

"There is no food shortage in the world. Food is simply priced out of the reach of the world's poorest people," said Robert Fox of Oxfam Canada in reference to the estimated one billion people who go hungry.

"Hunger is not a food production problem. It is an income problem," Fox told IPS.

The conditions that created the 2007-08 price hike and food riots have not changed, he said. It is no surprise to see record-high food prices and riots again in Egypt, Algeria, Jordan and elsewhere.

Weather used to be the big determinant of food prices, but not anymore. Trillions of dollars have been pumped into food commodities markets in the last few years thanks to deregulation of commodities trading in the U.S., reports Olivier De Schutter, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food.

In an analysis of the food price crisis of 2007-08, De Schutter documents how the U.S. government passed legislation in 2000 deregulating the food commodity markets and for the first time permitted speculation on speculation.

Here's how it used to work. In January, Farmer Brown would sign a contract to sell his 2011 future crop to a grain trader like industry giant Cargill for 100 dollars a tonne. In the fall, Cargill would then sell Farmer Brown's grain at whatever price they could get to a bakery or feedlot company for cattle. These "futures" contracts insulated both the farmer and the grain trader from wild price fluctuations.

Now, after the passage of the U.S. Commodity Futures Modernisation Act in 2000, Cargill could sell Farmer's Brown "futures" contract to an investment bank on Wall Street for 120 dollars a tonne, who could in turn sell it to a European investment company for 150 dollars a tonne and then sell it to a U.S. public pension fund for 175 dollars a tonne and so on. Add in some complex financial instruments like 'derivatives', 'index funds', 'hedges', and 'swaps', and food become part of yet another highly-profitable speculative bubble.

A deeply-flawed global financial system was largely responsible for the 2007-08 food crisis, concluded De Schutter in a September 2010 briefing note.

"Speculators increasingly entered the market in order to pro?t from short-term changes in price," wrote agricultural economist Jayati Ghosh, in a more recent analysis of the 2007-08 food price spike.

With the pending implosion of "the U.S. housing ?nance market, large investors, especially institutional investors such as hedge funds and pension funds and even banks, searched for other avenues of investment to ?nd new sources of pro?t," said Ghosh, a professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi in the Journal of Agrarian Change.

Food commodity speculation became the "hot ticket" and unregulated trading zoomed from 0.77 trillion dollars in 2002 to seven trillion dollars in 2007. Food prices shot upwards until the speculators took their profits in the first half of 2008 to cover their losses in the U.S. housing and other markets, she concluded. By the fall of 2008 prices stabilised but remained substantially higher than they were before the speculative bubble.

"At the end of December 2008, the FAO estimated that 33 countries were experiencing severe or moderate food crises, with conditions in at least 17 countries worse compared to October 2008," Ghosh said.

Now there is a new and bigger food price bubble that began midway through 2010. It's no surprise since nothing was done to change the conditions, Ghosh wrote. Regulations that could prevent or at least limit such speculative financial activity are not in place. The 2010-11 food price bubble is blamed on last summer's Russian drought and increased consumption by India and China. However, FAO figures clearly show grain consumption by those latter two countries has actually fallen, mainly because many simply can't afford to buy as much grain, Ghosh told IPS in an email interview. In India, there has also been "diet shifts to more vegetables and dairy products", she said.

The Russian drought simply sparked this latest speculative bubble. Russia did lose 33 percent of its wheat harvest, but it had plenty of wheat stocks on hand to make up the difference. Instead of using those stocks, the Russian government was persuaded by multinational grain companies to ban wheat exports.

That enabled those companies to break their low-price export contracts with Egypt, Bangladesh and other countries and sell their grain on the inflated domestic wheat market, says Devlin Kuyek of GRAIN, a small international non-profit organisation that works to support small farmers.

"Big companies now control much of the Russian agriculture," Kuyek said in an interview.

GRAIN has documented how foreign and local investors have set up huge, vertically integrated "agro-holdings", particularly in the southern grain belt where they now control 40-50 percent of total grain production.

Russia is a major wheat exporter and Swiss-owned Glencore exports most of Russia's wheat. However, GRAIN research reveals that Glencore lobbied to get an export ban allowing the company to cancel its low-price contracts without penalty.

To ease the 'sting' of the ban, Russia also promised one billion dollars in low-interest loans and subsidies for grain producers.

"Countries like Egypt really got screwed and the grain traders made a killing," Kuyek said.

A new vaccine that can fight tuberculosis (TB) before and after infection has been developed by Danish scientists.

TB is a huge global problem, particularly in developing countries, where access to antibiotics to treat the disease is limited.

The latest vaccine, so far tested in animals, is featured in the journal Nature Medicine.

TB is a disease of the lungs, causing symptoms such as coughing, chest pains and weight loss. Untreated, it can be deadly.

However, only in a small number of cases - fewer than 5% - do the symptoms develop immediately after infection.

In more than 90% of cases, once Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the bacterium which causes the disease, has invaded the body it changes its chemical signature, and lives in a dormant - or "latent" - state.

Usually the bacterium never emerges from this latent state, but in around 10% of cases it reactivates - often years or even decades later - to trigger severe symptoms.

Current vaccines, such as the BCG vaccine, work only if given before exposure to the bacterium.

They do not prevent infection, but do prevent acute symptoms and disease from emerging.

But once the bacterium has changed into its latent form it is effectively immune to the vaccine, and can bide its time, reactivating after the vaccine has ceased to have a preventative effect.

If successful in human trials, the new vaccine would be able to tackle that problem.

Developed by a team at the Statens Serum Institute in Copenhagen, it combines proteins that trigger an immune response to both the active and latent forms of Mycobacterium.

Researcher Professor Peter Lawætz Andersen said: "It might be possible to give a booster jab post-exposure to older children or even young adults which would protect them well into adulthood."

Although TB can be treated with antibiotics, those drugs are often not easily accessible in the developing world, where the new vaccine could have the greatest benefit.

Professor Andersen said: "In these areas you cannot go in and treat more than half the local population. For instance, in Capetown 60% of people are thought to be infected."

Professor Peter Davies, secretary of the group TB Alert, said: "A vaccine which can both protect against initial infection and protect from a breakdown of infection into disease is a major breakthrough.

"One of the main disadvantages of BCG was that it could only prevent infection going on to disease in the initially uninfected individual. It was therefore of no use in protecting infected adults who would become an infectious source of disease. Protecting children, though of value, does not protect against transmission, as children with active disease do not usually transmit disease.

Professor Francis Drobniewski, Director of the Health Protection Agency's National Mycobacterium Reference Laboratory said: "This is an exciting and thoughtful piece of research. The existing BCG vaccine is cheap, safe, widely used but of limited efficacy.

"With over nine million new TB cases globally each year and increasing levels of drug resistance new diagnostics, drugs and especially effective vaccines are desperately needed."

The number of tuberculosis cases in the UK topped 9,000 in 2009 - the highest for nearly 30 years.

Diagnoses have been rising almost continuously since the 1980s, with many of the new cases thought to be among people who caught the disease abroad.

The Health Protection Agency has warned more efforts must be made to curb the problem

THOUGH we may not have yet reached 'the end of history', globalisation has brought us closer to 'the end of geography' as we had known it. The compression of time and space triggered by the Third Industrial Revolution-roughly, since 1980-has changed our interactions with the international environment. For many, globalisation-the intensified cross-border exchange of goods, services, capital, technology, ideas, information, legal systems, and people-is both desirable and irreversible as the engine of a rising standard of living throughout the world. Others recoil from globalisation as the soft underbelly of corporate imperialism that plunders and profiteers on the back of rampant consumerism.

Globalisation is not uncontrolled. The movement of people remains tightly restricted. The flow of capital is highly asymmetrical. Over the last two decades, overseas development assistance from the rich to the poor countries has totalled $50-80 billion per year. In the same period, every year, $500-800 billion of illegal funds are sent from poor to rich countries. That is, for every one dollar of aid money over the table, the West gets back ten dollars under the table and, for good measure, lectures the rest on corruption.

The benefits and costs of linking and delinking are unequally distributed. Industrialised countries are mutually interdependent; developing countries are largely independent in economic relations with one another; and developing countries are highly dependent on industrialised countries. Brazil, China and India are starting to change this equation.

There is a growing divergence in income levels between countries and peoples, with widening inequality among and within nations. Assets and incomes are more concentrated. Wage shares have fallen. Profit shares have risen. Capital mobility alongside labour immobility has reduced the bargaining power of organised labour.

The deepening of poverty and inequality-prosperity for a few countries and people, marginalisation and exclusion for the many-has implications for social and political stability among and within states. The rapid growth of global markets has not seen the parallel development of social and economic institutions to ensure balanced, inclusive and sustainable growth. Labour rights have been less sedulously protected than capital and property rights, and global rules on trade and finance are inequitable. This has asymmetric effects on rich and poor countries.

Even before the global financial crisis or the GFC, many developing countries were worried that globalisation would impinge adversely on economic sovereignty, cultural integrity and social stability. 'Interdependence' among un-equals translates into the dependence of some on international markets that function under the dominance of others. The GFC confirmed that absent effective regulatory institutions, markets, states and civil society can be overwhelmed by rampant transnational forces.

Globalisation has also let loose the forces of 'uncivil society' and accelerated the transnational flows of terrorism, human and drug trafficking, organised crime, piracy, and pandemic diseases. This is the subject of our new book, The Dark Side of Globalization (UN University Press, 2011). The growth of these transnational networks threatens state institutions and civil society in many countries.

The outright rejection of globalisation and a retreat into autarky is neither practical nor desirable: who wants to be the next Myanmar or North Korea? As one wag has put it, opposing globalisation is like opposing the sun coming up every morning, and about as fruitful. Equally, though, who wants to be the next Iceland, Greece or Ireland? The notion that endless liberalisation, deregulation and relaxation of capital and all border controls (except labour) will assure perpetual self-sustaining growth and prosperity has proven to be delusional. The three Baltic nations that embarked on this course (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania)-to which, for good measure, they added the flat tax-all had double-digit negative growth in 2009.

For developing countries, lowering all barriers to the tides of the global economy may end up drowning much of local production. Raising barriers that are too high may be counterproductive, if not futile. Countries that find the golden middle, like Chile and Singapore, tend to thrive, channelling the enormous opportunities offered by an expanding world economy for the benefit of their citizens. Those that do not, like many in Central and Western Africa, are marginalised and left behind.

Finding the right, if difficult, balance between openness and regulation requires keeping a watchful eye on trans-border crimes that thrive in the interstices of the national and the international. Illicit trade, accounting for 10 per cent of global economic product according to some estimates, could be growing at seven times the rate of growth of legal trade.

The growth in transnational flows has not been matched by an equivalent growth in global governance mechanisms to regulate them. And yet the very nature of the structure of globalised networks, which intertwine global actors and interests, ensures that no single power is able to maintain its position within this newly emerging global disorder without making compromises with other global players.

In Africa, home to 36 of the world's 50 least developed countries, state weakness often has opened the door to transnational crime and terrorism. Garth le Pere and Brendan Vickers highlight six pathologies that are particularly prevalent across Africa: illegal exploitation of natural resources, terrorism, the drug trade, illegal migration and human trafficking, gun running, and money laundering. According to some, Guinea Bissau has already become the world's first narco-state.

One response to global governance gaps that have made these illegal activities possible has been regional governance. The transfer of state functions to supranational forms of regional governance could enhance the capacity of individual states to combat uncivil society. The sharing of expertise, institutions, policy tools, personnel and other resources can go a long way in stemming the tide of unwanted activities.

Human trafficking is among the darkest sides of globalisation, turning human beings into commodities bought and sold in the international market place. Women and children are among the most exposed to it. NGOs from all continents attempt to cope with this nefarious activity and report on those involved in it.

Southern Africa has witnessed the rise of elaborate transnational crime organisations. The illegal trafficking in narcotics, mineral resources, ivory, counterfeit products and stolen property is thriving. International crime syndicates exploit government weaknesses to make huge profits. Illegal migration and money laundering rob the state of valuable human and material resources, in a region that desperately needs them.

A different kind of challenge is posed by insurgencies that thrive as a result of the inequalities created by globalisation. The 'development dichotomy' explains why dramatic national-level progress in India has gone hand in hand with an ever greater gap between the prosperity of urban, middle-class Indians and the squalor still seen in many of its 600,000 villages where most Indians still live. Uprooted from ancestral lands and unable to adapt to the demands of a modern economy, aboriginal populations (adivasis) often see revolutionary redemption as the only way out of their predicament. The Indian Maoist insurgency also has parallels in neighbouring countries, especially Nepal.

Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers, on the other hand, may well have been one of the most globalised terrorist movements anywhere. Part of the reason for their considerable, if ultimately transient, success was the effective way they relied on the Sri Lankan Tamil Diaspora both to obtain resources and to marshal political support for their cause.

Jihadists have excelled at using modern IT and telecom technology to promote their cause and foster their objectives, building on the link between the drug trade and terrorism pioneered by the CIA in Southeast Asia, Central America and Afghanistan. Jihadis have perfected into an art form the international transfer of funds in ways that are essentially untraceable, by relying on ancient mechanisms that replicate the old-fashioned way Osama bin Laden gets his information-through pieces of paper brought to him by hand by loyal messengers-which is one reason he remains at large.

It remains to be seen whether the GFC has brought to an end globalisation as we have known it for three decades. But there is little doubt that the 'dark side' of globalisation is here to stay.

Africa's first woman Head of State, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, President of Liberia, won the 2011 African Gender Award (AGA) of the PanAfrican Centre for Gender, Peace and Development for applying in Liberia international conventions on equal opportunities and defending women's rights. The award ceremony, held yesterday in Addis Ababa on the sidelines of the 16th African Union conference, was coordinated by former PanAfrican parliament speaker Gertrude Mogella. "The main objective of this award is to give an evaluation on African presidencies and what they have done for women", said Mogella. The AGA organisers emphasised the policies introduced by Sirleaf in the education sector, and in particular the support guaranteed to mothers not able to support their children. This year marked the fourth edition of the award assigned in 2005 to Thabo Mbeki, former president of South Africa, and Abdoulaye Wade, President of Senegal, for their work in their respective nations. [BO]

A half a century after U.S. president Dwight Eisenhower named and denounced the military-industrial complex's ever-increasing influence on world affairs, the arms trade thrives more than ever, with African states frequently being the destination.

Although figures are hard to come by, the development advocacy group Oxfam estimates that, every year, sub-Saharan African governments spend around 18 billion dollars on weapons and defence, roughly the same amount as that of international development assistance to the region.

However, "many exporters have no legal framework or control of any sort to regulate arms transfers to countries that do not have legal controls themselves," says Nicolas Vercken, who heads Oxfam's French campaign for a comprehensive arms trade treaty.

"Our problem is with some of the weapons being used to violate human rights and humanitarian law," he says. Currently, only the Netherlands and Britain require advice from their development agencies before deciding on arms exports to developing countries.

"A global treaty is essential to even out the playing field among exporters, and to close the loopholes," Vercken explains. "Its main objective would be to block sales when there is a clear risk that weapons might be used to violate human rights or to impede a country's development."

The campaign for an arms trade treaty has recently gathered momentum at the United Nations. In 2009, a U.N. resolution paved the way for negotiations, which started in July 2010. Campaigners hope for a treaty by 2012.

"A treaty will be a reasonable monitor of new arms deals," says Lauren Gelfand, Africa editor for Jane's Defence Weekly. "But it would require a level of transparency that some international weapons manufacturers might be reluctant to accede to.

"Unfortunately, I do not think that a global treaty will do much to contain the flow of small arms, simply because of the numbers that are already in use or being traded," she adds.

Small arms (any weapon an individual can carry, such as the ubiquitous AK-47 assault rifle) are the plague of many low-income African countries.

"They are easy to transport, smuggle and shift across borders; it is not beyond reasonable that a weapon used in Liberia or Sierra Leone may make its way to Nigeria and then possibly into the hands of rebels in Sudan," Gelfand explains.

Sudan, which abstained from voting on the 2009 resolution and is currently on the verge of secession between the North and South after decades of civil war, exemplifies the problem of loosely regulated and weakly supervised arms transfers.

"The relative ease of access to arms in the region, coupled with Sudan's chronic governance problems, mean that it is relatively easy to launch rebellions in marginalised areas," says Claire McEvoy, who assesses security in Sudan for the Small Arms Survey.

The Small Arms Survey is an independent research project of the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, Switzerland.

"The more weapons the governments in Khartoum and Juba acquire, the more we will see arms 'seeping' from their armed forces to proxies and non-state armed actors, via theft, sales, corruption, battle-field losses, and so forth," she explains.

Even legitimately procured arms destined for governments run a strong risk of ending up in the wrong hands.

"Small arms are particularly difficult to track because they are so easy to conceal," says Pieter Wezeman, a researcher with the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), an independent institute researching arms and related issues.

"Many African countries have a strong culture of secrecy surrounding issues of security and defence, and their military is often reluctant to discuss arm deals," he adds.

SIPRI estimates confirm that total military expenditure in sub-Saharan Africa in 2009 were close to 18 billion dollars. It is a drop in the ocean of the 1,531 billion dollars global arms trade.

"But in several cases, relatively small volumes of arms supplied to sub- Saharan African countries have had a major impact on regional conflict dynamics," Wezeman says.

"It is important to be aware of the cumulative effect of these arms imports," adds Corey Pein, editor of WarIsBusiness.com, a website which investigates arms deals. "The continent has accumulated so many firearms that smugglers often need go no farther than the country next door," he explains.

Africa may not be the largest markets for arms manufacturers but it is one of the most vulnerable to weapons imports.

A global treaty regulating arms procurement could benefit least developed countries, which explains why only one sub-Saharan African country - Zimbabwe - voted against the U.N. resolution on negotiations for a global treaty.

However, "a meaningful treaty is still a far way to go, if it will ever be achieved," says Wezeman.

"It is an important process if it leads to more regional or national agreements on arms exports but will it lead to a meaningful treaty restraining countries' exports? Several major exporting countries have very different views on this," according to him.

Still, campaigners believe nothing is set in stone. "Of course, not every state is in favour," says Vercken, "but once a universal standard exists, even those who are not party to the treaty will be politically judged against these principles.

"A treaty will increase the pressure on reluctant exporters, just as happened with the Ottawa treaty banning landmines: the U.S. did not sign it but still applied most of its principles in the end," he concludes.

Ruling class needs to learn rules of democracy by Shahidul Islam Chowdhury

The ruling class needs to learn the rules of democracy, says Sunita Narain, director general of the New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment.

And the first rule of democracy 'is to learn to listen to the people and respect their views,' she said in an interview with New Age at the National Press Club in Dhaka on January 20.

The centre is a public interest research and advocacy organisation that researches, lobbies for and communicates the urgency of development that is both sustainable and equitable.

Sunita, an environmentalist, conducts research with forensic rigour and passion so that knowledge can lead to change. She was awarded the Padma Shri by the Indian government in 2005. She received the World Water Prize awarded by the Sweden-based SIWI for her work on rainwater harvesting and its policy influence on building paradigms for community-based water management.

Sunita also stressed the need to keep democracy strong with a functioning parliament, committed and active civil societies, very independent judiciary and outspoken independent media to support the people to raise their voice against wrongdoings and wrong decisions of the government run by the ruling class and influenced by the business interest groups. Excerpts:

-Do you think that the political decisions of the ruling class in countries like Bangladesh and India keep poor people away from getting benefits from scientific and environmental sectors?

We have begun to see in India, and I also hope to see in Bangladesh, that the ruling class will have to learn the rules of democracy. And the first rule of democracy is to learn to listen to the people. The scientific decisions have to be based upon what the people's perceptions are.

Today in India, there is a big controversy about the introduction of genetically modified aubergine and the people are not happy with it.

The government said it is a scientific decision taken by the scientists. The people said, sorry, scientists have taken a decision which is very bad and we still do not believe a bad science is good for us. The government had to review it and there is a moratorium now on introduction of genetically modified aubergine in India.

Today scientific institutions in our countries have lost public credibility. So, if the government and the ruling class want the people to believe their science, they need to restore the credibility of the institutions.

-Most of the democratically elected governments gradually surrender to the whims of the business interests groups and thereby ignore interests of the relatively poorer sections of society. Why?

See, money power is very important. I think most of the governments, after coming to power through or without elections, think the only way to grow is to attain economic prosperity, increase business and industrial development.

There is nothing wrong with industrial development. But, unfortunately, what happens in the process is increase of lobbying and influence of the business interest groups. The role of the industry is very confusing.

So, the nexus between the industry and the government has been growing ignoring the people's interests and the poor people become prime victim of the situation.

-In most of the cases the people hardly protest against the wrong decisions of the government influenced by the business interest groups.

People require an atmosphere to raise voice against wrongdoings. If a country can keep democracy strong with a functioning parliament, committed and active civil societies, very independent judiciary and outspoken independent media, it can expect that the people will protest against wrong decisions.

Yes, the people can create an atmosphere on their own to forge protest if democracy is not strong in a country. But it takes time.

An important thing in both of the situation is the people in their everyday struggle prefer to depend on the media. But today most of the media organisations are serving corporate interests instead of providing the people with support to overcome the situation that keeps them weak.

