Hossain Zillur, Mojaheed meet Khaleda at midnight

BNP chief Khaleda Zia late Tuesday night met with commerce adviser Hossain Zillur Rahman and Jamaat-e-Islami secretary general Ali Ahsan Muhammad Mojaheed at her home that ran well past midnight, an aide said.

The meeting, under wraps, took place hours before a summit of the BNP-led four-party alliance is set to decide on the general election slated for Dec. 18 and Upazila polls 10 days later.

Mojaheed drove to Khaleda’s Shaheed Mainul Road home in Dhaka Cantonment at 11:30pm and they were joined by Hossain Zillur 15 minutes later, an official at the house told bdnews24.com by phone.

Mojaheed left at 11:50pm, said the official who spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to speak to the media.

But the adviser stayed back until 12:45am to speak to the former prime minister, who returned home at 11pm after presiding over a meeting of the party’s highest decision-making body, the standing committee, at her political office in Gulshan.

On Oct 10, Hossain Zilur meet secretly with Khaleda, touching off swirls of controversy across the political divide.

Source: Bdnews24

Pakistan Ambassador Haroon blasts India in UN Kashmir debate

Jammu and Kashmir is an internationally recognized disputed territory according to several UN Resolutions. The Security Council’s demand for free and fair plebiscite under the UN auspices still remains to be implemented,’ Ambassador Abdullah Hussain Haroon said rejecting Indian claims.

Citing the current violence in Indian administered Kashmir, Haroon said the occupying forces brutally killed innocent protestors and the Kashmiri political leadership was put behind bars to silence their call for freedom. Such actions created tension and aggravated the situation, he added.

Exercising his right of reply to a statement by Indian delegate Rajeev Shukla, claiming Kashmir to be a part of India, and insisting that an earlier speech by the Pakistani ambassador amounted to ‘unwarranted’ interference in Indian internal affairs, Haroon said that such statements were ‘factually incorrect.’

Shukla said, ‘The people of Jammu and Kashmir exercised their right to self determination at the time of India ’s independence and have since then repeatedly participated in free, fair and open elections at all levels. In contrast, Pakistan pretends to be concerned over human rights, yet denied even a semblance of such rights to the people of Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir.’

In a hard hitting response, Haroon said Indian claims about Kashmir’s exercise of the right to self-determination through elections have been rejected not only by the UN Security Council but also by the people of Kashmir.

‘The current response to announcing elections is in front of the whole world. The Kashmiri leadership has once again rejected the so-called elections, they have been put behind bars, and widespread protests in Indian occupied Kashmir are going on.’

With regard to human rights violations, Haroon said, Pakistan has only echoed what has been said and reported both by the international and Indian human rights non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and media about Indian administered Kashmir.

‘Pakistan remains committed to the ongoing dialogue between the two countries and considers it an important vehicle for promotion of cooperative and good neighbourly relations as well as peace and security in the region. It is, however, important that the process of engagement produce results in addressing the outstanding issues. It should move from a stage of conflict management to conflict resolution,’ Haroon added.

While participating in the committee’s debate on ‘Right of peoples to self-determination’, Haroon said the exercise of that right had empowered suppressed and disenfranchised peoples to strive to achieve equality before the law and to determine their own political, economic, social and cultural systems.

Referring to the situation in Indian occupied Kashmir, he said that six decades had passed since the Kashmiri people were promised they would be able to exercise their right to self-determination by the UN Security Council. However, the inability to remove troops from that area had delayed self-determination and now the complete removal of troops ordained by the Security Council resolution could not be ignored.

Haroonsaid that an improvement in the human rights situation in Indian administered Kashmir would facilitate and enhance the dialogue process between India and Pakistan, and he called on all parties to seize the opportunity provided by the ongoing dialogue to find a negotiated settlement on the Kashmir issue.

Source: Internet

Bangladesh-born girl becomes Miss Mississipi

Paromita Mitra, 17, a Bangladeshi immigrant in the United States, has won the crown for the Miss Mississippi Teen USA 2009 competition, according to a message received here on Tuesday.

The victory in the last week’s competition, sponsored by The Miss Universe Organization and NBC Universe, will now bring Paromita to the Miss Teen USA Pageant competition in 2009, to get a chance to embark on a year of traveling around the world, working with incredible non-profit organizations and attending red carpet events.

