10-08-2018

EDITORIAL
FRIDAY,
AUgUST 10, 2018
4
Acting Editor & Publisher : Jobaer Alam
Telephone: +8802-9104683-84, Fax: 9127103
e-mail: editor@thebangladeshtoday.com
Friday, August 10, 2018
Accreting lands
from the sea
A
present
formidable problem for Bangladesh
apparently is land shortage. But there is also
good news. Although there has been a long
standing projection about a part of Bangladesh's
coastal areas sinking into the sea in the near future
from the greenhouse syndrome, regularly received
satellite imageries and other tangible supporting
evidences suggest that Bangladesh is rather about to
receive the gift of a huge land mass from its adjoining
sea from gradual deposition of silt brought down by
rivers.
The size of this land mass, eventually, could be as
big as the present size of Bangladesh or even bigger.
But it will depend considerably on what the
Bangladeshis themselves do-- like the people of
Holland did --for lands to rise from the sea and for
the same to be joined to the mainland.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC) is no doubt the most authoritative forum as
regards worldwide climate change and its
consequences. But some years ago, IPCC had to eat
its own words and confess that some of its projections
were flawed such as the imminent disappearance of
the Himalayan glaciers that could most dramatically
raise sea levels in the South Asian region. Scientific
data also indicate that nothing can be absolutely said,
yet, about the extent of sea level rise or the height of
its occurrences in different parts of the world.
Thus, it may eventually become quite possible for
Bangladesh to gain in elevation or new lands in its
coastal areas in the likelihood of deposition of silt in
its coastal areas being faster or greater than the
anticipated sea level rise in this region.
Unfortunately, nothing has been noted so far in the
country's annual development plans (ADPs) to the
effect that successive governments have been paying
attention to this issue. Hardly allocations have been
made over the years to build dams and other
structures to put a pace to the process of accretion of
coastal lands. This attitude, undoubtedly, is a serious
neglect of the vital national interest.
Already, substantial territories have surfaced in the
coastal areas of Bangladesh. Some of these places
have completely surfaced and have human
habitations on them while others remain submerged
during tides to emerge with the ebbing of the tide.
The latter types of accreted lands are likely to gain in
elevation to be permanently joined to the mainland.
Indeed, a part of present day Bangladesh including
the districts of Faridpur, Barisal, Noakhali,
Patuakhali, etc., were formed in this manner over
time.
The country is likely to get a generous response
from the international community in matters of fund
availability and technical supports if it can show that
it is really keen to accrete more lands and has put the
endeavour under a systematic policy framework.
Holland is one country which has the most
experience in getting lands out of the sea.
Bangladesh may not have to embark on projects on
the same scale as were carried out in Holland because
of its relatively better elevation. It can use its huge
reservoir of cheap manpower to build simpler
projects to get the same kind of results as were
achieved in Holland. But for this purpose it needs to
engage in a time-bound and result oriented
framework of assistance and consultation with that
country.
Even if Bangladesh ultimately requires
sophisticated engineering works along its coasts like
in Holland, it should engage in this task with no loss
of time. Government in Bangladesh should go all out
to get a major part of the international fund now
under mobilization to help out the countries most
likely to be affected by climate change. These funds
ought not to be spent largely on attractive
environmental projects such as planting trees along
the coasts, dredging of rivers, etc., but on what would
be the most effective long term defences against sea
level rise like the sea-walls in Holland.
Even if external aid is not forthcoming, the
government can proceed with dams and other
structures where these will yield almost immediate
benefits in the form of lands rising from the sea on a
sustainable basis. The taking up of such projects and
their successful execution are quite possible for
Bangladesh by mobilising its own resources and
applying its own expertise.
One may say that the cyclone hazards can be serious
in the coastal areas. But these hazards are not as
these used to be in the past. Few people have died
from these cyclones in recent years and much less
resources were destroyed from cyclones . The
creation of a network of cyclone shelters and other
forms of preparedness for disasters have led to such
favourable developments. With the establishment of
a greater number of cyclone shelters and extending
the system of preparedness, there would be no
reason for a far bigger number of people than at
present not to be living and working safely in viable
occupations in the coastal areas including the already
accreted lands and the about to be accreted lands.
Politics over Indian citizenship: no time for blame games
Since the final draft of India's National
Register of Citizens (NRC) was
released in the state of Assam, there
has been uproar all over the country -
including in the two houses of Parliament.