-Governments hardly listen to the voices of the poor and dismiss or stifle them in the name of anti-growth dissent. How can the people ensure incorporation of their say in development?

Through deepening democracy with the people's participation. The Indian government last year denied Vedanta Resources, a UK-based mining company owned by Anil Agarwal, one of the richest persons of the country, to mine bauxite, a raw material for aluminium refinery, on tribal hilly land in Orissa, eastern India.

Vedanta was, in fact, ignoring the local people's interest and did not hear them.

Local people forged agitation saying that they 'will not give the hills, where God lives.' They finally did it, and it is possible.

Local government bodies have to play a role based on participatory voice. It should be part of a good political culture,

-Most of the research organisations in the developing countries, including Bangladesh and India, tend to serve the corporate interests instead of the people's interests. Why is that?

In most of the developing countries, the governments have stopped funding research organisations. Yes, the state-owned research organisations are providing salaries to their staff.

Independent research organisations, on the other hand, have become dependent on corporate interest groups. As a result, most of the research organisations are suffering from credibility crisis. The research organisations must restore public credibility first if they want to do something substantial.

-Many people described the Cancun climate agreement as a betrayal by the powerful polluting countries to the poor countries for its 'extremely weak and ineffective text'. Are they right?

Certainly they are right. The Cancun agreement was of the polluters, by the polluters and for the polluters.

-With the provisions for allowing voluntary pledge to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, has the agreement not allowed the industrialised countries to do little or even nothing and get way?

With the scope of making voluntary pledge on cutting emissions, the polluting countries will now do whatever they can. It is very clear.

-Do you think that carbon finance may benefit forest communities, especially the poorer section of the communities?

The fact is that the authorities and the polluters consider forests as mere wood. We, in fact, need to see forest as habitat of people.

-By appointing the World Bank as the interim trustee for the Green Climate Fund, the Cancun conference seems to have legitimised the role of the bank. Why did most of the government delegations not oppose the selection of the World Bank in Cancun?

The World Bank is a bank intent on maximising its profit. Unfortunately, most of development countries have become dependent on the bank for their development programmes.

In fact, there is no money now with the fund. It is also not certain that the money would come.

As one of the most vulnerable countries, Bangladesh needs to implement its adaptation programmes which require a huge amount of money. The fact is that Bangladesh will not get money soon to run the programmes.

-The legally binding nature of the agreement has been kept in abeyance till the next meeting in Durban in December 2011. Are you optimistic about getting a legally binding agreement in Durban?

The question is what would be legally binding, and for whom. Would it be really legally binding for big polluters like the United States? It should be.

-How do you see the sudden rise of the number of environmentalists and climate change experts?

It is important that more people are becoming involved in the movement to protect the environment. But, it is also important to see whether they are coming with full commitment. That is the challenge to those committed to the cause.

-The heads of the South Asian states and governments have decided at the SAARC summit in Thimphu last April to work together to take a common position in the global climate talks. How do you see the move?

-How do you see the move to construct the twin multipurpose structures at Tipaimukh and Phulertal on the river Barak in eastern Indian states?

I do not have much idea. What I know is local people are protesting against the implementation of the project.

The reasons behind the (Indian) government's initial move for river interlinking were to transfer a large amount of water from northern India to southern India. But the government has realised that it is a Herculean task.

Now the government is working to transport water from rivers through digging canals for irrigation, which were always done.

-Bangladesh and India have not been able to resolve their disputes on sharing the waters of the river Teesta in so many years. Do you think that the Indian government should resolve the disputes soon on sharing of waters of the rivers flowing through the two countries?

I do not have any idea about the arrangement on sharing of river waters between the two countries.

-What is your view about the killing of unarmed and innocent people, especially children, by the Border Security Force of India on the Bangladesh border?

-Can people-to-people contact really influence the governments of the two countries to resolve the bilateral disputes?

People in two countries should meet to discuss and find out solutions to problems on food, water and livelihood. Civil societies definitely can play a role in this regard.

Southeast Asia's 600 million people are facing a raft of new health challenges as the disaster-prone region undergoes some of the world's fastest social change, medical papers published Tuesday said.

A health crisis is transpiring right before our eyes, warned a paper in the series, published by The Lancet journal, which said chronic diseases such as cancer now account for 60 per cent of deaths in the region.

It was also dubbed a hotspot for emerging and difficult-to-control infectious diseases, with outbreaks in avian flu fuelling fears about the possibility of new pandemics spreading from Southeast Asia.

The pace of demographic change in the region is one of the fastest worldwide, whether it is due to population ageing, fertility decline, or rural to urban migration, said the papers.

As elsewhere, the disease burden continues to shift from infectious to chronic diseases, yet increased urban population density has created concerns about emerging infectious diseases.

The reports also point to Southeast Asia being one of the world's most disaster-prone regions, with the environment responsible for up to a quarter of all deaths in an area regularly hit by monsoons and typhoons.

Weather phenomena such as El Nino also intensify the annual variation of the hot and wet climate, leading to droughts, floods and the occurrence of infectious diseases such as malaria and cholera, said one of the papers.

Climate change could exacerbate the spread of emerging infectious diseases in the region, especially vector-borne diseases linked to rises in temperature and rainfall, such as dengue, it added.

The main accused of the Samjhota blast, Swami Aseemanand, confessed in front of a magistrate at a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court: "It's not Muslims, but Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) activists who planned and executed the bomb blasts at Malegaon in 2006, on the Samjhota Express in 2007, in Ajmer Sharif in 2007, and Mecca Masjid in 2007."

The RSS, the Hindu radical group of Aseemanand is the spiritual parent of India's Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP). This confession has substantially highlighted Pakistan's point of view that Hindu extremist outfits carry out false flag terrorist acts for which the Muslim entities of India and neighbouring countries are promptly blamed under a well thought out scheme.

Swami's confession is only a confirmation of the open secret about the phenomenal rise of the homegrown Hindu terrorism in India. According to the Indian weekly, Tehelka magazine, which has obtained a copy of Swami's 42-page confession, the accused told his interrogators that the attacks on Muslim places were in response to the attacks by Islamist militants.

India has been dragging its feet on the Samjhota-related investigations since long. Pakistan is likely to raise the extradition demand of Swami and others, following India's refusal to share the details of the train bombing probe with Pakistan. Demand for extradition may come up during the Indo-Pak foreign secretary level talks in Bhutan during the first week of February.

Pakistan's foreign office has already summoned the Indian envoy and asked him to hand over the findings of the bombing investigation. So far, India has been dilly-dallying that "it was premature" to provide results of the probe to Pakistan, while drumming up its campaign that the latter should quickly bring to justice the masterminds of the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

Now, Islamabad has also listed other bombing incidents involving the false flag actions by Hindu radicals, like Gujarat, Malegoan, Mecca Masjid, and Ajmer Sharif. Initially, Pakistan was blamed for these incidents.

Shamsul Islam, associate professor of the Department of Political Science at Satyawati College, University of Delhi, has recently commented: "The culprit of Samjhota Express dresses up in the full Hindu saffron regalia, and is followed to and from places by his band of marauders who carry the Hindu Trident and yell anti-Muslim slogans. Lt. Col. Purohit dresses the same way, and is treated like a hero in Bharat. Pakistan will be demanding the extradition of Hindu terrorists... who were involved in the 2007 bloody bombing of the Pakistan-bound Samjhota Express train that killed 68 innocent people, 42 of which were Pakistan nationals... the 2008 blast in the town of Malegaon killed seven people and left more than 100 injured. A female Hindu priest, Sadhwi Pragya Singh Thakur, and a serving Indian army officer were among the 11 people who were arrested in connection with the attack..."

The United States' proxy war against Afghan President Hamid Karzai has taken a vicious turn, undermining the tenuous political equations in the country. Washington is displeased with Karzai's moves to accelerate reconciliation with the Taliban, while his pitch for a regional initiative and his agenda of a multi-vector foreign policy challenge US regional strategies.

The US is caricaturing Karzai as a tin-pot dictator, arguing that he is "anti-democratic" since he decided to postpone by a month the convening of a new parliament. The election commission cleared the election results and Karzai's reluctance to accept the results casts him in poor light.

However, Karzai has no choice but to order a special tribunal to review election results. Close to half of the population consists of ethnic Pashtuns and yet 75% of parliamentary seats have been "won" by non-Pashtuns. The Hazaras constitute 10% of the population, but they "won" 20% of the seats, including in Pashtun-dominated regions.

Something has gone very seriously wrong. Conceivably, the election commission did come under extraneous influence, as alleged by the attorney general. A parliament on the basis of the available results lacks political legitimacy, as Pashtuns will feel disenfranchised. Karzai rightly apprehends that Pashtun alienation, which is at the root of the insurgency, would further deepen and that can only augment Taliban's support base.

Enter the Americans. Washington waded into these ethnic politics by encouraging non-Pashtun leaders to challenge Karzai's decision to have the election results reviewed by a special tribunal. The American ambassador in Kabul, Karl Eikenberry, and his Western colleagues threatened to attend a gathering of the elected parliamentarians and recognize it as the "real" parliament.

This extraordinary "trade unionism" by Western diplomats can only be seen as an orchestrated move predicated on the calculation that Karzai is damned either way. If he convenes a parliament at this juncture, the US proxies who command a majority will incrementally weaken him and can even impeach him at some suitable moment.

But if Karzai insists on greater Pashtun representation, it becomes a point of friction with the non-Pashtun groups, and the delicate web of pan-Afghan alliances that he tenaciously wove while consolidating political power over the past two to three years will unravel.

Plainly put, the US is using the ethnic card to "entrap" Karzai and bring the Afghan leader to his knees. The US is counting on the opposition candidate in the 2009 presidential election, Abdullah Abdullah, and the speaker of the outgoing parliament, Younus Qanooni, to spearhead the opposition to Karzai. The Washington establishment has also co-opted former Afghan intelligence chief Amrullah Saleh, who was sacked by Karzai last year.

Abdullah, Qanooni and Saleh belong to the Panjshiri clan and the line-up has dangerous overtones of a (Tajik) revolt against (Pashtun) Karzai. The US is also instigating sections of Hazaras whose political influence is at its historical zenith today.

Besides weakening Karzai, the US hopes to deal a body blow to the Afghan leader's initiative to kick start an intra-Afghan dialogue. Karzai is banking on a pan-Afghan alliance to support his audacious plan to reconcile the Taliban, and the US is using the ethnic card to unravel Karzai's alliance system.

Why such venom toward America's own one-time protégé? Washington finds Karzai increasingly acting as an Afghan nationalist rather than as a US surrogate. What is at issue is how to secure a long-term US military presence in Afghanistan. Washington is negotiating a new Status of Forces Agreement with Kabul but Karzai is resisting the US plan to keep permanent military bases. US Vice President Joe Biden's visit to Kabul last month failed to clear the deadlock.

Meanwhile, Karzai is making sustained efforts to develop ties with Iran and Russia, including military cooperation, so as to reduce his dependence on the US by the 2014 timeline. Moscow has proposed a key role for Kabul in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

Last week, Karzai visited Moscow and openly said that the Russians made better friends for the Afghan people than the Americans. This was the first official visit by an Afghan head of a state to Moscow since the departure of Soviet troops in 1989. The US reportedly tried to dissuade Karzai from undertaking the visit.

Karzai also recently deputed former Northern Alliance stalwarts Burhanuddin Rabbani (who heads the Afghan High Council for Peace in charge of reconciling with the Taliban) and Mohammad Fahim (the first vice president) to Tehran to seek Iranian support for his policies.

Most importantly, the climate of Afghan-Pakistan relations has dramatically improved and the US feels "excluded" even as Kabul and Islamabad show signs of kick-starting an intra-Afghan dialogue. The recent visit to Islamabad by Rabbani underscored a new flexibility on the part of Pakistan.

Army chief General Ashfaq Kiani received Rabbani. Biden visited Islamabad within days of Rabbani's talks with the Pakistani leadership but he drew a blank. Evidently, Islamabad and Kabul increasingly find themselves sharing a lot of common ground. Neither one favours US General David Petraeus' military strategy and both are keen to begin talks with the Taliban.

Within a week of Biden's talks in Islamabad, Pakistani Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir flew to Kabul and held more consultations, which included calls on Karzai and Rabbani. Afghan Foreign Minister Zalmay Rassoul is now scheduled to visit Islamabad on Tuesday for a follow-up.

Kabul and Islamabad are getting along better than at any time in the past decade and they don't seem to need the crutch of US mediation. By the time the US-Pakistan-Afghan trilateral forum of foreign ministers convenes in Washington on February 21, there could be a strange reversal of roles with Pakistan and Afghanistan coordinating their stance vis-à-vis the US.

Clearly, the spectre of a peace initiative on the Afghan problem at a regional level has begun haunting Washington for the first time. Biden openly flirted with the idea of a long-term American military presence in Afghanistan. Middle-level US officials have shifted gear to reinforce Biden's thought process. A recent speech entitled "The Obama Administration's Priorities in South and Central Asia" by Assistant Secretary of State Robert Blake at the James A Baker III Institute for Public Policy falls into this category.

Blake underscored that Washington intends to expand its engagement with Central Asia, "this critical region", which is situated at a "critical crossroads, bordering Afghanistan, China, Russia and Iran."

What emerges from Blake's speech is that Washington and Delhi may have drawn closer on Afghanistan. Arguably, this was bound to happen. India is perhaps the only regional power that still seeks a military solution in Afghanistan. India quietly favours a long-term US military presence in Afghanistan. The US is edging toward the one-dimensional Indian view of Pakistan as the "epicentre" of global terrorism.

The US views India as a red rag to taunt the intransigent Pakistani bull and India may not mind it. Blake made a stunning claim that India is the key US partner in Afghanistan and Central Asia:

These projects with India in Afghanistan mark a small but important part of a significant new global development - the emergence of a global strategic partnership between India and the US ... India's democracy, diversity and knowledge-based society make it special, a model of a tolerant pluralistic society in the region, and one that now actively seeks to work with the US and others to help solve problems on a global level ... The strength of India's economy makes it the powerhouse of South and Central Asia's growth.

He said one of the three "primary objectives" for the US in the "dynamic regional context" of South and Central Asia would be to "build a strategic partnership with India". This may seem like hyperbole, but it makes for geo-strategy.

The Americans are feeling rather lonely in the Hindu Kush and India too faces isolation, as it stands excluded, on Pakistan's insistence, from the regional forums working on the Afghan problem. Neither Washington nor Delhi feels comfortable with the Kabul-Islamabad bonhomie. Both the US and India view the Afghan endgame through the prism of their rivalry with China.

Then, there are the opaque operational factors. India wields influence with the "Panjshiri boys" who happen to be the current US proxies. Saleh figures as a key advisor to the security establishment in Washington, while Abdullah and Qanooni act as front men in Kabul. All three share a near-pathological aversion to Karzai and are viscerally opposed to any form of accommodation with Taliban. Pakistan brands Saleh as an "Indian agent". If the American ploy is to annoy the Pakistani military (and Karzai), there couldn't be a better choice than Saleh.

Any US-India axis in Afghanistan can only be tactical, but it will nonetheless be seen as high provocation by Pakistan and Iran (possibly, also by Russia and China). Pakistan will feel more justified than ever to have placed such irrevocable faith in the Taliban as its "strategic asset".

The US will eventually realize that it is skating on thin ice. There are half-a-dozen very good reasons why Pakistan remains and will continue to remain central to any durable Afghan settlement. Karzai will prove to be as tough as a nail. Thus, in many ways, the US proxy war in Kabul promises to be a defining moment.

Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey

Shortage of good English language teachers in rural schools is a significant factor that results in an increase in gap between education of urban and of rural students, educationalists say.

‘Most schools in rural area are suffering from an English teacher shortage,’ Amir Farukh Talukder, the headmaster of Nurpur Adarsha High School in Habiganj, told New Age.

‘In my school, there is no specialised English teacher. Teachers of other subjects teach English. The condition of other schools in the area is more or less the same,’ he said.

Moin Uddin, the headmaster of Shap Chari High School in Rangamati, told New Age that the reason why students from rural areas fared poorly compared with urban students was that ‘students from rural areas mainly failed in English and maths.’

‘The shortage of English teachers contributed to poor performance of rural schools,’ he said. ‘Almost every rural school has shortage of English teachers. It is not possible to improve the quality of education in rural areas without increasing the number of teachers and developing the infrastructure.’

The Junior School Certificate exams results published on December 30 showed that students outside Dhaka did far less well in the exams.

While students under the Dhaka education board had a pass rate of 80.58, under the Comilla board the pass rate was 73.56, under the Chittagong board, it was 70.26, under the Rajshahi board the pass rate was 63, under the Jessore board it was 62.45, under the Dinajpur board it was 62.18 and under the Sylhet board the pass rate was 61.97

Students under the Barisal education board were, however, an exception with a pass rate of 81.75.

The number of students scoring GPA 5 was also higher in Dhaka than in areas outside the capital.

Under the Dhaka education baord, 3,218 students scored GPA 5, under the Rajshahi board 1,508 students, under the Dinajpur board 763 students, under the Jessore board 740, under the Comilla board 624, under the Chittagong board 518, under the Barisal board 478, and under the Sylhet board 203 students scored GPA 5.

Teachers of rural schools said that in many schools, no student at all could score GPA 5.

‘It is a social problem. The poor results of rural schools indicate a class division in the education sector. Nowadays well-to-do families do not want to stay in rural areas. As result, it is only children of comparatively poor families that stay in the rural schools,’ said Professor Emeritus Serajul Islam Choudhury.

‘If children of well-to-do families had studied in rural schools, such schools would have got good teachers and good infrastructure,’ he added. ‘Schools in rural areas must be improved.’

The education minister, Nurul Islam Nahid, said, ‘The education ministry is working to bring about equality in education in rural and urban areas. We have taken various measures to bridge the gap between the education standards of rural and urban areas,’

I’m ‘mandi’ (also called Garo) one of the 16 different tribes that work on the 52 Tea Gardens in the Sreemangal area. Many years ago, when Bangladesh was part of India, the British brought people from different states of India to work in the new established Tea Gardens in the small hills of Sreemangal. They needed women picking the tea leaves. Only women can pick the leaves in the appropriate way. And Muslims (majority in Bangladesh) will not allow their women to work “outside”.

In the Tea Garden villages we feel a little isolated because the roads are not paved and because we are not only different by tribe and culture but also by religion. In the Tea Gardens the majority of the people are Hindu and Christian while in the villages around the majority is Muslim.

I was born in the village of Nasimabad in the Tea Garden of the National Company. I’m the oldest among all four brothers and a sister. My mother works on the Tea Garden, picking leaves of tea. Every day she must collect 23 kg of these precious green leaves to get about 48 taka (69 cents of US$ or half Euro).

I studied primary, in a small catholic school in my village Nasimabad. There were not enough children and teachers, because of that we studied together in the same group class one, two and k.G. In another group we were together class 3, 4 and 5. We used to sit and write on the ground because there are no tables and chairs.

When my mother Sriti Simsumg comes from work she is taking care of all of us. While she is working every one takes care of the others. My father Alos Chisim is working in another village. In fact he is finding work every time in a different village. He tried also in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. My father send us some money and comes to visit us almost every month.

This month of January 2011 I’m going to start class 8 in the parish school of Notre Dame, Sreemangal, Moulovi Bazar district, Sylhet division, Bangladesh.

First, the Holy Cross Fathers and RNDM Sisters started with hostels for boys and girls to give some of the students finishing class 5 in the small catholic schools to continue studding on the public schools of Sreemangal. Many years they witnessed how the majority of these tribal students were failing in the public schools. They were failing for different reasons: our mother tongue is not Bangla, our preparation in our village schools is not the best, most of us, at home, don’t have the facilities and electricity that people enjoy in Sreemangal). Then, three years ago the Holy Cross Fathers and Sisters started teaching us in our hostels using the study rooms as classrooms.

Our school is still not recognized. The school is in coordination with the public schools around. They give us the possibility to sit for the public exams and to get the books free like the rest of students of Bangladesh. Also they let us play on the football field of Victory High School. I like sports, but there is no sports field in our small school.

These last three years the number of students passing class 8 has been increasing. This year 2010, 70% of our class 8 students’ has pass the national examination (the average in Sylhet division is 61%). Of those who have failed, only one failed in more than one subject. It’s a pity that our Notre Dame Parish School can accommodate only 50 of the 396 pupils that have completed class 5 in the 35 small catholic schools in the Tea Garden villages.

From the year 2010, the Marist Brothers Javier Pena and Marti Enrich are helping our school teaching English and sharing different activities with us. They are still learning Bangla. The Marist Brothers have in mind the project of another two hostels (girls / boys) and one school mainly dedicated to the children like me who come from the Tea Gardens and Kashi punjis. In that new school our tribal children will be mixed with Bengali children, under the survey of the brothers, to help to build mutual understanding and cooperation between the different ethnic and religious groups. The Marist Brothers are with us because they want to know more about us and our culture and situation. They realize the importance to improve the quality of the primary schools here as well as the urgency to offer more possibilities of good secondary school adapted to our needs.

In the Tea Garden villages all the land and the houses belong to the company. This means that our home is not ours. We don’t have a house and the house that the company is providing is very, very simple. In our village for 150 (42 Christian) families there are only 5 tubewells. Last year with the purpose of improve the food with some milk and meat, my mother bought a goat and we were taking care of it till one day it started to eat the rice of a nearby rice field. Then the owner of the field killed our goat.