As a winner, Paromita received some scholarship money, travel allowances, New York Film Academy Awards, several custom designed cosmetics and jewelries, and speech and communication training for Miss Teen USA, among many.

Paromita’s onstage question was: What magazine cover she would like to appear on and what her headline would be.

“Time Magazine,” she said and preferred the headline to be “The headline would be: A new generation for women”. “Because I believe that I could be a diverse addition to the Teen USA programme,” she said at the competition stage.

Daughter of Dr Amal and Ratna Mitra, Paramita is a senior at Oak Grove High School in Hattiesburg, Mississippi while she is the Senior Class President, a cheerleader, a pianist, and a member of her school debate club and the robotics team and in the future she wants to be an aeronautical engineer and work for NASA.

With her areas of interests being astronomy, physics, and math, Paromita likes Bengali music and dance while in one of her last pageant competitions, she performed a Bengali folk dance.

She plans to visit Bangladesh in summer 2009. She wants to help the underprivileged children here.

Source: BSS

Obama leads McCain in 5 of 8 key states

Voters across the United States are flocking to polling stations to choose a new president.

Republican John McCain is attempting to defy the opinion polls while Democrat Barack Obama is seeking to become the country’s first black president.

Obama, an Illinois senator, cast his ballot in Chicago. McCain has gone to Arizona, his home state, to vote. Record numbers were expected to turn out, adding their ballots to the 29 million who have voted early. In the first voting of the day, Obama won by 15 votes to six in the town of Dixville Notch, New Hampshire.

The town, which has a 60-year tradition of being first in the nation to vote, opened its polls at midnight, with a 100%turnout.

It was the first time the town had voted for a Democrat since 1968. Some 130 million Americans are expected to vote, in a higher turnout than in any election since 1960, the BBC’s North America editor Justin Webb says.

McCain continued his campaigning into election day with an early morning stump speech in Prescott, Arizona.

He promised supporters that he and his running-mate Sarah Palin would “change things in Washington”.

He said his momentum was growing and forecast an upset that would take him to the White House.”We are closing in the polls. All we got to do is get out the vote,” he said at the end of a hectic day criss-crossing the country visiting seven crucial states.”I will never be able to repay you, except to say to you that I will never, ever let you down and I haven’t and I won’tt Let’s go out and win this election and get our country going again.”

At his final rally in the suburbs of Washington, DC, Obama appeared before a crowd of 100,000 people. The man running to be the first African-American president of the US spoke of national unity just a few miles from the scene of the opening battle of the American Civil War.

At his speech in the Washington suburb of Manassas, Virginia, he told supporters that he had found the long journey to election day both humbling and enriching.

“You’ve filled me with new hope for our future and you’ve reminded me about what makes America so special.”

Earlier in the day, Obama said his grandmother, Madelyn Dunham - who largely raised him as a child - had died aged 86 in Hawaii after losing her battle with cancer.

Barack Obama voted in Chicago In a joint statement with his half-sister, he described her as “the cornerstone of our family, and a woman of extraordinary accomplishment, strength, and humility,” adding that their debt to her was “beyond measure”.

At an event in North Carolina, Obama appeared emotional as he spoke of his grandmother, saying she had died peacefully in her sleep with his sister by her side.

The final Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll of the election published on Tuesday found likely voters favoured Obama by 11 points over McCain, 54-43%.

If victory goes to Obama, there will be a lot of tears and a lot of memories, some painful

Other national polls indicate Obama increasing his lead over his rival to as much as 13 points.

But the BBC’s James Coomarasamy, in Washington, says that while Obama has held a consistent lead for several weeks, a number of factors could undermine the pollsters’ predictions.

Among them, he says, are the role the Illinois senator’s skin colour may play in voters’ intentions; whether newly registered voters will actually vote; and the Palin effect - whether McCain’s running mate has energised or alienated Republicans.

On Monday, both candidates dashed through states where the vote is expected to be close.

Opinion polls indicate that Obama leads the vote in all the states that Senator John Kerry captured in his unsuccessful run against President Bush in 2004.

John McCain tells supporters “we will win”

That would give him 251 of the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the White House.

He is leading or tied with McCain in several other states, meaning he has several paths to victory.

For this reason the results in Florida, Indiana, Missouri, North Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Nevada and Ohio are expected to be crucial to the outcome.