The opposition launched a full attack on
the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)
for alleged exclusion of Muslims.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata
Banerjee, leader of the All India
Trinamool Congress party, has
vociferously attacked the process, terming
it as a process for non-inclusion of
Muslims, Bengalis and Biharis living in
Assam. She even sent a party delegation to
the state, which was detained at Silchar
Airport by the state administration.
All of the criticism is due to noninclusion
of 4 million people in the final
draft of the NRC out of the total
population of 32 million.
The NRC is a list of Indian citizens of
Assam and was first prepared in 1951
based on that year's census.
When party politics takes over, the main
issue to be discussed gets sidetracked, and
the case of the NRC is no different. First of
all, the NRC process was initiated on the
instructions of the Supreme Court of
India, and the court itself is monitoring
the whole process of identification of
original citizens of India living in the state
of Assam. So blaming the country's ruling
party the BJP - which also happens to be
the ruling party of Assam - for the issue is
not right.
The updating of the NRC is following
the principles of the Assam Accord signed
in 1985 between the government of India
then led by prime minister Rajiv Gandhi
and the All Assam Students' Union. The
Last week, United States President
Donald Trump promised to
withdraw from Syria. This week,
he opened a new front against Syrian
President Bashar Al Assad that risks
drawing the US into a broader conflict
there.
By attacking Al Assad yesterday, the
Trump administration sought to warn
the Syrian leader against continuing to
use illegal chemical warfare agents,
following the gassing of civilians near
Damascus last week. The administration
calculated that the need to send a signal
to Al Assad over chemical weapons
outweighed the possibility of provoking a
response from his allies, Russia or Iran,
on the battlefield in Syria, elsewhere in
the Middle East or even in cyberspace.
The risk, analysts say, is that the US
would then end up in a cycle of escalation
that entangles the American military
more deeply in the Syrian conflict than
the administration intended.
"Given the linkage between Russia,
Iran and Al Assad, an attack that we
would consider limited and precise
might be misconstrued by one or more of
those three parties and justify from their
perspective a retaliatory strike," said
retired US Army Lt General James
Dubik, a senior fellow at the Institute for
the Study of War. "Then what do we do?"
Possible scenarios for a retaliation
include attacks by Iranian-backed
militias against US forces in the Middle
East, stepped-up incidents against US
forces and their allies within Syria or
"asymmetric responses" such as
cyberattacks entirely outside the theatre
accord was signed to free Assam from
illegal Bangladeshi immigrants. Although
the Manmohan Singh-led United
Progressive Alliance (UPA) government
initiated the updating of the NRC, it later
stopped the process. The process was
renewed after the Supreme Court's verdict
in 2013. However, it was only when the
BJP-led National Democratic Alliance
came to power that the process was given
priority. However, there are some sections
within the state and the country who
never wanted this process to happen.
There were reports from a group of
indigenous Assamese Muslims that they
were being provoked by an international
group against the NRC. But it was
Mamata Banerjee's provocative speech
that added fuel to the fire.
Her statement that the NRC was a tool
to drive Muslims and Bengali and Bihari
Hindus out of Assam and that it would
result in "civil war" doesn't suit her stature,
as she herself is a chief minister of a state.
The process is for identification of
foreigners - the Bangladeshis residing in
the state. It is true that many genuine
itself. It remains unclear whether the
strike will prevent Al Assad's forces from
turning to chemical weapons in the
future as the leader seeks to extend his
reach across the country while
consolidating gains in the civil war.
Robert Ford, a former US ambassador
to Syria and fellow at the Middle East
Institute and Yale University, said
military action would deter Al Assad's
forces from using chemical weapons only
if the US conducts follow-up strikes
when new atrocities occur. "I don't think,
in order to make the deterrent stick, that
this can be the last attack," Ford said. The
former US diplomat, who said Al Assad's
forces were using chemical weapons in
part because they lack manpower,
predicted the Syrian leader "will test us -
and we will have to do this again".