Sometimes I don’t know how to help my family. These holydays I have gone to work in a kashi punji like my father. I was cleaning the plants around the trees and I got 50 taka (73 cents of a US$) per day. With this money I will be able to pay a little part of the hostel and school fees. The Holy Cross Fathers are helping us but they cannot give every thing free. They have to pay more than 60 teachers and catechists and over 300 girls and boys to feed and accommodate in different hostels of primary and secondary. Apart from that, they are visiting regularly all the substations spread in more than 100 km of length. This means a lot of fuel for the car and motorbikes.

According to the University Grants Commission, there are 31 public, 52 private and 2 international universities in Bangladesh and the total number of students in all these universities are more than two million. According to official statistics, unemployment rate in Bangladesh in 2009 was 5.1 per cent, up from 4.2 per cent in 2008; however, about 40 per cent of the population is thought to be underemployed, with many people working only a few hours a week and at low wages. In such circumstances, the government is planning to establish of universities in every district. Academicians argue that the plan is unrealistic.

Despite significant development in some aspects of the education sector, there are a number of niggling problems such as decline in teaching quality, lack of resources and research facility, prolonged course duration and, of course, politicisation. As such, the growing frustration among teachers and students appear understandable. Education is one of the few sectors that governments cannot fully privatise; rather, they try to sustain it by providing a lot of money. But, when education becomes a means of business, teachers hanker after money and politicians use students as weapons, the nation can hardly hope anything good.

The backbone of our public universities is on the verge of collapse for various reasons, and our teachers, students, guardians and, above all, policymakers are responsible for this. Accommodation problem is acute in many public universities and experts argue that it is the main reason for students to get involved in politics. Yet, instead of improving the existing facilities, the government is planning to establish some more universities. Would it not be wise to ensure quality education in the existing universities first and then establish new ones?

The education sector is reeling under multifarious problems, especially in terms of running the existing institutions, despite some laudable initiatives by the education minister. The University Grants Commission has observed that public and private universities have largely failed to implement the aims and objectives of higher education. In the world ranking, our universities are gradually lagging behind. During the past two decades, many departments, institutes and centres have been opened in public universities without taking into cognisance their ‘utility’ in the real world, resulting in the process imposition of financial burden on the government exchequer, overlapping with existing programmes, and scarcity of resources in terms of space, facilities and personnel.

It is an open secret that often in public universities voters are recruited instead of teachers to buttress the strength of the ruling group in university-wide elections. Merit is sometimes set aside in the recruitment process and is sacrificed at the altar of expediency to suit the ‘reality’. The system of accountability in public universities has literally broken down. Some would say it does not exist any more. In many cases, chairmen of departments and directors of institutes are unable to persuade their senior and mid-ranking colleagues to take their assigned classes regularly, even though taking classes is the basic responsibility of a teacher. So, either the course is reassigned to a relatively junior colleague or the senior and mid-ranking colleague finally agrees to give a few lectures before declaring the course completed.

Also, it is common knowledge that examinations are often delayed because of a number of factors, including the non-submission of question papers on time and delay in checking examination scripts. Academicians argue that against the backdrop of the failure of the existing public universities to play their due role, the government’s plan to set up more universities will not bring any good results for higher education. If the number of universities increases, these phenomena will just be repeated.

With the rising trend of unemployment, the students of public universities are in competition with those of private universities. Where will the graduates go? Is there any estimation of the number of students or supposed destination for them in the hands of our government? The situation in our private universities is also very paradoxical. There are some universities where many people cannot afford to read in and there are some with very poor performance which are nothing but business centres.

UGC assessments have identified universities that do not have the facilities needed for quality teaching. Faculties do not have the necessary credentials, and student quality is also poor. A large number of private universities have failed to meet the minimum requirements of physical infrastructures, fulltime qualified faculty, libraries, teaching aids and other facilities that are essential for imparting quality education.

Out of all the 84 public and private universities, seven public and 42 private universities are situated in the capital, which shows regional discrimination. It is also an obstacle to the spread of balanced education in all regions. So, there is an option of shifting some of these universities out of Dhaka, which would be beneficial for the students and for all, except perhaps some teachers who are unwilling to leave this area for many reasons.

There may be many positive agenda for establishing universities in every district, considering the growing demand of the population and for the dissemination of knowledge among the entire population. But, before this, we should look deep into the situation prevailing in the public universities in the country. The government needs to invest in the existing establishments for infrastructural support and other facilities to make them efficient. At the same time, private universities should be brought under some regulations so that better education at lower cost is ensured, and only then would it be wise to think about setting up more universities in different regions.

M Mizanur Rahman is an assistant director at D.Net and a master of development studies at the University of Dhaka. Shammunul Islam is a master of development studies at the University of Dhaka.

The world is in the grip of rising food prices, prompting fears of a food crisis on the scale of the one that caused riots as far apart as Egypt and Indonesia in 2008. Back then, a combination of high oil and fuel prices, growing demand for biofuels, bad weather and soaring futures markets pushed up prices to record levels, and Bangladesh, with its high reliance on oil and fossil fuels for its agriculture sector, was not spared. Following a year-on-year doubling of rice prices, in April 2008, ten thousand low-income workers rioted in capital Dhaka demanding higher pay to cover their rising food costs, leaving 28 people injured. In a way, the collapse of the price of oil that followed in the wake of the global recession later in the year, was a good thing for Bangladesh, as it helped to bring down prices just ahead of the elections that took place in December of that year.

Barely three years on, a similarly ugly situation is rearing its head, although this time, fortunately the spectre of riots does not loom as large as it did then. The price of oil is buoyant once again on the international market, and has climbed back to around $90 a barrel, but in 2008 it had soared to unprecedented levels, peaking at nearly $150 in July 2008. Although $100 oil is perhaps inevitable at some point over the course of the next twelve months, most analysts don’t expect it to go significantly beyond that, and their forecasts for 2011’s average price of oil are generally below $100. JP Morgan for example, forecasts an average oil price of $91.75 for 2011. Part of the reason for this is an expectation that the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) will increase production over the next year or two on the back of higher economic growth, as the world economy starts emerging fully from the effects of the recent financial crisis.

The key here, is that the resurgence in oil prices has not been at the level witnessed in 2008. This, along with the absence of some of the factors that triggered the riots in 2008, such as weak output in poor countries and a fast-growing biofuels industry, offers hope that things won’t get quite as bad as they did in 2008, according to Abdolreza Abbasian, senior economist at the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO).

This is despite the FAO’s benchmark Food Price Index (FPI) registering its sixth straight rise in December 2010 to reach an average of 215, up from 206 just a month earlier and outstripping its previous high of 213.5 reached in June 2008. The FPI measures monthly price changes for a food basket of cereals, oilseeds, dairy, meat and sugar. The December figure is the highest the index has reached since records began in 1990. The FAO’s separate indices for sugar and meat also reached record highs last month, and its Cereal Price Index, which includes prices of main food staples such as rice, wheat and corn, also reached its highest level since August 2008.

The FAO however, seems more worried about the impact of weather events on food prices, pointing out the unpredictability of weather activity as a particular source of concern given the already high price levels.

“There is still room for prices to go up much higher, if for example the dry conditions in Argentina tend to become a drought, and if we start having problems with winterkill in the northern hemisphere for the wheat crops,” says Mr Abbasian. Winterkill occurs when cold attacks plants seeded, generally in the autumn, for harvesting the following year.

The paradox of high prices despite strong output has flummoxed policymakers in Bangladesh, and drawn attention also to some of the more unsavoury, human factors involved in jacking up food prices, like the presence of powerful, but invisible syndicates that hoard supplies and manipulate prices. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has spoken out on at least two occasions already this year, and promised an inquiry into the phenomenon of food prices increasing even during the peak season for food production in the country.

Ever since the time of the last food crisis however, experts have agreed that the long term trend of food price increases would continue in Bangladesh. This is because a country like Bangladesh, that imports both food and oil, is always vulnerable to food price rises on the back of the price of oil, which also affects the price of the fertilisers used in irrigating food crops. Worryingly for Bangladesh, the price of commodities is also expected to keep rising throughout 2011, as warned by the doyen of financial journalists, Martin Wolf, during a visit to Dhaka last week.

One of the methods through which successive governments have tried to mitigate the effects of the spiralling prices on lower income groups is the Open Market Sale of rice, under which the government through its appointed resellers has been selling rice to the public at a price of Tk 24 per kg. But the process has been far from perfect, with pilfering and corruption increasingly rife. Earlier this month, the government also announced that starting from next month, the price of rice sold through the OMS scheme would rise by Tk 1 to Tk 25 per kg.

The reality of food insecurity in Bangladesh, in spite of it being the world’s fourth biggest grower of its staple food item, rice, owes as much to the phenomenon of climate change- which is fast diminishing lands available for food production- as it does to the Malthusian prediction of population growth outstripping the country’s ability to grow food. According to the World Food Programme, the number of people who consume less than the minimum daily recommended amount of food in Bangladesh rose from 47 million in 1990 to 56 million in 2005. Following the devastating effects of floods and cyclones in 2007-8, that figure is said to have peaked at a mind-boggling 65 million. The phenomenal rate of population growth- two million per year- allied to the fact that climate change may cause rice production to fall by some 80 million tons by 2050 paints a very grim future for the country in terms of food security.

In an address to the Bangladesh Food Security Investment Forum last May, the director-general of the International Food Policy Research Institute, Shenggen Fan, noted how the “soil is heavily degraded in many parts of the country, fresh water availability for irrigation is increasingly scarce, and natural disasters regularly damage part of the agricultural output.” No wonder then, that the prime minister recently called for every inch of available space, including “rooftops and flower pots”, to be used for the cultivation of food grains.

Policymakers in Bangladesh will also do well not to rest on the laurel it received at last year’s MDG Summit for reducing child mortality. According to the WFP, the population’s health is still severely afflicted by malnourishment, with 7 million children under the age of 5 being underweight, and 3 million of them suffering from acute malnourishment.

John Aylieff, country representative in Bangladesh for the WFP, recently pointed out that “silent hunger”- in other words micronutrient malnutrition- is at alarming levels in Bangladesh, affecting nearly 30 million women and 12 million children under the age of 5. Highlighting the economic cost of malnourishment, Mr Aylieff cited a report that estimated iron deficiency anaemia was causing an annual GDP loss of more than $4 billion every year.

The evidence is therefore clear, that the scale of the problem is extremely large. One can surmise from this magnitude alone that addressing it as well, will require a response that is sufficiently far-reaching and comprehensive, in terms of its scope as well as its scale. Both short and long term measures will become necessary over the coming years, and while we can probably look to our political governments to try and address the more short-term issues (if they’re smart enough, which is not a given when you consider the history of political governments in Bangladesh), addressing the issues in the long-term will require forethought, innovation and persistence on the part of the whole population.

As part of some of these short-term measures, and even more to the point, efforts to curb spiralling food prices, the Bangladesh government in 2010 decided to stockpile essential food items through a resort to importing them from the international market. Rice constituted the bulk of these imports, and the country emerged as a major importer of rice towards the second half of last year. The government’s announced plans mean the country will be importing some 1.2 million tons of rice in the year to June, when the current fiscal ends, which is more than double the 550,000 tons of rice imported during the last fiscal. This is part of overall plans to import 2.2 million tons of grain over the course of the next few years, and upgrading the country’s storage system in order to store this additional stock. Side-by-side with rice, the government is also in the market for other essentials like wheat (import target of 1 million tons during the current fiscal), sugar (200,000 tons import target), crude soybean and palm oil (200,000 tons) and lentils (10,000 tons).

These figures were all provided by the food ministry, which admitted that the increased imports of rice alone would inflate the food import bill for the current fiscal by 15% to Tk 75 billion. Part of the reason the government has been compelled to increase the price of the OMS rice from next month is precisely the fact that the government’s subsidy bill (with food imports contributing the bulk of the amount) is rising, with no end in sight as long as the government continues the scheme amid rising prices. According to the Bureau of Statistics, food price inflation in Bangladesh reached double figures in November, hitting rural areas particularly hard. The increasing desperation of the government in the face of rising food prices was reflected in its decision to buy 200,000 tons of 15% broken white rice from Vietnamese supplier Vina Food 2 at a cost of $545 per ton, up from the $389 per ton that it had paid for 100,000 tons of the same rice from the same supplier back in August.

Ultimately, the policy of trying to control prices by stockpiling through increased import is not sustainable, and the upcoming rise in the price of OMS rice bears testament to this. Other avenues must be looked into, and if the government could resist the temptation to merely shore up its popularity, it would pay heed to the greater, more long-term benefits to be reaped, by spending at least some of the subsidy it is providing on research and development. Despite various pronouncements in its favour, sufficient R&D aimed at devising more productive and sustainable agricultural methods, as well as more adaptive and resistant processes to withstand some of the usual ills that play havoc with production in the sector (such as the drought that causes monga, seasonal famine, in the north of the country), is yet to materialise.

As Mr Fan of the IFPRI has said, public investment is one of the most “direct and effective” instruments at the disposal of governments to promote food security. In developing countries, public spending on agriculture and rural development is a powerful tool for poverty reduction. In Bangladesh, there is much scope for investment to help farmers’ access to markets, apart from the R&D in the agri sector mentioned above, and effective social safety nets for vulnerable groups, including farmers, who are engaged in an inherently risky livelihood.

The government should also look to get tough on the syndicate of hoarders, and invoking the ordinance of the Anti-Hoarding Order 1953 shows that it at least means to do so, but it remains to be seen whether it can be enforced effectively, which anyhow is the real challenge. The need for a comprehensive policy overhaul also means until and unless a massive capacity-building operation is carried out in some government institutions, particularly the Trading Corporation of Bangladesh, chances of success are slim. After a plethora of calls from all sections of society, some Tk 10 billion is now understood to have been allocated towards this end. But it’s not enough to just through money at something. How the money is spent (whether on effective procurement and intervention mechanisms) is what will make the real difference.

Another reason that has been put forward for the sudden increase in the price of rice especially, towards the end of last year, is discrepancies in the statistics provided by different ministries. The agriculture ministry had estimated total food grain output during the last fiscal to be fully 2.4 million tons more than the food ministry, which came out with its figure of 33.16 million tons later in accordance with the Bureau of Statistics. It is the discrepancy that is now being augmented through imports. The streamlining of such price-sensitive data is a simple measure that only requires a government directive to be put in place. Doubtless, it is the Bureau of Statistics that is best placed to provide such data, and the entire responsibility should be left to them.

It was less than a decade ago, indeed 2002 only, that Bangladesh managed to achieve self-sufficiency in food. The quite grim picture that confronts us now is a far cry from those days, even though in a disaster-prone country like ours, such a position was always destined to be short-lived. The IFPRI’s Global Hunger Index indicates that Bangladesh has made some advances in food security over the last two decades- it has moved from an “extremely alarming” level of hunger in 1990 to merely “alarming” since 2009. It is our children who suffer most, and in line with the skewed effects of any disaster, women suffer more than men. Despite improvements, the spectre of hunger still haunts our villages, our towns, and our cities. And we shouldn’t need an index to tell us that.

The government has set up a three-member probe committee into the stock market scam. Senior banker and chairman of Bangladesh Krishi Bank, Ibrahim Khaled has been appointed chairman of the committee.

The Finance Minister made the announcement last week while talking to reporters in the city; but the presence of a known face at the background of that meeting, who made billions as profit from the 1996 market scam, came as a stark reminder as to how far the new probe will be able to catch the new culprits.

This time market predators have grabbed Taka 65,000 crore, mainly plundering small and medium investors which has caused violent protest not only in the city streets but also all over the country as brokerage houses came under investors' siege.

Finance minister AMA Muhith shared part of the blame of the scam on his shoulder resulting from poor and inappropriate handling of the bourse. The major opposition BNP has immediately demanded his resignation saying culprits who have manipulated the market to grab small investors must be identified and punished.

Even investors at the Finance Minister's home town Sylhet has demanded his resignation in street actions denouncing the government failure and involvement of certain quarters of the government in the market scam.

Some investors who had put their money from New York to Dhaka Stock Exchange said they are preparing to file law suit against the Finance Minister at New York court for recovery of their hard earned investments.

In reply to a question, why the culprits of 1996 stock market scam were not punished while the cases in the court are still pending, Muhth said it is still possible. What is agitating the public is: why is the government conducting the probe when it does not prosecute the offenders.

Moreover, most people believe that the inapt and partly dishonest handling of the bourse by Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Bangladesh Bank (BB), especially by their chiefs through various interventions has caused market distortions to its ultimate crash.

But the Finance Minister is still holding these persons in their posts although the High Court last week has reprimanded the SEC chief questioning how he was holding the post. So what will be the use of the probe if the persons responsible for the scam and dubbed as the 'culprits' in the press, remain in their posts.

It appears, as critics say, the government is increasingly getting involved in highly sensitive issues which have the potentials to agitate the people and get them together in a common cause to fight it back. The stock market crash is one such issue pushing the government to self defense.

Yet another issue now in the making is the public opposition to land acquisition at Arial Beel in Munshiganj where Sheikh Hasina government has decided to build a new airport in the name of her father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

Local people in Munshiganj district where the airport project is going to take shape, has formed Arial Beel Protection committee and announced a detailed action programme how they would like to stop the massive land acquisition.

These are new developments cropping up in addition to existing issues such as transit to India through Bangladesh free of charge and permitting submarine cable tele-corridor facilities to India, also free of charges from Cox's Bzar to northeast.

Under the scheme, the first cable line will run through Chittagong and Comilla to Agartala, capital of Indian state of Tripura. Another tele-communication corridor will run from Cox's Bazar to Rangpur via Dhaka to connect Bhutan.

The scheme will bring Indian control on the telecommunication system of the entire region including its capacity to eavesdrop strategic and defence related conversation within Bangladesh establishments.

These are the issues increasingly agitating the public. And on top of it came the recent killing of Bangladeshi teenage girl Felani by Indian border security forces who gunned down her while she was crossing the barbed wire fence from the Indian side with her father early this month.

Public were totally dismayed on failure of the government to lodge a strong protest condemning the incident. In fact India is indiscriminately shooting Bangladesh nationals---one in every four days according to an estimate of the local human rights bodies.

Adhikar said such indiscriminate killing is noticeable only in the Palestine-Israel border. But Bangladesh-India border is not something taking two hostile nations facing each other. The ruling Awami League government is offering everything that India now wants including crucial strategic concessions to please the Indian rulers in Delhi, critics say.

The ongoing trial of 'war criminals' based on local laws having as many flaws and denying the accused the minimum of the self-defence is moreover dividing the nation and also creating distance between the government and the international community which is now bringing pressure on the authorities to update the trial law to international standard.

Latest reports say, donors' community is slowly becoming disillusioned posing a new threat to timely implementation of development projects. This growing distance of the government with the people has reflected in many ways in the recent mayoral election to local municipal bodies and analysts here say it may be a stark reminder to the government of its sliding popularity.

Much like the sinking stock market, our foreign policy parameters too have hit the precipice. Those who wanted to write off the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) by allowing Indian secret service members to capture and whisk out of Bangladesh the outfit's leading personalities now find themselves boxed up and faced with a protracted dilemma involving major foreign policy implications.

Amidst a series of debacles since late 2009, the ULFA's military command has re-organized its structure and strategy, posing enormous challenge to Bangladesh's regional foreign policy pursuance and creating bitter acrimony with Delhi, despite the latter having succeeded so far in securing most of its desired concessions from the AL-led coalition regime.

The re-organized senior command of ULFA, which that has been fighting a war of cessation since 1979 to liberate the Indian state of Assam from Delhi's tutelage, has released on January 21 a video footage of its fighters from a remote hideout in Myanmar. Present among the guerrillas was their Commander-in-Chief, Paresh Baruah, who posed himself in battle fatigue to let the world know the group's ability to outsmart Delhi and to carry on with its struggle to liberate Assam.

The orchestrated showmanship also had a lot to do with a series of decisions made by the AL-led coalition government since coming to power in early 2009. According to one source within the government, "process is underway to deport the outfit's political guru and general secretary, Anup Chetia, from Bangladesh." He seemed as yet unaware of the availability of the video footage of the outfit's Commander- in- Chief.

The source said the decision to handover Chetia to Indian authorities received a final nod during the recently concluded Home Secretary level meeting in Dhaka of the two neighbours.

Although much of what happened to the Dhaka -based ULFA leaders never got exposed to the public over the last two years. In December 2009 all hell broke loose following a spate of mysterious events resulting in the controversial apprehension from Dhaka - alleged by Indian law enforcers - of ULFA's founding member, Arabinda Rajkhowa, his family members and a number of other leading personalities of the outfit.

Despite the uproars, Bangladesh authorities never confessed to carrying out those raids, resulting in Indian secret service members being blamed for forays inside Bangladesh, causing considerable embarrassment to a regime that has, by then, piqued enough suspicion of being blindly pro-Indian.

Besides, Bangladesh being a signatory to a number of international Conventions relating to the status of refugees, and, Chetia and his colleagues having applied for asylum pursuant to those conventions, the incidents spurred a number of legal complications.