Under the US Electoral College system, states are apportioned votes based on their population. The winner in each state gets all its college votes.

Source: BBC Online

At least 50 more students of Dhaka University were injured

At least 50 more students of Dhaka University were injured yesterday on the second day of clashes between students of Sir A F Rahman Hall And Zahurul Haq Hall.

Witnesses said, following the Monday incident some students of ZH Hall taunted students of AFR Hall addressing them ‘Vouya’ (useless), when the news spread around students of the AFR Hall and held Babu and severely beat him up with iron sticks and cricket stumps. After hearing the news, students of ZH Hall chased their rivals out. During the marathon chase and counter chase from 2:00pm to 4:30 pm, both the groups attacked each other, leaving the 50 injured on both sides.

The injured were rushed to Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) and DU Medical Center where they received first aid. Among the seriously injured admitted to DMCH are Babu a 2nd year student of English, Reza 4th year student of Arabic and Zakir 2nd year student of Persian.

Additional police were deployed on the campus to avert further trouble.

Source: The New Nation

Jamaat collects registration certificate

Jamaat-e-Islami has collected its registration certificate from the Election Commission, a party official said late Tuesday night.

Party officials went to the EC secretariat to collect the certificate at 8:45pm, Jamaat law affairs secretary Jasimuddin Sarkar told bdnews24.com.

“We were told the document was ready at 8pm, which prompted us to go to the EC Secretariat to collect it.”

Asked why he collected the registration certificate so late, Sarkar said: “We learnt about it at night, and collected it at night.”

EC secretary Humayun Kabir when contacted confirmed that Jamaat had picked up its certificate of registration.

Source: Bdews24

Young, handsome king to wear Bhutan’s Raven Crown

High in the Himalayas, in an ancient ceremony, a young, handsome king will be anointed this week, wearing the Raven Crown of Bhutan and taking his place at the head of the world’s youngest democracy.

With his formal coronation Thursday, the 28-year-old Oxford-educated Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck becomes the world’s youngest reigning monarch and perhaps one of Asia’s most eligible bachelors.

Three days of national celebration will follow in this tiny nation sandwiched between India and China, masked dances and ancient rituals ironically marking another stage in Bhutan’s gradual emergence into the modern world.

It is part of a process of cautious and calibrated modernization driven by the new king’s father, 52-year-old Jigme Singye Wangchuck, who abdicated two years ago after forcing his reluctant and largely adoring subjects to accept democracy.

After a two-year-wait for an astrologically auspicious date, the Fourth King will place the crown on his son’s head in the throne room of Thimphu’s huge, white-walled Dzong or fortress, to bring his own, 34-year-long reign to a formal close.

Although the new king will not govern as his father did, he will become an important symbol of national unity and stability in a country undergoing a sometimes traumatic and divisive transition to the modern world, in an often volatile region.

“It is the most significant event in the lives of the present generation of Bhutanese citizens,” Bhutan’s first democratically elected prime minister and staunch monarchist Jigmi Y. Thinley told Reuters in an interview.

“Even though in terms of governance we are now a democracy, there is no elected individual who will enjoy the kind of respect, trust, confidence and reverence our kings enjoy.”

The Fourth King was also the architect of Bhutan’s national philosophy, gross national happiness, the idea that spiritual and mental well-being also matter, that material prosperity should not come at the expense of the environment or culture.

It may be a tough task for the new, young king to come out of his father’s considerable shadow, but Saturday he made a start, walking several kilometres through crowds after another sacred ritual in the Dzong in the central town of Punaka.

PEOPLE’S KING

Stopping to chat and hug or kiss children, the new king seemed at ease with the crowd. His looks earned him the nickname “Prince Charming” on a previous visit to Thailand. Now, he has been given the almost inevitable title of “the People’s King.”

He has also made an effort to reach out to and identify with Bhutan’s younger generation, something which has been welcomed by commentators like Dorji Wangchuck, columnist, filmmaker and head of Bhutan’s first FM radio news channel.

With drugs use, unemployment and crime all rising, and a more rebellious younger generation emerging, Bhutan’s modernization is not without its growing pains.

“For the youth, to hope for a better future, they feel a little more invigorated by a young monarch,” Wangchuck said.

The celebrations will also help Bhutan come together as a nation after a sometimes divisive general election earlier this year, the first in the country’s history, Wangchuck said.