Trump promised that the strikes
wouldn't necessarily be a one-off. "We are
prepared to sustain this response until the
Syrian regime stops its use of prohibited
chemical agents," the US president said in
SAgARNEEl SINHA
PAUl SoNNE
citizens didn't feature in the NRC list. But
as the state coordinator of the NRC,
Prateek Hajela, said, it's a manual process,
so errors couldn't be ruled out, and it's
only a draft, not the final list. The 4 million
citizens whose names didn't feature will be
given a chance to verify themselves - only
then would the final list be prepared.
Already, the Supreme Court has ruled
that those left out won't be liable to any
action until the final list is prepared. Their
names will not be removed from the
electoral rolls according to Election
Commission of India, as it will take some
time to finalize the NRC and the EC has to
prepare the rolls by January in
preparation for next year's general
elections. So these citizens are not stateless
and are not going to detention camps, as
rumored by some.
One of the main reasons names were
not listed in the NRC is non-verification of
documents by many state governments
and union territories. Around 570,000
documents were sent for verification and
some states including West Bengal, Bihar,
Meghalaya, Manipur and Chandigarh
an address at the White House late on
Friday night. Some who support the
strikes say that even if they fail to prevent
Al Assad from using chemical weapons in
the future, they will send the message that
the international community is watching
and intends to enforce the ban on
chemical weapons that countries
instituted after the First World War.
British Prime Minister Theresa May
said the strikes, which the United
Kingdom and France participated in,
would "send a clear signal to anyone else
who believes they can use chemical
weapons with impunity". Referring to
the recent nerve-agent attack on a
former Russian spy living in Salisbury,
England, she said: "We cannot allow the
use of chemical weapons to become
normalised - within Syria, on the streets
of the UK or anywhere else in our world."
But the military intervention also
comes as Washington has all but given
up on seeking the removal of Al Assad
more than seven years into Syria's civil
DR. THEoDoRE kARASIk
returned only 2-7% of the documents after
verification.
Mamata Banerjee's West Bengal
returned only 6% of the documents after
verification. Around 100,000 documents
were not verified by her government. As
usual, Banerjee chose to train her guns on
the BJP, the emerging opposition in her
own citadel, by playing the card of the BJP
being anti-Bengali. However, the truth is
many Bengalis would have found their
names on the list had Banerjee's
administration verified those documents
sent by the NRC officials.
Other organizations - banks, the Unique
Identification Authority of India (UIDAI),
the External Affairs Ministry (for
passports) and various federal
departments - also did not return many
files after verification. Only about 40% of
verified documents reached the NRC
officials in time for the preparation of the
final draft. Another significant reason is
some people's failure to prove their
linkages with persons in the legacy data,
that is, the collective list of the NRC data of
1951 and electoral rolls up to midnight of
March 24, 1971. That's why there are
many cases where members from the
same family are not equally listed - some
were featured and others were not.
Also, many children didn't find their
names on the list despite their parents
being listed. According to Indian law, if the
parents are Indian, automatically children
gain Indian citizenship. However, because
of errors in documents, even minor
spelling mistakes, many names didn't
feature.
Source : Asia Times
Strikes on Syria risk retaliation, escalation in a war US wants to avoid
war. Trump wants the Pentagon to
withdraw US troops after the Kurdishled
militia Washington is backing in
Syria finishes off the remnants of the
Daesh terror group.
The departure of US troops, military
strategists say, will likely pave the way for Al
Assad's consolidation of control in the
country, backed by Russia, Iran and the
Lebanese militia Hezbollah. The result is
what US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis
described in congressional testimony on
Thursday as "contrary impulses". On the one
hand, Trump wants the US to have nothing to
do with Syria. On the other, he wants to
dictate norms of behaviour on Syria's
battlefield that upset him when violated.
Those who take a dim view of selective
strikes in response to chemical weapons
usage say the US has given up trying to
ensure the departure of Al Assad, which
means his forces will continue to kill
whomever they wish as they consolidate
control, even if they do so with
conventional weapons. "As long as you
have a strategy that leaves Al Assad in place
and allows him to slaughter his people as
he sees fit, he is going to do so," said
Kenneth Pollack, a former CIA analyst and
resident scholar at the American
Enterprise Institute. "And he is probably
going to use chemical warfare agents."
But for Washington to stop Al Assad
from killing his own citizens more
broadly, "we're getting closer to a regimechange
scenario because he's bombing
almost every day," said Ford, the former
US ambassador.
Source : Gulf News
Home For regime's henchmen, poison bombs are a family business
Naturally, Syria's possession of
chemical weapons is at the core
of Saturday's missile strikes.