The issue began to degenerate into a major crisis during the army-backed caretaker (CT) regime when the Indian influence peddling multiplied and the CT tried to deport Chetia to India. In desperation and treading through a legal minefield, his counsel, Advocate Mohammad Abdus Sattar, formally applied to the UNHCR to have his client recognized as a convention refugee. Addressed to Antonio Guterres, head of the UNHCR, Chetia's counsel wrote to the UNHCR, "Not only his prayer for asylum in Bangladesh did not make any headway, he was being detained beyond the statutory 7 years limit for illegally entering Bangladesh. He therefore needed UNHCR intervention as a person in need of protection."

There is evidence to prove Chetia indeed had endured inhumane torture. He was first arrested in March 1991 in Assam, tortured in custody, but was later released by political intervention of then Chief Minister of Assam, Hiteswar Saikia. Fearing further arrest and threat to life, he fled to Bangladesh where he was again arrested on December 21, 1997 under the Foreigners Act and the Passports Act of Bangladesh. Sentenced to seven years of imprisonment, he was supposed to be freed in 2004, but still rots in Bangladesh prison without any justification.

Meanwhile, the Chetia factor had poisoned bilateral relations almost intermittently and the Indian request to extradite him remained stalled due to (1) his yet-to-be-disposed asylum application in Bangladesh court, and, (2) There being no extradition treaty between the two countries.

"Unless the court takes a decision denying Chetia's claim for refugee status, or he himself withdraws his petition, the matter may not move further," said a concerned source within the government. The crisis has meanwhile morphed into a major foreign policy headache, involving the compulsion to comply with international Conventions on one hand, and, adhering to the request of a friendly neighbour, on the other.

Sources say, Chetia is being approached and pressurized by mandated representatives of the Indian government to withdraw his asylum application in return for promise not to be harmed. But other ULFA leaders are not convinced.

Sensing an imminent danger to the outfit's very existence, Paresh Barua, the military chief of the outfit, decided to re-cast the outfit and its stratagem from the mountain ranges astride Myanmar-China border. The latest video snapshot comes from one of those encampments where the temporary leadership of the outfit is currently based.

Curiously, Delhi never exerted the kind of pressure on Myanmar or China as it has been exerting on Bangladesh. This smacks of duplicity and dubiousness. May be the China factor is playing a major role in Delhi's imbalanced attitude toward its smaller neighbours.

Be that what it may, our investigation shows, the 54-year-old Baruah has an anchor in China's Yunnan province bordering Myanmar, and he often frequents between northern Myanmar's Kachin areas and the Yannan of China. India's external affairs minister, S M Krishna, had informed the Rajya Sabha last month that India had taken up with China the issue of Baruah's presence in that country.

Meanwhile, a seemingly desperate Chief Minister of Assam, Tarun Gogoi, had said his government has received 'encouraging signals' from the ULFA for holding peace talks, something ULFA leadership never confirmed as yet.

All these prove one thing for certain: The Assam factor has internationalized to the level where a lasting peace with ULFA can only be achieved with cooperation from Bangladesh, Myanmar and China. Bangladesh is particularly pivotal to any peace deal due to the outfit's political chief being inside Bangladesh prison and, Assam being sandwiched between China and Bangladesh.

Delhi may not be unaware of such realities, but its border force, the BSF, seems too haughty to acknowledge their ramifications. According to the Guardian newspaper (Jan. 23), killing of Bangladeshi citizens at the Indo-Bangladesh border 'is endorsed by Indian officials."

Any official endorsement of a policy makes that policy an official one, period. The Guardian report carries further evidence of that being the case; at a time when Indo-Bangladesh border shooting incidents created serious uproar in the global media outlets, especially since the brutal killing of a Bangladeshi teenager, Felani, last month.

Guardian reporter Brad Adams wrote, "India has the right to impose border controls. But India does not have the right to use lethal force except where strictly necessary to protect life. Yet some Indian officials openly admit that unarmed civilians are being killed." The report adds, " The head of the BSF, Raman Srivastava, says that people should not feel sorry for the victims, claiming that since these individuals were illegally entering Indian territory, often at night, they were "not innocent" and therefore were a legitimate target." Even if one is goaded to accept such an illegitimate, foolhardy argument, can anyone show other example of unarmed civilians being shot to death in any other bordering areas of the world; in such huge numbers, so often, for so long?

That the government had failed to challenge Delhi on this particular count remains a matter of unmitigated shame and despair. It's also a blot that can not be easily erased from the litany of undoing of a regime that knows not how to fashion a sustainable foreign policy.

WE ARE all indigenous or natives to somewhere, but we are not all indigenous peoples. To be an indigenous people depends, first of all, on the group's marginal position in relation to the state, to the state authorities and institutions. States which were created as a result of decolonisation-among them East Pakistan and later Bangladesh-were established with borders that roughly followed colonial borders. And these were originally defined from the colonial and military logic and not from the needs or wishes of the local populations. In most colonial territories, and again Bangladesh included, the new and independent states had to accept these borders and then to defend them. There was very little choice and the political set-up, the constitutions, etc reflected the wishes of the majority of the people or at least those in power. In Bangladesh, the constitution of 1972 reflected in the first instance, and as a natural thing, the wishes of the large Bengali majority of the population. As a kind of colonial heritage, this process, nevertheless, left groups of people marginalised in the geographical margins of the new state. Small ethnic groups who made up the majority populations within their traditional lands and territories were nevertheless discriminated against because they had religions, languages, histories, traditions and cultures, which were different from the large majority of the population. The Chakma, the Tripura, the Mru, etc in the Chittagong Hill Tracts and the Khasi, the Garo from the north, etc are examples. These people had no influence on the first constitution and it did not reflect their wishes, and the result was a mono-cultural constitution in which there was no room for the distinctive identities of the Garo, the Santal, the Chakma, etc. These people mentioned are indigenous within Bangladesh but they are also indigenous peoples to their traditional lands and territories. On paper they may have the same individual rights as all other inhabitants of Bangladesh but in practice they are being discriminated against.

In the aftermath of World War II and the decolonisation process, all states-in North America, Asia and Africa-established development activities in the frontier regions with few benefits to the people concerned. In the Canadian Quebec province, a hydroelectric project inundated the lands of the Cree and the Inuit and, similarly, thousands of people were evicted from their lands when the Kaptai Dam was constructed in the Chittagong Hill Tracts. The people who had lived in these places were neither consulted nor were their interests considered. The states were concerned with satisfying the interests of the great majority of the population and on defending the national unity and did completely overlook that there were people who were completely marginalised and most often not even considered in the constitutions.

When decolonisation had come to an end, the United Nations realised that there were peoples in countries all over the world whose rights were not respected because they were not minorities in the sense of the United Nations' system, and they were also not part of the majority population of their countries. The United Nations called these peoples 'indigenous peoples.' The marginalisation and discrimination of these, often tiny, minorities compared to the total population is fairly simple to observe because the languages of these groups are not being taught in school; lands are being taken away from them without compensation: organised re-settlement of mainstream people on the indigenous land aimed at reducing them to minorities, major development projects are established without consulting them and without any or few benefits to the people concerned, etc. In the US, in Canada and in Bangladesh the states wanted to assimilate all populations within their borders, but some people were nevertheless treated differently. It is interesting to observe that these people started to organise themselves at roughly the same time in the US, in Latin America, in Canada and in Asia in protest against what they saw as violations of their rights. They could not appeal to the courts or to the constitution because they were not considered there; there was, and is, a general trend in the ruling circle, as in the case of Bangladesh, to build a monolithic state erasing its existing pluralist character; the political parties were mostly uninterested because there were no votes in supporting them; and often the press did either not care or they were under censorships. Such situations invariably lead to conflicts and in the Chittagong Hill Tracts it lead to a more than 20-year long armed conflict. As a last remedy, the indigenous peoples of the CHT and later other indigenous peoples from Bangladesh turned to the United Nations and met with people from other parts of the world, who had become victims of similar processes.

In the United Nations indigenous peoples have used many efforts to learn from each other, to exchange experiences. After three decades of considerations, governments and indigenous peoples have come to a common understanding of some key points, which finally led to the adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007, which now seems to be recognised as an international instrument by basically all governments in the world. The key issue is the recognition of the rights of indigenous peoples, which to most indigenous peoples means constitutional recognition. Constitutions are, however, difficult to change, and it is therefore of key importance that they reflect the realities. Colonialism is now far behind us and the scenario is completely different than it was forty or fifty years ago. When Norway changed its constitution in 1989 they finally included the Saami indigenous peoples. My own country, Denmark, has not changed constitution since 1953 but a constitutional process has been ongoing for quite some years. When it comes, it will no doubt include changes for the indigenous Inuit who lives in Greenland, and as a preliminary step the Danish government has now recognised the Greenland Inuit as a people according to international law. Countries so different as New Zealand, Norway and Burundi have parliamentary seats reserved for indigenous peoples and in still other countries like the Philippines and Nepal are indigenous peoples in different ways recognised in the constitutions. In June 2008, the parliament of Japan passed a resolution formally recognising the Ainus on the Hokkaido Island as indigenous people with distinct language, religion and culture. Malaysia maintains in its constitution special rights for the indigenous communities and the application of special provisions are important in a country with a diversity of races and religions.

Constitutional recognition can be seen as a kind of reconciliation and as an alternative to claim for independence or cessation, which has only been claimed in countries with large groups of indigenous peoples. East Timor is probably the only case known in this respect and is not relevant for countries with several indigenous peoples living in different geographical regions. Constitutional recognition opens for a new dialogue between the state and the indigenous peoples, based on mutual recognition. Constitutional recognitions will signal a new road for the indigenous peoples whose lands and territories were included in the new states of first Pakistan and then Bangladesh without any consultation or acceptance. It also opens a new road for dealing with peoples who de facto have been treated differently by the state authorities. And finally, it gives protection for indigenous peoples' cultures, languages, lands and livelihoods which otherwise are unprotected.

In many countries where there are groups who claim to be indigenous there is a discussion on who these people are and how they are identified? First of all we should notice that they identify themselves as indigenous, in Bangladesh as adivasis. There is no definition on indigenous peoples and it is futile to find a definition on who has the right to claim rights as an indigenous people, and the United Nations has never seriously considered it as an option. We only have to remind ourselves that few countries in Africa and Asia would be independent today if the global society should agree on a definition on which people had the right to become independent. Any definition is made by those who have the power and can only be used to halt a process. So this is no way out.

But we can find a number of indicators that set some peoples apart and of which some are applicable in specific cases and specific societies. First of all, there are peoples who are being set aside by the states and the majority population because they have a different culture, religion, language, etc. In Bangladesh most of those calling themselves indigenous are non-Muslims (Buddhist, Christians, etc), speak languages different from Bangla, and have traditions which in the historic sense point to people today living in Burma and north-eastern India. And, as part of this, some of these people have their own political or quasi-political institutions that exist parallel with the national institutions. The indigenous peoples may also have a different adaptation to the land, such as shifting-cultivation. Indigenous peoples have common histories, share many emotional and cultural connotations, and have been united by shared conflicts with the state. Secondly, those calling themselves indigenous have linkages to territories of their own, with ties that point back to pre-colonial and pre-independent times. The ethnic identity of indigenous peoples is linked to these ancestral lands. The continuity with the past does not imply authenticity in the sense of unchanged originality but that indigenous peoples live in conformity with their own institutions as these have been formed and developed in contact with those of the colonisers or the states. Thirdly, the indigenous peoples want, as groups, to keep their own traditions and their own linkages to their ancestral territories and to keep their ethnic identity as the basis for existence as a people as conditions for mutual co-existence with the other peoples of the state. This is in contrast to minorities who are not associated with a specific territory and who aim at being integrated in the state but keeping their individual minority rights; indigenous rights are collective rights in contrast to minority rights, which are individual rights. Fourthly, to be indigenous in Bangladesh today refers to descent from people living in specific geographical regions at the time of the establishment of the present state boundaries. Fifthly, those calling themselves indigenous are those who came to the area claimed as their lands and territories before some of those other people living in the area today. This is not the same as saying that 'we were here first', which is difficult in most countries not the least in Asia, because should we go 50, 100 or 1,000 back in history? We only have to remind ourselves of the ongoing conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians to recognise aboriginality as an impossible criterion. Some indigenous peoples have been forced from their lands but this should not rip them of all their rights, however. Others have, as individuals, moved to Dhaka and other urban places outside their homeland but it does not imply that they lose all their rights as being a member of an indigenous peoples. In the colonial days people were recruited in one country to work on plantations or in the mines in other countries and some of these settled in the new place to become cultural or religious minorities. Such peoples are protected as belonging to a minority and have rights as such, but they are not indigenous peoples.

Indigenous peoples who migrate to urban or metropolitan areas often lose their indigenous language, are employed in urban professions and adopt traditions associated with living in urban areas. They no longer live on their ancestral lands but the ancestral lands remain for them an anchor-point and give them a distinct identity - symbolically, practically or culturally.

There are also indicators, which has to do with state policies towards indigenous peoples. Let alone that exactly these people are called by specific names such as 'adivasi' in Bangladesh and 'scheduled tribes' in India and as such they have in practice been treated as different from the rest of the population. Throughout the colonial and post-colonial history there have been acts and provisions in which the colonial and Bangladeshi governments have used and recognised the special rights of those people called adivasi. Or the government has kept them separate from the rest of the population (the CHT is a semi-closed area, controlled by the army) and established special procedures for the territory of indigenous peoples, such as appointing a special minister for Chittagong Hill Tracts, established a regional council, or in some ways annulled the normal democratic processes in the area, such as postponing elections for the district councils.

For the Chittagong Hill Tracts, inclusion in the constitution can finally be seen as a logical result of the peace accord of 1997 and should give new impetus to the implementation of the accord. For adivasi in the whole country constitutional recognition will recognise a distinctiveness of indigenous peoples, which in many respects are already there.

All is not quiet in the hills. The latest report of infighting in the region has given rise to genuine concern. The gunfight between members of Parbatya Chottogram Jana Saghati Samity (PCJSS) and the United People's Democratic Front (UPDF) in Rangamati last Friday left at least five people killed and more than 15 hurt.

Fight for supremacy over the region is reportedly the immediate cause of the conflicts. In fact, this region has always been in want of peace. Socio-political unrest has been brewing for many decades, resulting in sporadic violence and loss of lives and properties.

Inhabitants there enjoy freedom of sorts since the bumpy terrain makes it difficult for local administration to react effectively to any unpleasant incident.

The conflict in the Chittagong Hill Tracts began when the political representatives of the natives protested against the government policy of recognising only the Bengali culture and language and designating all citizens of Bangladesh as Bengalis. In talks with Hill Tracts delegation led by Chakma leader Manabendra Narayan Larma, the then government insisted that the ethnic groups of the Hill Tracts adopt the Bengali identity.

Thereafter, in 1973 the armed wing of PCJSS, the Shanti Bahini, was formed to fight the government. The New York Times in its June 11, 1989 issue carried a report by Sanjoy Hazarika that, for more than a decade, India had secretly provided arms and money to tribal insurgents fighting for an autonomous state in Bangladesh, and rebels were given sanctuary in this border area. Media was replete with reports of kidnapping and bloodletting until we all got tired of this and resigned from the issue. Army was deployed in the area to fight the insurgents. The region had always been in a state of war.

After much ado, a peace treaty was signed in December 1997 during the tenure of the previous Awami League government. The agreement recognised the distinct ethnicity and special status of the tribes and indigenous peoples of the Chittagong Hill Tracts, and established a Regional Council consisting of the representatives of local government councils of the three districts of the Hill Tracts.

The council was to be composed of men and women from the Chakma, Marma, Tripura, Murang and Tanchangya tribes; the delegates would be elected by the district councils of the Hill Tracts. Elected for a five-year term, the council would have authority and responsibility to maintain law and order, social justice and tribal laws, oversee general administration, coordinate disaster relief and management, issue licenses for heavy industries and oversee other development projects. The central government would be required to consult the regional councils over all issues concerning the Hill Tracts.

The agreement also provided for the setting up of a Ministry of Tribal Affairs to be headed by a person of tribal ethnicity to administer the affairs concerning the Hill Tracts. The agreement also laid out plans for the return of land to displaced natives and an elaborate land survey to be held in the Hill Tracts. But the accord failed to create the national consensus desired by the AL government.

And peace in the region remains illusive till today. During the last 13 years, there were, if at all, half-hearted attempts to execute the accord in the area, and Shantu Larma continues to put the onus on the government for the present state of affairs. "The politicians have committed on paper, but up till now there has been a lack of initiative in implementing the accord," said Shantu Larma, president of PCJSS, at a conference in Dhaka on November 29, 2010. The conflict is far from over.

Reports say, at least 300 people were killed and around 900 others injured since the signing of the accord in 1997. Not only are the clashes causing colossal loss of lives and properties, they are also a major setback for peace in the area, each clash and each death makes the prospect of peace remote and uncertain.

Domination apart, there are political differences as well. Pundits say it is the political differences over the signing of the peace treaty that are the underlying cause of the continued conflict. PCJSS wants implementation of the accord while the UDPF stands against it.

After all these years of turmoil and uncertainty, we all wish to see the greener part of our beautiful country as a place of ethnic harmony. The population in the hills should be aware of the fact that it is their responsibility to keep their calm and make the region peaceful and allow congenial atmosphere for any development activities to be sustained. The country cannot move forward with one part ailing.

The government ought to come out with full support for addressing their grievances and the parties in Hill Tracts should also show their commitment in realising the ground reality. Peace and political stability are the prime need of the time to translate the dreams of development into reality

The minister for education in Bangladesh has assured Church-run schools of government assistance.

"The present government is working hard to ensure good education at the primary level because it's the base for further education," said Mohammad Motahar Hossain, state minister for primary and mass education.

Hossain on Jan. 21 assured Church officials and local Church-run school heads at Biroidakuni Primary and High School in northeastern Mymensingh diocese of support.

A group of Catholics and school heads had requested assistance from the minister in developing the infrastructure and management system in Catholic primary schools.

"We'll set up a special committee of Church representatives to supervise developments for missionary schools," said the education minister during his school management monitoring program visit.

Promod Mankin, Catholic state minister for cultural affairs, said many teachers in Church-run schools perform their duties without pay, while other teachers receive little payment.

"Many of them get 1,500-2,500 taka (US$21-36) which is lower than a garment worker's wage. Even though Christians are a little backward in terms of socio-economic and political activities, they are well ahead of the literacy rate," said the tribal Garo minister.

Bangladesh Catholic Education Board (BCEB) secretary Holy Cross Father Benjamin Costa said the present government has to do more work with Church-run schools.

It is difficult for Church-run schools asking for assistance to register and follow prescribed government regulations, said the principal of Notre Dame College in Dhaka.

"If registered, the government will not allow us to use a number of school premises as makeshift churches and we won't be able to appoint qualified teachers," he added.

"Today we suffer from lack of freedom and low payment even though we are qualified teachers," said Justin Jarin Drong, headmaster of Biroidakuni Primary School.

While Church-run schools provide free primary school level education, they do not receive government allowances as state schools. There are 287 schools and three colleges run by the Catholic Church in Bangladesh.

According to the 2007 Catholic Directory of Bangladesh, there are 400,000 Catholics out of a total of 150 million people.

Catholics and Protestants across Bangladesh have prayed in solidarity for unity and peace in their communities during the Octave of Prayer for Christian Unity which ended today.

Father Patras Hasdak, secretary of the northwestern Rajshahi diocesan Christian Unity and Interreligious Dialogue said Catholic and Protestant Churches in the territory met in a common prayer meeting on Jan. 19.

“As we all follow the same Christ, unity among us is important,” the tribal Santal Catholic priest said.

He recalled that last year a national daily claimed that some Protestant churches were bribing poor people to become Christians in the area, which he considers as blackening the Christians’ image.

“We sat together then and unanimously resolved not to influence or lure others while preaching good news,” Father Hasdak said.

“When the month of January comes we speak of unity and pray for each other. We can establish greater unity among ourselves by acting as we pray,” said Andrew Biswas, 52, a pastor from Baptist Church in southern Khulna.

Biswas added tht Christians belonging to various Churches can be united following example of the apostles: “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer” (Acts 2:42).”

Two students from a Church-run school won grand prizes in the book reading competition from among 30,000 students in 100 schools in Dhaka.

Tenth grader Shastika Barua, a Buddhist, and Shahjar Nahrir, a Muslim, from the Holy Cross Girls' High School in Dhaka bagged Dhaka-Nepal airline tickets along with valuable books as awards for reading the highest number of books.

Twenty prominent academic figures including Muhammed Zafar Iqbal, a renowned Muslim computer scientist and popular writer of children's books, presented books to the other winners of the competition.

Barua and Nahrir were among over 200 students from four Church-run schools in Dhaka and 5,000 students and parents attending the prize awarding ceremony organized by the Bishwa Sahitya Kendra or World Literature Center on Jan. 21-22.

The center was established by Abdullah Abu Sayeed, professor and Ramon Magsaysay award winner, over a decade ago.

It offers classes on world literature for higher secondary students and also provides every book needed for those classes. For secondary and junior school levels, it operates a nation-wide reading program and provides books for the students. In 2007, it had 500 schools under this program, and over 100,000 active student members.