“There is no way we can be a disunited country,” he said. “It is in that light I see the coronation as important. There is a lot of healing to be done.”

Source: Reuters

Taliban lift daytime phone ban in Afghan province

Taliban insurgents have lifted a ban on mobile telephone companies operating their networks during daylight hours in the Afghan province of Ghazni, residents said on Tuesday.

The local ban in Ghazni, two hours’ drive south of Kabul, was imposed two weeks ago and came on top of a Taliban order to phone operators in February to turn off their networks at night across the country.

“Mobile phones are working again for the past couple of days, it is great,” said resident Sherin Agha by phone from Ghazni town.

Taliban insurgents have destroyed several mobile phone towers in the south, causing resentment among residents for whom mobile phones are a vital means of communication. After 30 years of war, there are almost no landlines still working.

The night-time shutdown has been only partially enforced in the south and most networks continue to operate freely in the more peaceful north of the country.

Removed from power in 2001, the resurgent Taliban imposed the restrictions saying signals helped track its fighters. The al Qaeda-backed group also relies on mobile phones for communications.

Five mobile operators, three of them foreign companies, with an estimated investment of several hundred million dollars have set up business in Afghanistan since U.S.-led and Afghan forces toppled the Taliban.

NATO and Afghan officials say the Taliban want mobile phone networks shut down to prevent villagers informing the authorities of their presence.

Ghazni was regarded as safe two years ago but Taliban militants have infiltrated into the area and now set up regular road blocks along the main highway, destroying supply trucks and killing or abducting foreigners or government workers.

Source: Reuters

Myanmar to continue oil search despite Dhaka row

Myanmar will press ahead with oil and gas exploration in deep-sea blocks in the Bay of Bengal, a government official said on Tuesday after Bangladesh laid claim to the disputed area.

Bangladesh sent a naval patrol to the area on Sunday after Myanmar began exploration in the blocks, thought to be rich in gas reserves. The two have been holding talks for years to demarcate their border in the Bay of Bengal.

“We have no reason to stop the exploration activities since these blocks are located in our exclusive economic zone. We will go ahead with it,” the senior official from Myanmar’s Foreign Ministry told Reuters.

“We summoned the Bangladeshi ambassador to the Foreign Ministry on November 2 and lodged a complaint against the intrusion of their naval ships into our territory, and told them to leave,” the official said, declining to be named.

Bangladesh said on Monday it wanted to avoid any confrontation and, as ships from the two countries faced off in the disputed waters, it said it would send a diplomatic team to Myanmar on Wednesday.

“They suggested sending a special envoy here to talk about it, so we decided to listen to what they will say, just because we don’t want undesirable consequences,” the Myanmar official said.

A technical delegation would go to Bangladesh in the middle of the month to discuss maritime boundary demarcation, he added. The Bangladeshi side said the meeting was scheduled for Nov. 16 and 17 in Dhaka.

A Bangladeshi naval official said Myanmar had halted exploration activities, although its ships and oil personnel remained in the area.

Bangladesh said last year some offshore blocks that Myanmar had been trying to explore in cooperation with India were in its waters.

Source: Reuters

Ash Celebrates Birthday With Abhishek In Kerala

Aishwarya Rai celebrated her most romantic birthday in the wilderness of Kochi, Kerala, with her husband Abhishek Bachchan. This was all she could wish for on her birthday.

She said, “In a way I couldn’t have asked for more. It’s a beautiful green paradise here. We started shooting just a day ago. And we already feel those vibes of an extraordinary happening. And my husband is with me.

So is my most favorite director (Mani Ratnam) who directed us in in one of our best films together (Guru) and who incidentally also happens to be my first director. And we’re working on the most beautiful film that we could ever hope for. What better birthday could I as for?”

Ask her what she has asked for as a birthday gift and she says,

“Ha, ” laughs lovely diva, “You know me. I don’t ask for anything. I already have everything that I could possibly want without asking for. And like I said I’m with the love of my life in the wilderness.

Sadly no one will be able to get through to me where I’m shooting. But all the sms, prayers and love will be with me when I return to civilization in the evening tomorrow. Yeah I miss my family on my birthday. But then I can’t have it all, can I?”

Aishwarya indicated that Mani Ratnam had given her a day off yesterday so that she could go out with Abhishek and enjoy celebrating her birthday.