Syrian President Bashar Assad's
chemical weapons program continued
to operate with impunity until
Saturday.
To be sure, Syria did not declare all
its stockpiles and capacities to the
Organization for the Prohibition of
Chemical Weapons on its accession to
the Chemical Weapons Convention
(CWC) in October 2013. Syria also
omitted
the Scientific Studies and Research
Centre (SSRC), whose work on
chemical weapons and ballistic
missile systems is notable given that it
was known to be an active research
center for decades.
The SSRC managed at least four
chemical agent manufacturing plants
- at Dumayr, Khan Abou, Shamat and
Furklus - and operated additional
storage sites dispersed across the
country in about 50 different towns
and cities before the beginning of the
civil war.
Only recently has Syria agreed to
declare certain SSRC activities under
the CWC, but failure to declare any
urban use of chemical weapons
warranted the airstrikes by a coalition
of Western countries. Syria failed to
declare the sites at Barzeh and
Jemraya too, eventually doing so only
in 2018. French security services also
When party politics takes over, the main issue to be discussed
gets sidetracked, and the case of the NRC is no different. First
of all, the NRC process was initiated on the instructions of the
Supreme Court of India, and the court itself is monitoring the
whole process of identification of original citizens of India
living in the state of Assam. So blaming the country's ruling
party the BJP - which also happens to be the ruling party of
Assam - for the issue is not right.
Robert Ford, a former US ambassador to Syria
and fellow at the Middle East Institute and Yale
University, said military action would deter Al
Assad's forces from using chemical weapons
only if the US conducts follow-up strikes when
new atrocities occur. "I don't think, in order to
make the deterrent stick, that this can be the
last attack," Ford said.
sought to inquire about possible
remaining stocks of yperite (mustard
gas) and DF (a sarin precursor);
undeclared chemical weapons of
small caliber that may have been used
on several occasions, including during
the attack on Khan Sheikhoun in April
2017; signs of the presence of VX and
sarin on production and loading sites;
and possible signs of the presence of
chemical agents that have never been
declared, including nitrogen mustard,
lewisite, soman and VX. America and
other Western powers, too, saw the
same evidence of an active Syrian
chemical weapons program.
The use of chemical weapons in
Syria is an Assad family affair along
with close allies within the security
apparatus.
The use of chemical weapons in
Syria is an Assad family affair along
with close allies within the security
apparatus. Assad and some of his
closest advisers order the use of
chemical weapons. Maher Assad,
The use of chemical weapons in Syria is an Assad family
affair along with close allies within the security apparatus.
Assad and some of his closest advisers order the use of
chemical weapons. Maher Assad, Bashar's younger
brother and commander of the powerful 4th Armored
Division, is directly implicated in the decision-making
process to use barrel bombs laced with chemical weapons.
The 155th Missile Brigade, which was responsible for
launching the sarin-filled rockets used in many attacks, is
subordinate to the 4th Armored Division.
Bashar's younger brother and
commander of the powerful 4th
Armored Division, is directly
implicated in the decision-making
process to use barrel bombs laced
with chemical weapons. The 155th
Missile Brigade, which was
responsible for launching the sarinfilled
rockets used in many attacks, is
subordinate to the 4th Armored
Division.
The UN Security Council's Joint
Investigative Mechanism identified
the Syrian government, and
specifically Assad and his close allies,
as being responsible for the orders to
use chemical weapons in urban war
zones.
Indeed, according to Western
intelligence officials, Assad has
delegated day-to-day decisionmaking
on chemical weapons use to
his senior commanders. These
officials include Maj. Gen. Rafiq
Shihadah, the former director of
military intelligence who still serves as
an adviser to the president on
strategic affairs; Maj. Gen.
Mohammed Mahmud Mahalla, the
current director of military
intelligence; Maj. Gen. Jamil Hassan,
the director of air force intelligence;
and Maj. Gen. Mohammed Khalid
Rahmun, the head of the political
security directorate. These officials
are probably also members of the
"crisis cell" established by Assad at the
outset of the uprising to coordinate
the regime's response.
The key question here is what comes
next. If Assad uses chemical weapons
again there will be more targeted
strikes against facilities, especially the
command and control of Syria's
chemical weapons use.
Source : Arab News