The two winning students from Church-run schools show that Catholic schooling not only focuses on formal education but also on extracurricular activities.

Although there are non-Church-run Dhaka schools in the top bracket, guardians and students show a clear preference for Catholic schools.

"Missionary schools provide quality education and emphasize extracurricular activities. They also give lessons on character development and values," said Hosne Ara Begum, a Muslim parent, who hopes to have her son admitted into a Church-run school.

Catholic schools produced various national and international figures including Nobel prize laureate economist Amartya Sen, alumni of Church-run St. Gregory's High School and Kamal Hossain, an international lawyer and alumni of Notre Dame College in Dhaka.

While our education sector is undergoing some visible changes -- positive and negative -- like implementation of the new education policy, distribution of free textbooks to school children at the beginning of the year, along with outburst of sexual harassment of girls studying in schools and colleges, the High Court has passed a historic order banning corporal punishment of students in educational institutions.

The High Court judgment declared corporal punishment unconstitutional and violation of human rights, while disposing a writ petition filed by Ain-o-Salish Kendra and Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust. This verdict of the High Court is expected to expedite change in the traditional approach to children in regard to their education and mode of teaching. The government has also been asked to constitute an independent national commission to ensure the end of the bad practice.

The issue of corporal punishment of students in schools is a burning one not only in our country but also in a lot of other countries. Corporal punishment has been outlawed in most of Europe, Canada, Japan, South Africa, New Zealand and several other countries. It is banned in state schools in 30 U.S. states. In two of these states, New Jersey and Iowa, it is illegal in private schools as well.

It is interesting to see that much of the traditional culture that surrounds corporal punishment in schools, in the English-speaking world at any rate, derives largely from British practice in the 19th and 20th centuries, particularly as regards the caning of teenage boys. Many schools in Singapore and Malaysia, as also some African countries, use caning for boys as a routine official punishment for misconduct. In some Middle Eastern countries whipping is used. In South Korea, male and female secondary students alike are commonly spanked in school.

Caning was completely abolished in 1967 in Denmark and 1983 in Germany. From the 1917 revolution onwards, corporal punishment was outlawed in Russia. In Australia, corporal punishment is banned by law in all schools in the Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales, and Tasmania. In Victoria, it is banned in government schools but not in private schools. In Canada the Supreme Court outlawed corporal punishment in 2004.

All corporal punishment had been theoretically banned since the communist revolution in China in1949 though, in practice, students are caned or paddled in some schools. The systematic use of corporal punishment has been absent from French schools since the 19th century. There is no explicit legal ban on it, but in 2008 a teacher was fined for slapping a student. Corporal punishment in Greek primary schools was banned in 1998, and in secondary schools in 2005. Italy banned it in 1928.

Caning is a common form of discipline in many Malaysian schools. In Netherlands, it was banned in 1920. Corporal punishment is prohibited in private and public schools in Philippines. It is legal in Singapore schools for male students only, and fully encouraged by the government in order to maintain strict discipline. Only a light rattan cane may be used. This must be administered in a formal ceremony by the school management after due deliberation, not by classroom teachers.

Corporal punishment is lawful and in wide use in South Korean schools. Spain banned it in 1985. In Sweden, corporal punishment in schools has been prohibited since 1958. In Thailand corporal punishment in schools is illegal.

It is true that there are divergent views on corporal punishment of students in schools, though the tilt is towards bringing an end to it. Principal David Nixon, a supporter of corporal punishment in schools, maintains that as soon as the student has been punished he can go back to his class and continue learning, in contrast to out-of-school suspension, which removes him from the educational process and gives him a free "holiday." Philip Berrigan, a Catholic priest, said that corporal punishment saved much staff time that would otherwise have been devoted to supervising detention classes or in-school suspension. Parents, too, often complain about the inconvenience occasioned by penalties such as detention or Saturday school.

However, research shows that corporal punishment is not effective as positive means for managing student behaviour. These studies have linked corporal punishment to adverse physical, psychological and educational outcomes, including "increased aggressive and destructive behaviour, increased disruptive classroom behaviour, vandalism, poor school achievement, poor attention span, increased drop-out rate, school avoidance and school phobia, low self-esteem, anxiety, somatic complaints, depression, suicide and retaliation against teacher."

It is imperative to make some observations in the Bangladesh context. A large number of our teachers are unaware of child psychology and the philosophy of education along with the latest mode of imparting it in an attractive manner, especially to children in schools or equivalent institutions.

In the classroom the natural inquisitiveness and spontaneous queries of the children are suppressed. Prevalent atmosphere in and around the institutions and the stereotyped class routine also are not congenial to their normal development. But, hopefully, the scenario will change for the better. The Education Policy 2010 has stipulated: "Respecting the natural inquisitiveness and curiosity of the children, and using their vitality and vivacity, they should be nurtured with love and affection in a pleasant environment. Protection for the children shall be ensured so that they do not, in any way, become victims of physical or mental torture."

The timely and highly commendable High Court Judgment, which prohibits caning, beating, confining or chaining children, or otherwise subjecting them to any cruel and degrading and inhuman punishment in the educational institutions, will help us in achieving the desired development of our children. I am optimistic that it will be followed through by the concerted and coordinated efforts of our teachers, guardians, policy makers and the government. For that, recruitment of qualified teachers to teach with dedication and affection along with ensuring their due status, which covers both financial and social aspects, is the need of the hour.

THE issue of custodial deaths has, once again, become the focal point of discussion in both the press and the court. The High Court duly addressed the death of a suspect in the custody of the Chittagong Metropolitan Police and the CMP commissioner had to personally appear before the court on June 1, 2010. According to media reports, the human rights organisation Ain O Salish Kendra put the number of people killed in custody of law enforcers in 2009 at 229. Moreover, it said, 133 people were killed in 2010 in 'encounters' with the police and the Rapid Action Battalion.

In the criminal justice system in a democracy, the state empowers the police to legally limit the liberty of its citizens when conditions permit. The Code of Criminal Procedure and other laws allow the police officers to arrest a citizen without warrant in various situations. Under section 54 of the criminal procedure cod, a police officer of any rank may arrest a person in nine specific situations. The first situation spares the police, virtually, an unfettered scope to use his discretion to arrest a person on suspicion. Besides this, numerous laws and by-laws empower the police to arrest a citizen without warrant. While investigating criminal cases, the investigating officers enjoy considerable power which is guided only by his or her professional discretion. Section 167 of the code legally allows the police to have a suspect in their custody for interrogation for up to 15 days in a single case.

When the police arrest a person, the latter is thought to be in a safe custody. Every treatment the arrested person gets from the police must be in line with legal provisions. Our laws explicitly declare the inherent rights of an arrested person or a person in the police custody. Our laws not only urge that the arrested shall not be subjected to more restraint than is necessary to prevent his escape, but also allocate 36 square feet space in the police lock-up for one prisoner.

Our constitution ensures the human rights of all persons coming to the custody of their regulating machinery. We are pledge-bound to uphold the provisions of the International Convention on Human Rights that states, 'No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment'. It also urges that 'No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.'

The constitution, the supreme law of the country, duly incorporated the international best practices in the context of our own society to ensure the fundamental rights of the arrested persons. Our constitution stands for safeguarding the persons arrested or in detention. Arrested persons must not be kept incommunicado, uninformed of his guilt and be barred to consult a lawyer of his own choice. It states, 'No person who is arrested shall be detained in custody without being informed, as soon as may be of the grounds for such arrest, nor shall he be denied the right to consult and be defended by a legal practitioner of his choice.'

The police cannot keep a person in their custody for as long as they wish. The constitution never allows a person to be in the police custody more than 24 hours without the permission of the appropriate magistrate. 'Every person who is arrested and detained in custody shall be produced before the nearest magistrate within a period of twenty four hours of such arrest, excluding the time necessary for the journey from the place of arrest to the court of the magistrate, and no such person shall be detained in custody beyond the said period without the authority of a magistrate.'

The police have the authority to search a person in their custody to ensure safety from any offensive weapon, if any is concealed in the arrested person's body or somewhere else. They may take all the articles 'other than necessary wearing-apparel, found upon him.' However, the disposal of those articles must be as per rule.

The law ensures the modesty and dignity of women while being arrested and searched. Whenever it is necessary to cause a woman to be searched, another woman shall make the search, with strict regard to decency. The law and regulations to ensure the safety of an arrested person in police custody is duly addressed in our Police Regulations, Bengal. The law urges the custodian police personnel to arrange emergency and necessary treatment and medical care for the arrested persons.

The law is very much conscious about the sufferings of the common people in case of the arrest of the staff of their utility services. A person under arrest might be an employee of the telephone department, railway or might be a member of the medical service. All those services are necessary for the smooth living of the people. So, if the arrest of a person connected to utility services is necessary, the arresting officer must give enough time to the authorities to arrange for a substitute. When the immediate arrest of persons employed in a public utility service (such as the telegraph or postal service) would cause risk or inconvenience to the public, the investigating officer shall make arrangements to prevent escape and apply to the proper quarters to have the accuser relived. In cases where immediate arrest can be made, without risk or inconvenience to the public, notice of the arrest shall at once be sent to the official superior of the accused to enable him to arrange for his duties.

While a police officer endeavours to arrest a person, he/she may use 'all means necessary to execute the arrest.' He can use force, including deadly force, to execute the arrest. He may cause the death of the person if he/she is accused of an offence punishable with death or with imprisonment for life. But once the person comes in the custody of the police, he/she is entitled to a plethora of legal and constitutional rights. The person arrested shall not be subjected to more restraint than is necessary to prevent his escape. Our criminal procedures code, enacted in 1898, much before the creation of our Constitution, has duly guaranteed the rights of the arrested persons.

'No police-officer shall detain in custody a person arrested without warrant for a longer period than under all the circumstances of the case is reasonable, and such period shall not, in the absence of a special order of a magistrate under section 167, exceed twenty four hours exclusive of the time necessary for the journey from the place of arrest to the magistrate's court.'

The police may arrest a person with or without a warrant from the court. If the warrant is bailable, the person is entitled to be released, subject to the fulfilling of the condition of the bail; otherwise s/he must be sent to the appropriate court. The arrestee is also entitled to get a bail from the police officer as a legal right if s/he is arrested without a warrant in a bailable case. S/he might be given bail by the officer-in-charge even in a non-bailable case, if he is not concerned in an offence punishable with imprisonment for life or death. The law considering the vulnerability of the old, women and the children urges the police officer to grant bail even in non-bailable serious offences. On the other hand, if the person is arrested without warrant in a non-bailable case/offence punishable with imprisonment for life or even death, and his involvement in the offence is duly doubted by the officer-in-charge of a police station, he may get a bail from the officer-in-charge. If the arrested person is not given bail from the police station, he is entitled to be sent to the nearest magistrate without unnecessary delay.

The arrested person must be provided with all the legal and constitutional comfort and dignity while in police custody. In our society arrest is always thought to be very degrading. Once a person comes to the police custody for any reason good or bad, society regards him or her with disdain. On the other hand, the use of handcuff is also degrading for a reputed person. So, the PRB often declares the use of handcuffs or ropes an unnecessary indignity. In no case shall women be handcuffed, nor shall restrain be used to those who either by age or infirmity are easily and securely kept in custody. Witnesses arrested under section 171 of the Code of Criminal Procedure shall, in no circumstances, be handcuffed. In bailable cases, prisoners should not be handcuffed unless violent and only then, by the order of the officer-in-charge of the police station, with the reason for the necessity of this action entered in the general diary. In non-bail able cases, the amount of retrain necessary must be left to the discretion of the officers concerned.

Our penal code, though framed in 1860, duly addressed the issue of police highhandedness during arrest and custody of the citizens. The law does not permit a police officer to arrest a person only to meet his personal grudge or whim. He must bear in mind that the decision to arrest a citizen in a democratic society is a serious police responsibility. The police shall be careful to abstain from unnecessary arrests. In petty cases it is hardly ever necessary to arrest on suspicion during the course of an enquiry and never necessary to arrest after the enquiry is over, when the case is not to be sent up. If the police officer acts contrary to this legal guideline, s/he is liable and would be prosecuted under section 220 of the penal code and may be awarded with an imprisonment of up to seven years of either description, or with fine, or with both.

The human rights groups of the country claim and the public perception prevails that most of the arrested people in police custody are physically tortured, especially during interrogation. Most often police investigators inflict physical torture on a person for extorting confession or restoring lost or stolen property. If the police officer voluntarily causes simple injury to the arrested person while in his custody, he might be awarded with an imprisonment of up to seven years of either description, and shall also be liable to fine. On the other hand, if the police officer inflicts injuries of grievous nature to the arrested person in the name of interrogation, he might be punished with up to ten years of imprisonment of either description and shall also be liable to fine.

The death of a suspect in the police custody results in serious controversy. The human rights groups brought this issue to the High Court Division for several times. On June 2, 2010 the High Court Division reiterated its intolerance on death in police custody. Earlier, on April 7, 2003, after hearing a writ petition in connection to the death of a university student, the High Court Division issued two sets of directives for handling suspects in the police custody. The court recommended, 'The investigating officer shall interrogate the accused, if necessary for the purpose of investigation, in a room specially made for the purpose with glass wall and grill in one side, within the view but not within hearing of a close relation or lawyer of the accused.'

It is noteworthy that the death of a person in custody is not totally avoidable. The more people will be in custody, the higher the chances of natural death. The lockup is not inaccessible to the angel of death. Even the developed countries with clean chit of human rights are not free from allegations of custodial death. In the United Kingdom, 34 persons on an average die every year in the police custody. But, as their investigation system of custodial death is very clean, the common people have not much to say against it.

In Bangladesh, the system of investigation of death in police custody is not much appreciable. When a person dies in custody, according to the direction of the criminal procedure code and the PRB, an executive magistrate makes an inquest report and then the dead body is sent for post-mortem examination. So, the medical report is expected to bring legal action against the responsible persons. However, there will also be an enquiry to find out the immediate causes of the death. But, the public perception in this concern matters. Though the executive magistrate makes the inquest, the whole process, in the roundabout way, is managed by the police. The best thing to do to win people's acceptance in the enquiry of the death in police custody is to formulate a legal framework to oversee the process. In the developed countries, highly professional bodies independent of police influence normally enquire into custodial death cases. The Independent Complaints Commission of Great Britain deals with the matters 'from which it appears that a person has died or suffered serious injury during, or following, contact with a person serving with the police.'

In Bangladesh some positive proposals have already been made in this concern. The Draft Police Ordinance, 2007 has duly addressed this issue. There shall be a police complaint commission under chapter eight, headed by a retired justice who will receive from the national police commission or the range police officers or head of units any report of death, rape or serious injury to any person in police custody and take steps to preserve evidence relating to such incidence. However, the passing of the draft is still uncertain and the people have no other ways but to live with suspicious deaths in the police custody for the time being.

Imams and intellectuals: Renewing Islam towards modernity by Samir Khalil Samir

The program - truly revolutionary - wants to rethink the value of women, fraternisation between the sexes, the relationship of equality with Christians. And it also desires to clarify interpretations on the sayings of Mohammed and the myths of fundamentalist Salafism, rejecting the influences that come from Saudi Arabia.

Rethinking fraternisation between the sexes; opening the doors to women right up to the Presidency of the Republic, guaranteeing the right of Christians to have access to positions of prestige (even the presidency), purifying and reinterpreting the sayings of the Prophet (the Hadith) ; bringing people to God through wisdom and thanksgiving and not with the threats ... these are just some of the - truly revolutionary - proposals that a group of professors, theologians and Egyptian imams are putting to their communities. The attempt to modernize the lives of Muslims, to put a halt to (and even stop) the fundamentalist influences that come from Saudi Arabia. The group of scholars holds the renewal of Islamic teaching at heart, as well as a relationship of harmony with Christians.

A score of intellectuals and theologians of Al Azhar have issued a text of enormous importance, entitled "Document for the renewal of religious discourse." The text was "posted" on the Internet on 24 January at 18:27, on the website of the weekly magazine Yawm al-Sâbi''("The Seventh Day"). The importance of the document also derives from its signatories, all noted scholars and profoundly committed Muslims.

Among these it is worth mentioning: Dr. Nasr Farid Wasel, former Grand Mufti of Egypt, the imam Safwat Hegazi, Dr. Gamal al-Banna, brother of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, the professors Malakah Zirâr and Âminah Noseir the celebrated Islamist writer Fahmi Huweidi; Dr. Mabruk Atiyyah, a large number of preachers (du'ât), responsible for Islamic Propaganda, such as Khalid al-Gindi, Muhammad Hedâyah, Mustafa Husni, etc..

It is the first time that such an attempt has been made by recognized Islamic figures. On being posted, the document received 153 comments in the same day. The majority (88.25%) condemned the text, saying it distorts Islam or tries to establish a new religion. Only 18 people congratulated the authors. This means that the path of renewal will be long and require much time and effort.

The original text of the document (in Arabic) and comments can be found at: http://www.youm7.com/News.asp?NewsID=343007.

Here we publish a draft translation of the document, which will probably need to be reviewed. In the coming days we will also comment on some of the proposals.

1. Review the books of the Hadith (the words attributed to Muhammad) and Koranic commentaries to purge them.

2. Fine tune Islamic political-religious vocabulary, such as the gizyah (the special tax required of dhimmi, the second-class citizens).

4. Develop the Islamic vision of women and find suitable ways for marriage laws.

6. Explain the Islamic concept of gihâd, and clarify rules and requirements that govern it.

7. Block attacks on external piety and foreign practices that come from neighbouring states [a euphemism that aims to expose the influence of Saudi Arabia-ed.]

9. Purify the heritage of the "first centuries of Islam (Salafism), discarding the myths and attacks against religion.

10. Give adequate preparation to missionary preachers (du'ât) and in this field open the doors to those who have not studied at the University of Al Azhar, according to clear criteria.

12. Eliminate incorrect practices and provide guidance with regard to Western ways.

13. Articulate the relationship that should exist between members of religions through schools, mosques and churches.

14. Redraw in a different way [adapted] to the West the presentation of the biography of the Prophet.

15. Do not keep people away from economic systems with the requirement not to deal with banks.

17. Combat sectarian claims, [underling] that the flag of Islam [must be] one. Invite people to come to God through gratitude and wisdom, not through threats.

19. Recognise the right of Christians [to have access] to important positions and [also] to the presidency.

20. Separate religious discourse from power and restore the bond with the needs of society

21. Establish the bond between the Da'wah (the call to conversion to Islam) and modern technology, satellite chains and the market for Islamic cassettes.

Muslim intellectuals and theologians draw the prospects for a change even in Islam: the value of women and fraternisation of sexes; rejection of fundamentalist Salafism, seeking a religion of the heart and freedom, against the formalism of the veil, the beard and abstruse ritual practices. And above all, they welcome secularism, the separation of Islam from politics.

The "document on the renewal of Islam" published by the magazine "The seventh day" (see 26/01/2011 Egyptian Imams and intellectuals: Renewing Islam towards modernity) is attracting great interest on the Internet. In one day alone it was published by at least 12,400 Arab websites. Each of these sites received many comments from the public.

We must clarify one point of which we received confirmation today: yesterday we attributed the document directly to 23 figures from the Islamic world. In fact, the 23 figures are not really signatories: the document was prepared by the magazine according to indications received from more than 23 people interviewed. For each of the 22 items listed there are also comments and explanations that make it clearer and more profound.

The importance of the document lies foremost in the themes indicated by the 23 scholars and the magazine's attempt to launch an interesting project of reform in Islamic discourse.

Of course, it is worrying to see that 88% are opposed to the document, with about 12% favourable. However among those who are against it, there are those opposed to just one or two points.

Another interesting aspect is that this project of reform of Islam was published Jan. 24, one day before the outbreak of demonstrations in Egypt. These protests have economic and political roots. This means that in addition to current politics, there is an intellectual current that is fed up with the Islam that has spread in the last 30 years in the country, an "externalized" Islam that puts the emphasis on external things (clothing, beard, veil, etc. ..). This shows that there is a global movement - both spiritual and political - in Egypt that wants to transform the country. And since it is a leading country in the Middle Eastern world, one can expect that the changes in act in Cairo will spread throughout the region. Perhaps the same demonstrations that are taking place on the streets of the capital will have an influence on this "externalized" Islam.

Take, for example, point 3, which talks about the fraternisation of the sexes. Their commentary states that the ulema should take into account the circumstances in which this takes place and ensure it is in accordance with sharia. If fraternisation of the sexes is a necessity, then there is no problem. But if there is no need, then it is bad. They cite an example: there are male and female students in university. Since this is a necessity of study, there is no problem in the fraternisation of male and female students. The same applies to the workplace. What is absolutely sinful is a man and a woman finding themselves alone, touching, hugging.

On the contrary, hardliners reject any form of fraternisation. In Saudi Arabia, male university students sit in front of the professor; female students are in another room, and follow the lesson via television monitor.

The reformist declaration, however, argues that Islam does not prohibit all contact between men and women. Such relationships are becoming problematic in Egypt because of a "Puritan" style which is increasingly becoming the norm. Some time ago, a fatwa issued by a doctor of Koranic law (faqih) caused quite a stir. In a television program, a woman explained that for work reasons she had to be in the same office with a man. But this was forbidden by Sharia, the woman could not resign and called for help. The ulema offered a solution: the woman should breastfeed her colleague. In response to the public's scandalised reaction, the ulema explained that by doing so her colleague would thus become "like a son" to the girl and so they could stay together in the office, without the risk of possible sexual relations (given their new familial "relationship"). The ulema defended himself from the public outrage by saying that "we must not judge with our emotions, but with the law." This fatwa gave rise to strong reactions in the Islamic world, so much so that the ulema was in danger of losing his job.

The sixth point is jihad (holy war). According to the reformers of the document, in Islam jihad is directed against occupiers of Muslim countries "Fight against those who fight against you in the way of Allah, but do not transgress," (Qur'an 2.190). In comments on this verse, it is clearly stated that it is forbidden to kill unarmed people, children, old people, women, priests, monks, houses of prayer. And they add: this vision - so modern - has been present in Islam for 1400 years.

The reformers, in this clarification, point out that jihad can only be defensive and only on Muslim lands. The problem arises when Muslims carry out jihad at the wrong time and in the wrong places (obviously it means that it is wrong to attack people in Europe for example, which is not "Islamic land").

When it is done, who can do it, where it can be done: the answer to these questions makes correct jihad from Islamic point of view. In this way the reformists condemn all Islamic terrorism, the attacks on the Church of Alexandria and Baghdad. It must be said that this interpretation of jihad is classic, but unfortunately there are very contrary interpretations that justify terrorism.

Section 7 explains the need to "stop attacks on outward piety and the use of foreign practices that come to us from neighbouring states". Those battling against this externalized Islam, says it is a new phenomenon, only 30 years old. This is due to the fact that many Egyptians went to work on the Arabian Peninsula and came back with foreign customs. The magazine explains that Egypt too has its own customs and ways of dressing for a few positions in Islam. But - they say - "we have recently begun to imitate the dress in the neighbouring countries [ in short Saudi Arabia - ed] with the long beard flowing to the chest, the long robe (jilbab), the veil .... Then arrived the obligation for women to use the niqab, the full veil as an expression of modesty". And they quote the Koran 24.30: "Tell the believing men that they should restrain their gaze and be chaste."

The document states that "the important thing is the modesty of the gaze." It is recalled that last year there were thousands of attacks on women not dressed in an Islamic way. "The exterior - explain the expert reformers - has now become the true religion. The appearance of piety has now become the model of the believer in Egypt, without questioning the purity of heart and chastity of the eye, which the niqab can not hide. "

These emphases are fundamental and very close to the Gospel. It is a new mystical inspiration that warns: you will not be able to save the purity of the relationship between men and women by the clothes they wear.

And they add: these people - who have brought ways of dressing from elsewhere - have divided families, playing one off against the other, because the men want to impose the veil and the women rejected it. "We are now - ends the comment - a nation that takes care of the outside and that is empty on the inside".

Section 8, on the division between religion and state, I believe to be the most important. The document uses the word 'almaniyyah, secularism. At the Synod on the Middle East we were afraid to use that word because it is commonly understood as "atheism", only indicating a secular enemy of religion and therefore to be rejected.

Instead, the document uses this very word. And it explains that this is based on the idea of separation between religion and state. Secularism - they say - should not be regarded as the opposite of religion; instead it needs to be seen as a safeguard against the political or commercial use of religion. "In this context - it claims - secularism is in harmony with Islam and secularism is therefore legally acceptable. The same can be said about the control of the (Islamic) activities of the State. "

At the same time it says: "All that distances religion from ordinary life is unacceptable." And it explains that it is necessary to affirm "the rights of God" and "the rights of the servant of God", namely human rights.

Atheistic secularism instead regards religion as a ball and chain and therefore demands absolute freedom. This secularism is opposed to Islam, which places certain limits. Those who want to choose faith must do so out of conviction and, therefore, accept the rules of religion, and can not play with them.

It is therefore claimed that there is a extremist secularism and a good one. On the Internet, this point on secularism attracts a lot of criticism. For example, the site "The guardians of the dogma" publish the following criticism. "Everyone must know that secularism means anti-religiosity, and that anti-religiosity is the fast track to atheism. Islam has to fight it, because secularism is the seed of all evil, etc. .. ".

This point, though much discussed, shows that Egypt is developing the concept of civil society, not immediately coinciding with the Islamic community.

Point 9 is also interesting. It demands the "purification of the patrimony of the 'early centuries of Islam' (Salafism), eliminating myths (khurâfât) and attacks against religion".

The document states that "liberty, equality, knowledge, justice and science are the most important values that the Koran brought to us when it was revealed 14 centuries ago. They are the same values on which the society formed by the Prophet in Medina was founded. They are clear values on which there is no conflict. These values can not be minimised. We have a great need for these great values, more than in the past. " And it adds: "Countries do not develop other than in accordance with these values and will have no Renaissance (nahda) except with the abolition of this Salafi heritage that should be considered a drag on Islamic society, in its relation to myths (= human inventions), or inventions of schisms, or aggressions of religion".

These statements tackle the stifling practices of fundamentalism (dress codes, the pure and the impure, laws, etc ...) head on, which wants to reproduce the society of the time of the Prophet. For a Salafi, for example, it is forbidden to sit on a chair because the prophet sat on the ground; it is forbidden to use common toothpicks, instead he must clean his teeth with a twig taken from a plant in Saudi Arabia (miswak)! With these criticisms, the document aims at reforming Islam pushing it towards a more spiritual religious momentum.

Judging from comments found on the Internet, we see that the great majority, contrary to the document, are prey to the external, traditional, formal, self-righteous Islam. There are still many intellectuals and religious thinking in a modern way, but they do not have the support of the institutions.

In the face of social unrest and pressures for change that are occurring in several countries of the Middle East and North Africa, we must say that Salafism is somehow a kind of "opium of the people", it focuses people's attention on external religious and secondary practices, regardless of the development, the well-being of society,. For their part, the political powers to leave be, provided they do not involve themselves in politics.

In Egypt, the political power is not a pure dictatorship, but to maintain power it allies itself, giving ever greater concessions to Salafism. The political power shows itself to be "Islamic" to avoid becoming an object of criticism of Salafism, or the Muslim Brotherhood. But each concession reinforces this exterior Islam and results in other, new concessions.

Is separatist group ULFA re-emerging in Indian state of Assam? Last Tuesday militants bombed a goods train and attacked a passenger bus wounding three people. All night passenger train services in the region have been suspended for five days following the incidents. The train carrying food grains was on its way from Lumding to Silchar in Assam. Police said the bomb planted beneath a culvert was triggered by a remote control device in North Cachar Hills district

Intelligence reports in Guwahati said six frontline separatist groups - ULFA, NDFB, MPLF, KLO, NLFT and TPDF based in Assam, Nagaland, Monipur and Tripura - called a boycott of the Republic Day and called for a general strike on the day. Thousands of army, police and paramilitary troopers stood guard in the northeast to foil militant attacks.

ULFA is preparing for renewed strikes under the leadership of all powerful commander-in-chief of Paresh Baruah. He is believed to have got safe sanctuaries along the Myanmar border and support from China. Paresh and his two top commanders Jibon Moran and Bijoy Das, alias Bijoy Chinese, are said to be in full control of the ULFA fighters. Fresh recruits trained in Yunun have returned in November. They are now camping at a place that ULFA shares with the United National Liberation Front (UNLF) in the Sagiang province of Myanmar. They are preparing to launch campaign against the government forces.

Support from China and its closed ally Myanmar to ULFA came under the context of changing geopolitical situation in the region. It is mainly India's growing strategic partnership with USA. Indo-US civil nuclear cooperation deal and subsequent moves have raised suspicion in Beijing of some kind of design against Tibet. About the same time, Awami League came to power in Bangladesh and launched a crackdown on the ULFA hideouts, ostensibly at the behest of New Delhi.

Taking advantage of China's annoyance at growing Indo-US strategic relationship and sensing imminent trouble for them in Bangladesh, Paresh dashed to Beijing to a glowing reception. Highly placed sources in ULFA in Assam confirmed his moves giving details with specific dates to a Guwahati-based journalist which was carried by TEHELKA.COM last week.

They say before the crackdown on ULFA hideouts in Bangladesh, ULFA C-in-C Paresh Baruah, Manipur's Peoples' Liberation Army (PLA) chairman Irengbam Bhorot and All Tripura Tiger Force (ATTF) chairman Ranjit Deb Barma had at least three meetings with senior Chinese military intelligence officials. That was the time when China had started resenting India's growing strategic alliance with US. Baruah used the situation to his advantage and sent some cadres of ULFA and PLA to China's Yunnan province for training.

Baruah flew to Kumming and had two meetings with Chinese military officials between 13 and 17 February 2009. On 23 May 2009, he went from Bangkok to Beijing and was in the Chinese capital for nearly a week. The Chinese military intelligence directorate assured him of all help in the wake of a large-scale crackdown in Bangladesh. Sources claim it was through Baruah that the outlawed Communist Party of India CPI (Maoists) got Chinese weapons.

ULFA insiders have confirmed that a batch of 80 odd ULFA and PLA rebels had left for China in three batches in June 2009. They underwent training of guerrilla warfare in Tinsum in Yunnan. The trained guerrillas returned to their bases along the Myanmar border couple of months ago.

Meanwhile, ULFA chief Arabinda Rajkhowa and few other top leaders of the outfit were arrested in Bangladesh. They have now been set free on bail for peace talks with the government. Arabinda is set to hold meeting of the ULFA executive council for adopting decision of unconditional peace talks.

As Arabinda was preparing for the executive council meeting, Paresh Baruah this week sent out a message to the people of Assam along with a photograph through the media of Assam, presumably to frustrate the pro-talks group. He said he was not opposed to talks with the government but it has to be with agenda of independence of Assam from India for which thousands of Assamese have made supreme sacrifice. The photograph showed him flanked by the hardcore commanders Jibon Moran and Bijoy Das with a galaxy of fighters in high military gear.

It came at a time when the government has been preparing for peace talks with divided ULFA group led by Arabinda Rjkhowa. Trumpeting peace talks the government facilitated those still in underground to join the talks. But analysts are sceptical about its success without Paresh Baruah taking part. ULFA general secretary Anup Chetia will also be absent from the talks. Completing his jail term in Bangladesh years ago Chetia had declined to return to India fearing for his life and sought for political asylum. He had also appealed to the United Nations for his security. New Delhi has been pressuring Dhaka to hand over him immediately. But Assam chief minister has assured the pro-peace talks group that Chetia will be made available by May.

Assam Gano Parishad, opposed to the ruling Congress government in Assam, said the so-called peace talks are eye wash on the eve of election to the state legislative assembly. It viewed that Arabinda now in his 60s and his associates are long detached from the movement. Enjoying easy and cosy life in Bangladesh hideouts they have become paranoid, lost the revolutionary zeal and spirit.

The message of Paresh Baruah is loud and clear. He has threatened to prove that the outfit's striking capacity is far from finished. Some of the pro-talks group leaders are heard whispering that New Delhi has made a mistake by sidelining Paresh Barua in adopting 'minus one' formula.

Leading agriculture columnist, Devinder Sharma, talks to OneWorld South Asia about globalisation, the next steps for MGNREGA and how he thinks rampant corruption has fuelled India's economic growth.

OneWorld South Asia: Could you elaborate on the most pressing concerns of the farm crisis and its reasons?

Devinder Sharma: The biggest and the most fundamental crisis farms face is the low economic viability of the farms. The issue is not how much growth we have in agriculture, which we go on talking about. The country has to come out of the obsession we have on agricultural growth. The critical issues are still the low farm incomes. If you look nationally, the National Sample Survey Organisation, last worked out the farm income of an average Indian in 2003-2004 per month. As a nation, they worked out that the average monthly farm income was Rs 2,115 per family. Only three states are above this – Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab, Tamil Nadu meaning the rest of the country is below the poverty line. If this is true, the real thrust of any economic thinking should be how to boost farm incomes.

Internationally speaking, the UNCTAD report says that the farmgate price has been made static for the last 20 years. If you adjust for inflation, the price the farmer gets for any commodity is the same as that received 20 years back. With this kind of crisis, when the input prices have been going down and the output prices are stagnant, its obvious that everything is going wrong and everything is going topsy-turvy. Once this kind of vicious cycle operates, what the rich countries (OECD) have done is, having known that farm incomes are not going to rise; they have started providing support to farmers through direct income support. According to the area they own and the crop they produce, they get what is called assured price as a direct income support. That is what is keeping the farmers alive in Europe and America and other rich countries. Whereas, in the developing countries, we have thought that the food inflation will be in favour of the farmers who will get better price for their output. However, in the last 40 years, i.e. after the green revolution, we notice that the average farm income is going down. If the average farm income was 2115 in 2003-2004, now, in 2011, it will be roughly Rs 2400. With such low farm incomes in India, we cannot expect agricultural production to go up. I think the question we need to ask is, how long do you expect these poorly fed farmers to feed the country.

DS: I don’t see any positive developments in the societies concerned for the farmers to get out of this economic crisis that they are faced with. Normally, what we see is that any calamity becomes an opportunity for business. So, this is being used by the corporates to bring in contract farming, bring in corporate agriculture, allow FDI in multi-brand retail. So, its obvious that the corporate sector is trying to “exploit” the desperate conditions that exist in agriculture for their own benefits and not for the benefit of the farmers.

Like, multi-brand retail has not helped farmers anywhere in the world. In India, what we are trying to project is through a faulty and biased analysis that multi-brand retail can pull agriculture out from its crisis. Now, this is scandalous. In USA, there are only 7,00,000 farmers left on the farm now and around 70,00,000 people in jail, bail or parole. The biggest retail giant, Wal-Mart is in America, all the farmers there, are on computers, yet the farm incomes aren’t going up. It still requires pumping in direct agricultural support or subsidies for agriculture. No country wants to pump in money for agriculture, especially to give income to the farmers. But, if a country is doing so, it means that the Wal-Mart model hasn’t worked, the commodity and futures trading has not worked. The 2008 Farm Bill that America has adopted has $307bn subsidies both in the form of direct support and subsidies for agriculture. So, we are borrowing the failed model of agriculture in the name of growth from US. The situation is no different in Europe. Despite Tesco and Wal Mart, a farmer quits agriculture each minute. Farm incomes are dwindling everywhere in the world and farmers want to get out of agriculture.

OWSA: Successive governments have been blamed for the state of agriculture in India today. But what drives the government to behave in this manner?

Devinder: Ever since we became “self sufficient” in food grain production, we have become too complacent. We have started believing that food is something which can be bought off the shelf. We need not worry about the farmers. India has 600 million farmers. Together with China, we make half of the world’s farming population. The model of agriculture followed in India is not exactly similar to what is being followed in America and European Union. In India, we need an agricultural model where farming is economically viable and sustainable. This can be done if we put our heads together to ensure that we don’t borrow flawed models of agricultural development from the West. Instead we create our own models of agricultural development.

Devinder: Yes it is. The entire scientific and economic thinking is driven by Western thoughts and designs. If you look at the agricultural research infrastructure in India, we have the second biggest research infrastructure in the world in the public sector. These universities are set up under the Land Grant System of education in America. This was tailored and anchored in the American model. This is the American model of agriculture and we are made to believe that if we want to free agriculture from the monsoon grab, we need to follow it. If this is what is been taught to us year after year, the scientists would genuinely believe that there is nothing good in India. So, we have no other option but to follow agricultural models in Europe and America. As a result, we have brought in technologies that were not relevant to India which were not sustainable on a long term. But we failed to make necessary corrections.

Let me give you an example. India is a land of holy cows. We have around 300 million cows which mean that the major population of the cows of the world is in India. We have been made to believe that our cows are unproductive and sub-standard. Over the last 40 years, ever since green revolution has been completed, through operation flood and all, milk production has gone up substantially. We have employed cows from outside India – like the Jersy cows. We have bought so much stress for these animals, both biotic and a-biotic that the farmer has to pay additional cost to keep these animals on the farms. Because the exotic breeds of the cattle is not adaptable to Indian conditions. So, we have failed to recognize the potential of our own cows. You will be surprised to know that Brazil has become the greatest exporter of Indian cows. Gir, a cow from Gujrat, if you look at Gir’s performance in milk outputs, they are far better than other exotic breed of foreign cows. I am shamed to say that we have forgotten our Gir. Had we tried to focus on our indigenous cows, they wouldn’t be on the streets today.

So, we have made a mistake by employing foreign technology and ignoring our own indigenous potential. And in agriculture, unless we start looking in wards, we will not be able to address the issue of food crisis, sustainability.

OWSA: Its not like there was no corruption pre-liberalisation. But the current discourse stresses only on the post liberal policies as if they are the only ones to blame for the state India is in.

Devinder: Many believe that the country is growing economically because the GDP is going up. So, the GDP is the touchstone to growth and development. So, the argument is the more would be GDP, the less would be hunger and poverty. This is a total illusion that the economists have created. Mehboob-ul-Haq the former finance minister of Pakistan and the author of the HDR, once told me that he got a rude shock. He believed that a growing GDP was sure answer to poverty and hunger. When he was the finance minister of Pakistan, the average growth rate in Pakistan then was 7% which is phenomenal at that time. And yet their party lost in the next elections. So, it wasn’t GDP which made an impact on people’s income or their development at large.

So, in my understanding, what has brought about “prosperity” in India is corruption. We are a corrupt nation, all of us know that. If every second man is corrupt in this country, then where is the money going which is raised through corruption? My understanding is, the economic growth in India is as a result of corruption. The economists are reluctant to accept this because then, the entire economic theory collapses.

So, its not because of the boom in the IT sector or a booming BPO sector that has fuelled the growth of the nation but is actually corruption. Out of 1.2 billion people in India today, only 2 million people are employed in the IT and the BPO sector. What about the rest of the country? This theory doesn’t translate into the high growth of the nation today.

My idea of prosperity is that the more you are corrupt, the more prosperous you will be. This is a challenge I throw to the economists.

This isn’t the case only with India. All developing countries as well as rich countries like America and European nations are plagued with corruption. The only difference is that the average people aren’t affected by corruption but only the top echelons are.

Corruption is also a by product of globalisation. A country like Switzerland is built entirely on the foundations of black money. Nobody has ever questioned the economics of Switzerland. The country should go down in the history as a corrupt nation which has built its entire economy on black money.

So, I am not saying that corruption should be encouraged but corruption in the name of economic growth should be stopped immediately.

OWSA: Is this the case only with India? What is the status in countries like China, Brazil?

Devinder: China is worse. One of the studies which came out recently says the black money invested in “ safe havens “ abroad, China is over $300 billion in 2010-2011 whereas in India its $28 billions. China is still worse because there is no freedom to debate in the country that the citizens will ever come to know.

Globalisation has brought the rich and the crooked all over the globe on a single platform. Every country is polarized. Each country has a north, each country has a south. The “Norths” of all the countries have come together. That is called globalisation.

OWSA: Given your extensive work in the rural areas, what is your opinion about the implementation of MGNREGA. Do you consider it a failure or success or an in-between?

Devinder: Well. NREGA was a very good idea but not implemented well. When you do things in a hurry, you try to push in wrong systems which are not implementable. We should have known from the very beginning that this will not work. The simple reason being when you have a structure which is completely corrupt, you can be sure that the money will be shared by intermediaries rather than true beneficiaries. If you look at NREGA, the real beneficiaries are the people in the chain who get the money to distribute to the poor. So, they become the actual beneficiaries.

NREGA was conceived with all good intentions. But it was difficult to understand amid distortions. Also, it should have been complimented by policies which would have brought about an inclusive approach to lets say, agriculture. Due to NREGA, there has been a shortage of labourers on the agricultural farms. As a result, the labour costs have risen driving the cost of production too. Unless we try to ensure that the cost of labour is included in the cost of production of cereals, it must be ensured that farmers should be compensated for the extra cost of production.

Thus, the implementation has been done half heartedly. So, if we need to take the next step and see how effective it has been, whether things at the ground have been improving. Why can’t we dissolve the intermediaries? Why can’t we ensure that the money goes directly to the beneficiaries?

Devinder Sharma is an Indian journalist, writer, thinker. He is well-known and respected for his views on food and trade policy. Trained as an agricultural scientist, Sharma has been the Development Editor of the Indian Express.

The Peace by Peace Cotton Project in Orissa implemented by Chetna Organic in partnership with Felissimo Corporation, Japan is strengthening the fair trade and organic movement by helping farmers go back to nature to grow better, trade better, and profit better.

When a teenager in Japan buys a nice outfit and pays a premium for it, we would not have much to comment. For this is usual.

But if the choice of the outfit is because it is made of 100% organic cotton, grown by a farmer some 4000 miles away in an Indian village, then we have some reason here to take notice. For this is organic and fair trade advocacy working at its best!

It is easy to understand people’s preference of organic food for obvious health reasons. But when it comes to ‘organic clothes’, the choice here is more than just fashion; it indicates an emerging trend in ‘responsible shopping’.

And while we laud shoppers who buy organic, we should also give due credit to those marketers, who have succeeded in making organic a “cool” and viable option in the market.

A leading catalogue retailer, the Felissimo Corporation, is bringing responsible fashion to the Japanese market through its designer prêt line that is made from 100% fair trade organic cotton. Simultaneously, Felissimo is supporting a social intervention, Peace by Peace Cotton, which is promoting organic farming and fair trade in India.

The Peace by Peace Cotton project was started in 2010 in collaboration between Felissimo Corporation, Chetna Organic & Fair Trade Cotton Intervention Program to help small-holder, marginalised cotton farmers in India improve their livelihood options by making their farming systems more sustainable & profitable through organic farming, and opening access for them to an international market for organic cotton.

The programme is being implemented by Felissimo in the Kalahandi and Bolangir districts in the eastern state of Orissa. Chetna Organic Farmers Association and Felissimo Corporation have been facilitated in their collaboration by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

Under the Peace by Peace Cotton intervention, Felissimo provides transitional support to farmers to convert completely into organic farming. It also provides much needed educational support to farmers’ children by awarding scholarships to meritorious and needy students, and encouraging their enrollment in schools.

Presently Chetna Organic is assisting near 3000, predominantly tribal, small holder cotton farmers in Orissa to completely transit to organic farming. Of the 3000 farmers, approximately 2300 have completely converted to organic farming, while 700 farmers are in the In-Conversion Stages I and II, which are the two preceding stages to becoming a fully certified organic producer.

Felissimo presently supports 587 of these organic farmers, and targets covering a total number of 1317 organic farmers in the next two years.

Felissimo supports Chetna in taking up interventions on technical research, and establishing eco-centres to demonstrate integrated farming systems and compost pits, as part of socio-technical extension activities in the community to strengthen knowledge, training and hand-holding support for farmers on organic farming, and facilitate appropriate market linkages for them.

The farmers, supported by Felissimo, have been associated with Chetna under the aegis of its Organic & Fair Trade Supply Chain Intervention, which was started in response to the agrarian crisis of the late 1990s in India that took lives of many farmers, particularly cotton cultivators.

Cotton as a cash crop is extremely prone to fluctuations, both in climate as well in the market. While it fetches good cash returns, cotton has over time become highly dependent on expensive inputs to stay profitable.

Chetna Organic therefore seeks to wean away farmers from conventional, high-input dependant farming practices that cause much harm to land and ecology due to use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and replace it with farming that goes back to nature without any use of synthetic pesticides, fertilizers or GMOs.

Over the past years, Chetna has achieved success in bringing more and more farmers to the organic fold. Farmers are motivated by the long standing benefits of organic farming which shows results in better quality of the crops, a healthier soil environment, lower or negligible input costs, and better market prices.

However, notwithstanding all its benefits, organic farming is yet not widely taken up, as it entails an initial dip in crop productivity in the initial years, and is more labour intensive.

Chetna therefore has a mandate to continuously engage with the farming community to provide them socio-technical support at all levels - from the sowing to the harvesting stage – so that farmers who have converted to organic farming, stay with organic farming.

Felissimo’s Peace by Peace Cotton intervention provides this critical transitional support to Chetna to support in-conversion farmers to smoothly convert into organic farming.

Under the Felissimo support programme, participatory learning methodologies are used to impart technical knowledge to farmers at every step of the cotton chain, and the farming process is closely monitored through an ‘Internal Control System’ to ensure compliance with relevant organic and fair trade certification standards.

Alongside farmers have been brought together and federated into self help groups and cooperatives to promote informed decision making, so that they don’t remain mere recipients in the supply chain but are empowered to own the entire process. The farmer cooperatives have today formed the Chetna Organic Agriculture Producer Company Ltd (COAPCL), which promotes and markets the certified organic and fair-trade products under its label across consumers in national and international markets.

Transitional support to farmers for their complete conversion to organic farming, and education support to their children are the two main components of the Felissimo Peace by Peace Cotton intervention.

Presently under the programme, 1317 farmer households in 10 villages in Golamunda and Bhawanipatna clusters in Kalahandi have been chosen for 100% transition to organic cultivation.

However Felissimo refuses any credit. “It is the buyer in Japan who supports organic, who is actually funding the programme,” says Tatsuya Kasai, Manager, Felissimo. “We only try to inform them how their purchase of organic contributes to a larger cause in India, and it is this advocacy that brings in more consumer support to Peace by Peace Cotton.”

Any farmer who adopts organic farming, needs continued assurance that he has made the right decision. It is not easy to transform practices that are now habit to farmers like, using pesticides.

Peace by Peace Cotton, through various socio-technical extension services for farmers, therefore provides them with ‘confidence support’ to keep them motivated in their decision.

The socio-technical activities include setting up demonstration models and plots to promote integrated farming systems and show how an entire farm plot can be judiciously exploited with natural inputs and complete re-use of farm waste.

Research plot in Sialjodi where long staple cotton varieties are being grown/ Photo credit: OWSA

OneWorld visited the Mathrubhumi Eco-Centre of the Mathrubhumi Swayam Sahayak Samabaya, a farmers’ producer cooperative at Mading Block, which is a demo-and-training plot, supported by Felissimo.

The plot demonstrates how an integrated farming environment can be promoted in a single plot of land with integrated fishery, cattle rearing and crop cultivation.

To promote other agricultural crops grown with cotton, like red gram, the eco-centre also has a dal processing unit, which ensures a post-harvest value addition to food crops as well.

Felissimo also supports Chetna for research and development of different varieties of seeds, development of research and trial plots for crops, and composting and soil fertility enhancement training.

At the Sialjodi village, in Golamunda Block, Chetna has a trial plot to demonstrate how organic cotton cultivation is to be carried out.

Coloured pots with natural pest attracting chemicals serve as traps for pests, and there is no need for synthetic pesticides to be used.

On another research plot in the same village, new varieties like Varlakshmi and DCH 32 are being trialed to develop long staple cotton varieties.

Chetna farmer Gangaram Patel shows off integrated farming in his plot/ Photo credit: OWSA

Gangaram Patel in Sialjodi village is a Chetna farmer who has implemented integrated farming in his two acre plot.

He points to the mixed crop of vegetables and fruits and shares how he does not need to buy any fertilizer or pesticide, as everything needed for his farm is produced in the farm.

He treats guests with papaya and smiles knowingly when told his papayas taste better than any in the market.

After harvest, the cotton is ginned to separate the fibers from the seeds. This process is now mechanised in a gin plant, where huge clouds of cotton undergo ginning and processing to come out as bales for export. To avoid contamination, organic cotton is ginned separately from conventional cotton.

The cotton is labeled in a manner so that even when it comes out from the gin, it can be traced up to the level of the farmer who has produced it!

Most poor farmers are unable to support their children’s education, as a result of which a large number of students drop out of school, and are found in the fields, working with their parents rather than in the classroom.

To reverse this trend and help poor farmers send their children for studies, Peace by Peace Cotton is giving education support through scholarships to needy, meritorious students.

The focus is on girl students who are provided a scholarship of Rs. 7500 for a year to support their education.

The farmers groups formed under Chetna have also been mobilised to promote education of children, their retention in schools and to prevent child labour in the field. An enrollment campaign under the programme has targeted to ensure 100% enrollment of children in schools in all the villages covered under Peace by Peace Cotton.

Rita, an eleventh standard student from Sialjodi is one of the scholarship awardees of Felissimo.

She tries to hide her excitement as she talks to OneWorld, and shares her plans to buy a cycle with the scholarship money so the journey to college becomes easier. She also plans to invest this money to learn a computer course, which will help her later in getting a job.

Chetna and Felissimo share a vision for an empowered farming community in India that takes its own decisions, owns and manage its livelihoods sustainably, while at the same time is creating a model for a profitable, responsible and earth-friendly business.

This is summed up by Eisaku Kojima, Manager, Felissimo Corporation when he elaborates the Peace by Peace Cotton vision to build a world, where a fair and eco-friendly organic movement brings holistic profits and benefits to all – right from the farm producers to the consumers – and also pays back to create a healthier and happier mother earth.

The Supreme Court of India today withdrew its comments about religious conversion amid rights groups and Christian leaders expressing concern over such comments.

On Jan. 21, while delivering judgment on the murder of missioner Graham Staines, it said the missioner was killed because he was engaged in religious conversion.

The court Suo Motto repelled those wordings that were "unconstitutional," said lawyer Sister Mary Scaria who practices in the Supreme Court.

The repelled paragraph of the judgment says Staines and his two minor sons were burnt to death while they were sleeping inside a station wagon at Manoharpur, Orisa state, with an "intention to teach a lesson to Graham Staines about his religious activities, namely, converting poor tribals to Christianity. All these aspects have been correctly appreciated by the High Court and modified the sentence of death into life imprisonment with which we concur."

The court has "in effect de-legitimized" the constitutional right to propagate one's religion, said Mahendra Parida, an activist in Orissa.

The court made the remarks while upholding the life sentence given to the killers of the Australian Evangelical missioner in Orissa in 1999.

The prosecution had sought the death sentence for Ravindrapal Singh who led a mob that torched Staines and his two young sons.

Indian laws allow the death penalty only for the "rarest of the rare" cases and the Supreme Court agreed with the defense that Singh committed the crime to teach the missioner a lesson for indulging in conversion among tribal people.

Parida, a Hindu lawyer working among tribal people in Orissa, says the court stand "is disturbing and dangerous" and would embolden Hindu radicals who spread the misconception that Christians use social service as a façade to convert the poor.

Kedar Mishra, a journalist in Orissa, says the court's remarks contradicted the constitution that allows a person to profess, practice and propagate one's religion.

Shubhankar Ghosh, who looks after the works started by Staines, terms conversion as "a misnomer" since a federal commission that probed the Australian's murder could find no evidence of conversion.

Bishop Thomas Thiruthalil of Balesore says the conversion charge is "a well-planned misinformation and excuse for dastard and diabolic attacks on Christians."

Bishop Sarat Chandra Nayak of Berhampur quoted media reports indicating Hindu radicals' plan to create "thousands" of Singhs to counter conversion in Orissa.

Reverend Pradeep Das, who has worked with Staines for a decade, denied the Australian had indulged in conversion. "It is quite painful to hear such remarks," he told ucanews.com.

Joseph Dias, a Catholic lay leader in Mumbai, says the judges' "inconsiderate statements" have hurt "law abiding" citizens and encouraged those indulging in hatred, violence and murder.

The price of chilly pepper has increased by 120%, fruits and vegetables have skyrocketed. Fishermen grounded by extreme weather, rice production is not enough to feed the entire population. The Government speaks of serious "threat"; economists promote research.

Climate change and "extreme" weather conditions are likely to cripple the food industry in Indonesia. This danger has been confirmed by the Minister for National Development Planning, who speaks of serious "threat" to the nation's food supply. The chilly pepper has reached exorbitant prices, the cost of fruit and vegetables increases continuously, even the quantity of fish has fallen while rice production is not sufficient to meet the needs of the population.

The alarm bell has been triggered by the soaring price of chilly peppers, a staple of the Indonesian diet, from simple aperitif to part of the main meal. Peaking at 120%, the price of one kg now costs more than 100 thousand rupees (about nine dollars). The phenomenon could soon affect the entire fruit and vegetables sector, because of the general decline in harvests, heavy rains or droughts. The crisis is also affecting the fishing industry, with millions of fishermen grounded due to bad weather and high seas, with waves more than four meters high. In Tuban, in the most popular area for fishing in the province of East Java, high tides have destroyed dozens of boats.

The food crisis in Indonesia is further certified by the lack of rice, the prices of which has risen to the point of forcing families to eat twice a day instead of the traditional three. In 1984, the policies of President Suharto led the country to achieve self-sufficiency in production. Today, the annual consumption is more than 33 million tons, but domestic production is not enough. The National Logistics Agency (Bulog) confirmed 820 thousand tons of rice imports from Thailand, a volume four times greater than the estimated quota.

Minister for National and Development Planning, Armida S. Alisjahbana, states that the extreme events in climate change have become a serious "threat" to national food security in 2011. Economists and experts in the food industry have urged the government to a greater commitment to research in new technologies and increasing crops, so far limited to Java.

Ceremony for Pierre (Peter) Buntha Silaphet supposed to take place on December 12 but was postponed for nearly two months. The small Catholic community celebrates the Lao in his hometown, Van Phnom, ordination held in Takhek, 800 km further south. Fr. Pierre will help the vicar apostolic Fr. Tito Banchong left alone after the expulsion of foreign missionaries in 1975.

The first ordination in forty years in northern Laos will be celebrated on January 29, 2011. It was to have been held December 12, 2010 but was delayed by almost two months. The new priest, Pierre (Peter) Buntha Silaphet, is thirty years-old, was born in Phnom Van (Sayaboury - Northern Laos) and belongs to the K'Hmù ethnic group. A coincidence that the Catholic community in Laos judges providential, Pierre's Lao name is "Buntha," as that of the last ethnic K'Hmù priest, ordained in Luang Prabang February 22, 1970: 41 years ago, by Msgr. Alessandro Staccioli, vicar apostolic from February 1968 to 1975. In that year the government decided to expel all foreign missionaries, who were refused the right of return. Since then Fr. Tito Banchong, after the expulsion of foreign priests, has remained alone in the Vicariate, and understandably was overjoyed to give the announcement of this new ordination.

The small Catholic community will celebrates with Pierre Buntha when he returns to his native village of Phnom Van (Sayabouri), after his ordination, which will take place in Takhek, 800 km further south The ordaining bishop is Mgr. Marie-Louis Ling, Apostolic Vicar of Pakse, an ethnic K'hmù like Buntha.

The new diocesan priest belongs to one of the families evangelized between 1960 and 1975 by Father Pierre Marie Bonometti, Omi, in Ban Houei Thong in the province of Luang Prabang.

The apostolic administrator, Mgr. Tito Banchong, received all the necessary permits from the authorities to celebrate this event. Unofficially, it has been made clear to those involved that the ordination ceremony must not attract too much attention, and instead take the form of a village holiday. Since 1975, the Vicariate of Luang Prabang has been without a cathedral, but only small chapels around the country. The government is closely monitoring the activity of church life and Christian minorities. The Catholic Church is present across the four apostolic vicariates: Luang Prabang, Pakse, Savannakhet and Vientiane. There are 39,725 Catholics, representing 0.65% of the Lao population.

Palestinian negotiators offered in 2008 to cede vast swathes of annexed east Jerusalem in peace talks with Israel, Al-Jazeera news channel reported, citing "secret documents."

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat, however, questioned on the Doha-based channel, said the Palestinian leadership had "nothing to hide" and dismissed most of the report as "a pack of lies."

Al-Jazeera said the Jerusalem areas offered were where Jewish settlements have been built, including French Hill, Ramat Alon and Gilo, as well as the Jewish Quarter and a part of the Armenian Quarter in Jerusalem?s Old City.

Israel, the Arab satellite channel added, offered nothing in return for what it called the "historic concession" from the Palestinians, in the documents which Britain's The Guardian newspaper said it was also leaking.

Al-Jazeera said the concessions came at a June 2008 meeting in Jerusalem between Condoleezza Rice, then US secretary of state, then Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni and ex-Palestinian premier Ahmad Qorei, and Erakat.

"This last proposition could help in the swap process," Qorei is quoted as saying in the "Palestine Papers."

"We proposed that Israel annexes all settlements in Jerusalem except Jabal Abu Ghneim (Har Homa)," he said in the documents, as cited by the news channel.

"This is the first time in history that we make such a proposition; we refused to do so in Camp David," he added, referring to the US-hosted 2000 Camp David peace talks attended by late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

But "the Israeli side refused to even place Jerusalem on the agenda, let alone offer the PA (Palestinian Authority) concessions in return for its historic offer," the report said.

Qorei told Livni at the June 2008 meeting, however, there would be no concessions on Jewish settlements in the West Bank, according to the Palestine Papers.

The report comes as world powers seek ways to haul Israel and the Palestinians back to the negotiating table after direct peace talks broke down last September in a dispute over Jewish settlements.

The United States on Sunday said it was reviewing the "alleged Palestinian documents."

"We cannot vouch for their veracity," said State Department spokesman Philip Crowley in a Twitter post.

The Palestinians refuse to resume negotiations while Israel builds on land they want for a future state of their own.

In what it termed "shocking revelations," Al-Jazeera said it had obtained more than 1,600 internal confidential documents from a decade of US-brokered peace negotiations.

"We are offering you the biggest Yerushalayim in Jewish history," chief negotiator Erakat is quoted as telling Livni, using the Jewish name for the Holy City.

Erakat also offered concessions on the status of Jerusalem's Temple Mount, which houses the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site in Islam, according to the Palestine Papers.

On refugees, he is said to have offered to accept the return of only 100,000 out of the Palestinians who fled at the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948 and their descendants, now numbering almost five million.

"We have not gone back on our position. If we had given ground on the refugees and made such concessions, why hasn't Israel agreed to sign a peace accord?" he asked.

Observers said the Al-Jazeera report revealed little new as details of the land swap proposals had long been an open secret.

In Britain, The Guardian said on its website that the cache of confidential Palestinian documents obtained by Al-Jazeera was to be "shared exclusively" with the daily.

The documents also show how PA leaders had been "privately tipped off" about Israel's 2008-2009 war against the Gaza Strip ruled by the Islamist movement Hamas, the paper said.

"The overall impression... is of the weakness and growing desperation of PA leaders as failure to reach agreement or even halt all settlement temporarily undermines their credibility in relation to their Hamas rivals."

The Guardian said "the papers also reveal the unyielding confidence of Israeli negotiators."

The leaked documents were "drawn up by PA officials and lawyers working for the British-funded PLO negotiations support unit and include extensive verbatim transcripts of private meetings," it said.

The credibility of the Palestinian Authority (PA) on the Arab street has been further weakened by the release of the 'Palestine Papers', but ironically the release of the explosive documents by Al Jazeera could bolster support for the Palestinian cause internationally.

The Palestine Papers describe the compromises the Palestinian Authority (PA) was prepared to make on key issues such as illegal Jewish settlements, the status of Haram al-Sharif (Temple Mount), refugees and the right of return, in addition to security co-operation with Israel.

The release of these papers has now been followed by data through Wikileaks that suggest that the PA has been engaged in extensive cooperation with the Israelis.

But while the release of documents that point to a strong Palestinian push to make compromises in negotiations could garner global support for the theoretical establishment of a Palestinian state, it appears that practical facts on the ground by way of settlement building have rendered a two-state solution to the protracted Palestinian-Israeli conflict null and void.

The only viable option, many analysts agree, is ultimately an egalitarian, non- racist one-state solution for Palestinians and Israelis living together.

"Despite the crowing of the PA's critics in light of the enormous damage and embarrassment the documents' release has caused the PA, stronger international support could be another outcome," Dr Samir Awad from Birzeit University near Ramallah told IPS.

"As international sympathy for the Palestinian cause continues to grow, against a background of Israel's most right-wing, and some argue, most racist government to date, Israeli intransigence in the negotiations, and its repeated claims that it has no peace partner in the Palestinians, have been fully exposed as bald-faced lies."

Israeli analyst Aluff Benn concurred when he commented in the Israeli daily 'Haaretz', "The documents show that contrary to the 'no-partner' image perpetuated by Israelis, the Palestinians were holding serious negotiations on the borders of their future state and produced a detailed map of territorial exchanges in the West Bank and neighbourhood partitions in East Jerusalem."

"It is entirely possible that the dramatic leak may have a boomerang effect that will see increased support for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who is being portrayed as wrongfully persecuted," said Israeli commentator Avi Issacharoff.

"Despite initial fears, it's likely that the release of the Palestine papers by Al- Jazeera and The Guardian will not bring about a political earthquake in the Palestinian Authority - or even a power struggle within Fatah," added Issacharoff.

These fears, and more, were voiced by PA officials who responded with fury in the media, slamming Al Jazeera in long monologues and accusing the Qatar- based station of having an agenda re the timing of the documents' release.

A group of young men - believed to be Fatah activists and possibly PA security force members - tried to break into Al Jazeera's Ramallah office, causing some damage before Palestinian police intervened. This is a tactic Fatah supporters have used before to attempt to create the impression that they were regular citizens angered by the PA's critics.

However, despite experts across the divide agreeing that, although weakened, the PA will ultimately survive the explosive disclosures, Israel's deliberate strategy of settlement building in the occupied West Bank seriously threatens the practicality of a Palestinian state.

"There was a brief window of opportunity for the successful implementation of a two-state solution several years ago. But Israel's continued settlement building in and around East Jerusalem and in the West Bank have made the possibility of the establishment of a contiguous Palestinian state impossible," says Awad.

Facts on the ground have changed dramatically since the Palestinian negotiators presented the "most generous offer ever" in regard to the borders of their future state.

Currently the West Bank is divided into three cantons and represents a Bantustan with bits and pieces of Palestinian areas surrounded by illegal Israeli settlements, while parts of East Jerusalem are isolated from the rest of the city by settlements.

The maps presented by the Palestinian negotiators, which were based on the Clinton peace plan and the Geneva Initiative, are no longer a geographic reality.

The Geneva Initiative map for example left one large illegal Israeli settlement of Har Homa in East Jerusalem in Israeli territory but the Palestinian maps marked the settlement on the Palestinian side of the border. Due to continued settlement construction Har Homa has grown and in future the Israelis want it included inside the borders of the Jewish state.

Another illegal settlement bloc Etzion, which is adjacent to Jerusalem, has also grown substantially and eats further away into Palestinian territory. This, analysts argue, was always the Israeli plan - to build extensively and strategically to establish facts on the ground and make a viable Palestinian state harder while peace talks dragged on.

The ultimate test will come in September this year, the date the PA has set for unilaterally declaring a Palestinian state.

"This declaration will have more to do with garnering global backing for the Palestinian cause even if it is not practical on the ground. The only alternative is eventually a one state solution where Jews and Arabs enjoy equality. But this will be preceded by a long and bloody struggle similar to South Africa," Awad told IPS.

John Mearsheimer, co-author with Stephen Walt of the widely acclaimed book 'The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy', stated that he believed the two- state solution was no longer possible.

"The next phase will be struggle for Palestinian rights within a 'greater Israel'" he says. A key element of that struggle will be inside the Jewish Diaspora, between those he terms "Righteous Jews", that is, those who favour universal human rights, and "the New Afrikaners" - those who will defend "greater Israel" no matter how it treats its Palestinian subjects.

The pumps at the petrol station opposite Shifa hospital read: "No Egyptian Fuel. Petrol for cars only"

More than a week of political unrest in Egypt has heightened the threat of a humanitarian crisis in neighbouring Gaza. Egyptian soldiers fled their posts on the northern border on 30 January, forcing the Rafah crossing - a critical valve for the 1.5 million Palestinians living in Gaza - to close.
Around 60 Palestinians, attempting to return home via Cairo when Gaza's southern border closed, are still being held in the "deportation room" at Cairo airport. Among them are six children and several critically ill patients who are running out of medication.
"The children don't know what's happening. Sometimes they're crying. It's very, very cold here; it's crowded and there is nowhere for us to wash," one of those being detained, who asked not to be named, told IRIN on 30 January.
Israel destroyed Gaza's airport during the second Intifada in 2002, and Gazans have few alternatives but to transit through Cairo airport, via Rafah. Since the militant group Hamas took control in 2007, Gazans need special security clearance to enter Egypt. Those with permits to travel abroad are taken directly to Cairo airport by bus where they are held until their flight departs. On the return leg they are held at the airport until they can be taken to the Rafah crossing.

Tunnels close
Israel's blockade of the region means Gaza depends heavily on goods smuggled through tunnels from Egypt - particularly fuel, cooking gas and building materials - but the ongoing instability in Egypt has caused these tunnels to close, severing a vital supply line.
"The problem is getting fuel to the border inside Egypt. There are no military forces on the Egyptian side of the border, so smugglers are getting hijacked on the road from Cairo and all their stuff stolen.
It's very dangerous for them," said taxi driver Farid Abdul El Rahman, who is running his car on the last of his Egyptian diesel.
"There is nothing coming through the tunnels now - I think the problem is only going to get worse," he said. Petrol has now run out entirely and the only fuel available is the limited amount coming from Israel at treble the price.
A fuel shortage in Gaza would not only mean no cars, but also no electricity. The blockade and severe damage to power stations during the 2009 conflict resulted in a chronic power shortage with up to six hours of electricity cuts every day. Gaza's homes and businesses rely on fuel-powered generators.
"I have to stock up like everyone else, as we have no idea when there will be petrol here again," said a senior judge, who asked not to be named because of his position, queuing with hundreds of people at one of the few petrol stations in Gaza City that still had fuel.

Egyptian regime change hope for Gaza
Ramallah - Possible regime change in Egypt, sparked by mass popular protests against President Hosni Mubarak since 25 January, could usher in a new leadership not as committed to maintaining the Gaza blockade, observers say.
Opening Rafah, the sole border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, to allow humanitarian supplies to enter Gaza could have an immediate impact on the livelihoods of 1.5 million Palestinians living there, according to UN agencies and officials from the Hamas-led government. Click here for the full report He said he was buying petrol for his home rather than his car. "We will have to use this preciously. It's dangerous having such a large amount of petrol in the house - if there's an air-strike, our house will be like a bomb - but we have no choice."

Hospitals affected
The major hospitals have stockpiles of fuel to power their generators, but the biggest, Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, has less than a week's supply in reserve. If the tunnels remain closed much longer, the situation will become critical.
Mohamed Abu Rahman, a senior nurse in the intensive care unit, said he was very concerned about the border closure. "This unit, especially, is entirely dependent on electricity. If there's a power cut we have to operate the ventilators manually before the generator kicks in," he told IRIN.
"There are power cuts here for four hours every day. It will be impossible to keep people alive without our generators - the monitors, the ventilators, everything - will be gone."
For some the situation is life threatening. Gaza suffers acute shortages of crucial medical equipment and medicines, which means many people, often those with serious conditions like cancer, must be referred abroad for treatment.
Every month around 500 Gazan patients are referred to Egypt. With the Rafah crossing closed indefinitely, the UN is looking into the possibility of transferring medical cases from Gaza through Israel, although the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) predicts at least 20 percent of patients will be refused on security grounds.
Bassam Abu Hamad, a senior health consultant in Gaza, warned that closure of the Rafah crossing was putting lives at risk: "People in need of radiotherapy, and advanced surgery in particular, are simply unable to get treatment," he said. "While Rafah is closed, we will see increased loss of life here in Gaza."

Price hikes
The prices of many consumer goods have rocketed since the tunnels closed. Cigarettes have gone up 25 percent, but the cost of vital building materials has doubled.
Much of Gaza is still in ruins after Israel's last invasion in 2009, which left 60,000 buildings damaged and more than 4,000 destroyed.
Israel's ban on importing cement, steel and gravel through its border posts means that any construction in Gaza has to rely on materials smuggled through the tunnels.
"Since the problems started in Egypt, the prices of cement and gravel have doubled - one ton of cement cost 520 new Israeli shekels [NIS - US$140] last week. Today, I bought a ton for 1,100 NIS [$296]," said Ashraf Al Aloul, a driver for an international NGO, one of thousands of Gazans in the process of building a home.
"Nobody here can afford to buy material at this price. I think all building work will stop while people wait to see what's going on."

About 500 Christians from different denominations in Loikaw, eastern Myanmar, have gathered to pray for Christian unity at at special cross on Loinapha mountain in Kayah state.

"We need to pray more for peace in the villages and even for the world, as the cross on the mountain resembles peace," said Father Petru Pii.

The 68-year-old Catholic priest from Loikaw diocese said Christians need to unite and work together for the villages' development. Conflicts between Catholics and Baptists in Kayah State that had its origin during 1947-50 should be forgotten, he said.

Father Pii said the Catholic Church and Baptist pastors decided to set up the big iron cross in December 1995 to symbolize peace. Since then, villagers have been praying together annually there.

The Church celebrates the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, an annual eight-day period observed from Jan. 18 to Jan. 25. At this time, Christians of various Churches come together to pray for the restoration of full unity among all Christian peoples.

After prayers at the foot of the mountain, young Christians climbed the slope to place candles and white flowers in front of the cross before scattering them to signify peace.

"Christian unity means all Christians live and act hand in hand according to their beliefs," said Father Pii.

He said Catholics and Baptists are no longer total strangers and are able to work together.

Reverend Saw Htoo War, a Kayan Baptist pastor, said they have made many achievements through the unity program.

There are no more criticisms and disputes among Christians and all villagers are ready to help one another, especially for the development of the villages, he said.

Christian unity implies working jointly to create understanding and be supportive while living together, said Reverend Htoo War.

Loinanpha mountain is 4,770 feet high and 28 kilometers south-west of Loikaw. The highland is surrounded by the villages of Kayah Catholics and Baptists.

A yet-to-be-released report by ILO reveals that despite a significant fall in the incidence of child labour in Nepal, there are still more girls than boys who are employed as laboureres. Absence of strict laws and unsatisfactory education system aggravate the problem.

One million fewer children are working in Nepal than a decade ago, though more girls are toiling in dangerous conditions than boys, according to a soon-to-be-published report documenting the country’s sizeable population of child labourers.

Nearly 24 percent of girls nationwide (or 911,000), compared to 17.5 percent of boys (or 688,000), perform work that qualifies them as labourers, according to an International Labour Organization (ILO) report.

Girls are 50 percent more likely to be involved in hazardous work - 373,000 girls, compared to 248,000 boys - exposing them to “significant” physical and psychological dangers, according to the study.

Madhav Pradhan, president of Child Workers in Nepal, a local child rights NGO, said traditional attitudes favour educating boys, who are seen as a family’s future breadwinners.

ILO estimates there are 7.7 million children aged 5-17 in Nepal. According to the group, 1.6 million of them perform work that qualifies them as child labourers by international legal standards - one million fewer than in 1999.

A violent decade-long standoff between the state army and Maoist insurgents pushed rural families to send their children to the safety of urban areas where they subsequently worked to support themselves, but the practice has declined since fighting stopped in 2006, say observers.

While girls bear the brunt of labour, there has been a marked decline in `kamlari’, outlawed in 2006, where parents loan their children - usually girls from the Tharu caste - as indentured workers to pay off a family debt, say rights groups.

Rights groups have tried to discourage the practice by giving poor families grants, and the government has pledged financial assistance, said Pradhan.

Aggravating the problem is the fact that most children do not receive an education beyond primary school, and lax law enforcement allows factories to employ many of them despite a national ban, said ILO.

Dozens of Somali migrants fleeing their country reportedly died in the past 24 hours in the Red Sea between war-torn Somalia and Yemen. According to the Somali Radio Shabelle, Abdulkadir Mohammed Ali, a Somali refugee in Yemen, the boats sailed from the coasts of Somalia's semi-autonomous state of Puntland and the Djibouti coast. Some of the migrants survived, managing to reach the Yemeni coasts. At least 43 African migrants died in early January crossing the perilous Gulf of Aden. Fleeing their lands, torn by conflicts, poverty and repression, many citizens of the Horn of Africa attempt the journey of hope to Yemen, which is the door to the Gulf nations and the West. The International Organisation for Migrants (IOM) recently observed some route changes of migrants, who in increasing numbers are heading toward Djibouti. [BO]

The Sri Lankan government spent a substantial $5.5 billion to defeat the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) during the final four years of war beginning 2006. The fourth Eelam War began in the middle of August 2006 and ended with the death of LTTE chief V Prabhakaran in May, 2009.

During this period, Sri Lanka’s defence budget rose steadily from $1 billion in 2006 to $1.7 billion in 2009.

On an average, around 4 percent of the country’s gross domestic product or GDP was spent on defence, Ajith N Cabraal, governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka revealed this week to a government panel investigating the last years of the civil war.

The expenditure that amounted to LKR 605 billion (5.5 billion US dollars) for four years included cost of aircrafts, ships, tanks, ammunition, other equipment, training, food for soldiers, uniforms, Cabraal told the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC).

(The country’s defence budget, however, has not been reduced after the end of war; currently, it is around $1.9 billion)

In his deposition to the LLRC, Cabraal said the rebels themselves maintained an ``efficient and often ruthless system of tax collection’’ and collected “taxes” in many forms: levies on goods, persons, activities besides ransoms for kidnappings and as consideration for “non-abduction.” Besides, the LTTE collected “In-kind contributions – supply of meals, services, houses, lands, organising of activities, gold and jewellery contributions.”

“The LTTE also operated its own network of banks and in fact, had its own `Central Bank’ in Kilinochchi (the rebels’ administrative capital in northern Sri Lanka),’’ the Cabraal told the LLRC.

The LTTE also had an international network to gather funds. One source, according to the Central Bank governor was “Contributions from various “legitimate” businesses owned by LTTE in many capitals across the world: eg. Petrol stations, grocery shops, video parlours, travel agencies, communication centres.’’

In his testimony, Cabraal also mentioned the 41 Central Bank employees who lost their lives as a result of the suicide attack on the Central Bank on January 31, 1996. At least 91 people were killed and more than 1400 injured in the attack.

In an interview with the BBC Tamil service, Dr Kasippillai Manoharan, father of Ragihar, one of the five students extra-judicially executed by Sri Lanka's military at the Trincomalee beach on January 2nd, 2006, said that Sri Lanka's judicial system is not capable and unwilling to provide justice and bring closure to his son's death, hence his initiating a civil suit in the U.S. He further told the BBC, five years have passed since his son's brutal killing, and he will use all judicial instruments now available to him outside Sri Lanka to bring his son's killers to justice. Dr Manoharan said he is convinced that Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapaksa has information on the killers but the President is unwilling to allow prosecution of military officers. Both Mr and Mrs Manoharan are prominent physicians who earlier practiced in Trincomalee.

A translation of the interview given in Tamil to the BBC Tamil Service Saturday (1/29/2011) follows:

Dr. Manoharan: Sri Lanka Government has not investigated my son's killing; it has failed to serve justice to us. While I don't have any personal animosity against Sri Lanka's President, he was the head of the State when my son was killed. He was the Commander-in-Chief for the armed forces who we believe killed our son.

Dr. Manoharan: We filed the civil case to seek a judgment on the murder of our son. We have been cheated repeatedly by the Sri Lankan authorities responsible for investigating the killing. First Commission of Inquiries (CoI) was formed by Colombo to investigate 15 different cases of human rights violations, including the Trincomalee killing of 5 students. The International Group that was monitoring the Commission quit in mid-stream accusing the CoI of conflict of interest and failing in its mandate. Now Sri Lanka has appointed the LLRC (Lesson Learnt and Reconciliation Commission). I have no faith in this new commission and have not given evidence before it. The case in US was triggered by these setbacks.

Dr. Manoharan: Every month during the last five years, the Court calls for hearings on my son's case, and postpones it for the following month citing that investigations have not been completed by the Sri Lanka police. In several cases Sri Lanka's President has taken initiative to move the case forward. In my son's case, I am absolutely certain Mr Rajapakse knows who the killers are. But he is hesitant to publicly admit his knowlege as he is reluctant to incriminate Sri Lanka security forces in the extra-judicial killings.

Dr. Manoharan: Since this is a civil case, we are seeking damages. But the case will also determine who the guilty parties are.

Dr. Manoharan: All three plaintiffs together are asking the court for US$30m award.

Dr. Manoharan: Since Mr Rajapakse was visiting, it was considered prudent to file the case while Rajapakse was in the US soil. I kept quiet while Rajapakse was visiting earlier to Britain. One reason was a mark of respect for the title of the President. But I have taken this action now since I feel that Mr Rajapakse has the power to bring justice to my son.

BBC: You are domiciled in Britain. When Rajapakse was visiting Britain you didn't take any action, but why you have moved now to take action in the US?

Dr. Manoharan: Only on 2nd of January, we had the fifth anniversary of my son's brutal killing. I was prepared to wait for 5 years to see if Sri lanka can deliver justice to me. Only having firmly established that Sri Lanka is neither capable nor willing to deliver justice, I was forced to take this action in the US.

BBC: In Colombo the Presidential spokesperson has said that the case is a propaganda effort by the LTTE fronts; Can you comment?

Dr. Manoharan: Comments from Colombo has no constraints. They can say anything they want. Let's go back five years. When my son was murdered, the Sri Lanka Government insisted that the youths killed were members of the LTTE. We had to struggle to establish that they were unarmed students. Only after there was public outcry, the Government admitted there was violation of human rights and included the Trinco massacre as one of the cases for the Commission of Inquiries. Even when International experts [International Independent Group of Eminent Persons (IIGEP)] were assigned to monitor the CoI, we did not get justice. Five years have passed. I am now prepared and ready to bring legal action anywhere outside Sri Lanka.

The waters contain arsenic and manganese. Experts say the substances are contained in the deep aquifers and have emerged because of continued use of private wells. Out of 16.6 million people, more than 11 million do not have access to public drinking water.

Arsenic, manganese, selenium, barium and other toxic substances were discovered in drinking water wells of the Red River Delta, which also supplies Hanoi.

A study published last week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that 65% of the wells are polluted. To the point that the newspaper has suggested the government should find other water sources or improve anti-pollution facilities.

The study considers that the continuous pumping of water from deep aquifers, for over a century, has caused naturally occurring arsenic in groundwater above to seep downward. From 2005 to 2007 512 private wells were reviewed and have shown that arsenic poisoning in about 27% of the wells, a million people use drinking water with concentrations of 5 times the limit set by the World Health Organization.

The researcher Michael Berg, head of research conducted by Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, explains that the situation is difficult because "the manganese is present where there is no arsenic, and vice versa. This makes it difficult to know which wells are really clean".

The area of the Red River Delta is one of the world's most populous, with about 1,160 persons per square kilometre. 16.6 million live in the area and about 11 million people have no access to public drinking water, but depend on other sources such as private wells. At least 7 million people are at risk of arsenic poisoning. Manganese pollutes about 44% of the wells, affecting the drinking water of 5 million people.

Arsenic can cause vomiting, sudden abdominal illnesses, dysentery with blood and is connected with various cancers of the skin, kidneys, lungs. Water with more than 10 micrograms of arsenic per liter is considered unhealthy, but the substance is widespread in the waters of many countries, including China, India, Thailand and Bangladesh, but even in the U.S.. For years, experts fear that the deep aquifer in many countries of Southeast Asia contain high amounts of arsenic.

Sebastian Chilekwa's job title at the Luapula Water and Sewerage Company is "Managing Director of Dilemma". Or it should be.

As the Managing Director of Luapula Water, established in 2008 and charged with supplying water to seven districts in Zambia's wettest province, Chilekwa is in charge of a water utility that must stand on its own financially, despite inherited infrastructure that had been neglected for 30 years and a puny client base.

The company's revenues can't cover its operating expenses, far less pay to upgrade infrastructure. But its client base cannot readily pay more for water.

"This water may look like urine or something like that, but this is the water we use for everything," said Monica Mutale with distaste, drawing water from a public tap in Mutende site and service residential area in Mansa town, the provincial headquarters of Luapula.

"Sometimes, like when we have visitors, we buy [bottled] mineral water but it's very expensive. You can't manage to drink mineral water [every day of the month]."

A majority of people in the province draw their water for household use from shallow and frequently unprotected wells dug by hand.

Zambia's northern Luapula Province has more surface water than any other part of Zambia. Yet the government's Central Statistical Office rates the province as having the lowest coverage of any province in terms of safe water supply - at 18 percent of the population - and adequate sanitation at 2.3 percent. The last published census, in 2000, placed four of Luapula's seven districts in the bottom 10 of the national ranking of Zambia's 73 districts for access to water and sanitation.

In his office in a rented three-bedroom house in Low Density, one of Mansa's better residential areas, Chilekwa concedes the scale of the challenge in front of him.

"The quality and coverage of water supply and sanitation services [in Luapula] is the lowest in the country. This is a direct consequence of lack of investment in the water sector since the 1970s," he says.

"As a result, we are only able to service 12 percent of our coverage area. Large areas of our supply catchment are not supplied ... with more than 30 percent of the formal housing area without supply, and none of the many peri-urban areas [where the poor reside] is covered."

Though the infrastructure inherited from the councils is badly run-down, Chilekwa maintains that all piped water pumped by the utility is properly treated, and attributes the bad colour to poor filtration.

Luapula Water and Sewerage Company was formed in 2008, beginning operations a year later as mining of manganese, copper and citrine in the area placed growing demand for water on the region. Luapula was the final conversion of muncipal-owned utilities across the country into commercial entities. Before the LWSC, responsibility to provide piped water fell to each of the province's seven district councils.

Luapula Water can barely meet its financial obligations. Its monthly operating expenses are around $61,000, according to Chilekwa, but monthly collections are barely a third of that sum.

"This is making it difficult to meet even basic expenses like salaries which are standing at 204 million kwacha ($41,000) per month. Salary payments are in arrears for five months."

The company also inherited unpaid electricity bills from the system's former operators that now stand at $250,000.

Part of the reason for the low revenue lies in the paltry fees that LWSC's small client base pays for the water. Fixed monthly charges for water range between $5 for medium class and $10 for high class residential areas. In the Zambian capital, non-metred consumers in shanty compounds pay the Lusaka utility around $25, while those in high class residential areas pay up to $100 per month.

But increasing the tariffs requires the approval of the National Water and Sanitation Council (NWASCO), a regulatory body overseeing the operations of the commercial utilities in the country.

In 2010, Luapula Water applied for a 100 percent tariff adjustment to enable it invest into the system, but the Council has approved a hike of just half that requested.

"Previous tariffs were extremely low and inadequate to sustain the operations and maintenance costs of the company," acknowledged NWASCO in a press statement.

"With the new tariff, non-metered customers in Mansa's low, medium and high cost areas will pay 30,000 kwacha ($6) and 75,000 ($15) kwacha per month... NWASCO has a mandate to ensure water supply and sanitation provision is affordable to all." Chilekwa says it's too little, especially as the increase outside Mansa district will be limited to 30 percent. Luapula Water is also at a disadvantage compared to its fellow water utilities in other mining areas, because unlike on the Copperbelt, Luapula Province's fast-growing mining operations have their own independent water supply.

He places his immediate hopes in a pledge of support from DANIDA, the Danish International Development Assistance, to expand the customer base over three years.

"All in all, we need about $28 million capital investment to be able to upgrade our system, and start making profits."

Securing investment for new and expanded infrastructure and developing sustainable revenue streams while serving an impoverished customer base scattered across a wide area are twin challenges facing not just Luapula's director of dilemma, but water managers across Southern Africa.